RoundTheMound meeting Tuesday night

Check out what's new at RoundTheMound.com and then check out our next gathering of RTM founders and fans this Tuesday night at 7pm at Flower Mound Town Hall.

More information at RoundTheMound.com. See you there!

Coming next on this site: The FMRoad restaurant review: Salerno's

Christmas shopping and the Grapevine Mills traffic jams

Remember those two years or so back in the mid-late 1990s when the FM2499 flyover allowed Flower Mound-bound traffic to whiz by the farmland that is now Grapevine Mills Mall? No traffic lights, no slow traffic? That "speedway" is long gone. Now, it's a rare journey when you can make it past both of the mall traffic lights without having to stop for red at one or two. The holiday season makes the traffic around the mall that much worse. Be careful when exiting 121 to get onto FM2499. You may find a traffic backup hiding on the backside of the overpass, and too close for you to stop in time.

Something's missing ... the News Connection!

Don't know what happened, but somehow I got dropped from the weekly delivery of The News Connection. I'll have to check into that. At least they have the PDF download of the weekly issue. Even with a high-speed connection, 33mb is a pain to download and wade through. Paper still has its place, you know.

A new Tom Thumb is back on the map

Cross-posted at RoundtheMound.com.

The latest version of the Town of Flower Mound Planning/Zoning case log makes new mention of the long-awaited Tom Thumb grocery store to be built at FM1171 and Bruton Orand/Bridlewood, smack-dab in between the lucrative Bridlewood and Wellington neighborhoods. Unlike the other Tom Thumbs in Flower Mound, this one will have a gas station -- cheap gas for Reward Card grocery buyers.

It's been a few years since the plans for this shopping center were hotly debated at Town Council. I did a quick search on the Town website and found P&Z minutes going back to the year 2000, where this shopping center was being debated. As I recall, the developers agreed to postpone development of this shopping center until closer to the time that FM1171 was to be widened, which should be coming soon.

Good friends leaving FM, making way for a new school

One of my favorite Flower Mound families is getting ready to leave their Flower Mound home. The Patrick family has lived in their Old Settlers Rd. home for many years, but they've sold the home and the acre-plus of land to people who are going to build a new Montessori school. I'll miss having these great neighbors nearby, but at least they won't be moving too far away -- just a couple of miles. And I'm sure they were well compensated for their valuable land, in between the high school and the commercial buildings on Peters Colony.

Donuts, nails and cleaners - another round

This has been an oft-debated topic in our Town, though I don't think I've ever specifically discussed it here on this site.

There's no doubt we have our fair share of dry cleaners, nail salons and donut shops. It seems that every new retail center has one of each. Some survive, others fold because of competition or because their rents get raised as demand for that retail space increases.

Over the past year, I really thought the trend of these types of businesses was declining. But that all changed today when I saw a new side-by-side-by-side combo (cleaners, nails and donuts) at the recently-expanded and renovated strip mall directly across from Kroger on FM1171, at the northwest corner of FM2499. The donut shop and cleaners in that center have been there a long time, but I noticed today that a nail salon has moved in right between the two. Further, another salon "Hawaiian Nails" is opening next to my southside Tom Thumb (FM2499 @ FM3040), where I think a health/nutrition store used to be.

I wrote a couple of months ago on the the state of Flower Mound retail, and I'm not sure if it's gotten any better. There are still many empty spaces in our existing strip centers, all over town. And it appears that the beautiful Pines shopping center (aka the new Kroger center) is not filling quickly.

So far, so good on the FM2499 widening project

From what I can see as I drive by twice a day, the FM2499 widening project appears to be moving along, and causing minimal disruption. I like the fact that TxDOT put in those concrete mini-barriers that separate the existing traffic lanes from the construction taking place in the medians.

What I wonder though is how tight the new medians will be when the construction is finished. I live in the Villages of Northshore, and it's always tricky trying to turn left out of our neighborhood onto FM2499 northbound. But now, at least there's a wide median to park in, in between the southbound and northbound traffic. After TxDOT eliminates a good chunk of that buffer zone, I wonder how safe it will be to cross 2499.

The Bridlewood attack, and getting the word out

Kudos to FMPD for quick work in arresting the suspect believed to be the man who raped a Bridlewood woman yesterday. Give credit to Wendell Mitchell for e-mailing a quick alert to Flower Mound HOAs and other neighborhood contacts very soon after the attack occurred. I don't believe he alerted the media directly. I'm on the media mailing list, but didn't see this alert cross my mail box. I got the news from a friend in Flower Mound who forwarded the quick e-mail to the HOAs.

