The Kyle Report
Showing posts with label Personal observations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal observations. Show all posts
Saturday, July 29, 2017
Time on for some time off
I know this pronouncement will cause a number of people to breathe a huge sigh of relief, but I’m taking the bold step of embarking on a brief vacation. By this time tomorrow evening, I hope to be relaxing on the balcony of My Hero’s beach house in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla. Thus, this blog will go into silent mode for a while, but I expect to be back in all my glory in plenty of time for the city council’s first public hearing on the proposed budget, scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 15.
Friday, September 2, 2016
Building permits indicate city growing at phenomenal rate
Although the last couple of months have seen a tapering off of residential building permits issued, the city is on a pace to issue 646 such permits this year, 123 more than in 2015.
Looking at the numbers during the last three years and comparing those to the figures from three years before that is what really gives you an idea of Kyle’s amazing growth. Assuming 646 residential permits are issued this year, that would bring the total of such permits issued during the last three years to 1,674. The numbers for the three years before that — 2010-2012 — were 757, less than half of what’s been issued since Jan. 1, 2014.
Translate all that into population numbers, using acknowledged, accepted formulas, it means the city's population is on a pace to grow by 24,079 during the current decade. Stunning!
Commercial growth reflects similar trends. Between 2010-1012, the city issued 103 commercial building permits. This year alone the city is on a pace to issue more than what was issued between 2010 and 2012, an all-time high of 108 (which could be a problematic figure because the numbers are somewhat skewed by the realization 40 such permits were issued just last month alone, very much a one-month aberration. The city would have to average issuing nine commercial permits each month for the rest of the year to reach 108 and the highest number for any one month this year before August was 8 in July. So I’m going to assume the final figure will hover closer to 90). But even that somewhat pessimistic assumption of 90 commercial permits issued this year means, during the last three years, the number of commercial permits issued would be 246, again appreciably more than twice the number from the three preceding years.
The numbers speak for themselves.
Looking at the numbers during the last three years and comparing those to the figures from three years before that is what really gives you an idea of Kyle’s amazing growth. Assuming 646 residential permits are issued this year, that would bring the total of such permits issued during the last three years to 1,674. The numbers for the three years before that — 2010-2012 — were 757, less than half of what’s been issued since Jan. 1, 2014.
Translate all that into population numbers, using acknowledged, accepted formulas, it means the city's population is on a pace to grow by 24,079 during the current decade. Stunning!
Commercial growth reflects similar trends. Between 2010-1012, the city issued 103 commercial building permits. This year alone the city is on a pace to issue more than what was issued between 2010 and 2012, an all-time high of 108 (which could be a problematic figure because the numbers are somewhat skewed by the realization 40 such permits were issued just last month alone, very much a one-month aberration. The city would have to average issuing nine commercial permits each month for the rest of the year to reach 108 and the highest number for any one month this year before August was 8 in July. So I’m going to assume the final figure will hover closer to 90). But even that somewhat pessimistic assumption of 90 commercial permits issued this year means, during the last three years, the number of commercial permits issued would be 246, again appreciably more than twice the number from the three preceding years.
The numbers speak for themselves.
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Words for our local politicians to live by
I just this moment finished reading an informative book by E.J. Dionne Jr., and on the next-to-last page of that book I read two sentences that left me dumbstruck. I immediately thought to myself how badly I would like to see these words enlarged, framed and hung in a conspicuous place on the wall of the Kyle Council Chambers at City Hall.
I’m not pointing fingers at any one or any group of council members. This is not meant to be a criticism of anyone in particular or a gotcha exercise. It’s just that I read these two sentences and they resonated. In fact, they could apply to political leaders everywhere. Here they are:
"As an electoral matter, angry pessimism rarely triumphs. As a disposition for governing, it will neither unite nor inspire."
I’m not pointing fingers at any one or any group of council members. This is not meant to be a criticism of anyone in particular or a gotcha exercise. It’s just that I read these two sentences and they resonated. In fact, they could apply to political leaders everywhere. Here they are:
"As an electoral matter, angry pessimism rarely triumphs. As a disposition for governing, it will neither unite nor inspire."
