JonLowder.com

West Forsyth Gym the Backdrop for a Make-a-Wish Piece on ESPN

ESPN has been running a series of sports related Make-a-Wish pieces and last night's piece featured Lewisville native Chris Paul hanging out with a kid who had a fight with cancer (luckily it's now in remission) and the two of them shot hoops at Paul's alma mater, West Forsyth HS, which also happens to be my kids' school.  It's a nice piece (see video below) and helps boost the respect that Paul continues to earn:

Coach Cavanaugh Rocks Lewisville on the Fourth

I was catching up on some items in Google Reader when I came across this post on Lewisville Photos and recognized the guy playing the bass in the top photo.  That would be Steve Cavanaugh, a teammate on our over-40 soccer team and a co-coach in the TCYSA girls challenge program for the past couple of years, playing in the band at the Lewisville Fourth of July celebration.  I had no idea Steve plays in a band and I'm sorry I didn't get to see them perform on the fourth, but I'll try and make sure to make it to one of their gigs in the future.

Lewisville in the News

You never like to hear stories about people being shot because someone shot into their home for seemingly no reason, but it's even worse when it happens close to home:

A Lewisville man was hit by a bullet Saturday night when someone shot into his home on Shallowford Road, the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office said.

George Bargoil, 55, and his wife were in bed when they heard gunshots about 11:50 p.m., said Maj. Brad Stanley, a spokesman for the sheriff's office.

Bargoil got up, and that's when a bullet hit him in the arm, Stanley said.

Bargoil was taken by ambulance to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, where he was treated and released.

Lewisville also made the news in a roundabout way when Kevin Jennings, who grew up in Lewisville, became the focus of a Family Research Council effort to block his nomination for Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education:

The Family Research Council (FRC) aims to keep Winston-Salem, N.C.-native Kevin Jennings — founder and former executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) — from taking his post as assistant deputy secretary of education for the department’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

The FRC has set up StopJennings.org, which lists quotes from past Jennings speeches and writings, including from his memoir “Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son,” recounts his life growing up in conservative North Carolina.

In a press release, FRC said the statements on their campaign website are “Kevin Jennings’ most outrageous quotes.” The website allows the public to send an email to the president and Congress opposing Jennings’ appointment...

Jennings takes his post on July 6. The appointment was originally decided on May 19 and publicly announced June 1. Jennings grew up right outside of Winston-Salem, in small town Lewisville, N.C. He is the son of a Baptist preacher. Jennings attended Harvard College, graduating magna cum laude, began a career as a school teacher and later founded GLSEN.

First and Life To Go at the West Forsyth 50

Ah, love.  It causes people to do the wildest things, like getting hitched on the 50 yard line of your alma mater.  I loved this article in the Journal.

Leigh Ellen Joyce and Derek Spencer are getting married at their second home -- the football field at West Forsyth High School.

As students at West, both spent a lot of time on the field. Spencer, who graduated in 1996, wore No. 6 playing cornerback and receiver for the football team...

"It's kind of like home out here," Joyce said the other day as she and Spencer sat in the bleachers talking about their plan to stand in the middle of the 50-yard line when they get married later this month. About 300 guests will be seated on the field behind them.

(If it rains, the plan is to move the ceremony to the Joyces' church -- Fairview Moravian.)

 

Lewisville Access Management Ordinance Update

As I've written before I'm on the Lewisville Planning Board and we've been working on a new access management ordinance for the last couple of months.  We're getting close to being done with it and the proposed ordinance (L-132) has been posted on Lewisville's website.  Actually there's two PDFs you can look at:

1. A Summary of the Ordinance
2. The Ordinance Itself 

If you want to get an idea of what the ordinance is about I recommend reading number one.  If you're really into planning or if you're having trouble sleeping I recommend reading number two, otherwise known as "paper Ambien." 

Transparency When No One's Looking

Last night we had a public meeting for the Lewisville Planning Board so that we could explain the access management ordinance that we've been working on for the town the last couple of months.  One person from the public showed up and since she represents a coalition of realtors and developers she was essentially paid to be there.  Now I know this stuff can be dull as dirt, but this is where the rubber hits the road.

Let's put it this way.  If you plan on building in Lewisville in the future and you want to know where you can access a road from your property, i.e. build a driveway, and you want to know what kind of driveway you can build, how far away it has to be from your neighbors' driveways and other details then you might want to take a look at what we're doing.  Or if you want to redevelop your land, you might want to know how the new ordinance will affect you.  Whatever, this is the kind of stuff that directly affects people but even when we advertise the meetings, as we did this one, people generally don't show up in droves.

