Lake Highlands Podcast

In this week's podcast, we discuss some of the amazing students at LHHS who have beaten the odds to succeed. Also, we discuss a new "movement" among neighborhood churches, as well as churches and houses of worship all over the country, to close the doors on a Sunday morning and serve in their community.

In this Lake Highlands podcast, we discuss why a mass transit-friendly and hike-and-bike-friendly apartment complex makes some sense. But 350 units? Then Carol Toler recaps her recent experience witnessing a hit-and-run in our neighborhood.

We promised a podcast recap of tonight's public hearing, and here it is, recorded right after the meeting at the Audelia Library. A couple of highlights: No, no grocers or tenants were named, but Lake Highlands Town Center developer Prescott Realty gave an update on construction timelines: Late 2013/early 2014 for completion of the first 200 apartments, and, if city council votes to apply for the HUD loan and it is approved fairly quickly, the first 165,000 square feet of retail (including the grocer anchor) will be finished in early 2014.

Since when did HUD get into the business of building parking garages? And does a HUD loan for the Lake Highlands Town Center mean low-income housing to follow? We probe these questions today on the Lake Highlands podcast, as we look into the recent news that the city is hoping to jump start construction with a HUD loan.

What is the top requested day off of teachers and staff in the Lake Highlands Richardson ISD schools? This Friday, Dec. 2, which is the annual Lake Highlands Women's League Holiday in the Highlands home tour and market. On this week's podcast, home tour chairs Michelle Harris and Deah McCoy give us a preview of this year's event.

The Rev. George Mason of Wilshire Baptist Church and the Rev. Blair Monie of Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church both write worship columns for the Advocate, and coincidentally, they both chose the Advent Conspiracy movement as their December column topic. For this week's podcast, we brought the two pastors together to discuss why they decided to join the Advent Conspiracy, and what that looks like for their churches.

On today's podcast, Carol Toler explains why allowing state legislators to dip into the Permanent School Fund for operational dollars is like a recent college graduate using his parents' credit card between paychecks. We also discuss the effort to turn some of Dallas' streets into "complete streets," and talk about the streets in our neighborhood that the city is examining, including Park Lane and Skillman.

On today's podcast we talk with country artist Granger Smith, who will be performing Sunday night at his third annual benefit concert for the Lake Highlands High School Wranglers. Smith is a proud LHHS Wrangler alumnus, and current Wrangler seniors Michael Miller and Paige Maudy also join us for the podcast.

How does Lake Highlands High School compare to other Dallas high schools in terms of TAKS scores and state academic rankings? Are this year's drops indicative of something amiss at the school? In this week's podcast, we posed these questions (recently discussed on the Advocate Back Talk Lake Highlands blog) to LHHS social studies teacher Casey Boland.

Tate Gorman and Adam Meierhofer are a couple of neighborhood guys who love sausage and beer, and came up with an idea to parlay that love into a huge event that will raise money for the Exchange Club of Lake Highlands, of which they are members. The event is Oktoberfest, and it's happening from 11 a.m.-8 p.m. this Saturday, Oct. 1 at the Lake Highlands Town Center.

On today's podcast, we react to the news that Sprouts seemingly has all but signed a lease to open at the Lake Highlands Town Center. We also discuss Councilman Jerry Allen's recent efforts to curb the spread of payday lending and check cashing businesses in Dallas. Lastly, Carol recalls her "run-in" with a cyclist during a White Rock Lake race.

In today's podcast, writer Meghan Riney talks about the process of reporting and writing the "Where's the retail?" story in the September issue, and gives us a few more story-behind-the-story details about the retail landscape in Lake Highlands.

On today's podcast, we dig deeper into the city council redistricting process with Bill Betzen, who has been following the process on his blog for months. Betzen is an advocate of "compact" council districts rather than linear, spread out and, he says, "gerrymandered" council districts such as the ones in his neighborhood of Oak Cliff. Betzen tells us what he believes is at stake for both Lake Highlands and Dallas as a whole, explains why bacon strips make bad council districts, and poses the question of whether Lake Highlands is a good or bad community of interest.

Our first topic is the August cover story, "Where is Lake Highlands, Texas?" Carol Toler and Ellen Raff tell us their thoughts on whether LBJ is a real or imaginary barrier, why the Lake Highlands Freshman Center is superior to other Richardson ISD high school formats (or not), and whether the demand for restaurants and shops in our neighborhood is any different than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Plus, we discuss Raff's July column, which made a tongue-in-cheek claim that all Lake Highlands really wants is to be "New Lakewood" and evoked and range of reader responses.

Lake Highlands High School student council president James Lonergan and vice president Sarah Penny are already in full swing preparing for the 2011-2012 school year. They stopped by the Advocate offices to tell us what they're involved in right now, and also shared stories about the tradition of football game gifts exchanged with the opposing school's student council, and about the not-to-be-missed events for all neighbors in the coming school year.

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