Friday, July 10, 2015
A personal story worth sharing
Perhaps it is my advancing age. Although I still believe I’m younger than most trees, especially those located in the California redwoods, I am fast approaching celebrating being on this planet for almost three quarters of a century. So I’m going to blame forgetting about this incident on old-fogey memory loss and my thanks go out to those citizens who reminded me about it.
As I have written here many times, I recently moved to Kyle from Dallas. The neighborhood I lived in there is called Lake Highlands, located in far northeast Dallas. Lake Highlands is 14.8 square miles with a population of 84,181 individuals. By comparison, the entire city of Kyle is just 6 square miles with a population of around 34,000. Lake Highlands has three zip codes and although it is located entirely within the city limits of Dallas, the public schools in Lake Highlands are not part of the Dallas Independent School District; they belong to the Richardson ISD. Richardson, for those who don’t know, is a suburban city that borders Dallas to the north.
In fact, it was because of the schools I moved to Lake Highlands more than 30 years ago. I was a single parent and the Richardson public schools were known to be far superior to those in Dallas. It meant I had to pay a lot more in property taxes — Dallas city taxes were higher than Richardson’s and Richardson’s school tax rate was higher than the Dallas rates. But as any parent who cares about the future of their children will attest, it’s worth it if it means providing your children with a superior education.
Lake Highlands is made up of a smidgen of retail, not nearly as much or of the quality the residents would prefer; a smattering of mostly vacant office buildings, most of which are located along the LBJ Freeway corridor; and a whole lot of residential. I would guess that 85 percent of the residential land mass was single family and 15 percent was multi-family. The median price of a home in Lake Highlands is $368,750 and many of those homes, including all of those located in the area known as "Old Lake Highlands," have been there since the 1930s. We’re talking about a nice, established neighborhood.
If you have ever spent any time in Dallas or know about it just through anecdotal evidence, you are aware that South Dallas, especially the area around Fair Park, has the reputation of being the least safe, most crime-ridden section of the city. That, however, is not true. I hate to report this, but Lake Highlands has the distinction of having far higher crime statistics than any other part of the city. (The Dallas Police Department posts area-by-area crime statistics, updated daily, for the entire public to see on its web site.)
When I worked for the City of Dallas and later as president of the Northeast Dallas Chamber of Commerce I worked alongside a distinguished gentleman by the name of David Brown, one of the finest police officers it has my privilege to know. At the time, he was the commander of the Northeast Dallas Police Substation; today he is Dallas’s chief of police. We worked together developing programs designed to reduce those crime stats. One of the things Brown shared with me was that over 98 percent of all the crimes committed in Lake Highlands were drug related. Gang crime was also prevalent, but even that was drug related. Most of the apartment complexes in Lake Highlands contained at least one meth lab and rival gangs freely and openly patrolled the apartment complexes selling those drugs to those anxious to buy them. Prostitution, which was nothing more than the attempt by many women to make the money they needed to buy drugs, was rampant.
But property crime in the single family areas was also higher in Lake Highlands than anywhere else in the city. That was because drug addicts were always breaking into homes in Lake Highlands, hoping to come away with valuables they could sell to get money to buy drugs.
One of the programs Chief Brown and I designed was something called COP, which stood for Citizens on Patrol. Chief Brown designated one of his officers to design and create a training program Lake Highlands residents could take to learn how to effectively patrol their neighborhoods. These citizens could not be armed and could not even approach suspected criminal activity, let alone try to apprehend anyone. But they were taught how to spot suspicious activity and report it.
We also did something else. Several years ago, more than 50 percent of the property owners in Lake Highlands signed a petition to create a PID. The assessments we paid into this PID were used to pay for private security firms to patrol our neighborhoods and provide an additional level of security. It worked. Property crime declined an astounding 82 percent. The PID was created, designed and written so that veterans and property owners aged 65 and older were exempt from paying the PID assessments.
Now, you have heard people — even elected officials — stand up and say something like this is impossible, it can’t be done, it has never even been attempted.
But we did it.
So here’s the lesson in all this. If you ever have the opportunity to live somewhere where neighbors truly care about each other, where citizens are willing do to whatever it takes to work together to solve a problem in the fairest way imagineable, you can and will discover anything is possible, if you just try.
