It’s good to know what’s going on!

Christmas is just around the corner and hopefully you will find some time to read about what is happening around town. In the December 2020 City Council meeting a number of items were discussed and action taken, including:

• The City Council approved publication of a Notice of Intent to sell bonds to pay for the construction and major maintenance of New Fairview streets. Without these bond proceeds, it would be impossible to complete the streets improvement project that has been repeatedly discussed in the Council meetings and in my communication over the last months.
• The Council accepted the audit on last year’s financials, for the Fiscal Year ending September 31, 2020. The audit presented fairly, meaning that there were no material deficiencies in the accounting, supporting documentation, or controls. This audit has been submitted to our financial advisory firm, HilltopSecurities, one of the largest public finance advisory firms Texas. Further, a bond rating agreement has been entered into with Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings to obtain our municipal bond rating.

  The bond rating will be used by investors to determine whether or not the city has a low or high risk of default, basically how financially stable we are. If you would like to read more about this, Investopedia has a great section and is a good resource.

• The Council previously approved an agreement with Pacheco Koch for just under $300,000 for engineering and design of the city streets included in the streets improvement project, including, the Chisholm Trails Neighborhood, Montana Court, and Pedernales Drive. In the December meeting, the Council approved an amendment to the Pacheco Koch agreement to include the engineering and design of Pioneer Road for an additional $160,000. The additional cost, $160,000 for Pioneer Road, has been fully funded through an agreement with Lackland Fairview, LLC, the developers of Fairview Meadows.
• Over the last month, the City Council completed their orientation and has spent many hours in direct conversation with staff and consultants. They have reviewed the budget, property tax exemptions, streets improvements and related bonds, as well as many other diverse areas of city business. A link to the materials presented in the Council orientation can be viewed here. The Council has been clear to staff that they wish to see efficient operations and that no dollar gets wasted.

   

• The Council approved the annexation and zoning of a small residential development, Sunset Mesa has nine lots on approximately 22 acres, just north of CR 4421. This will increase the tax base of the city and allow us to improve our overall financial health and help us keep our taxes low.
• We are seeking input on how we can improve your experience on the city’s website. If you have any comments on things to add, frustrations, or recommendations, please reach out to ben@newfairview.org.
• I have received many positive comments about the public interest stories regarding employees, businesses, and community members. This week, we are talking about our police services and the people who serve you. Please take a minute to read and when you see them in your neighborhood, please wave and say hello.

Notice of Intent to issue bonds…street repairs.

The Council approved the publication of Notice of Intent to sell bonds. The proceeds, funds that the city will receive upon completion of the bond sale, will be used to fund the streets improvement project. As we near the completion of the engineering and design work for the streets project, the City Council will have the choice to either approve or deny the bond sale on February 1, 2021. At this time, they will be provided the list of competitive bids that the city has received for their bonds.

A more in-depth discussion of this can be found in the Council orientation here.

The City Council is working for you!

Following our non-stop-nine-hours City Council orientation, they held their first marathon City Council Meeting on December 14th, ending the meeting at just before midnight.

The Council spent hours discussing staffing, development agreements, comments from residents, financials, annexation and disannexation, zoning, and the list goes on. You can view the presentation here.

City hall has room for a limited number of people to attend in-person, due to social distancing, but we also have the meeting available virtually through phone, internet, etc. The information can be found on the City website, Facebook page, as well as the agenda that is emailed to everyone who receives these updates. If all else fails, it will always be posted to the doors at City Hall.

As always, we invite you to join the Council meetings, visit City Hall and ask to chat with the City Administrator. We are here for you and welcome your input, questions, and comments.

The Resident Deputy Program:
Public Safety in New Fairview

Being a small city, New Fairview has many of the quaint luxuries of country living. In addition to other benefits, residents enjoy quiet communities and a relatively low rate of crime. These advantages to local life are thanks in part to the law enforcement officers who patrol the area. Sargent Alisa Scheps, Sargent Nathan Graves, and Deputy Michael Derrick are all employees of the Wise County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) who additionally serve as resident deputies for the City of New Fairview.

Small cities nationwide struggle with the cost of funding local police services, leading many to partner with local law enforcement agencies to create resident deputy programs. New Fairview has been using this program for over a decade. Although the New Fairview region is part of the patrol area of the Wise County Sheriff’s Office, the sheer size of the county in relation to the number of staff often inhibits consistent police presence. The resident deputy program combats that weakness by placing officers in and around the city when. Currently, we have officers, in their off-duty time, stationed in New Fairview for around 40 hours each week.

Seargent Alisa Scheps, a Wise County Sheriff’s Deputy who has participated in the program in New Fairview for the past eight years, describes a resident deputies’ duties as manifold:

“When we’re working for [New Fairview],” she said, “we stay in and around the city. We issue citations and respond to calls that may come out. We go into the businesses and talk to the workers or just to people. Our goal is to be seen, and we also do public relations for the city—ask people if they have any problems. Us just driving around and being in the area so much is a big deterrent to crime, which is the main goal.”

Seargent Scheps knows firsthand the positive effects that law enforcement presence in a community can have. Growing up in Connecticut, she describes herself as a “very bad teenager.” “I had a lot of interactions with the cops up there,” she said. Rather than arresting her (when she says they should have), Sargent Scheps recalls that her local police officers “lectured” her instead, and one day, “they finally got through.” They inspired her to turn her life around. After attending police academy training through Tarrant County College, her first job was in Rhome, where she worked for a few years before joining the WCSO nine years ago. Today, she has risen to the rank of Sargent and works as part of the investigative division of the sheriff’s office. “I absolutely love law enforcement,” she says, “every day is different.”

Seargent Nathan Graves is equally passionate about police work, and his role in the resident deputy program of New Fairview. “I really like the area,” he says. “My family is a bunch of business people, and I love growth. Being in a rapidly developing area is something I really like.”

Seargent Graves spent his early life in the White Settlement area of Fort Worth before moving with his family to Bridgeport, where he grew up. He came to law enforcement via the Police Explorer program, through the Boy Scouts of America. After completing police academy training in 2012, he was hired by the WCSO. Over the course of eight years, he has gradually worked his way up to his current position of Patrol Sargent.

When asked to describe his duties Seargent Graves reports, “There are actually a lot. I take care of shift management and scheduling, patrol fleet management, report approval, and fielding complaints against officers. I’m also a marine enforcement officer so I do a lot of lake hours in the summer.” He began working with the New Fairview resident deputy program about a year ago.

Seargent Graves and Sargent Scheps are joined in their service to the area by Deputy Michael Derrick, who has worked with New Fairview for over ten years. The City is grateful to all of them for their dedicated service.