Things may have seemed to slow down somewhat toward our goal of building a fire department but that's not entirely the case. We are now negotiating with two landowners in hopes of gaining a acre of land on which to build the building.

The prime location is near a gas well that is being drilled and the lady who owns the land wants to let the well finish drilling and see what everthing looks like before she decides if she wants to donate the land. The last thing we want to do is to pressure her and make her decide against us.

Considering that we are asking her for a piece of property that is worth tens of thousands of dollars, I'm OK with giving her some time to think about the donation.

The secondary location is in an area that is scheduled to be developed for nice homes. The partners in the land deal are discussing our need and I hope to talk with them sometime this week (June 25 - 29).

The good news is that our fund is growing. We're over $14,000.00 in hand with another $14,000.00 pledged from the gas leases. I'm confident that once we can point to a piece of property and say, "That's where the fire department will be built!", the donations will start rollling in.

Stay tuned for more updates!

WOW!

If you missed the Victory Party and Fundraiser you missed a great time! We had about 82 people RSVP to attend . . . and almost 200 showed up! The music was great . . . I'm told that the food was wonderful (I didn't get to try any of it - I was a little busy!) . . . and it was really neat to put a face and handshake to the many people I've met through the emails generated by the fire issue. A HUGE "Thank You" goes out to Patricia Brast and the Annabelle Mansion for hosting the event. She really knows how to throw an impressive event!

We picked up some super resources . . . one engineer who wants to help with the new building, two contractors who are willing to assist, and one lady who is the "guru" of fundraising and wants to help raise money!

Don Green, Executive Director of the Johnson County ESD welcomed everyone back into the district and answered several good questions about the future fire districts. Tony Salmon, Fire Chief for Lillian VFD couldn't attend at the last minute but Rick Hope, his right hand man, did a great job of informing the crowd of the Lillian VFD's impressive qualifications. Brian Jamison, Chief of the Briaroaks VFD, talked about his visions for our substation and sold the crowd on the dedication and abilities of that VFD. He gained the crowd's confidence when he told them that he has the equipment and manpower to staff our substation tonight if necessary. Also, he's already submitted a federal grant to FEMA for two fire trucks to put in our station (I guess we better get to work!).

Representative Rob Orr had only been in town a couple of hours from the legislative session (and it ended last night at about 2:00am) but he showed up and brought everyone up to speed on legislation concerning ESD's. He also prompted the group that, while we won the election, we're only halfway there. We need to build the substation. He added that while he is involved in the legislative side of getting money, a good tip to know is that if our group is engaged in fundraising for our department, we are more likely to obtain other funding to assist us.

Poor Stacy Singleton (Fire Marshall for the City of Burleson). He made the mistake of loaning us one of his fire boots to use as a container for the door prize tickets. Keith Kelly ended up selling the boot (with me acting like an auctioneer) for $500.00 to Representative Rob Orr. Rob gave the boot back but rumor has it that it will end up on display at our new substation!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot . . . we raised a little money tonight. We learned that Norwood Land Leasing has set aside $200 per mineral acre from land leased for gas wells in our area and the money is designated for fire protection. A representative from Norwood told me today that there was about $14,000.00 sitting in that account.

With the money collected and pledged at the event this evening, (including a $5000.00 pledge received just before the meeting started) we realized a total of $12,888.00.

When we combine this with the money in the gas lease account, we are looking at approximately $26,888.00 toward our new fire substation.

Some of the folks want to mail a check later. We'll get a post office box in the next couple of days and as soon as I know what the number is, I'll post the mailing address here.

Congratulations to all of you! You made it this far - you've got the momentum going - and we're well on our way to the fire protection that you deserve.

Thank you for a great night!

Jerry Stringer

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The easy part's over

now let's get to work!

It's time to build a fire department!

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