The following State of City Report reflects on the events that transpired in the City of Manor during 2009.
Council and Personnel
The Manor City Council had to replace two of its members in 2009, when both Jamie Allen Jatzlau and Steve Shanks moved out of Manor. Each had previously served on the Planning and Zoning Commission and Jamie was serving on the Capital Metro Board representing the smaller cities of Travis County.
The council appointed Eric Cuomo to replace Councilmember Jatzlau and Michael Burke to replace Councilmember Shanks. Like their predecessors, both Cuomo and Burke were serving on the Planning and Zoning Commission at the time of their appointment. Councilmember Cuomo’s term as the Place 4 member will expire in May 2010 while Councilmember Burke will fill the Place 5 seat until the May 2011 election.
The two vacancies on the Planning and Zoning Commission were filled by the council with the appointments of Willie Haywood and Gerald Schmalzried. Commissioner Haywood resides in the Carriage Hills subdivision and Commissioner Schmalzried’s home is the most northwestern property within the city limits.
In addition to Commissioners Haywood and Schmalzried the other members of the commission are: Chair Mary Ann Parker from central Manor, Gaylon King from the Wildhorse subdivision, and Richard Peterson of the ShadowGlen subdivision who represents those living outside the city but within the city’s extra territorial jurisdiction.
Long time Associate Judge Billie Valentine who ran the municipal court, retired after 16 years of service to the city. The court was reorganized to fill the void. Dustin Haisler was named Municipal Judge with Dennis Jones and Bill Gibson serving as Associate Judges. Josie Calvillo-Rodriguez who has been with the city for over five years and Paulina Torres who returned to the city after a three year absence, are the court clerks.
In December, Dustin Haisler was named Assistant City Manager. Dustin has been the primary leader in pushing the city’s technology efforts forward. In addition to the technology responsibilities, he also serves as the finance officer and City Secretary as well as the aforementioned Municipal Judge. Some of these duties will be shifted to others over the next few months. In late 2008 the city, through Dustin’s efforts was awarded a Best of Texas-Most Innovative Use of Technology award for its Smart Code program. That was followed in early 2009 with Dustin being named one of the 25 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers in the United States by Government Technology magazine.
City Finances
The downturn in economy certainly had a negative impact on the City of Manor. Over the last two years, building permit fees dropped 33% and sales tax revenues dropped 21%. The overall affect has been an approximate $950,000 decrease in revenues for city operations in each of the last two fiscal years. In 2006, the city staff began discussing the probability that home construction might falter and the related revenues would not be available to sustain the city financially. Operational reserves were built up and that money covered revenue shortfalls experienced during the last two years. However, those funds are now exhausted.
The good news is that new home construction picked up significantly in the last half of 2009 (see Developments below), and the city finances look stable enough barring an unforeseen problem, to meet the basic financial needs of the city through the fiscal year which ends on September 30, 2010.
Water Issues
Water continued to be Manor’s most pressing issue in 2009. The city water supply comes primarily from three wells located near FM 969. As the drought continued into the early part of the year, one of the wells fell below pumping level while the water level of other two steadily declined. Three of Manor’s subdivisions are supplied entirely by Manville Water, but that company also has wells in the same field as Manor and was also experiencing a decline in water production. Water demand continued to rise within the city throughout the spring even as the conservation restrictions went into effect. By early summer the situation looked very serious.
A five year agreement was reached with the City of Pflugerville and Manville Water Supply to obtain an extra quarter-million gallons of water daily. Pflugerville provides the water to Manor and it is passed through Manville lines for a fee. While the cost to Manor is several times higher than the cost of water from our well field, the city and Manville were able to meet most of the demands for water during the drought. At the time of this writing, the well field had not seen sufficient recovery even with three months of good rains, and the one well remains unusable.
The city constructed two new 500,000 gallon elevated water tanks in 2009. One is located west of downtown immediately behind New Tech High on a tract provided by the Manor Independent School District. The other is located on Tower Lane northeast of downtown. The west tank is fully operational. A water line will be constructed from US 290 to the east tank in 2010 to bring it onto the system. Together, these tanks will more than double the storage capacity of the city system. The cost of the west tank was $1,464,480 and $1,291,038 for the east tank which is not as tall as the west tank. The city issued Certificates of Obligation to fund the projects. The tanks were constructed by Chicago Bridge and Iron, parent company of the firm that constructed the old water tank in downtown Manor in the 1930s.
Streets and Drainage
Back in 2001 Manor voters approved $6.5 million in General Obligation Bonds to construct streets, storm drainage systems and make wastewater improvements. During the first phase in 2004, work was completed on the east side of central Manor. In 2006 street improvements and drainage work was completed along the streets south of the railroad. The final and largest portion of the work was undertaken last spring in the core of old Manor. The six month project completely reconstructed a number of streets, storm drainage structures, driveways and replaced depression era wastewater lines and manholes. The street and drainage work was completed by Austin Bridge and Roads at a cost of $1,936,946.