Access management is just one of the things we're working on right now.  Because our Town Council declared a six month moratorium on development until we can get some new ordinances in place we're meeting every week to work on an access management ordinance, a stormater/watershed ordinance and a multi-family housing ordinance.  All of these will affect propert owners in one way or another so I would recommend that people check in on our meetings to see what's going on. 

Now, we're by no means the final word on these ordinances.  We'll eventually send our recommendations to Town Council and they'll make the final decisions, but most citizens don't realize that by the time it gets to the Council a ton of work has already been done and they've missed some golden opportunities to influence the ordinance before it even gets to the powers that be.  Every one of our public meetings has a public comment segment and we really do welcome any feedback we can get.  In fact we've already incorporated changes to our early drafts of the ordinances thanks to the feedback we've gotten from people who attended earlier sessions.

If you're a resident of Lewisville or are a business owner in Lewisville you really should check out what we're doing so you can be part of the process.  Don't wait until everything's 99% done and you have to fight the inertia of a downhill train.  It's not too late.  We continued our deliberations until our next public meeting which is May 13 at 7:30 at the community center next door to the library.  Hopefully we'll see you there.  If you'd like to catch up on what we've been doing you can check out our minutes here.

Talking About Driveways

Last night we had a public meeting of the Lewisville Planning Board to show the public an early draft of the access management ordinance we're working on for the Lewisville business district.  In a nutshell we're trying to plan for what we think will be some pretty significant growth through the 2035-ish timeframe and trying to make sure our Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) is up to the task of managing that growth.  A big part of the future plans are to build a parallel road to Shallowford Road (the main drag through town), turn make both roads one way with two lanes, to build some connector roads between the two and to put in a couple of new traffic circles at entry points on either end of town.  That's the big picture, but as with most things in life the real work is in the details. 

Until we started this process I didn't understand the impact of driveways on traffic design.  Simply put you have to make sure that driveways, or road cuts, are spaced far enough apart and far enough from intersections so that they don't create a hazard by having people exiting and entering the roadway in close proximity to each other.  It sounds mundane, but if you've ever tried to enter a busy roadway from a parking lot that happens to be too near an intersection with cars turning into your path then you'll know why we're spending so much time on this.

As you might expect we ended up with quite a few comments from the 20+ members of the public who attended the meeting.  There was some understandable concern about the increased traffic through town, about motorists speeding even more than they do if we go to two lanes in each direction and about the impact on commercial property.  All were valid concerns and I think Marty Myers, our town planner, did a good job answering them.  Since we're only at the draft stage of the process we'll be able to incorporate any changes that might need to be made based on the feedback we get, but based on last night's meeting I think we've made some really good progress. 

Jones Grocery Store in Lewisville

Deb Phillips has a nice piece on an old country store here in Lewisville.  Great pictures and interesting history.

Oh That's What it Was; A Duathlon in Lewisville Last Saturday

Celeste and I were driving through greater downtown Lewisville on Saturday morning when we encountered a closed lane on Shallowford Road and saw a race start/finish line set up by the square.  We figured it was a bike race and both of us commented about how often we see things happening in Lewisville that we'd heard nothing about before the actual day of the event.  We then wondered if it was a town sanctioned bike race since Lewisville is very popular with cyclists, or if maybe it was a race sponsored by a private company which is why we never heard about it.

Well, it ends up that it was a short course duathlon put on by a Raleigh based company called Finish Strong.  The racers ran three miles, biked 14 miles and then ran another two miles.  If that's short I'd hate to see the long course.  The competitor who wrote about the race on the blog I linked to thought the bike course was fantastic, describing it as "14 miles of gently rolling hills throught the wine country of the Yadkin River Valley."  I think we should borrow that for the marketing of Lewisville.

Hopefully they'll come back and do it again in the future, and if they do hopefully we Lewisville citizens will hear about it and come out to spectate.  I for one wouldn't be caught dead competing.  Actually if I competed I would be dead.

Is Duke Energy Taking Lewisville Trailer Denizens for a Ride?

WXII is reporting that some residents at Lazy Acres Mobile Home Park here in Lewisville may have been overcharged for years by Duke Energy.  Apparently Duke charges a higher rate to homes that aren't 100% electric, and some of the mobile home residents say they were charged that rate despite being entirely electric.  The difference is less than a penny a kilowatt hour, but for people on a fixed income that can make a big difference.  One resident said she'd lived at Lazy Acres for 25 years and had been paying the higher amount the entire time.  If that's true then Duke could be ponying up a hefty refund for her.

According to the story Duke has set up a special phone number for Lazy Acres residents to call.  I wonder if the state regulators will have anything to say? 

Now pardon me while I go check my bill.