San Antonio, TX

City looking for volunteers for September 29 event

Get ready to pick up a paint brush or roller and rid our community of an eyesore the City of San Antonio is combating on multiple fronts. Individuals and groups are now being recruited to join City leaders and staff for the Fourth Annual Graffiti Wipeout Volunteer Day. Hundreds of people are expected to turn out for this year’s event on Saturday, September 29 from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
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After six hours and five candidate interviews, Bexar County commissioners on Wednesday voted to appoint longtime Chief Deputy Rolando R. Tafolla as interim sheriff.

Tafolla pleased commissioners when he told them Wednesday he had already reached a mutual agreement with Premier Management Enterprises, a Louisiana jail services company, to terminate its operation of the jail commissary. The contract with Premier sparked an ongoing public corruption investigation that forced the resignation of former Sheriff Ralph Lopez on Aug. 31.
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On Thursday, convicted killer Clifford Kimmel,32, will die by lethal injection for his 1999 murders of three people, Rachel White and Susan Halverstadt, both 22, and Brent Roe, 29.

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Flash flood warnings continue this morning for most of south Central Texas, including Bexar County, as remnants of Tropical Storm Erin stubbornly churn over the western Hill Country.

At least seven people were killed Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin swept inland, bringing torrential rains through much the state, closing major thoroughfares and stranding dozens in its floodwaters.

San Antonio officials are still searching this morning for a young woman who was swept away in high water just south of North Star Mall. Three other South Texans are still unaccounted for.

In Houston, two people died after the waterlogged roof of a storage unit outside a Houston grocery store collapsed, according to Houston fire and Harris County hospital officials. A truck driver drowned in Harris County when his 18-wheeler went into a flooded retention pond, according to county’s Office of Emergency Management.

A small tornado reportedly touched down in Kendall County Thursday evening, doing minor damage to a building near Cave Without a Name. Also in Kendall County, residents were evacuated from homes along the Cypress Creek in the Comfort area late Thursday.

Boerne Police Chief Gary Miller said the waterways there were receding after flirting with disastrous flooding. The city’s lake was six feet below the spillway on its dam, which has only been topped twice before, in 1997 and 2002.

The San Antonio River is rising at a pace that will have it hitting more than 53 feet at the City of Elmendorf later today. That would put it on an historic list of the top five river levels at that location. In 1998 it reached over 64 feet.

“I’ve been here 6 years and this is the highest I’ve ever seen it,” Cody Dailey, Elmendorf city administrator said Friday morning. “At this point we are not evacuating. There is one home with reported flood damage, but there is no reported injuries or widespread flooding to homes. It’s mostly field damage.”

A staffer at the Bandera County Emergency Management Center said damage assessments were underway along the Medina Lake shoreline, where about 50 homeowners evacuated along Lakeshore Drive South. No reports of water entering homes had been received as of early Friday.

The level of Medina Lake rose nearly four feet on Thursday, sending a river of water over the spillway, but officials said it was receding early Friday

That was welcome news in Castroville, where the rising Medina River had approached an RV park in the city’s regional park before it started to drop.

In Medina County, a feared repeat of the major flooding in D’Hanis last month didn’t materialize, the sheriff’s office said.

The Red Cross had set up shelters in Boerne and in Southwest San Antonio for flooding victims and stranded motorists. No one was staying in the one in Boerne but in Bexar County there were people staying at the shelter established on the south west side of the city at Christa McAuliffe Middle School.

Have I mentioned that I am sick of all the rain this summer???

San Antonio, rain, flooding

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs is releasing $20 million from the state’s coffers to help public and charter schools fight childhood obesity.

The new Texas Fitness Now grant program will support in-school physical education, nutrition and fitness programs for students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

The grant program will be available over the next two years. The program will be open to schools with a student enrollment that is at least 75 percent economically disadvantaged. Some 700 schools throughout the state will be eligible to apply for grants.

“Texas Fitness Now will provide crisis money for our schools,” Combs says. “Childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes among children is an epidemic that we, as a state, must address now. Obesity cost Texas businesses an estimated $3.3 billion in 2005 and could cost employers $15.8 billion annually by 2025 if the trend continues.”

The U.S. Surgeon General’s office indicates that overweight children have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese as adults.

The minimum grant is $1,500 and schools can receive more, based on their enrollment. An estimated 270,000 middle school students in Texas could benefit from the grants.

The deadline for schools to apply for a Texas Fitness Now grant is Oct. 1.

Web site: www.window.state.tx.us

San Antonio, Texas, Child obesity

As heavy rains continued to fall this afternoon, rising creeks shut down several major highways and prompted sporadic evacuations in San Antonio area counties.

Texas 46 between New Braunfels and Seguin was closed near the Las Brisas subdivision at about 2:30 p.m., and Guadalupe County officials were beginning evacuations of some neighborhoods fronting Guadalupe River locations called Meadow Lake and Lake Placid this afternoon.

“It’s areas south of Highway 90,” said Guadalupe County Sheriff Arnold Zwicke. “The houses closest to the water have water right up to them, but none have water in them yet.”

The county’s Emergency Operations Center was opened early in the afternoon. Santa Clara Creek was nearly topping the Interstate 10 bridge near Marion for much of the afternoon. The interstate remained open, but deputies were monitoring the creek and were ready to close the interstate if fresh rains made the creek rise further, Zwicke said at 5 p.m.

Texas 46 between New Braunfels and Seguin was closed in mid-afternoon and remained closed at 5 p.m., although the water had started to recede.

