CITY CORNER by Mayor Brent Hinckley

  The weather is beautiful this week and the town continues to glow every night with the Christmas lights around the Square, in Heritage Park and throughout the neighborhoods.  To everyone who has taken the extra effort to get Christmas lights up and share them with our community, a big THANK YOU!!  It takes a good deal of effort and commitment to construct the displays around town, and we all enjoy the sparkle and glow.  Make time to take a drive around to enjoy these holiday sights, and be sure to stop in at the exciting Heritage Park displays and I promise a good time for the children as well as the child in each of us. 

     Another great excitement in the community is the fine games the Puncher football team is bringing us.  The teamwork, sportsmanship and commitment of everyone involved is a fine testament to the rural Texas values that we all appreciate and share.  Keep up the good show Punchers in football and every other aspect of the school, sports and other extracurricular activities.  You make us proud and show us a living example of the importance of teamwork and working together to meet the challenges of life and improve this community and the bigger world around us.  Thank you Punchers for making us proud and stronger together. 

     The City is working to keep up with the many different tasks this month, with some of our employees taking extra days off to enjoy time with their families.  On Monday we had a City Commission meeting and had reports from our various engineers about the major projects that will occupy much of our attention during the coming year.  The water treatment project and the opening of a new landfill as well as the regulated closing of the old landfill are each significant projects, and the City has wisely chosen to have different engineers in charge of planning and oversight for each one.  As specific parts of the different projects come up I will try to keep you informed, even when there are several steps that most of the public will not see or even really be aware of.  One of the first steps of the new landfill project that will start in the next few months and will be noticeable, is the highway exit and access street on Hwy 29 just to the east of the CTEC offices.   There will certainly be other noticeable construction for the water treatment and water improvement systems, but we are still awaiting the final approvals from the regulatory agencies so that we can make specific designs and plans and start the bidding process for this work.  Again, as new steps come up over the next several months we will be certain to keep our residents aware of the locations and details of construction.

     One other current task of the City crews is to work out the details to pick-up leaves and yard debris from our residences and transport it to the proper areas of our landfill facility.  The leaves and brush go into a separate portion of our garbage operations so that they are not disposed of in the active landfill and causing a greater burden on filling up the near capacity portion of our landfill operations.  By separating this portion of our garbage it can be specifically placed in the Brush Pile to be allowed to compost and reused at our parks and residential gardens.  Although the City leaf pickup truck is not operable this year, we are providing a free service to collect bagged leaves at your home and transporting them and disposing them at the brush pile so that we keep them out of the general garbage at the landfill.  If you have bagged leaves or other vegetation and yard debris, please call the City office at 347-6449.  We will put your address on our pick-up list and the City crews will stop by and pick them up as time allows with the other regular tasks that are needed.  We only ask that you have a bit of patience with our schedule and workers as we continue trying to provide the best service we can with the limited manpower that we have.  The City, and all of the individuals involved, are committed to providing the best services possible and we are regularly working to improve and meet the new needs that are brought to our attention.  Together we will continue to grow and be the best hometown in the Hill Country of Texas.