Lewisville group gets $79,000 for community project

by Steve Southwell

Natural gas exploration firm Cherokee Horn Monday donated $79,400 to the Central Park Area Neighbors Association in Lewisville for use in a community project. The donation was a gesture of additional goodwill by Cherokee Horn upon reaching a deal with CPANA in June over signing bonuses, royalties, and other contract terms in gas leases for its 750 member households.

Representatives of Cherokee Horn, the City of Lewisville, and CPANA held a discussion afterward about how to best invest this money in Southern Lewisville.

The donor -- Cherokee Horn, as well as CPANA -- would prefer that the bulk of the money be spent on something of lasting impact on the community and that would reflect Cherokee Horn’s desire to be a good neighbor to Lewisville

Just about all of the options discussed today involve the city in some way administering the funds and the construction, as well as taking on maintenance, insurance, and liability. It is not the desire for the CPANA board to take a direct role in these things, but rather to earmark the money and allow the city to do what it is already good at doing.

Trail improvements

The City of Lewisville is undertaking a long-term plan to implement a system of trails throughout the city, ultimately connecting with the DCTA right-of-way and going all the way to Denton. Last year, the city completed the Timber Creek Trail, which goes between Valley Ridge and Central Park, roughly along Timber Creek, except for the section between Kenny Ct. and Valley Pkwy, where the trail takes the route of Corporate Dr to Regency Dr.

There seemed to be a lot of interest from CPANA’s membership both online and in the meeting in the possibility of using our funds to enhance and accelerate trail development. Possibilities for CPANA funds would be land acquisition – such as the land along the Ingram tract along the North side of Timber Creek. There may also be areas elsewhere in Southern Lewisville where right of way could be purchased.

They might also consider using some of the funds to provide trail amenities such as benches, lighting, water fountains, litter boxes and so forth. They will be seeking input from the city staff and/or park board to see where the greatest opportunity might be.

Tennis, volleyball, basketball courts

Some were surprised to find out that Lewisville already has all of these, though not necessarily in our area of town. Tennis courts are behind Lewisville High School, and supposedly the public has access, though LISD has priority at certain times. They’ll pass the idea along to the Park Department, but it’s gotten a lukewarm reception so far. Neighbors near the sand volleyball pit have complained about noise at night.

Spray and splash park

This is one of the more popular ideas. At one of the local parks, they would build a sort of wading fountain with jets that shoot water randomly, and that kids can play in. The Shops at Highland Village have some of these, as well as the shopping center at the corner of FM 3040 and Gerault in Flower Mound. These are a draw for kids and a cheap way to beat the heat. They can be done aesthetically to look like decorative fountains, so they can be turned on more than just the few months of summer when they’d be likely to be used for play. They are told that they do have a propensity to attract rodents, and sometimes cryptosporidium, but both problems can be dealt with, given proper maintenance.

Community garden

There is also some interest in this option. Basically, the way this would work is that the company would cooperate with the city to either take over some unused city-owned land or purchase a plot and turn it into a community garden. We would build fences, gates, and arbors, dividing the area into plots and walkways, and they would install water access. Residents who would like a plot would pay a small fee or pledge part of the harvest to a charity, or something like that. Christian Community Action has a community garden just on the other side of Kealy street, South of Main, and it is beautiful.

The problems here are typical -- no matter where we put this, there will sometimes be vandalism. And as with CCA’s garden, there may be more demand than we can accommodate. But since this would be low cost on existing city property, we might be able to do several of these if the right land were available. Further, it’s one more way for neighbors with common interests to get to know each other and build up the community.

Fire department dive team sonar

The Lewisville Fire Department’s SCUBA diving team has primary responsibility for responding to emergency rescue calls on Lake Lewisville. On occasion, a swimmer goes down, and responders have a very difficult time finding them (either as a rescue or as a recovery) due to the currents and murky waters. Assistant Chief Steve Carter says that divers who have to search by feel cannot even see their own air tank gauges in front of them.

For the safety of the firefighters and for the possibility of locating a drowning victim in time for a rescue, the team would like to purchase a special sonar unit for each of their two boats. These units would allow the team to search the area and see visually what is on the bottom of the lake more expeditiously, and avoid wearing out divers without knowing the target they want to go down after. Each unit is projected to cost about $3,000. CPANA’s board today voted to grant at least $500 towards the project, and Mayor Ueckert agreed to write letters to the mayors of other nearby cities that benefit from Lewisville’s team to ask if they will contribute.

A couple of us may go by the fire house sometime this week and talk to Chief Carter more about it and see if the fire department and CPANA might be able to work some sort of deal in exchange for the occasional use of a thermal imager camera that CPANA might use to detect any leaking natural gas or volatile compounds from the condensate tanks of the eventual wells.

We also briefly discussed, though not in much detail, about how we might monitor the air for any emissions that may come from the wells or drilling operations. This neighborhood monitoring would be in addition to whatever the city’s oil and gas inspector would do.

Block parties on National Night Out

In Texas, the National Night Out is now on October 6th, 2009 -- the first Tuesday of October. It is a time for neighbors to come out and spend the evening outdoors talking to their neighbors, cooking out, letting the kids play together, and generating support for local anti-crime efforts such as neighborhood crime watches.

Median improvements

The city already has plans to spend close to $400,000 this coming year on beautification of the median strips along city streets. College Parkway and MacArthur Parkway are two good recent examples. We might use some of our funds to either accelerate or enhance over and above what the city planned to do. Edmonds Lane is notoriously bare, but there are high tension power lines running down the middle of the street, so the landscaping there would have to consist of short shrubs, grasses, and possibly stones or masonry, provided that now and then these improvements would have to be dug up or removed to repair a utility, then replaced.

Other ideas

Other ideas that were briefly discussed or mentioned, but did not seem to draw as much enthusiasm were:

• Dog park on our side of town (The city has one being built at the new Railroad Park)

• Plant trees

• Pedestrian crossing on Corporate Drive

• Improvements to Central Park

• Environmental area

• Endow a scholarship

• Disburse the funds to PTAs within our area

• Mobile fold out band stage for city events -- like the ones used at Sounds of Lewisville.

Full disclosure: The author of this article is a CPANA board member.

This article was submitted by a member of the Pegasus News community.