Small town big problems: Lewisville
Fewer than 500 people live in the small town of Lewisville in Jefferson county. With a limited budget and a hands on approach, I spent the day with Mayor George Judd as he showed me a day in the life of a small town mayor.
“Very peaceful, very quiet, and we’ve got a good mayor, cracking down, getting things cleaned up around here and I like a good clean town as well,” says Gladys, who has lived in Lewisville for five years.
Mayor George Judd has lived in Lewisville for 16 years and has been mayor for 5 years.
“It’s challenging, being a small city, I think the mayor in this city does a lot more than a lot fo the other mayors do,” says Judd.
One of the problems, hiring maintenance staff. It’s hard to find people to work part-time and when those positions aren’t filled.
“The mayor fills in and snow plows or mows when we don’t have help. So it’s a lot nicer when I can keep the maintenance help, unfortunately, our maintenance is part time so finding people to do it is a little difficult.”
Road maintenance is about 48 percent of the budget when compared to larger cities it’s about 3 percent. Which makes it hard to make the maintenance job full time, so mayor Judd has to take a more hands on approach.
“It’s rare that we have a Durapatch machine. Not a lot of small cities have that, this machine right here to patch potholes in the road and rebuild shoulders and stuff. It saves us a lot when we do road maintenance but it costs a lot when we get that machine out and run it all summer long. And that’s where it eats up half of our budget.”
Mayor Judd has also added a bonus for residents: Mosquito Abatement.
“We have our own machine and we spray the city and when we’re adequately spraying, in fact, I have not been bit by a mosquito once in the city this year. There’s a lot of times where I don’t get bit because we do our own abatement.”
There are other areas in the city that need some new additions. The city-funded Lewisville Library is a small building as you can see.
“Our biggest challenge is probably our space. We have a small budget but we make it stretch, and my biggest problem is the space. We’ve bought some bookshelves, but we’re still ever expanding and always acquiring new books,” says Merideth McElprang, library director.
Some books even have to go in storage. It’s no surprise they’ve outgrown the building, which was built in 1912, there’s even a surprise in the basement.
“The sheriff’s office was in our children’s room upstairs previously, and down here they just had the basic public nuisance here and there. Not too many bad guys. It was cold in the winter and damp in the summers,” says McElprang as she showed the old jail cell in the library basement.
But they have hopes to turn the building into a museum and expand.
Small town, big problems but Mayor Judd gets it done and enjoys it.
“I meet a lot of people. I go up to the capital quite a bit and legislate for this part of the state. Try to keep our issues up in their mind. So yeah, I enjoy it. It’s fun, rewarding, though it be challenging,” says Mayor Judd.
Lewisville, small town, big problems but even bigger dreams.
The city is hoping to be a part of the county mitigation. They say they need help with all of the trees in the area. The challenge in being a part of the program is that the city only has one department.
