March 19, 2004
50th Anniversary
Celebration for Colleyville Fire Dept.
My Perspective by Linda
Baker
Mrs. Billy Jo Hubbard, along with her son and daughter-in-law, came all the way from New Mexico to present a very special historical document to the City on Tuesday night. In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Fire Department, Mrs. Hubbard gave the Mayor and Council the original minutes from the very first meeting of the Colleyville Volunteer Fire Department, dated March 31, 1954.
In the audience were a number of people who were central to the early organization of the VFD. Some, among the many who came just for this historic presentation, were Lloyd Brothers, Jimmy Reynolds, Joe Deupree, Ed Havran, and Lila Coley. Ms. Hubbard was given a Proclamation by Mayor Hocutt and Chief Mike Johnston for her gift, which will be archived in the Library for public viewing. She stated it was her hope "past, present, and future generations would be inspired to be firefighters."
Click
Here to see the actual minutes from the first meeting of the
Colleyville Volunteer Fire Department, (Courtesy of Ed
Havran, Colleyville Historical Preservation Committee)
Agenda Item #16, Approval of an Agreement between The Makens Company and The City of Colleyville for brokerage services for the lease of 5100 Colleyville Boulevard: At the current City Council's specific direction, the former Couch Property, was assigned to an agent "to aggressively market for lease," after standing empty for many, many months.
The small building, widely known as the Couch Property, was taken in 2000 by the City of Colleyville, by threat of eminent domain from the terminally ill and elderly D.B. Couch and his wife Evelyn, who had owned the building since 1937. Purportedly, the City wanted the property immediately to secure TXDOT right-of-way for SH 26 widening and improvements, and the Couches were strong-armed into selling for less than what they believed the value of their income property to be, and their tenant was told to move out.
Readers will remember soon after, then-Mayor Donna Arp was accused of engineering a "sweetheart deal" for the building to be leased to developer Richard Myers for $10 per month, as a sales office for The Villages. It was only after revelations by Local NewsOnly.com and consequently the Star-Telegram, that the "sweetheart deal" was made public.
Click
Here to read the January 22, 2002 article
Arp now is employed by Richard Myers as President of his Realty Company.
The current amount the Makens Company was instructed by this Council to find a tenant and lease the building for is $1,439 per month, ($12 per square foot net annually.) Makens will have the exclusive contract for a period of 3 years.
***
There were a number of Second Readings and cleanup items on the rest of the Council Agenda, but they were dealt with briskly and the meeting was adjourned close to the uncommonly early hour of 9:00 PM.
One of the more mysterious Items passed was the Amendment to the Land Development Code regarding movie theaters. This unanimous vote outlawed movie theaters with more than six screens, and limited the building size on any hypothetical would-be applicants to 27,500 square feet. The Amendment was written and initiated by City Staff according to the Briefing, to proactively keep disproportionate sized movie theaters out of The Villages (as if) and Town
Center Colleyville. Oh, and also because the traffic generated by "a typical sixteen-screen facility could accommodate 4,000 people at one time. A crowd this large can create considerable parking and traffic problems for a community such as Colleyville."
No kidding. But this is a mighty specific Amendment. Who wants to guess there was one of these megaliths knocking on our door recently?
Compass Realty, represented by John Fegan, presented the First Reading of the zoning change to R20 from AG on the 41.8 acres owned by Joe Tirk at 909 John McCain Road. Mr. Fegan had a nearly completed Preliminary Plat to show Council, which included a stub-out to the property to the west, owned by Lydia Tirk Alholm, plus some design features to allow future Cotton Belt Trail users, on the south, to pause in quiet treed and pond areas. There were no residents present who objected to the rezoning, although Councilman Skinner wanted the zoning to be PUD-R for "more control by the City." However, it was pointed out this would entail the lots to be smaller, and the custom builders would be challenged to produce the same type of quality homes in the $650,000 to $1,000,000 market Mr. Fegan has planned.
Also of interest on the Council Agenda, was First Reading and Public Hearing of an Amendment to Chapter 7 of the Land Development Code regarding political signs.
It seems that last September 1, 2003, when the State of Texas gave us a whole rash of new laws overturning many municipal ordinances, our Legislators saw fit to insert a Section 216.903 to the Local Government Code.
The new law states that Colleyville cannot prohibit a political sign to be placed on private property or restrict the size of the sign, (so long as it is less that 36 square feet in area, and/or less than 8' tall.) For as long as the private property owner chooses to display the sign! This might mean we could see political signs in some yards year-around, or way past the election dates, at best.
This will not affect the existing rules regarding political signs placed in the public right of ways within the 30 days prior to election. Those must still wait to be placed and be removed in a timely manner.
After explanation by Staff regarding the change, including the State Legislatures' hand in the Amendment, we have to share Councilwoman Tigue's exclamation of "WHAT were they THINKING!"
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