Pirates earn first district win Pirates victorious over Hondo Page 8

THE

Leader News

SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF LYTLE, SOMERSET, PLEASANTON, PEARSALL, POTEET, LA COSTE, VON ORMY & ATASCOSA COUNTY

Volume 16

SIDE
NOTES
Matt Mann
named Interim
Superintendent
The Pleasanton ISD
Board of Trustees has
named Dr. Matt Mann,
as interim superintendent effective Feb. 2 following the resignation/
retirement of Dr. Cynthia
Clinesmith. Clinesmith
strongly recommended
in her paycheck letter
that Dr.Mann be named
both interim and acting
superintendent.
I would not have
left unless I felt that
the Pleasanton schools
would be in good hands,
Clinesmith said.
The
Board
of
Trustees honored Dr.
Clinesmith with a community recognition and
bronze eagle in appreciation for her service to
PISD. For those wanting to get to know Dr.
Mann and to discuss the
future of PISD, he will
continue the monthly
Community
Coffees
held by Clinesmith on
the second Wednesday
morning at the administration building at
8:30 a.m. PISD has publicly posted the position for superintendent
of schools. Any input
from the community
may be shared with their
Board of Trustee representative or through
Dr. Clinesmiths office
through January.

New subdivision
coming to Lytle
Lytle is marked for
more growth with the
approval of the Senior
Flores Subdivision. The
7.74 acres of land is
located on the west side
of IH 35 out of survey
number 512 abstract
number 309. The purposed location is along
the right-of-way to
southbound IH 35 and
therefore needed input
from TxDOT. At the last
city council meeting,
senior project manager
Eddie Bogard from TRC
Solutions, the future
contractor, presented the
approval from TxDOT
and their approval that
the plat is in general
compliance with the city
of Lytles code of ordinances chapter 36. City
Secretary Josie Campa
says that the plat will
be used for commercial businesses and the
construction dates are
pending.

La Coste leases an
additional 30 acre
feet of water
The city of La Coste
budgeted to lease additional water rights this
year. City Administrator
George Salzman said the
city leased an additional
30 acre feet for the city.
Salzman added they
city was able to lease
six acre feet for $125 an
acre foot. The other 24
acre feet cost the city $1
plus the transfer fees.
The city is still in Stage
4 water restrictions.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

$1

Lytle Bealls store opening planned for April

Kelly Eisenbarger
Staff Writer
Construction is underway at Lytles future Bealls
location. The 20,000 square
foot store will be arriving
in spring and will be located at 19563 IH-35 South in
the Lytle Crossing shopping
center. The official ribbon
cutting celebration will take
place on Thursday, April 16 at
8:45 a.m.

Lytle shoppers deserve a

hometown store that delivers
exciting fashion brands and
well known national brands
of clothes, shoes, fragrances,
accessories and home decor.
Bealls is that store, said
Michael Glazer, president and
CEO of Stage Stores Inc., the
parent company of Bealls.
The coming of a major
store such as Bealls is a sure
sign of the growth in Lytle.

One thing that I think

will really impact the city
thats positive is the Bealls
coming, weve never had a
clothing type scenario before.
We are really poised for some
growth as we are on the verge
of other things coming like
possibly a steakhouse or other
sit down restaurant, Mayor
Mark Bowen said.
Sales tax revenue has consistently been up for the city

in the last few months. City

Secretary Josie Campa would
be happy if they kept seeing
growth in the form of higher
sales tax revenue and more
businesses.
I dont mind if trends
this way, we do have so many
other things going in that will
generate sales tax so Im not
too worried, Campa said.
Bealls will need to hire
full and part time store asso-

ciates, which will bring 40-50

new jobs to Lytle.
We are excited about the
store coming and we will be
having a lot of events happening on that opening weekend, said director of public
relations for Stage Stores Bria
Lundy.
If interested in joining
the Bealls team, you can apply
online at www.beallsonline.
com.

LISD tries to teach

the consequences
of cyberbullying

Throughout his talk Mr. Halligan had an endless stream of photos of his departed son projected behind him.
His loss is deep and said that giving these talks was a form of therapy for him as well as the opportunity to show
the world the effects of bullying and hopefully change the conversation. (Photos by Kelly Eisenbarger)

Kelly Eisenbarger
Staff Writer
Lytle high school students were presented with the harsh
realities and consequences of cyber bullying during a presentation last Thursday.
Lytle ISD has implemented a comprehensive bullying prevention program. According to LISD, they are committed to
taking serious, proactive steps to curb a problem that is found in
schools everywhere. This year, their efforts have focused on raising awareness about bullying and cyber bullying with students
and parents.
Along those lines Lytle ISD recruited Mr. John Halligan to
conduct a presentation Jan. 22 for the students. He spoke about
his own tragic experience as a dad whose 13 year old son took
his own life in 2003, after incessant bullying by peers since the
fifth grade, both in school and online. His son would have been
25 before Christmas. Halligan was told by the detective investigating his sons death that on his last day alive he was heard saying to the girl who cyber bullied him that, its girls like you that
make me want to kill myself. After seeing pages and pages of the
cyberbulling against his son Halligan realized its not the words
that led his son to his final act but his untreated depression.
I know now that my son died of an illness, an illness called
depression. It went along untreated and unfortunately snowballed, Halligan said.
See Bullying on Page 2

