Greg Maxton, Mayor of Fair Oaks Ranch, TX

01/25/2023

Recap Jan 19,2023 FOR Council meeting.

Did you miss last Thursday's Council Meeting? Mayor Greg Maxton sits down to briefly discuss important council decisions and announcements from the January 1...

11/07/2022

An article was published in the Boerne Star this morning, Nov 5th, referencing the City Council’s recent annual evaluation of Tobin Maples, the City Manager for the City of Fair Oaks Ranch. The article selected only certain remarks from the evaluation and when taken in isolation may mislead readers to believe that City Council did not have positive comments on the performance of Tobin Maples. I have total confidence in the skills, abilities and knowledge of our City Manager and believe Tobin is the right individual to lead our City Staff and to ensure we protect the future of Fair Oaks Ranch. Evaluations are a tool to communicate what we are doing well, identify areas for improvement and to establish performance goals for the next rating period. All these areas were covered in the evaluation, but the Boerne Star article only addressed a few comments identified for improvement and even these were not fully described as presented in the evaluation. While the evaluation was completed over two months ago, the City has continued to make significant progress under the leadership of Tobin Maples. I am proud of our City and the efforts of our City Staff under Tobin’s direction and I look forward to working as a team into the future to provide exceptional services to the citizens of Fair Oaks Ranch.

11/06/2022

Mayor Maxton discusses effective city communication, keeping residents informed, and upcoming town hall meetings in October's Monthly Message.

Read his full message to residents here: http://ow.ly/woz950LuN57

09/02/2022

Mayor's Monthly Message - August 2022
Safety on our City roadways is always a concern, but I have a few reminders as we begin the new school year.

Mayor Maxton’s Message

Back to School on the Ranch

The summer heat continues to bear down on us, and we are still consistently seeing days over 100 degrees. A reminder to all, we are still in a severe drought condition and water is a precious resource that we must conserve.

In the City of Fair Oaks Ranch, by the City Ordinance, we are limited to watering our yards to only one day a week with sprinkler systems. You can hand water your plants, bushes, and trees on any day. The grass is taking a beating though in these hot sunny days and for now, having brown spots in your yard is a way of life for us.

Even though the hot summer heat continues, the summer vacation for our children is coming to an end. Boerne Independent School District began classes last week and within a week, all other school districts will be back in class.

With school starting back up, we will see an increase in the number of cars traveling around the area. The surge in traffic not only increases driving times within our City, but also when driving to San Antonio or to Boerne. After a summer of lower traffic congestion, please remember that now that school has started back up, you may need to leave earlier to make your destination on time.

Safety on our City roadways is always a concern, but I have a few reminders as we begin the new school year.

Fair Oaks Ranch Elementary and Van Raub Elementary are the two schools that are within the city limits of Fair Oaks Ranch. Both are located on Dietz Elkhorn Road. The start time for each is 7:35 am and both schools end each day at 3:00 pm. During these times, you may experience backups on Dietz Elkhorn near the schools due to parents dropping off or picking up their children. The afternoons seem to have more of a backup, and on some days cars line up on Dietz Elkhorn as family members wait in line to pick up their children.

The cars lining up on Dietz Elkhorn in the afternoon do occasionally stop traffic for a short time. If you are wanting to pass through the area, I recommend that you find a different route during the time that school gets out or ensure you pass through the area at an earlier or later time. These areas along Dietz Elkhorn are no passing zones. In the past, cars have entered into the opposite travel lane and attempted to go around the line of cars. This is extremely dangerous with cars moving in multiple directions and with kids running around the area. If you get caught in the line of traffic, you just need to wait in line with everyone else until you can pass through the area.

Many families use golf carts to take their children to school. The use of a golf cart is permitted on all City streets with a speed limit of 35 mph or lower, which includes Dietz Elkhorn. This does create another area of safety awareness. Golf carts are motor vehicles and have the right to occupy a lane of travel and should drive in the lane of travel just like a car. A reminder to golf cart drivers - you are operating a motor vehicle and should abide by all the same traffic rules that a car follows.