Where we would be today if all the scientists in the world believed those who told them "That’s impossible. It can’t be done." Believe me, I’ve lived long enough to know that just about anything is possible if you want it badly enough and if you care about your fellow human beings enough.
As I have written here many times, I recently moved to Kyle from Dallas. The neighborhood I lived in there is called Lake Highlands, located in far northeast Dallas. Lake Highlands is 14.8 square miles with a population of 84,181 individuals. By comparison, the entire city of Kyle is just 6 square miles with a population of around 34,000. Lake Highlands has three zip codes and although it is located entirely within the city limits of Dallas, the public schools in Lake Highlands are not part of the Dallas Independent School District; they belong to the Richardson ISD. Richardson, for those who don’t know, is a suburban city that borders Dallas to the north.
In fact, it was because of the schools I moved to Lake Highlands more than 30 years ago. I was a single parent and the Richardson public schools were known to be far superior to those in Dallas. It meant I had to pay a lot more in property taxes — Dallas city taxes were higher than Richardson’s and Richardson’s school tax rate was higher than the Dallas rates. But as any parent who cares about the future of their children will attest, it’s worth it if it means providing your children with a superior education.
Lake Highlands is made up of a smidgen of retail, not nearly as much or of the quality the residents would prefer; a smattering of mostly vacant office buildings, most of which are located along the LBJ Freeway corridor; and a whole lot of residential. I would guess that 85 percent of the residential land mass was single family and 15 percent was multi-family. The median price of a home in Lake Highlands is $368,750 and many of those homes, including all of those located in the area known as "Old Lake Highlands," have been there since the 1930s. We’re talking about a nice, established neighborhood.
If you have ever spent any time in Dallas or know about it just through anecdotal evidence, you are aware that South Dallas, especially the area around Fair Park, has the reputation of being the least safe, most crime-ridden section of the city. That, however, is not true. I hate to report this, but Lake Highlands has the distinction of having far higher crime statistics than any other part of the city. (The Dallas Police Department posts area-by-area crime statistics, updated daily, for the entire public to see on its web site.)
When I worked for the City of Dallas and later as president of the Northeast Dallas Chamber of Commerce I worked alongside a distinguished gentleman by the name of David Brown, one of the finest police officers it has my privilege to know. At the time, he was the commander of the Northeast Dallas Police Substation; today he is Dallas’s chief of police. We worked together developing programs designed to reduce those crime stats. One of the things Brown shared with me was that over 98 percent of all the crimes committed in Lake Highlands were drug related. Gang crime was also prevalent, but even that was drug related. Most of the apartment complexes in Lake Highlands contained at least one meth lab and rival gangs freely and openly patrolled the apartment complexes selling those drugs to those anxious to buy them. Prostitution, which was nothing more than the attempt by many women to make the money they needed to buy drugs, was rampant.
But property crime in the single family areas was also higher in Lake Highlands than anywhere else in the city. That was because drug addicts were always breaking into homes in Lake Highlands, hoping to come away with valuables they could sell to get money to buy drugs.
One of the programs Chief Brown and I designed was something called COP, which stood for Citizens on Patrol. Chief Brown designated one of his officers to design and create a training program Lake Highlands residents could take to learn how to effectively patrol their neighborhoods. These citizens could not be armed and could not even approach suspected criminal activity, let alone try to apprehend anyone. But they were taught how to spot suspicious activity and report it.
We also did something else. Several years ago, more than 50 percent of the property owners in Lake Highlands signed a petition to create a PID. The assessments we paid into this PID were used to pay for private security firms to patrol our neighborhoods and provide an additional level of security. It worked. Property crime declined an astounding 82 percent. The PID was created, designed and written so that veterans and property owners aged 65 and older were exempt from paying the PID assessments.
Now, you have heard people — even elected officials — stand up and say something like this is impossible, it can’t be done, it has never even been attempted.
But we did it.
So here’s the lesson in all this. If you ever have the opportunity to live somewhere where neighbors truly care about each other, where citizens are willing do to whatever it takes to work together to solve a problem in the fairest way imagineable, you can and will discover anything is possible, if you just try.
Where we would be today if all the scientists in the world believed those who told them "That’s impossible. It can’t be done." Believe me, I’ve lived long enough to know that just about anything is possible if you want it badly enough and if you care about your fellow human beings enough.
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