City Manager's Blog

Airport Advisory Board Meeting – April 20, 2016

April 14, 2016
Dear Citizens,

Our monthly Airport Advisory Board meeting is approaching next week. One of the key topics being discussed this month is flight patterns of the helicopters housed at the Alpine Casparis Muncipal Airport. We have 32+ citizens in the City/County area interested in the flight patterns.

One of the recent reports our FSDO shared with me was a December 2004 Report to Congress. That report (Nonmilitary Helicopter Urban Noise Study) can be accessed here.

Thank you for your continued support of our local airport. We’ve just completed our crack-seal project re-mediating the cracks on our Apron and Taxiway A-D. We look forward to completing our formal restoration project of those two areas in 2018.

Have a great rest of the week,

Erik Zimmer, City Manager

2015 Audit Now Online

March 30, 2016
Dear Citizens,

The 2015 Audit performed by Gibson, Ruddock, Patterson LLC on behalf of the City of Alpine is now available on our website. Please click here or use the Information drop-down menu to locate.

The City continues to improve in its overall operations and the results from this year’s audit represent the positive work by staff and employees. Our Department heads and employees have challenged themselves to work diligently in 2016 to build on that momentum and improve their execution plans.

This years budget preparation, workshops and communications will be vital to our asset restoral plans and abilities to put more dollars towards our streets and utility infrastructures. We welcome Citizen involvement and communications through that process.

As you review the audit, please feel free to reach out to our Finance Director, Megan Antrim, or myself with any questions.

Thank you,

Erik Zimmer, City Manager

Civic Center Grand Re-Opening

March 24, 2016
Dear Citizens,

Please join us next week (Thursday March 31st) at the Civic Center Grand Re-Opening. We will have live music and refreshments. We appreciate the patience from our citizens through the remodel process and anticipate the changes will make the Center more functional for large and small events.

Please check the front page of our webpage for all the details.

Thank you and have a Happy Easter weekend,

Erik Zimmer, City Manager

City Council Meetings now available via the internet

March 16, 2016
Dear Citizens,

Our City Staff has been working diligently on providing access to our City Council meetings via the internet. We are using Google Hangouts and broadcast our first meeting on the internet yesterday. After the meeting, a YouTube video is created for later viewing.

If you missed the Council Meeting and want to catch up on what you missed, now you will have more immediate access.

Here is the link for last evenings meeting.

Please keep an eye on our website for further enhancements to this process.

Thank you and have a wonderful day in Alpine,

Erik Zimmer, City Manager

Alpine Visit – Iraan Pre-K Children

March 8, 2016
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The City of Alpine was happy to host the children from Iraan’s Pre-K program last week. They were studying transportation and were able to view several parts of our City. Highlighting the trip was getting the chance to see an Amtrak train and explore a Helicopter (pictured) at our local Alpine Casparis Municipal Airport.

A big thanks to our CBP team and Kyp Angel (pictured – who is also on our Airport Advisory Board) for their help in making the day a great one for the kids.

Have a super week,

Erik Zimmer, City Manager

2016 – Annual Racial Profiling Report

February 18, 2016
Dear Citizens of Alpine,

Each year, our local Police Department submits a Racial Profiling Report – per SB1074. We reviewed the report with our elected officials at last evenings City Council meeting and wanted to make the report available to the public.

The report can be accessed by clicking on the highlighted area above or on the right side of our Police Department page on this website.

Please feel free to reach out to Chief Scown or myself with any questions.

Thank you and have a great rest of the week.

Erik Zimmer, City Manager

Parks Survey

February 12, 2016
Dear Citizens,

We’ve recently added a survey to our website regarding the parks and recreational areas in the City. Please take some time to fill out the survey and give us your feedback.

Our Parks Board appreciates the responses and will utilize the information to make recommendations back to our City Council.

Thank you and have a wonderful weekend,

Erik Zimmer, City Manager

Fire Hydrants

February 5, 2016
Dear Citizens,

There has been much discussion in recent weeks about the status and condition of Fire Hydrants in the City of Alpine and adjacent areas within the County. For those of you who were unable to attend Tuesday’s City Council meeting, I thought it would be appropriate to speak to the history of the inspection program and understand where we are currently in the remediation process.

During last years Budget preparations, City Staff recommended we budget $5K towards Fire Hydrant repair and possible implementation of new hydrants as needed. This amount was passed by City Council through the normal budget approval process. Councilor Fitzgerald approached me during the fall to request we start the process as soon as we could during this fiscal year. Department Captain Mark Scudder was subsequently instructed to go through the testing during their weekly Wednesday meetings. This process had not been completed previously since the 2011 time-frame and we were anxious to get back on the process of yearly testing.

The testing took place Wednesday evenings through the fall season with output to the Council at our 2nd meeting in January. There are a couple of things to consider with the output: 1. We at the City wanted to see the issues that we out there and 2. The majority of the non-functional hydrants were due to the Fire Department not being able to open the hydrants using normal force. It’s important to also understand that if the Fire Department was responding to a fire and could not open a hydrant, they would go to the next closest one.

The next step of the process we had mapped out was to have our Public Works department address the hard to open Fire Hydrants and the Water department to address the hydrants with water flow issues. I detailed out a listing of those exact hydrants at the last City Council meeting and that report can be viewed on the City Manager Report link on this website.

Our Public Works department has been working through their list and finding that most of their hydrants can be opened with a little extra force. Hector has taken a video of one of those hydrants and shared with us: click on the following link to see the video.

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We are very committed to resolving all the outstanding issues and our Fire Department will do a final check after remediation to ensure they are comfortable with the operation during an emergency operation. We will report out quarterly at the City Council meetings.

Finally, our Fire Department will be testing all the hydrants annually/regularly each fall.

Thank you for your questions and concerns. Safety is important in the City of Alpine. If you have further questions, please feel free reaching out to me at City Hall.

Kindest Regards,

Erik Zimmer, City Manager

PS – As an aside: We currently have approximately 19 volunteers on our Volunteer Fire Department and would like to get that number back up to 35. We are interested in residents of the City and County who have always wanted to participate in the local department and welcome new Volunteers.

Alpine Police Department Receives Awards

February 5, 2016
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Congratulations to our local Police Department for receiving two awards from TxDOT this week based on their participation in safety and awareness programs last year. You can see the write up from TxDOT here and also pay attention to next weeks Alpine Avalanche for a larger report from Jim Street.

Captain Losoya received recognition on behalf of the department from Mayor Rangra at Tuesday nights City Council meeting.

The $6000 received by our PD from the two awards will be used for laptop and technology needs within the department.

Once again, congratulations to our entire Police Department,

Erik Zimmer, City Manager

Signage Around Town

January 15, 2016
Dear Citizens,

City Hall has received numerous questions recently about the volume of ‘A’ frame type signs popping up around downtown as well as other posters depicting garage sales, etc…

I’m attaching our current Sign Ordinance to this posting (Ch 78 Signs) that depicts the current expectations our Elected Officials have outlined. It’s good to have people review the Ordinance before posting signs or hiring someone to make signs for your business. The City is certainly sensitive to our residents First Amendment Rights and our administration of the Ordinance keeps that in mind.

With regards to the ‘A’ frame type signs – it’s important that they are not put in the middle of a public right-of-way (ie…sidewalk or street). Most owners put them on their own property and that is okay. With regards to the paper signs attached to the light-poles, that is restricted and we need people to refrain from hanging them.

As always, please feel free to call City Hall or our Code Enforcement Officer (Mr. Robert Polanco) if you have any questions.

Have a great weekend,

Erik Zimmer, City Manager


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