New News and a Bit of History

Officers elected by the Lakeway MUD Board on June 13, 2016 were: Larry Burmeier, President; Thomas Brewer, Vice President; Don Goff, Secretary; Lawrence M. Christian, Treasurer.  Thank you and congratulations  to  these officers for their voluntary contributions of time and talent to Lakeway MUD.

Election of Lakeway Municipal Utility District (LMUD) Board of Directors was held on May 7, 2016. We wish to thank Kay Andrews for her 12 years of service, and Mel Neese for his 4 years of service.  We deeply appreciate their commitment to helping LMUD achieve new heights.

Re-elected to the Board was Tom Brewer, who has served as a Director since June of 2011. We appreciate his willingness to devote another term of service.  Newly elected Directors are Don Goff and Lawrence Christian.  Goff has been Chairman of the Administrative, Personnel, and Community Relations Committee and has been active in improving each of those areas during his tenure.  Christian has been the Chairman of our Finance Committee and has been instrumental in supporting the outstanding financial results LMUD has enjoyed in recent years.  We congratulate all three Directors whose terms began at our Monthly Board Meeting on Wednesday, May 18, 2016, and we thank them all for their continued willingness to devote even more of their personal time to the betterment of LMUD. All of the Board and Committee Members serve with no compensation and their willingness to help improve our organization and community is outstanding.

A new Board is always a fresh start, and causes reflection on past events. We thought it might be interesting to look back on some of the historical happenings at LMUD.  The first Board meeting was on August 28, 1971, and the new MUD was named “Travis County Municipal Utilities District No.1”.  The second meeting was held on October 25, 1971, and the name was changed to “Lakeway Municipal Utility District No.1”.

Shortly after the second meeting, the City of Austin passed a resolution that LMUD could not furnish water or service to any customer in a sub division within LMUD unless it was approved by the Planning Commission of the City of Austin.

The third meeting took place on December 6, 1971. One of the highlights was a request from the Texas Department of Public Safety that sufficient space be planned in LMUD’s District Office to house two officers including desk space, storage, and a retaining cell for those arrested.  The Board Members at that meeting seemed willing to consider that request, but there is no evidence it was ever mentioned again.

On September 3, 1971, LMUD received its first invoice; it was a bill from Harvey Smith, Surveyor, in the amount of $90.  The charge was for 6 hours of office time at $15 per hour!  This invoice was paid by the Lakeway Land Company who was then reimbursed by LMUD No.1.

In December of 1971, and article appeared in the Austin Statesman in which the Mayor of Austin, Roy Butler, was quoted as saying he was not happy seeing MUD’s sprouting up around Austin. It was his belief that this event would stunt Austin’s growth.  It’s doubtful that today anyone familiar with Austin would claim that its growth had ever been stunted!  Just as an interesting side note:  in 1972, the Lakeway area was in Zip Code 78746, and it was an Austin address.

There was a Special Meeting of the Board on October 17, 1972 where an attorney by the name of Doran Eskew appeared before the Board and stated that he had been engaged by a group of citizens around the Lakeway area. Their purpose was to defend against any annexation by LMUD No. 1.  The President of the Board, Edward Plodzik stated that LMUD No.1 had no intentions of annexing any areas until and unless those areas actively sought out the help of the District.  In that meeting, the tax rate for 1973 was announced at $0.25 per $100 of evaluation;  a far cry from our 2015 rate of $0.1536 even without adjusting for 40+ years of inflation.  Another interesting note:  in January of 1973, there were 426 customers (compared to 4,200+ today) and the total LMUD No.1 billing was $6,645.  The average bill per customer was $15 for two months.

On July 13, 1983 at a Regular Board meeting, the Directors voted to change the name to Lakeway Municipal Utility District and it has remained the same since that meeting. Originally, the thought was that there would be additional MUDs formed that would want to use the Lakeway MUD name.  Since that did not happen, the ‘No.1’ was dropped.

We hope you have enjoyed this little look at history. We want to remind you that from May 1 through September 30 we are under Stage 2 Irrigation Restrictions.  All customers are limited to two weekly waterings.  Odd number addresses are Wednesday and Saturday, and even number addresses are Thursday and Sunday.  Commercial customers may water on Tuesday and Friday.  While we have had an abundance of rain the last few months, forecasters are predicting a hot and dry summer and fall.  We thank everyone in advance for your cooperation in conservation.  Please feel free to contact us with any questions at 512-261-6222, or by email at Lakeway@LakewayMUD.org, or by visiting our District Office at 1097 Lohmans Crossing.