Bellmead is Blooming!

23. Jul, 2012 0 Comments

By Kevin Wilson, Bellmead City Councilman

We have a new dental facility locating in the East Gate Plaza.
Construction is now underway. Wireless Concepts, located at 3101 Beale St. should be open for business any day offering specials on cell phones and wireless plans with unlimited minutes. We are looking forward to two new housing developments. The exclusive Woodlands of Bellmead located off of New Dallas Hwy. providing quality homes of 2000 square foot. Construction should begin any day now so we will not have to “move out to move up” any longer. The new Belle Meadows subdivision project has been approved by City Council but is still in the planning stages at this time. New homes should begin in this new subdivision located just off of Pecan Lane. behind Home Depot very soon. New banners have been ordered to spruce up our downtown with welcome banners and holiday appropriate banners to greet our visitors. We are also planning to erect a monument sign at the entrance to the city on Hwy. 84 by Tirey Lane. as you pass the Sanderson Farms plant. Yes, Bellmead is Blooming and it shows.
Bellmead means Business!

At our July City Council meeting we started with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. We heard from a few guest speakers with comments and officially met our new City Manager, Mr. “Bo” Thomas. He has many years of experience as a city manager and brings a wealth of knowledge and ideas for our city. We are very fortunate to have someone of his caliber in Bellmead. We also have a new Chief Finance Officer, Victor Salas. He also comes with a lot of experience and will have the challenge of replacing our interim Finance Officer, Mr. Terry Knudsen, who has done an outstanding job of keeping the city on track and working on our new budget while we searched for a new finance director.
Our previous meeting minutes were approved. Mary Youngblood was administered the oath of office from her victory in the recent special election. She will serve as Mayor until our next election in May 2013. We then selected dates to meet and work on the final details of our budget for 2013.
We had several items on the agenda from the Bellmead Economic Development Corp. (BEDC). First we passed a resolution in support of the selected monument sign and agreed to maintain it in good condition. Then we discussed and approved Project Belle Meadows, which consists of a two phase housing development for a total of 70+ new homes. Some homes will be sold at an affordable rate with special financing for those that qualify to provide lower payments or a smaller down payment. We also voted to support the BEDC’s effort to provide funds for new park equipment. A total of $50,000 will be spent for new playground equipment for Devorsky and Lion’s Parks. The equipment being installed was selected by the citizens who serve on the Bellmead Parks Board. The final BEDC project that was approved was in support of providing a grant for just over $28,000 to assist First Central Credit Union to restore the exterior and parking area of the old La Vega Administration Building.
They are spending around $350,000 to renovate the old building into a new branch to provide services to their members in the Bellmead area.

The last thing we did was to appoint an additional member to the city Parks Board and appoint members to the BEDC Board. We welcome Tina Portillo from Precinct 1 to the Parks Board. The 7 members who will serve on the Bellmead Economic Development Board are Kevin Wilson, Kevin Harris, Sandy Jordan, Mary Youngblood, Phil Bancale, Lester McDowell, and Harry Myers. We welcome the new members to this board as well and look forward to more wonderful things for the future of Bellmead.

It is an honor to serve the City. I am proud to be a part of the great things happening here and I am excited about our bright future. Thank you for allowing me to serve. Have a Beautiful day in Bellmead!

Kevin Wilson
Councilman Precinct 2,
City of Bellmead, TX