oakhillgazette.com
October 3, 2013 Volume 18, No. 19 Southwest Austin’s Community Newspaper Since 1995
New district map unites Oak Hill by Bobbie Jean Sawyer
AUSTIN - Fueled by an outpouring of responses from the Oak Hill community, the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC) introduced updated drafts of redistricting maps at a public work meeting on Saturday. The revised map encompasses all of what many consider to be Oak Hill in one district (District 8) and it includes a portion of Zilker Park and a neighborhood off of Stratford Drive north of Rollingwood. Rick Perkins, secretary of the Oak Hill Association of Neighborhoods (OHAN), said while he believes the Stratford Drive area is better suited for District 10, along with the homes
along Lady Bird Lake, and the Zilker Park precinct should be aligned with the 78704 residents of District 9, those changes can easily be made in the adjustment stage once the basic map is in place. Perkins said there’s a possibility the Lost Creek neighborhood could be included with Oak Hill in District 8 when that neighborhood is annexed into Austin next year. This, along with the possible addition of a precinct currently placed in the corner of District 5, could help bring the population of District 8 to the required range without including communities with differing interests. See NEW on page 21
New concept for 290 project gets support by Bobbie Jean Sawyer
Dusty Biscuit (Jerome Schoolar) works on getting the Fine Arts Farm ready to open.
Gazette: Will Atkins
Emmy Award winning Biscuit Brothers to open ‘Fine Arts Farm’ in Oak Hill by Donna Marie Miller OAK HILL - Preschool age children will soon have a place in Oak Hill to sing, dance, act, and create arts and crafts in the new Fine Arts Farm designed by one of the Emmy Award-winning stars of The Biscuit Brothers television show.
Jerome “Dusty Biscuit” Schoolar said he anticipates a “soft” opening for the Biscuit Brothers Fine Arts Farm sometime in October at 6036 West US HWY 290. Meanwhile, tuition costs have yet to be decided. Schoolar took the project on personally by renovating the building
space he leased in June—doing most of the work himself. He completely gutted the inside of the site so that it no longer resembles the building that for years housed Oak Hill Liquor store and before that was a church. Meanwhile, snags in See BISCUIT on page 26
A new alternative concept for the Oak Hill Parkway project developed with input from Fix 290, a grassroots community organization, received support from 68 percent of approximately 50 voters in attendance at a Sept. 30 community meeting held at Covington Middle School. The concept, designated Concept F, was developed by TxDOT over the summer with help from key Fix 290 members, who expressed interest in a concept that reflected a parkway design with a lower, smaller concrete footprint. The concept will be listed along with twelve other alternatives to
be assessed and refined through public comment and engineer analysis. See CONCEPT on page 21