Flower Mound is the most advanced digital town in the United States, in the 30,000 to 74,999 population category, according to e.Republic’s Center for Digital Government and Digital Communities magazine.

The cities were ranked according to municipalities’ incorporation of information technology into operations to better serve citizens, as part of the ninth annual Digital Cities Survey.

Corpus Christi ranked first with a population of 250,000 or more; Norfolk, Va., ranked first with a population between 125,000 and 249,999; and Santa Monica, Calif., ranked first with a population between 75,000 and 124,999.

The winners will be honored at the awards ceremony in San Antonio on Nov. 12.
For the full list of winners, visit centerdigitalgov.com and govtech.com/dc/.

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Coppell residents will find out tonight if they'll be paying a higher property tax.

The City Council will make its decision regarding a proposed 5-cent property tax rate increase, which comes out to $138.66 for the average homeowner in Coppell.

The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Coppell Town Center, 255 Parkway Blvd.

Check out past coverage of the debate.

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Tom and Donna Hobden of Lewisville are still filling orders for apple cakes to raise money to pay their mortgage. They’ve reached their goal of 100 orders at $40 a cake and then some.

“We’ll be four months behind in our mortgage payments in September,” Donna Hobden said. “But we’ve met our goal. The last time I looked, I had over 200 but I haven’t counted lately. I’ve been busy baking.”

The Hobdens’ 23-year-old daughter Christina was diagnosed with Wegener's Granulomatosis, an autoimmune disease, in November and underwent chemotherapy and treatment with high levels of steroids.

In early December, Tom Hobden was laid off from his job of 22 years as the vice president for a high-end custom builder.

And three days later, Donna Hobden lost her job working for a ministry.

The Hobdens had no severance pay or retirement funds and, before they knew it, they were in financial trouble.

“I told my mom, ‘I just don’t know if I have any faith left,’” Donna Hobden said, her voice cracking. “It was a continued spiral. Here we were with nothing. We weren’t even able to make the electric payment.”

But eight months later, the Hobdens are baking their way out of financial ruin.

“We don’t want handouts; we want work,” Donna Hobden said. “That was the premise behind baking the cakes.”

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The Watauga City Council plans to honor Flower Mound resident James Callahan, who stopped a rolling minivan containing five children before it could reach a six-lane highway.

Watauga Mayor Harry Jeffries will present Callahan with a proclamation at the Watauga City Council meeting July 27.

Callahan, a business owner in Watauga, was dining at a Subway Sandwich Shop on Denton Highway on July 16 when he noticed the minivan starting to roll down an incline. He ran to the vehicle’s door, opened it and put his foot on the brake before the minivan yanked him down. He then pulled the steering wheel to force the vehicle into the curb instead of the highway, according to a Watauga news release.

Callahan was pulled under the left front tire and dragged, suffering a broken leg, second- and third-degree burns and head injuries, according to the release.

To view the proclamation, visit tinyurl.com/FMhero (more)

Lewisville’s Strategic Partnership Agreement with the community of Castle Hills for the limited annexation of some commercial-owned property and public rights-of-way was approved by the City Council on July 20.

Lewisville will now be able to impose a tax of .25 percent for parks and library services and a sales tax of 1 percent to pay for the fire, EMS and police services Lewisville provides. This will make the sales tax in those areas 7.5 percent, said James Kunke, Lewisville’s community relations and tourism director.

The agreement will take effect in about three months, Kunke said.

The 119.82 acres of non-contiguous property is located adjacent to the intersection of State Highway 121, Josey Lane and Windhaven Parkway, said Steve Bacchus, assistant city manager of Lewisville.
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Highland Village residents must further limit their landscape watering.

The city initiated Phase 2 water restrictions July 14, prohibiting residential and commercial landscape watering on Mondays and Fridays and restricting watering between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. the rest of the days.

Wasteful water runoff, which includes hosing down pavement or rinsing off vehicles, is also prohibited. Groundwater well owners and residents who are permitted to draw water from Lake Lewisville through the city of Dallas are required to post a sign showing well water or lake water is in use, according to a press release.

For more information or to report violators, call the 972-317-2989.
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Lewisville is looking to expand its trails.

Parks and Leisure Services is working on a master plan for the city’s trails system. The plan will include locations, lengths and types of trails as well as funding projections.

Halff Associates, the firm that was awarded the design contract, met with the Parks and Leisure Services Department and the public during a focus group meeting Wednesday to get feedback on what Lewisville wants in a trails system.

The master plan has been in the works for about 12 months, said Bob Monaghan, director of Parks and Leisure Services.

“In surveys, trails and the expansion of trails has always been mentioned by the citizens,” he said. “So we wanted a comprehensive trails plan before we added any additional trails.”

