Highland Park West Balcones Area
HIGHLAND PARK WEST BALCONES AREA NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION VOLUME 17, NUMBER 10 • OCTOBER 2021 • WWW.HPWBANA.ORG
The Highland Park West Balcones Area Neighborhood Association News - October 2021
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The Highland Park West Balcones Area Neighborhood Association News - October 2021
IMPORTANT NUMBERS
Highland Park West Balcones Area
Austin Citywide Information Center... 974-2000 or 311 Emergency Police, Fire and EMS.............................. 911 Non-emergency Police (coyote sighting, etc.)......... 311 Social Services (during work hours)........................ 211
APD REP. - Officer Darrell Grayson........ 512-974-5242
BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRESIDENT Jason Lindenschmidt................ president@hpwbana.org VICE PRESIDENT Bill McMillin.........................................vp@hpwbana.org
The Highland Park West Balcones Area Neighborhood Association (HPWBANA) now has "Drive Like Your Kids Live Here" signs available! If you would like one - free of charge email Bill McMillin at: vp@hpwbana.org and we'll get one out to you! This is another small way to help slow down traffic in the neighborhood. We would love to see them in as many yards as possible!
TREASURER George Zwicker........................ treasurer@hpwbana.org SECRETARY Dawn Lewis.............................. secretary@hpwbana.org NEWSLETTER EDITOR Pam Keller.............................. newsletter@hpwbana.org WEBMASTER Henry Tang.............................webmaster@hpwbana.org BOARD MEMBERS
Meeting Schedule, Fourth Monday of each Month (except December)
Bill Hyland...................................... board@hpwbana.org Rebecca Spratlin............................. board@hpwbana.org
The HPWBANA Board meets on the fourth Monday of each month except December. Please go to HPWBANA. org for our current meeting location or contact president@ hpwbana.org. HWPBANA is bordered on the north by 2222, on the south by 35th Street, on the west by Mt. Bonnell Road, and on the east by MoPac and by Bull Creek Road between Hancock Drive and 45th Street. Mail your membership dues to HPWBANA, P.O. Box 26101, Austin, Texas 78755.
Beginning at 6:30 p.m. Zoom link to be posted before each meeting in the Listserv October 25, 2021 November 22, 2021 Annual Meeting TBD, between Labor Day (September 6, 2021) and Thanksgiving (November 25, 2021)
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William Hyland and his wife Diana have lived in Austin for 24 years, the last eight in Highland Park West. William and Diana curate a neighborhood social group oriented around outings to premium food and drink venues and unusual destination activities. They have a garden that produces fresh vegetables and fruits throughout the year. William is entering his second year as a Board member and looks forward to serving in 2021.
Dawn Lewis has lived in the HPWBANA neighborhood since 1993, and this is her second stint on the HPWBANA board. She loves the charm and beauty of the neighborhood and is glad to be able to serve on the board to support neighborhood interests. She has three grown children and two cats who grew up in this neighborhood, and her children attended and loved Highland Park Elementary. She currently works for an education non-profit and serves as the District 10 appointee and chair of the Parks and Recreation Board. She enjoys jogging, drawing, and watching her favorite college baseball and football teams.
Jason Lindenschmidt has called Highland Park West home since 2003. Originally from Del Rio, Texas, Jason moved to Austin in 1997 to work for Tivoli Systems after graduating from Texas A&M University. Jason is a 15-year veteran in the Austin real estate market and is the current owner and broker of LindenDwell Real Estate. His wife, Katie, is active on the Highland Park Elementary PTA, where daughter, Ray, will be attending 1st grade in the fall. Jason has served on the HPWBANA board since 2014.
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The Highland Park West Balcones Area Neighborhood Association News - October 2021
Arriving in Austin from Pittsburgh in 1976, Bill McMillin attended St. Edward’s University, graduating with a Theatre Management degree. He has had 40 years experience as a stage manager, actor, and voice artist, as well serving on numerous non-profit boards. Bill has served on the National Council of Actors Equity, and during that time, was a Broadway Tony Award voter. He currently teaches Theatre and Stage Management at St. Edward’s University. Bill resides on Ridge Oak Drive with his wife Mary, daughter, MAE, and their three dogs Batty, Norman, and Sammie.
Rebecca Wolfe Spratlin is an Austin businesswoman and artist who enjoys painting, sculpting and studying art and art history. Rebecca earned a BA in Fine Arts (painting, sculpting, medical illustration) and an MBA (marketing, finance). After spending 27 years as an executive in the corporate world, she initiated a second career in real estate. She is the well-known owner of Rebecca Realty, LLC, a premier brokerage firm specializing in Balcones Park, Highland Park West and Central Austin. Rebecca and her husband, John Spratlin, have loved living in Balcones Park/Highland Park West for 17 years. She has served on the HPWBANA Board for five years and leads the Events Committee.
George H. Zwicker has been a resident of HPWBANA since 2013 and a board member since 2015. He was elected treasurer a year later. After a 40+-year career in the Houston office furniture industry, George and his wife, Carol, were relocated to Austin for Carol’s job. They both love being in Austin, enjoying their children and many grandchildren. They traveled extensively prior to the pandemic and hope to resume soon. George’s goal is to help HPWBANA involve many more neighbors in neighborhood activities once everyone can meet up again in person.
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The Highland Park West Balcones Area Neighborhood Association News - October 2021
Highland Park West Balcones Area by Dena Houston
Austin has often been on the forefront of recycling in Texas and in the nation. Below is a history of Austin’s recycling programs.