New software to keep officers on street, not behind a desk

Luz Moreno-Lozano
Staff Writer
The Pleasanton Police
Department
will
spend
$115,000 on a new software
system for its officers. In last
weeks city council meeting,
Chief Ronald Sanchez and
City Manger Bruce Pearson
presented to the council the
need for the system and how
it is beneficial for the officers
and municipal court.
The Cardinal Soft Badge
Software System is what is
already within the walls of
the police department and its
what the municipal court has
been using for years, Pearson
said.
Pearson went on to say that
about four years ago the council directed staff to buy a software system that would allow
for 12 laptops, E-Citations and
a number of other provisions.
It was brought to my

attention in 2012 that we had

some challenges with that program, Pearson said. Shortly
after, I met with Mr. [Steve]
Puente, Mr. [Steve] Leuschner,
President and CEO and Chief
Sanchez and discussed the provisions of what was brought
with the other software program and why we were having problems. Basically it was
interfacing the other software
with the Cardinal Badge.
Mr. Leuschner and his folks
worked about six months
including an engineering and
information technology technician and after six months
we were able to interface the
e-citations with automatic real
time download for the municipal court.
Chief Sanchez said the big
selling point for the product
then was the officers could
do their reports in the field,
meaning less time in the office

and more patrolling the streets

24/7. There were other items
they were also told it would
produce such as e-tickets,
citations, automatic citation
downloads to municipal court,
GPS tracking, automatic interface of reporting with cardinal
badge system, uniform crime
reports and racial profiling
report, but they never worked
Cardinal has been good
to us, Sanchez said. Weve
used their records management system for several years.
They have gone above and
beyond to try and make this
right for us. Weve had several
challenges with the old system
and they tried for months to
make interface a success with
old system.
Sanchez felt that not having the system available to
them is not only an inconvenience but also its not a good
expenditure of their human

capital.
The badge software program does fulfill all the features of the original program
and more, Sanchez said.
The features offered
through the badge software
are mobilecite, laptop citation issuance, municipal court
management, badge records
management system, a better
GPS tracking system, silent
dispatch and mobilelink.
These are functions you
dont have today that is going
to make it more efficient for
dispatchers and officers to
do their job, Leuschner said.
Were all about officer safety
and productivity and thats
really the most important
thing to us. We want to make
sure the people who are out
there serving and protecting
are protected as well.
Due to the inconvenience of
the original program, Cardinal

gave the city a $65,635 credit.

The purchase of the badge system to include all six features,
installation, training, license
and maintenance fees for years
two and three is $115,755.60
of which $50,487 is the license
and maintenance fees. It would
come out $65,258.60 without
license and maintenance fees.
The existing hardware and laptops will stay.
Pearson and I have spoken to several individuals
who want to help the PD and
offered to contribute financially to help pay for the system, Sanchez said. We have
$23,593.60 that these people
committed to the price. With
the commitment from anonymous donors the price would
be $92,162.
The council unanimously
agreed to purchase the new
system at a price not to exceed
$115,755.60.

Atascosa County implementing emergency notification system

Luz Moreno-Lozano
Staff Writer
Receiving emergency notifications just got easier. Atascosa
County is in the process of
implementing an i-INFO system that notifies residents in
the area of emergencies and
other area activity.
Medina County Emergency
Management
Coordinator
Keith Lutz presented the system to the commissioners in
a meeting on Monday morning. Lutz has used the system
in Medina County for the last
two years.
The system was created in
2007 when a dozen counties
and cities, through the Alamo
Area Council of Governments,
contracted with a web solutions company, i-INFO, to
develop and share a set of web-

based tools that could help

support regional preparedness
goals. Eight years later the program has grown to over 10,000
agencies using it and 32,000
users from coast to coast and
majority are from Texas. These
members have added new
capabilities and the number
of available solutions and uses
has grown from four in 2007
to over 74 in 2015.
The tool can contact key
people in the county, staff
responders and residents by
email, text, cell phone, landline, digital pager, fax and
mobile app, Lutz said. You
can also go into a private dashboard that allows community
planners and leaders to access
tools and information to help
the public stay prepared.
Lutz added that the admin-

istrator could set up groups

inside the system. There is
a public site, but there are
internal systems to send notifications to county employees.
The Medina County Sheriff s
Department also uses the system on a regular basis to notify
each other of major accidents
or pursuits.
Medina County has it set
up where we can communicate with our fire departments
and school systems, Lutz said.
There are three levels in our
school system. You have the
superintendents, administration and transportation inside
the school system.
Lutz said they use the texting and emailing about 99
percent of the time. Through
a map feature they can notify
the entire county or they can

create an area on the map and

itll notify the effected people
only.
The system has many other
capabilities besides emergency
notifications. The system can
also send out automated and
follow up notifications, first
responders can notify each
other, standardized responders ID, registration of different
agencies, private businesses
and weather service alerts.
They are constantly developing the system, Lutz said.
Within the last year they created a phone app that has a list
of all my messages.
AACOG pays about $80,000
a year for the region to use
the system and that takes care
of the texting and emailing
pieces. Adding on voice phone
calls is billed to the county.

Medina County pays about

$2,500 a year to have the voice
call capability.
Its a really great system
and it adds so much to our
citizens, Lutz said. So many
people have the technology
right there with them.
The commissioners supported the idea and recommended getting a plan together and implementing the program in the county.
This is something weve
got in place in Atascosa
County and have use of, said
Atascosa County Emergency
Management
Coordinator
David Prasifka. This is something Im going to promote.
This in place now, if we can
get users to sign up thats the
first thing.