At the forum, the group discussed a variety of goals and options including a plan to expand on the future Denton County Transportation Authority’s public transit.

A trail will run adjacent to the DCTA rail line from Lewisville’s southern city limits to DCTA’s northern-most point of service in Denton, Monaghan said. The purpose is to establish connectivity from Carrollton to Denton, he said.

The group also discussed the following points:

Goals
To improve the flow of pedestrian traffic
To access work areas because of rising gas prices
To alleviate road congestion
To provide multimodal transportation

Necessary route/end-of-route facilities
Maps and signage
Drinking fountains and restrooms
Trash receptacles and doggie bins
Lighting

Current limiting factors for cycling/walking
Variety
Lack of visibility
Safety of intersections

The next Lewisville Trails Master Plan meeting will be a public workshop, which is set for 7 p.m. Aug. 12 in the Glenmore Savage Community Room at the Municipal Annex, 1197 W. Main St.
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Flower Mound and Frisco are among Forbes magazine’s top “America’s 25 Best Places To Move,” ranking No. 6 and No. 7, respectively.

Melissa Glasgow, director of economic development for Flower Mound, said people are relocating to the area from all over the country, since the employment rate is declining and housing values are dropping. They’re heading south where homes are more affordable and the cost of living is lower, she said.

Flower Mound’s population of about 63,000 has grown exponentially since 1990, which is partly because of corporate relocation, Glasgow said.

Most people who relocate for employment are mid- to upper-level executives, Glasgow said. She said Bridlewood and Wellington are the most attractive neighborhoods for relocation because they’re family-oriented and reasonably-price.

Forbes magazine calls these corporate movers “Relos,” meaning people who relocate every few years for their jobs, which naturally makes “Relovilles” the mid- and upscale neighborhoods near their companies.

Jim Gandy, president of the Frisco Economic Development Corporation, said that since 2000 the city’s population has jumped from about 33,000 to about 103,000. He said larger corporations in Frisco such as T-Mobile and AmerisourceBergen are contributing to the city’s corporate population growth as people are continuing to move for their companies that are relocating or expanding to the area.

Just some of the major corporations near these areas include ExxonMobil, American Airlines, Texas Instruments, Dr Pepper Snapple Group and Capital One.

According to statistics collected by Forbes, 58 percent of Flower Mound residents and 57 percent of Frisco residents were born out of state or abroad.

“The corporate world sees our can-do attitude,” Frisco Mayor Maher Maso said. “We’ve gotten that reputation where if you want to move to where employees will be taken care of … then Frisco is where you need to look.”

Glasgow said these relocations are also good for the town, increasing population and bringing in more spendable income as well as proving an employment base for the companies that are moving to Flower Mound.

But once they move to the town, they stick around.

“We have seen quite frequently that when families relocate to Flower Mound because of a job, they fall in love with our town and end up deciding to stay put, said Flower Mound Mayor Jody Smith.
 
Forbes looked at “Relovilles” with populations of 25,000 or more. And using 2000 to 2007 Census data, Forbes looked for the number of out-of-state or abroad dwellers who had moved to these cities for their jobs from a considerable distance within the one and five years, according to the magazine.
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Lewisville City Council is having a public hearing tonight to discuss a limited annexation agreement for five different parcels in Castle Hills.

The partnership agreement would allow for limited annexation for sales tax purposes for designated tracts of land including commercial-owned property and public rights-of-way, said Steve Bacchus, assistant city manager.

This means the city will be able to impose a city sales tax of 1 percent and a 4B tax (for parks and library services) of .25 percent in certain areas to pay for the fire, EMS and police services Lewisville provides, Bacchus said.

The second public hearing will be July 20. After that, the council will consider approval of the agreement.

The forum will start at 6 p.m. at the Lewisville City Hall, 151 W. Church St.

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The numbers are in. Lewisville is the 11th-fastest growing city in the country.

The U.S. Census Bureau released population estimates for the 25 fastest-growing cities with populations of more than 100,000 in 2008. Lewisville gained 3,470 more residents last year, according to the estimates.

“We’re not surprised that we’re growing. We think we’re growing because we’re an attractive city,” said James Kunke, the city’s community relations and tourism director. “We have continued growing when a lot of larger cities are struggling because we’ve prepared for growth. We built a city that can handle that growth.”

Kunke said the city will eventually annex Castle Hills, a community that is part of Lewisville's extraterritorial jurisdiction. That annexation will create a large jump on the census scale, but there is no set time for that to happen, he said.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, estimates are collected using housing unit estimates to distribute the county population to subcounty areas within the county. Housing unit estimates use building permits, estimates of construction where no building permits are reported, mobile home shipments and estimates of housing unit loss to update housing unit change since Census 2000.
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