For those driving cars, please be aware that there will be increased golf cart traffic on our City streets in the time frames that school is starting and getting out.

In addition to the increased traffic around the schools, we also see an increase in traffic around the bus stops throughout the City. At many of the bus stops, you will see parents in their vehicles waiting for the bus to pick up or drop off their children. This is another area to be aware of and be cautious as you drive by.

Passing school buses during the times that they are loading or unloading has been an issue in past years. When the yellow flashing lights come on, we all know that the bus is about to stop and the red flashing lights and stop sign are coming out. Whether the bus is at an intersection or just at a stop on the street, we all need to recognize the situation, stop and wait for the bus to finish its loading or unloading. A lot of the children are super excited during this time, probably more so in the afternoons when getting off the bus. Just assume that they are not paying attention and it would be too easy to put yourself in a bad situation. Injuring a child would be horrific. Stopping and waiting may make you a couple minutes late to wherever you are going, but that is a far better situation than taking a chance and hitting a child with your vehicle.

It is hard to believe that summer vacation is coming to an end. We have more people living in our City now than we did at this time last year. With more residents in and around our City, there is more traffic related to the start and end of each school day. The intent of this article is to provide some safety related areas to be aware of as individuals drive on our streets. Bottomline, we don’t want to see anyone get hurt. By being more aware of situations and taking proper actions, we can prevent any accidents from happening on our streets.

08/02/2022

Mayor's Monthly Message - July 2022
With the heat wave continuing, we are still in a severe drought condition. More concerning, we are now headed into what is typically the hottest and driest part of the year.

Mayor Maxton’s Message

(As Published in the Hill Country Weekly on July 21, 2022)

Water is a Precious Resource

The heat continues to bear down on our area, as we are experiencing an extremely hot summer. We have set some daily records with multiple days of temperatures above 100 degrees.

With the heat wave continuing, we are still in a severe drought condition. More concerning, we are now headed into what is typically the hottest and driest part of the year.

On June 15, 2022, the City of Fair Oaks Ranch went to Stage 2 of our Drought Contingency Plan. We were forced to go to Stage 2 due to two issues. First, the water level in our monitoring wells was dropping rapidly. Second, the amount of water being used by Fair Oaks Ranch water utility customers had increased dramatically.

We have experienced several rain showers over the past couple weeks, which has helped to cool things down. This has also slowed down the drop of the water level in our city wells. We have also increased the amount of water that we are taking from GBRA (Guadalup-Brazos River Authority) through Canyon Lake. For now, the water supply is in good shape. If we were to see another long dry spell, it is possible we will begin to experience water level drops in our monitoring wells.

The significant increase in water consumption has been the biggest factor. We normally experience about 2 million gallons of water distribution in a day for water utility users in Fair Oaks Ranch. Since June 1, 2022, we are seeing over 3 million gallons per day. This large increase in water usage is impacting the water level in our wells and pushing the capabilities of our water distribution system.

I fully understand the need to protect your landscaping, but I believe we are seeing an increase in consumption due to increased watering of yards with automated sprinkler systems. Plants, shrubs, and trees can all be hand watered, which decreases that amount of water being used. It’s great to see beautiful green grass throughout the City, but during this period of severe drought, having available water for our homes is more important.

All water users of the Fair Oaks Ranch water utility can monitor their daily amount of water use through the Aqua Hawk system. The Aqua Hawk system is also good for detecting leaks that you may have when you see high water usage during a time where you believed you were not using water. Also, the Aqua Hawk system will send you notifications when it detects there is abnormal water usage. If not signed up for this free service from our water utility, I encourage all to do so.

Currently, we are not in an emergency situation. By taking positive measures now, we can prevent ever getting to that state or having to go to Stage 3 of our Drought Contingency Plan. Please find ways to use our water wisely and conserve as much of this precious resource as possible.

