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200 Volunteers Make Baptist Camp Heavenly

September 23, 2005

By HERB BOOTH / The Dallas Morning News

Heaven.

That’s how William and Maxine Thomas of New Orleans describe Mount Lebanon Baptist Encampment, which since Sept. 3 has been their home, along with about 70 other survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Located on about 500 acres of rolling Hill Country-like terrain in far south Cedar Hill, the camp started in 1945 and has become part of the city’s emergency response to help the evacuees of the devastating hurricane. About 500 Baptist churches in Dallas and Rockwall counties support the camp.

“This is like a resort. We’re treated like human beings,” Mr. Thomas said after experiencing the lawlessness that accompanied the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “It’s clean. We’ve got plenty to eat and plenty of fresh water.”

Roger Jackson, administrator at Mount Lebanon, said the camp could have housed up to 300 evacuees under its 2002 agreement with the city. He said the camp has bed space for more than 1,000.

Mr. Jackson said that with a full-time staff of 10, he had to rely on the more than 200 volunteers who offered to help at the camp.

“I think the response from the community has been enormous,” Mr. Jackson said. “We have people serving meals, an entertainment committee, people doing laundry, a lot of different things.”

Cedar Hill Fire Chief Steve Pollock agreed that volunteers were key in making the temporary housing work.

“We can handle this kind of emergency, but it’s taxing on your staff. It puts a drain on city resources,” said Chief Pollock, who serves as the city’s emergency management coordinator.

Ed Wilks is one of those volunteers. Mr. Wilks, a Lions Club member, said Mayor Rob Franke and Chief Pollock approached him about helping.

“I answered the call immediately when the city had put out a telephonic message,” said Mr. Wilks, referring to the city’s Code Red system. “I’m retired and happy to do it.”

E-mail hbooth@dallasnews.com.

Written by Wade Emmert · Filed Under Community, Public Safety | 1 Comment 

League of Their Own

September 23, 2005

Dallas Morning News

Cedar Hill leads the way on school partnership

It’s great that the city of Cedar Hill and the Cedar Hill Independent School District are joining forces – and budgets – to build a new joint headquarters. It’s sad that such common-sense collaborations are a novelty worthy of a story on the front page of the Metro section.

In addition to saving their taxpayers an estimated $4 million a year, the city and school district will put their top leaders down the hall from one another. Who knows what might happen if other cities followed their lead? Mayors and superintendents might talk to each other more often than at a quarterly breakfast. They and their staffs might actually internalize the oft-repeated bromide that “Hey, we’re all in this together.”

“Joint use” has been a buzzword in government circles for many years. It’s relatively common for schools and city recreation departments to share sports facilities. Dallas and DISD have gone so far as to build a shared library in conjunction with a new school in Arcadia Park.

California seems to lead the nation in the number of such partnerships, in part because the state law that requires a two-thirds vote to pass bond issues has left both school districts and local governments desperate for money. San Jose made history by partnering with San Jose State University to build a state-of-the-art downtown library.

Closer to home, Austin’s J.J. Pickle Elementary School/St. John Community Center houses an elementary school, a public branch library, a neighborhood recreation center, health and human services offices and a community police office.

But Cedar Hill seems to be unique in bringing together not just a few ground-level personnel but the top officials and planners. Who knows what groundbreaking innovations in education and municipal governance will be hatched during casual conversations in the parking lot or at the copy machines?

Let’s see now, DISD’s administration building on Ross Avenue has certainly seen better days, and there are several acres of barren concrete in front of Dallas City Hall.

What if … ?

Written by Wade Emmert · Filed Under Education | 1 Comment 

Cedar Hill, school district vow to share, save

September 19, 2005

Sunday, September 18, 2005
By HERB BOOTH / The Dallas Morning News

The city of Cedar Hill and the school district are beyond walking down the aisle. They’re about to seal their unusual marriage with a kiss.

The council and school board next week are scheduled to approve a $25 million, 119,000-square-foot joint facility that would house Cedar Hill’s new City Hall, police station, municipal courts and school district administration under one roof.

The facility – which will be on Uptown Boulevard across the street from the new movie theater – should be ready by late 2007.
Cedar Hill

“We’ve asked a couple of times speak now or forever hold your peace, and no one has spoken up, so I guess that’s a good sign,” Cedar Hill Mayor Rob Franke said. “It took a lot of good-hearted people doing a good handshake deal to make this happen.”

Although joint-use agreements, consortiums and shared facilities are not unusual, this type of setup is atypical, said state officials, who were hard-pressed to find similar examples elsewhere in Texas. There are several examples across the nation where schools share facilities with a city’s parks and recreation department for after-school activities. There also are schools within businesses, shared libraries and shared swimming pools. But there are few examples of shared municipal and school district facilities.

Whole lot of sharing

Cedar Hill, DeSoto, Duncanville and Lancaster do share some services. Three of the cities share a dispatch center, while others in the group share DeSoto’s jail and a regional animal shelter.

Art Stone, the Cedar Hill project manager who works for Hunt Construction Group, said he hadn’t seen anything like this venture in his travels across the nation.

“The project represents dollars they don’t have to spend twice,” Mr. Stone said. “It is quite unique.”

The mayor said former council member Al Armistead initially suggested the shared facility several years ago.

“I think it benefits all the taxpayers,” Mr. Armistead said. “In these days and times, you should share as many things as you can. With gas headed to $3 a gallon, you have to think that way.”

Mr. Armistead said he attended a school board meeting several years ago and thought that the district – like the city – needed a new administrative building.

The school district administration building opened in 1956. The city complex was built in 1961.

Cedar Hill City Manager Alan Sims said he doesn’t know why combined projects like this aren’t done more often.

“There’s so much upside, so many positives,” Mr. Sims said. “Instead of having separate council and school board chambers, you have one. We’ll share computer rooms.”

In all, the joint facility will have about 22,000 square feet in shared space. The entities also will share a receptionist, lobby area, break rooms, copy centers, conference rooms, City Council/school board chambers and other areas. The city and school district already share computer resources and a phone system.

Mr. Sims said the city and Cedar Hill Independent School District would save about $4 million in the first year by building the joint facility. The district will pay $6.4 million into the project from 1999 and 2001 bond referendums. The city will pay for the remainder from a 2003 bond election.

Cedar Hill schools Superintendent Jim Gibson said future shared functions could include payroll and personnel.

Timing was right

School board President Randy Gaubert said the timing was right for the project in that both entities needed facilities at the same time.

“There’s a unique bond between our school district and city,” Mr. Gaubert said. “We realize we’re all in this together. A lot of times school districts and city governments don’t get along too well. There are turf battles. They don’t like each other butting into the other’s way.”

That scenario has apparently played out in other communities.

Last year, the Carroll school board asked the city of Southlake to share its chambers for meetings last year. Southlake’s council denied the request because it felt the city facilities weren’t set up for that type of arrangement. The Southlake council majority also said not all the city’s taxpayers were part of the Carroll school district. Carroll school board members thought it would be financially advantageous to the taxpayers not to have to pay for facilities twice.

Cedar Hill’s Mr. Gaubert is glad his community soon won’t have to deal with that situation.

“Why duplicate meeting rooms?” he said. “If we have a specially called meeting that coincides with a council meeting, we’ll go to a conference room,” he said. “It’s not about how much paneling is in the room where you’re meeting.”

E-mail hbooth@dallasnews.com

Written by Wade Emmert · Filed Under Budget/Finance, Education | Leave a Comment