A voluntary evacuation was started in the Glen Cove and Knot Hill subdivisions along the Guadalupe River in Seguin. A couple of homes in Elm Grove subdivision were beginning to flood at about 4:45 p.m., Zwicke said.

He said his department was involved in at least three water rescues, but no one was injured.

About a dozen homes were evacuated in the Stockdale area in Wilson County due to flooding along Cibolo Creek, although not all the residences had water in them. Water was receding in that area by late afternoon.

New Braunfels and Seguin also reported several low water crossings closed to traffic.

Ranch Road 12 was closed early in the afternoon between San Marcos and Wimberley and Hays County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Leroy Opiela advised drivers to stay where they are if possible. Numerous smaller roads in Hays County were closed, and Ranch Road 12 was expected to be cut for hours by a creek near its intersection with Hugo Road.

Neighborhood nannies care for your children at an affordable rate, but are those providers registered with the state?

By Texas law, anyone who cares for more than four unrelated children, for an extended amount of time, must list their services and comply with state standards.

Little lives entrusted to strangers … homes that house the health and safety of your child. Yet, among the credible child care providers, illegal operations exist.

“We have had some cases where children have been seriously injured and even died in unregulated care,” said Yvette Gutierrez, an investigator with the San Antonio Department of Child Care Licensing.

Neighborhood nannies who open their doors without the state’s knowledge aren’t subjected to strict standards, and many times lacking the training, knowledge and regulation necessary to ensure a child’s well-being.

“The oversight is not there. They’re not being monitored in any manner. There’s no checks and balances. They’re not properly trained to care for children,” Gutierrez said.

The statistics are staggering — as is the caseload for Child Care Licensing investigators. Each is responsible for 120 facilities within South Texas.

“Children in unregulated care are 16 times more likely to be seriously injured or even die in unregulated care than in regulated care,” Gutierrez said. “We can’t be everywhere at all times.”

Often times, that means investigators miss those that operate under the radar, like one Marion woman. Her name was found her name on Craig’s List, and found she’s operating illegally.

She’s not the only one.

According to Child Care Licensing, 74 home day cares have been busted for operating illegally. Of those, only 15 have obtained licenses from the state.

The other 59 have either closed their doors, or are currently seeking a license. Meanwhile, they are frequently inspected by the department to ensure compliance.

“There are legal avenues that we can take, such as an injunction, to legally stop someone from operating. We will not hesitate to do so, especially if we feel the children are at risk,” Gutierrez said.

A strong position taken by the state, which wants to watch over those who watch over your child.

“These types of homes have to be reported, in order for us to ensure it is a safe environment for children,” Gutierrez said. “If it’s not, then we need to ensure they cease operating.”

To find out if you child care provider is operating legally, visit the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

SAMMinistries‘ board of directors approved a new president and CEO of the organization to replace the retiring Bob Martindale.

After conducting a national search, the board voted to select Navarra R. Williams, the president of Time Warner Cable San Antonio from 1991 to 2002, to lead one of the city’s largest providers of services to the homeless.

Williams will officially start his first day on Wednesday, Aug. 1. He is currently area vice president for Comcast Cable in the Silicon Valley — a territory which includes 400,000 customers in San Jose, Monterey and Santa Cruz, Calif.

When Williams last worked in San Antonio, he served as vice chairman and later chairman of the Greater Kelly Development Authority from 1996 to 2000. From 2001 to 2003, he was acting president of the board for the David Robinson’s Carver Academy.

Ann Hutchinson Meyers, board chairwoman of SAMMinistries, says the entire organization is excited to have Williams on their team.

“He brings amazing talents to the organization as well as a heart for the homeless and a strong faith that believes in giving back to the community,” Meyers says.

“We provide services to the least, the last and lost of San Antonio, and we feel blessed to have Navarra leading the ministry into our next quarter century,” she says.

SAMMinistries is in a transition period of the organization’s nearly 25 years in San Antonio. The organization will serve as the flagship nonprofit emergency services provider for the new Haven for Hope campus. In addition, SAMMinistries will continue to place homeless individuals in transitional and permanent housing.

Construction has begun on Haven for Home, a 200,000 square foot facility on the city’s West Side that will provide a range of social services for homeless individuals from medical and dental care to treatment for substance abuse. The center also will provide job training, education, legal support and identification assistance to individuals.

An estimated 25,000 people in San Antonio are homeless. Of those, 40 percent are families with children, while a significant number of others suffer from either mental illness or substance abuse problems.

SAMMimistries, San Antonio, Homelessness, Navarra R. Williams

San Antonio is already home to some pretty well-known Universities. St. Mary’s is well-renowned for its law program, Incarnate Word for its nursing program. Now, San Antonio will be known for its A&M campus as well.

According to this article in the San Antonio Business Journal, A&M has accepted a generous donation of 696 acres of land on the Southside to build a campus that is scheduled to be opened in 2011. This is contingent upon getting a projected enrollment of 1,500 students in order to accept a 2003 Texas State Legislature ruling that they be given $40 million in tuition revenue bonds that would help fund the new campus.

There are steps in place to help meet this enrollment goal. Called the A&M San Antonio Foundation, it is meant to raise money (goal: $8 million) to offer scholarships to students in order to encourage them to enroll. The students won’t have to wait until 2011, either – the school will start temporarily holding classes on a South San Antonio Independent School District property beginning in 2009 until the new campus is finished.
The donation was made by Triple L Management Company, which also gave a $1 million donation to get things going for A&M.