As many residents may have noticed, the Fair Oaks Ranch Country Club is going through a major renovation of one of it golf courses. As a result of this multi-million-dollar project, water will be required to make this project successful. The City and Country Club leadership met to discuss projections for water usage to support this project and other needs for the Country Club. They do use the grey water from the City, but require more than this amount. With these projections, the City was able to establish a manageable level of water supply that could be provided to the Country Club and not have an impact on water utility users. Brad Belson, the Country Club Manager, fully understands the situation and to a great extent has been fully understanding and a great partner for our City.

All of the routine messaging from the City is distributed through the City’s Notify Me system. Sign up for this service can be found on the home page of the City Web site at www.fairoaksranchtx.org. It takes less than five minutes to sign up and is a valuable service to stay up to date with what is happening around “The Ranch”.

Notify Me provides updates on our water utility along with information on other areas impacting the City. Messages are delivered straight to your email or mobile phone via test message. Notify Me is the primary method of getting information from the City to its residents, although we do post messaging to the City’s website, NextDoor account and Facebook site also.

A typical Notify Me message will provides a topic and a link to the full message. If you are interested in the topic, choose the link and you will be provided with all the information.

The City of Fair Oaks Ranch also uses “CodeRED” for distributing emergency situation information to all our residents. This also is a free service that residents must sign up for and the link to sign up for this service is on the City’s website main page.

As always, lets bond together to make it through this situation where we are experiencing severe drought conditions. Please do not take this lightly, this is a serious condition that we are in. By taking appropriate measures now to conserve our water resource, we can prevent an emergency condition or going to Stage 3 of our Drought Contingency Plan.

07/08/2022

Mayor Maxton’s Message

(As Published in the Hill Country Weekly on June 30, 2022)

Drought Contingency in Fair Oaks Ranch

Fair Oaks Ranch, like all other areas around us, is experiencing a very dry and hot start to summer. We just had the hottest May on record and possibly could be heading for the same in June. No doubt, we are in a severe drought area.

With the high temperatures and little to no rain, we have started the summer in a challenging situation. From the weather forecast, it doesn’t appear that there is any substantial relief in the foreseeable future. The toughest part is that we have not even reached July and August yet, which are typically the hottest and driest months of the year.

On June 15, 2022, the City of Fair Oaks Ranch put into effect Stage 2 of our Drought Contingency Plan. Stage 2 measures state:

1. Reduce the use of all nonessential water.

2. Existing landscaping permits have been rescinded and No new landscaping permits will be issued.

3. No ornamental water fountain usage

4. Surcharges for water consumption over 18,000 gallons per month

a. Billing of surcharges will begin on July 1, 2022)

Currently, we are experiencing a drop in the water levels of our City’s monitoring wells, but for now, there is water available. Additionally, the City increased its allocation that we are receiving through GBRA for water coming out of Canyon Lake. Without knowing the future, we need to plan for the current weather to continue for the next couple months to ensure that we have water for our residents and for emergency situations.

The driving force behind going into Stage 2 of our Drought Contingency Plan is the significant increase in water consumption that we are seeing throughout the City. I know that it has been hot and dry for almost 60 days now and the landscaping, primarily grass, is being hit hard due to the heat. I fully understand the urge to protect your landscaping, but I believe we are seeing an increase in consumption due to an increase in excessive watering of yards.

The City is asking all residents to adhere to the City’s ordinance regarding year-round watering schedule to help conserve our water supply. In compliance with the ordinance, residents are limited to only watering their landscaping with hose-end sprinklers, soaker hoses or sprinkler systems once a week and to only water on your designated day of the week during the designated hours.

If your street address ends in:

0 or 1, you can only water your yard on Mondays

2 or 3, you can only water your yard on Tuesdays

4 or 5, you can only water your yard on Wednesdays

6 or 7, you can only water your yard on Thursdays

8 or 9, you can only water your yard on Fridays

Watering of yards should only be conducted on your designated date between the hours of midnight to 10:00 am or 8:00 pm to midnight. Additionally, there should be no watering of yards on Saturday or Sunday. Hand watering or holding the hose to water shrubs, trees and even grass is currently authorized at any time.