Recycling in austin • 1982 – Curbside recycling pilot program began in one Austin neighborhood. • 1989 –The Dillo Dirt program (composted wastewater sludge) was created. This was the first of its kind in Texas and one of the oldest programs in the nation. • 1989 – Curbside recycling began citywide with the small blue bins. Items accepted were newspapers, corrugated cardboard, glass containers, and metal cans. • 1991 – The Hazardous Waste Facility (now the Recycle & Reuse Drop-Off Center) opened. This was the first permanent facility for household hazardous waste in Texas. • 1997 – The City began offering multiple trash cart sizes to all customers. • 2008 – The City launched Single Stream Recycling citywide, accepting paper, cardboard, paperboard, plastics (#1-7), metal cans, and glass, with no sorting required. • 2009 – The City Council adopted a Zero Waste goal to reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills by 90% by the year 2040. • 2013 – Curbside compost collection pilot program began. • 2016 – Curbside compost collection became available to 52,000 homes. • 2018 – Curbside compost collection expanded to an additional 38,000 homes. • 2021 – All households in Austin have curbside compost collection. HISTORICAL RECYCLING EVENTS • 1031 – In Japan, all documents and paper were recycled and repulped into new paper and sold in local shops across the country. • 1690 – The Rittenhouse Mill near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, began making paper from recycled cotton and linen rags. • 1776 – American rebels turned to recycling to provide material to fight the War of Independence. • 1865 – The Salvation Army was founded in London and began collecting and recycling unwanted goods. • 1904 – The first American aluminum can recycling plants opened in Chicago and Cleveland. • 1916 to 1918 – During WWI, the Federal Government created the Waste Reclamation Service to deal with the shortage of raw materials. The motto was “Don’t Waste Waste – Save It.” • 1940 to 1945 – During WWII, recycling was an important weapon, both militarily and psychologically. The Office of Civil Defense called on every American family to become a “fighting unit on the home front” by collecting scrap metal for making weapons and ammunition. Twenty-two million pounds of scrap metal were collected and recycled. Children were the most enthusiastic collectors.
Recycling takes a nose dive and then comes back! After WWII, Americans were tired of rationing and recycling and turned against the practice. This anti-recycling movement lasted until the late 60s, when “Baby Boomers” revived the culture of recycling. In the 60s and 70s the focus of recycling changed from getting the most out of materials to dealing with the increased amount of waste being produced. Today, we recycle both to reuse existing materials and to reduce the amount of material going to landfills. Here is a very informative City of Austin recycling website: www. austintexas.gov/what-do-i-do Stay tuned for future tips that will include creative ways to recycle or reuse. If you have any questions or recycling ideas, please send them to: recycling@hpwbana.org.
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False foxgloves by Jim and Lynne Weber
Not much is known about the genus Agalinis, which is a group of about 70 plant species in North, Central, and South America. They are partially parasitic or hemiparasitic, or plants that can make food through photosynthesis but only after siphoning water and mineral nutrients from a host plant, in this case a variety of hosts but most typically grasses. They do this by growing haustoria, or root-like structures that connects their roots to the roots of their host plant. Detailed studies of this perplexing genus are few and far between, and little else is known about each species, including who are their pollinators and what are their historical and current geographic distributions. In fact, many species are rare or endemic to a particular area or even federally protected. Of the 34 species in the US, we have two in central Texas, and they are both some of our showiest fall bloomers. Prairie Agalinis (Agalinis heterophylla), a l s o c a l l e d Pr a i r i e False-Foxglove, is an erect, airy herb, to 2.5 feet tall, with opposite, simple, narrowly linear leaves to 1.25 inches long. Its 5-lobed, bellshaped flowers, pink to lavender-tinted white with purple-red spots in the throat, are Prairie Agalinis 0.75 inches long and arise from the stem on 0.1-inch-long stalks. It is common in the eastern half of Texas, blooms from September to October, and is found in open floodplains, prairies, stream edges, and creekbanks. Easily confused with Prairie Agalinis is Plateau Agalinis (Agalinis edwardsiana), also called Plateau False-Foxglove and Plateau Gerardia, which is uncommon and endemic to the grasslands and open woodlands on rocky limestone slopes in about 12 counties on the Edwards Plateau. It can grow to 3 feet tall, with very similar narrow leaves and pink to rose-colored flowers, but the flowers arise from the stem on much longer, 1.25-inch stalks. It blooms from September to November, and is a host plant and nectar plant for the Common Buckeye butterfly. Continued on Page 9 8
The Highland Park West Balcones Area Neighborhood Association News - October 2021
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Plateau Agalinis
Left alone, both of these species will develop small, spherical capsules that burst open when dry, releasing several tiny seeds that will develop into next year’s plants. These native fall-bloomers are airy, delicate-looking plants that can easily survive dry soils, and bring much needed color to sunny, rocky areas. In fact, their genus name comes from the Greek aga- an intensifying prefix meaning ‘large or great’ and New Latin -linis meaning ‘flax’, referring to their superficial, flax-like resemblance. Enjoy their attractive, abundant blooms from late summer into fall! Send your nature-related questions to naturewatch@austin. rr.com and we’ll do our best to answer them. If you enjoy reading these articles, check out our books, Nature Watch Austin, Nature Watch Big Bend, and Native Host Plants for Texas Butterflies (all published by Texas A&M University Press), and our blog at naturewatchaustin.blogspot.com.
Plateau Agalinis
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Highland Park West Balcones Area PO Box 1148 Round Rock, Texas 78680
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The Highland Park West Balcones Area Neighborhood Association News - October 2021