oakhillgazette.com
April 16, 2015 Volume 20, No. 8 Southwest Austin’s Community Newspaper Since 1995
Google shares plans for service in Oak Hill story and photos by Leah Gernetzke OAK HILL - Google Fiber promises to make online communication and entertainment lightning-fast for Oak Hill residents—possibly within a year—but if they miss their sign up time, the speedy service could be much slower coming to their neighborhoods. Google’s Community Impact Manager Parisa Fatehi-Weeks gave an overview of Google’s time frame for installation in the Oak Hill
area at the Oak Hill Association of Neighborhood’s (OHAN) monthly meeting on Wednesday, April 8 at ACC Pinnacle. Currently, the company is completing permitting work in the surrounding neighborhoods, and will begin above-ground work on utility poles in the fall. Fatehi-Weeks estimated that within the next year, Google would then open a sign-up period for area residents. A few months after this period, service will be installed and activated. “We will certainly let you know
when we’re ready to take your sign up,” she told OHAN members. However, a minimum number of homeowners in every neighborhood must sign up in order for Google to undertake installation in the area. That number is primarily determined by the neighborhood’s density, among other factors. “We don’t know when the opportunity will come back, so we really encourage people to take the sign up date seriously. Our goal right now is to finish the city, make our way through the city limits, before we re-
Dawgs deliver!
open to places,” Fatehi-Weeks said. “It might be some number of years, so you might as well sign up now.” She also added that realtors have started to list whether or not a home is built with Google Fiber. Fatehi-Weeks also explained the company’s overarching objective behind bringing Google Fiber to Austin and other cities across the U.S. “Our mission is to organize the world’s information, to really
See GOOGLE on p. 22
Local road repairs called substandard by Ann Fowler OAK HILL - The city of Austin has nearly $6 million in the current budget to repair more than 60,000 square yards of utility excavation. But the initial repair is just a temporary patch, and local residents say temporary roadway repairs can be unsightly, even dangerous. A concerned long-time resident of the Village of Western Oaks, who asked that we not use his name,
Bowie gets a big win over rival Austin High in a pitching duel, sports on p. 14
Google’s Community Impact Manager Parisa Fatehi-Weeks
Gazette: Sarah Weeks
reached out to the Gazette and to City Councilmember Ellen Troxclair to bring attention to the “bad patches” in his neighborhood. The resident said, “I believe each of these very poor quality repairs follows shortly after some digging by the city of Austin Utilities, some of them after repairing leaking water pipes.” He said tar and road gravel left lumpy and crumbly patches that
See LOCAL on p. 27
This temporary repair is on Sun Vista Drive in Westcreek