Additionally, approximately 12 blocks of streets were resurfaced utilizing $157,000 in funds accumulated over the last three years from Capital Metro grants. There are roughly 22 blocks of streets in old Manor still needing resurfacing as well sections of FM 1100 and Albert Voelker Lane located within the city limits.
Wastewater Improvements
The final part of the 2001 bond package was used to upgrade Manor wastewater infrastructure. The work began by testing the entire system with smoke to locate breaks and leaks. Benitez Construction from here in Manor was the low bidder to repair city lines, manholes and private lines that were determined to have defects. The cost was $337,092. Repairs to city owned lines and manholes have been completed and work on the private lines will begin immediately after the first of the year.
This was a very critical project for the city in that Manor has to pay the City of Austin to process about half of its wastewater and that includes any rainwater that flows into the system due to a broken pipe or through a missing cleanout cover. That cost often runs as high as $40,000 per month. It is anticipated that when the private lines are refurbished that cost will be cut significantly.
Back in 2001 an agreement was made with the Travis County Municipal Utility District #2 (MUD) to jointly construct the Wilbarger Wastewater Treatment Plant located near the cemetery. Under that agreement, the city’s 60% of the plant capacity was funded by the developer and the MUD financed and owned 40%. Manor was obligated under the agreement to repay the developer out of Capital Impact Fees collected on each new home constructed and to purchase the MUD’s capacity in the plant in October of 2009. The city issued $945,000 in Revenue Bonds to make the purchase. Additionally during 2009, the amount due the developer was paid off. About half of the city’s wastewater goes to that plant and about half flows to an Austin plant located just west of FM 973 south of Manor.
Other Road Projects
Another road project that was nearing completion in December was the construction of a turn lane on FM 973 (South Lexington) in the area of the Dollar General Store. This was a Texas Department of Transportation project paid for by the Wildhorse Creek Commercial development company (Pete Dwyer) though an advanced funding agreement between the City of Manor and TxDOT. The project was slated for completion on October 3 but construction has lingered past year end.
Travis County and the Texas Department of Transportation restored the old bridge over Gilleland Creek and constructed a new bridge alongside eliminating the necessity of cars only being able to cross in one direction at a time. Additionally, the old sidewalk was removed and a new sidewalk put in place. The old bridge was constructed around 1932 and is the longest of these period bridges still standing in Texas. Under federal law, the bridge could not be removed but had to be restored. Both TxDOT and the county should be commended for this important improvement to our community. The city did not participate in this project since that portion of the roadway is not within the city limits.
Sidewalk Project
Manor finally received approval from the Texas Department of Transportation for the funding of a sidewalk project that has been pending for about ten years. The city will construct sidewalks from the Gilleland Creek bridge, along the north side of Parsons to the City Hall. From City Hall, sidewalks will be constructed north to Townes and south to Carrie Manor. And from the Burnet and Carrie Manor intersection new sidewalks will be built to a point near the entrance to the Wildhorse Creek subdivision.
Bids were opened in November with Travis paving and Excavation submitting the low bid of $139,438. The preliminary awarding of the contract was made at the December 2 council meeting pending approval of the award by the Texas Department of Transportation. Construction should begin in the first quarter of 2010.
Ambulance Service
For probably the first time in Manor’s 137 year history, an ambulance has now been stationed in the city. Travis County and the city reached an agreement to allow emergency health care personnel to operate out of an office building moved onto the city yard two years ago. The city refurbished part of the structure to allow use as a station. At this writing two Emergency Technicians are normally stationed at the Manor site from 7 a.m until 7 p.m.
Developments
Residential construction saw a dramatic rise in the latter part of 2009. For the year, the city issued 119 construction permits for new homes with most coming after August 1. The estimated value of the new homes is $17,497,119. The most residential permits the city ever issued in a one year period came in 2003 when 275 were issued. In 2008 only 26 permits were issued.
Five permits were issued for new commercial construction with an estimated value of $3,185,000.
Commercial construction included a new business center directly across from city hall. That building will contain about 5,000 square feet of rentable space. In addition to the building, the developer is also making improvements to La Grange Street south of Parsons and constructing a sidewalk along the front of the building.
Bentoli Agrinutrition acquired the old Eltex property and is converting the facility to its primary food supplement plant. Bentoli will then move its international headquarters into the building. The site is the easternmost tract in the Manor city limits along the north side of US 290.