I've posted a story now on RoundtheMound.com. RoundtheMound will be a great place for neighbors to quickly post their own stories, particularly when there's an urgent need to share information. This story didn't make it to the RoundtheMound site until today, but it really should have been up on the RTM site yesterday. I was totally consumed with FOX 4's elections coverage yesterday, or else I would have tried to write something simple to get the immediate word out. That conflict will frequently be a challenge for me, in that I work 60 hours a week at FOX 4, and my first priority while I'm in the newsroom is our on-air product. So next time you get credible word of an immediate threat, please login to this site and then post the news yourself.

Election Day!

Just a short post using my cell phone while waiting in line to vote at the FM Library. I'm here about 8am. There's a line of about 50 poeple, but it's moving. I should be in and out in 20-30 minutes. Pity the folks in Dallas County, some of whom will have more than 100 choices to make on their ballot. Those lines could be long, if it takes people a lot more time to make all their selections.

Uh oh, someone just found out they're at the wrong polling site. Hope they won't get stuck having to wait in two lines.

Kind of quiet here today - very subdued atmosphere compared to a Town election or to the March primary when we had all those state rep candidates to sort through. I saw one Tan Parker sign in town this month - it's nice to have a free ride in November.

I'll be spending the rest of the day, and all night tonight, watching the votes come in at FOX 4. Should be an interesting day.

How was your voting day? How long did you have to wait? Post a comment.

FM2499 construction is underway

We knew it was coming, and I'm sure we'll appreciate it when the work was done. But for the next few months, it will be dicey driving on FM2499 south of FM3040. You can already see they've restriped the road to move the traffic lanes slightly to far edges of the pavement. They're going to install small traffic safety barriers in those inside medians to keep workers safe, and that's where the work will be done. The road will not grow wider -- the new lanes will come out of the inside medians.

The good news is that the two existing lanes on each side won't be blocked that often, and the Town promises there won't be any blockage during rush hours. But it will be a distraction, and it will cause slow downs. When the workers are done, we'll have 6 lanes of FM2499 south from FM3040. Next to come, the same kind of work between FM3040 and FM1171.

Vote Tuesday!

There won't be many local races on the ballot Tuesday, since the GOP primary is the de facto election in Denton County. But with a governor's race at the top of the ballot, and dozens of other contested statewide races, there's still plenty of reason for you to go vote.

It will be interesting to see how Denton County votes for governor. Will Perry do better (in friendly turf?) than the 35-40% of the vote he's projected to win statewide?

Let's talk football playoffs!

Congratulations to the Flower Mound Jaguar football team. Not only did they upset Coppell 31-21 Friday night, they also clinched the school's first-ever berth in the state playoffs. Four teams in each district make the playoffs (a rules change for 2006), so Marcus at 3-3 still has a chance to get into the playoffs, as I read the standings. A Marcus win at home Friday against Coppell, and a Jaguar win at home against Lewisville, would leave a 3-way tie among Marcus, Coppell and Lewisville, each at 4-3 in the district. Each of the three teams has 1 win and 1 loss against the others, so there will have to be some other tiebreaker to pick the two advancers.

Back to the Jaguars. Now that their playoff ticket has been punched, let's look ahead past this week's game with Lewisville and think about playoff matchups. I hope I'm reading this right, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong. Four district teams make the playoffs -- two will play in the 5A Division I playoffs, and two will play in the 5A Division II playoffs. They're split by school size, with the larger two schools going into Division I and the smaller two going into Division II. The Dallas Morning News says FMHS is the 3rd largest school among those in district 6-5A playoff contention, so they'll go into Division II. THIS IS IMPORTANT, because our district will be paired against our neighbors to the west, 5-5A, in the first week of the playoffs. 5-5A has Southlake Carroll, which has won 72 of its last 73 games -- they're pretty good! It would suck to make it to the playoffs for the first time ever, only to be handed over to the Dragons in the very first week.

But here's hope for the Jags. Looking at the Morning News' 5-5A enrollment rankings, it appears Carroll will wind up in Division I bracket (whew!), which is where two of the Coppell-Marcus-Lewisville trio will likely wind up. Thus, in my analysis, our Jags could face Carroll-siblings Northwest, Grapevine, or Richland in the first-round. Even though we lost early this year to Grapevine, I'll take my chances against any of these three.

Beijing Wok is now Ruby Thai

One of my favorite little restaurants in town is gone. Beijing Wok was a clean and simple Chinese eatery with eat-in and takeout. You could get in and out of there quickly, and the food was always good.

I know I've been away several days, but all of a sudden, Beijing Wok is now Ruby Thai. Check it out, and let me know what you think. I like curry dishes, so perhaps I'll stop by too.