Currently, we are not in an emergency situation, and by taking positive measures now, we will delay and possibly prevent ever getting to that state. Some ways you can help during this time is to stop power washing of driveways, sidewalks, and curbs. Additionally, any activity that creates excess water runoff into yards or streets is wasting our precious resource, please let’s find ways to preserve it.

I am asking all residents to find ways to conserve your water usage. Please help get this message out in a friendly way to all our neighbors. This is the time we need to pull together as a community to make it through this challenging time. By adhering to the landscape watering ordinance, I believe we can reduce the significant increase in consumption that we have seen over the past 30 days.

Recently, the increase in consumption the City experienced stressed our water utility system to the point that two of our water supply tanks were not able to refill fast enough. As a result, over a weeks period, they came close to a point where they would not be able to provide the needed pressure in our water system.

If consumption continues at a rate which will negatively impact the pressure in our City’s water utility system, we will be forced to implement Stage 3 Drought Contingency measures. Under Stage 3, ALL non-essential water usage is restricted. Which means, there is no landscape watering through sprinklers or automatic irrigation systems, new landscaping is not allowed, and construction of swimming pools will also become prohibited. We do not want to get to this level, so please help today by doing the right thing and abide by the current ordinance.

I have had several questions related to the different Drought Contingency Plans for other entities and cities around our area. An example question is, “Why are Cow Creek Ground Water District and SAWS already in Stage 3, but we are only in Stage 2?” This is a good question. What I have found is that there is no set standard requirements for Staging across the different entities. The requirements for implementing a Drought Contingency Stage in the Cow Creek Water District or SAWS is not the same as the staging we have here in Fair Oaks Ranch. Each entity develops its own staging requirements based on the operations of its own utility. The areas that impact our availability and usage of water are different than those of other cities or water districts; therefore, our staging requirements were established to meet the needs of providing a safe and effective water utility here in Fair Oaks Ranch.

In addition to establishing our own staging levels, we are tied to the staging of GBRA, since we receive about 40% of our water from them. If GBRA were to increase its Drought Contingency Plan to Stage 3, we would also be required to increase our level to Stage 3

This article is intended to accomplish several things. First is education. I want to make our residents aware of the current requirements that they may not be aware of. Secondly, I want you to know that we are experiencing some challenges with our water utility due to increased consumption. Thirdly, I want your support to abide by the requirements. By upholding the current requirements, we can cut down our consumption of water and hold off going into Stage 3. Lastly, we are in a severe drought, and I don’t know what the future will bring us. It is possible we could get a lot of rain over the next couple months, but today that is not what I would predict for our immediate future so please do your part to help us get through this summer.

06/21/2022

Boerne ISD, Law Enforcement Agencies Agree to Add SRO's

06/01/2022

Thank you to Boerne American Legion 313 for inviting me to be apart of your ceremony recognizing Memorial Day. It was a exceptional ceremony.

06/01/2022

Mayor's Monthly Message - May 2022
The residents of Fair Oaks Ranch have a Public Works and Engineering team that is making significant steps to ensure the quality of essential services is maintained throughout the city...

Mayor Maxton’s Message

(As Published in the Hill Country Weekly on May 19, 2022)

Public Works Making an Impact

Grant Watanabe, P.E., is the Director of Public Works and Engineering Services for the City of Fair Oaks Ranch. He has only been working with the city for about a year now, but in this short time has made a big impact. Overall, with Grant and his exceptional team, they are making a difference in maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure for our city.

The normal routine of day-to-day operations keeps the Public Works Department busy. Operating our water and wastewater systems daily is a continual process, which includes maintaining, inspections and repairs on all aspects of our plants, lines, lift stations and the 43 water wells. The team is also responsible for the daily laboratory testing to ensure our water and wastewater systems meet minimum TCEQ standards. Additionally, the Public Works team is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of our city streets and our storm water drainage system. In all aspects. the Public Works team has always done a great job responding to resident calls for assistance and they have continued this over the past year.