A new Manor Post Office was completed in 2009 as the first building in the Greater Texas Center. The new Post Office is scheduled to open on January 11, 2010, fifty years after moving to its Burnet and Boyce location from the old hotel (now a martial arts studio) on Lexington.
Expansion also began on the Manor Fire Department facility on West Parsons.
Technology
A Travis County official asked city staff how it felt to be working in the most technology advanced city in Travis County. Initially, that compliment seemed a little over the top, however after thinking about it, Manor is indeed leading most communities in the county with its new technologies. More importantly, the cost to the city has been minimized by partnering with several worldwide corporations and universities.
The technology effort began three years ago. At the time, four of the city departments operated on completely different platforms which could not share information and required multiple service and maintenance contracts. The city had no servers and one department had no operating system of any kind. After a complete study of needs and available software, the city replaced the four platforms with Incode system. The utility billing, accounting, payroll, police, court and development services areas all are now converted to that system and information such as a traffic ticket no longer has to be manually entered three separate times into the police, courts and accounting systems.
The monitoring systems for the water and wastewater networks were also expanded and can now be monitored and controlled offsite in cases not requiring hands-on attention.
The following year, the city began the Smart Code project which allows residents and visitors to get information about various historic sites and capital improvements throughout town. The recognition gained from being the first municipality in the world to place these funny looking signs around the community, led to a series of partnerships with software companies and universities from around the world.
As the result of one of those relationships, the city implemented M@nor Labs which allows anyone in the world to make recommendations and suggestions for improving the city. It also rewards the participants with points called Innobucks. Accumulate enough Innobucks and you can make purchases from merchandise donated to the city or you can be mayor for a day. The software for this site was provided by one of Manor’s corporate sponsors, Spigit Inc.
M@nor Labs quickly drew the attention of web users around the world. In November, following a discussion of Manor’s activities in New York City at one of the largest technology conferences held in in the United States, the White House recognized our city’s efforts on its web site.
Partnered with the city are Stanford University and the University of Trento, Italy. Corporate and technology partners include Spigit Inc., RI Labs, 3G Vision, OKKAM Foundation, and GovFresh. Staff members also serve on board of the Texas Association of Government Information Technology Managers (TAGITM).
The Manor City Manager and Assistant City Manager were asked to speak to other communities in north and west Texas and at a technology meeting in Washington D.C. where the two met with numerous federal agencies as well as being interviewed by a British firm assembling a video for its Parliment. They have since been invited to speak to the City of Las Vegas, and at conferences in Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, New Orleans and another conference in Washington D.C. “Have speech will travel” only applies if the trip is funded by an outside sponsor and not by the city.
Other Grants
Because of the significant loss of revenue caused by the decline in home building over the last two years, the city did not budget for replacement of vehicles during the ‘08-‘09 fiscal year. Midway through the year, Travis County was able to secure a grant that allowed the governmental entities within the county to replace older vehicles with hybrid vehicles that provided much better mileage with less environmental impact. The city council amended the budget and authorized the purchase of two police vehicles and a utility department vehicle. The city paid half of the cost and the rest was covered by the grant. The grant ultimately saved the city $42,531 just on the vehicle cost.
Business Development
Although the city cannot have an economic development corporation, the city staff is always open to bringing in new business. To that effort the city is conducting a grocery survey/petition on its blog in an effort to encourage a large grocery change to look at Manor. You can take the survey through February by going to http://bit.ly/manorsurvey or by clicking on the Survey key on then navigation bar above.
Water Tower Christmas Lights
For the last four Christmas seasons, the city utility crews have converted the elevated water tank along US 290 into a Christmas tree. During the holiday season of 2008, numerous days of high winds severely damaged the lights. This year new L.E.D. lights and stars replaced the old bulbs. The new lights were much brighter and withstood the winds of December 24th and 25th without breaking. They will be back and hopefully enhanced for Christmas 2010.
Police Department
As Manor grows, so too do the number of calls to the Manor Police Department. In 2005 Manor Police were dispatched to 4,609 calls. In 2008, (2009 numbers are not yet available from the county) the number of calls within the city rose to 8,249. The police also assisted on calls outside its jurisdiction pushing the number of calls requiring Manor police assistance to over 12,000.
In 2009, only 81 of the calls received by Manor Police involved a felony charge. The two leading complaints were burglaries of a residence with 22 incidents and burglaries of a non-residential building with 11.
Dispatch services continue to be handled by the county at a cost to Manor of approximately $13 per each dispatch call issued. In 2009 the city paid in excess of $122,000 for dispatch service.
National Night Out meetings were held in October this year rather than in the blistering heat of August when the national event is held. Wildhorse Creek and Bell Farms each held gatherings in their subdivisions. Old Manor held its event at the park.
2009 State of The City by Phil Tate, Manor City Manager
