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(Back
to Questions and Answers)
Weekly list of Questions from the Star
Community Newspapers in 2008.
Week 6: Education (each Question 100 words Max).
QUESTION
1. In what ways can the city or town help school districts?
ANSWER: The Lewisville Independent School District (LISD) has
struggled with a few problem areas that we can help. The City can work with
developers, designating land for LISD use to build more facilities and planning
for future growth will be a positive step. Another problem is the amount of
apartments and rental properties in Lewisville need to be controlled. Lewisville
has 27.1% which is more than our neighboring cities like Flower Mound (2.3%) and
Highland Village (3.5%). The rental properties make it hard to plan for school
growth and determine the amount of students.
QUESTION
2. How can the city/town coordinate tax incentives with the school
district to bring in new businesses?
ANSWER: The total combined property tax rate is 2.32871%. Of
these collected funds, LISD gets about 70%, Lewisville 19%, and County 11%.
Revitalizing older areas will help bring in new businesses. This will raise the
property value which increases the money that LISD collects.
QUESTION
3. Do you feel the sex offender ordinance, if your city or town has
one, effectively protects school zones?
ANSWER: Lewisville recently created the ordinance (effective
02/2008) that prohibits some registered sex offenders from living within 1,500
feet of schools and other public places where children routinely gather. I
support this ordinance because our neighboring cities have a similar ordinance.
If Lewisville did not have an ordinance this would make our city a place in
which they would reside to avoid restrictions. The ordinance does not prevent
sexual offenders from walking or driving by areas where children gather, nor
does it protect school zones. It only serves to influence sexual offenders from
moving to Lewisville.
QUESTION 4. What programs would you create to get students involved in
city/town government?
ANSWER: One of the best ways to get students involved is for
the City to actively participate in Career Day. Police and fire departments
already do some programs for Safety but this is limited exposure. Other city
departments should also participate by asking employees from each department to
be a part of career day and tell the students what they do. This can be done
with different programs for different grade levels. Each school can have a City
based project to help students understand how the City works and get students
interested in a career with the City.
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