While providing quality essential services to our residents, the Public Works Department is also responsible for ensuring quality construction is being accomplished throughout the city. This includes the enforcement of International Building and Life Safety Codes which has teams out consistently inspecting all the new and rehabilitation construction going on across the city. For a small city, we are fortunate to have two licensed Professional Engineers working on staff, Grant Watanabe and Katherine Schweitzer, whose expertise has been a tremendous benefit.

Keeping the city infrastructure operating at a high level is no easy task for a Public Works Department of 31 employees. From my observations, this team does a phenomenal job and has risen to the task every time they are needed. Above all, they enjoy what they are doing and demonstrate a friendly and respectful attitude with residents.

While operating the city infrastructure, Grant has focused his teams on making monumental accomplishments on tackling many of the capital improvement projects needed throughout the city.

This summer and fall, we will see significant upgrades to the roads throughout the city. About 25-30% of the city roads will receive a roadway preservation method called micro-resurfacing. It is a long lasting and high-performance treatment that is similar in preservation to chip seal but does not include the large aggregate that wears off in the future. A few other streets will be treated with fog seal, and some will go through a mill and overlay process. The type of treatment was determined due to the wear on our streets and the appropriate preservation method needed to bring them back to desirable levels.

Along with the street preservation, street striping, placement of reflective markers and new signage will be installed. The street striping will include areas that were not striped during the street resurfacing operations last year. Placement of reflective markers and new signage will be in areas, primarily in the northern part of our city, where added safety measures are needed during hours of darkness. Additional signage and striping has been looked at for golf cart crossings along Fair Oaks Parkway, where golf carts cross while using the golf course.

Grant and his team have designed and contracted for the realignment of the Chartwell and Saddle Song streets intersection with Dietz-Elkhorn. These are the two streets by the Fair Oaks Ranch Elementary School. The current offset of these two streets creates a safety issue for individuals crossing Dietz-Elkhorn which includes children going to school, the sporting events on the field and those that use the area for recreation. The realignment will move Chartwell so that it is directly across from Saddle Song where they intersect Dietz-Elkhorn. The Boerne Independent School District is assisting in the funding of this project.

Water Plant #2 is currently under construction to upgrade its capability. This project was the highest priority in the water capital improvement plan as the number of water user connections on the south side of the city was about to exceed the plant’s capacity. This upgrade will meet future demands. This project will be completed in June or July this year.

We have several major waterline projects being worked this year. There is an exposed water main that crosses over Balcones Creek which will be replaced. The Public Works team is also working replacement of waterlines along Willow Wind Dr/Red Bud Hill, Rolling Acres Trail, and Old Fredericksburg Road. Design for these projects is in progress or complete and waterlines should be replaced within the next year.

The upgrade to the wastewater treatment plant has been contracted and we should see construction begin soon to install the dewatering screw press. This will eliminate the drying bed process in our wastewater treatment and the $350,000 a year the city was paying to haul off wet sludge. As a result of the savings, we will see a return on this investment in three years. This project will also help resolve the odors that were coming from the treatment facility. The new dewatering screw press system is scheduled to be operational in October or November of this year.

Our Public Works department is also working with a consultant to determine the long term needs and possible solutions for our wastewater treatment requirements. Possible solutions being reviewed are upgrades or expansions to the current plant, adding an additional plant or building a new plant. Our current wastewater treatment plant will not meet the future needs of the city, and we need to start working now on what is the best way to expand this service.

Storm water runoff is a big problem within our city, creating safety issues and has flooded individual homes. This year, Grant and his team are addressing several of these areas. Flooding over Silver Spur Trail, on Tivoli Way, across Fair Oaks Parkway, Rolling Acres Trail and Rocking Horse Lane are the top projects. These are all major endeavors to address the storm water runoff in these areas. Currently, the design for these projects is being finished with a focus to complete the improvements in the next year.

The residents of Fair Oaks Ranch have a Public Works and Engineering team that is making significant steps to ensure the quality of essential services is maintained throughout the city. The daily operations of our Public Works employees is a thankless job, because without issues, we do not realize all of the behind the scenes work they accomplish every day. In addition to daily routines, they are tackling some of the toughest issues that face our city in needed capital improvements and making accomplishments. A big thanks to our City Staff for continuing to provide quality services to our residents every day while also taking on these big projects.

04/26/2022

Mayor Maxton's Message - April 2022

I believe City governments and staff have a responsibility to communicate with their residents. I don’t think anyone would argue this point. Communications is a means of exchanging information from one individual to another and is a two-way process.

For specific situations related to an individual citizen, this is normally not a problem. These are situations where a resident has information on an issue or a problem. They contact City Hall and are put in touch with the right individual to help them and the problem gets addressed. It is an established method for resolving a problem that most residents know and utilize.

The challenge for cities is communicating information back to their residents. The City of Fair Oaks Ranch is involved with many activities that impact current operations and the future of the city. This is information that should be and needs to be provided to the residents. The challenge is not in the city’s desire to provide the information, the city has nothing to hide and wants to get this information out. The difficulty is finding the routine established methods that are easy for resident to access.

I believe it is important for residents to know and understand what is going on with their city government. First, it is their city, and they should know what is happening and what their city government is doing for them. Additionally, effective communications will reduce misinformation and rumors being spread which lead to instability and additional work.

I see that effective communication has two parts, the message and the method. The message is the easy part. The method of communications is the challenge, especially for a city wanting to routinely provide information to a city of over 10,000 residents.

The City of Fair Oaks Ranch utilizes multiple methods to communicate with its residents. We have a website, we use NextDoor and Facebook, articles in the newspaper and we will start broadcasting our council meetings. All of these are good methods, but not the easiest ways for residents to receive information. My belief is that if a resident is required to search or use multiple steps to get to the information, many times they will not find it. The information needs to be presented in a manner that is easily and readily available.

Notify Me and CodeRED are two other means of communications used by the city that does provide information to residents that is readily available. Both are services that a resident must sign up for to be included in the distribution.

Notify Me is used by the city to push out routine communications. When you sign up for the service, you can choose to receive the notifications by text message, email or both. When you receive the notification, their will be a link that will provide the update. These messages can be received through your phone or computer and very simple to use.

Recent notifications through Notify Me include updates on oak wilt, the city’s Popular Financial Report (an easy to read and understand version of the city’s finances), Junior Police Academy, Red Flag Warnings and most recently updates on the Camp Bullis Fire. The City Staff has also used Notify Me to send out messages on city meetings, activities across the city and non-emergency issues related to city infrastructure.

I encourage all residents to sign up for Notify Me. Sign up for this service is easy to complete. Go to the City’s website (www.fairoaksranchtx.org) and on the main page that comes up, select the block for Notify Me on the right-hand side. Once selected, provide your email address and then choose if you want to be notified by text also. It honestly takes about 2-3 minutes to complete the process. I signed up for both text and email service, so when a message goes out from the city, I receive a text message and an email on the information.

CodeRED is a mass emergency notification system. In the event of an emergency impacting the city, CodeRED will be utilized to distribute information on the situation. Unique to CodeRED, the city can utilize this tool to send messages out to the entire city or to specific subdivisions. A good example is last year during the February freeze, three subdivisions were without water for several days. The city used CodeRED to communicate with these three subdivisions, letting them know that water was available for them at City Hall.

CodeRED is critical for all residents to sign up for and will make a significant impact in providing information on emergency events that effect our city. Sign up for CodeRED is also found on the city’s website at the bottom of the main page. The process for signing up for CodeRED is more detailed than Notify Me, but still only takes about five minutes to complete.

The city is always looking for ways to better improve its communications to residents. If you have ideas of ways to make the system better, please call City Hall and let us know. Notify Me and CodeRED are two methods that work well that I encourage all citizens to sign up for. Keeping residents informed is a priority for myself and the city, we will continue to make these processes better.