Murphy Fire Chief Mark Lee does more than put out fires in and out of the office. While working on getting his Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Texas and serving as chief, Lee also works as part of a team to bring an emergency preparedness class to Murphy.
With multiple decades of firer-fighting experience under his belt, Lee joined the Murphy department in 2006 as assistant chief. Now as chief, he said even though riding the fire trucks was more fun, he learned the new challenges of administration.
One of his latest projects is working with a team to start a Community Emergency Response Team trained in disaster preparedness. This team will take classes to learn about basic skills in first aid, search and rescue and disaster readiness in case of emergency.
Because Murphy is a one fire station town, the fire truck and ambulance can only answer one call at a time. Typically other stations from surrounding areas send assistance whenever needed, Lee said. But when Murphy is affected by a disaster such as a tornado or sever storm, the towns around who work with the department and provide mutual aid, cannot send help because their area has been affected too. This emergency response team will be trained in what to do until help does arrive. Lee said he hopes to begin classes in October.
“We hope we never have a live event for them to respond to in the sense of a disaster,” Lee said.
This team will also be trained in search and rescue for situations such as a missing person or child. This team will help the fire fighters in a prolonged accident, he said.
The team will be called in for various emergencies where large numbers of people are needed, but they can also be called to aid the fire department when fighting a prolonged fire. The team will be asked to provide rehab supplies. Lee said they’d like to have somebody to bring in water, ice cold wet towels and other supplies to help keep the fire fighters from becoming dehydrated since putting out a fire is very taxing on the body.
“Murphy is a community in every sense of the word,” Lee said. “People tend to be very involved in their neighborhoods and their town. Most of the people here are of the giving spirit and like to help.”
Maize Days was the topic of the August 12 Community Events committee meeting. The group spent over two hours hammering out details of the September 25 event.
The committee plans to bring a variety of events to the festival for adults and children of all ages. The first event of the day will be the Murphy Maize Days A-Maize-ing 5K Run at 8:15 a.m.
The largest part of the event will be the kids’ zone. Over 175,000 square feet will be designed for children and teens. Attractions will include face painting, pottery painting, a rock climbing wall, a video games truck and more for free or at a small fee.
“We’re going to have a rocking kid zone,” said committee member Barbra Dube.
The committee chose to not have a car show at this year’s event because the show would not be located in a convenient location in relation to the festival. Even with shuttles running back and forth between the potential locations of the show, this would not add to the festival other than adding something adults will be interest in going to, members said.
Instead of just cutting the car show, the committee decided to approach car dealerships to ask if they would display some of their new cars. This will still give adults a chance to look at cars, but the city will not be out $600 for fees and trophies.
Maize Days will also feature Karaoke Corn Idol, corn spitting and scarecrow decorating contests, and a corn cook-off with cash prizes awarded to winners.
The committee will be getting a bin from the North Texas Food Bank and will be accepting canned food donations before and during the event. Various venders will be selling food and goods at the festival. The committee said they are still accepting applications for venders.
For festival-goers’ entertainment, bands Hard Country, Zane Williams and Eleven Hundred Springs will perform at 3 p.m., 4:15 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. respectively.
At the city’s June 15 Parks Board meeting, the board discussed policies for community rooms, renovations for the old Murphy School and possible plans for Maxwell Creek.
Current policies regarding use of community rooms in city buildings work on a first come, first serve basis free of charge. With the policy changes, the city will require Murphy residents to fill out a pre-inspection form and sometimes place a refundable $100 deposit. The deposit may only be applied for events city staff members deem necessary, such as when food, drinks or messy crafts are involved in the groups’ plans.
Before a group uses the space, they will be required to complete a pre-inspection form for the room. This will allow people to document any previous damage done keeping them from being charged for the harm. Although there were concerns of people completing the forms after their event and claiming the damage done was present before their event, board member Cary Walker said they must go on the honor system; though this system is not perfect, he said it is the best they have.
The new policies will only allow a group to reserve a room twice a week. Reservations will be done by the group rather than the individual, stopping one organization from reserving the space for several days preventing other groups’ ability to use the space.
The motion carried unanimously to recommend the plan as proposed to city council.
The board plans to turn the old Murphy School building into a community center. Preserving the building’s historical character, the city plans to restore and expand the building providing meeting spaces for local residents.
The building will include four meeting rooms, two of which will share a moveable partition making the rooms larger and a gymnasium with bleachers and a stage. Each room will hold 12 to 22 people and the gym will hold 222 to 500, room capacities vary depending if guests are standing or seated.
There will be a kitchen for use in one meeting room, but there will be no swimming pool, workout or athletic equipment. This building will become a community center and a gathering place not a recreation center, Walker said.
The reconstruction will be done in an eco-friendly way because it will reduce long term costs and will fix original parts of the building in good shape to help cut costs. The total project cost is $3.25 million.
The board passed this proposal with a unanimous vote to be presented to the 4B committee the following evening.
Brian Jones spoke about his plan to build secondary trails to Maxwell Creek. The new trail would begin at the existing nature trail and extend closer toward the creek. Most parts of the trail would be about five feet above the actual creek, but board members worry during heavy rains the trail will become flooded and erode.
Signage may be placed along the trail informing people of the potential dangers present after and during rain.
In order to create this trail, Jones is looking for volunteers and said he has already discussed working with Boy and Girl Scout troupes and Murphy Middle School classes to build and maintain the area. Jones said he is looking into other groups for support as well.
This item was proposed to send to City Council as it is in July and carried unanimously.
The next meeting of the Parks Board will be July 20th at 6:30 p.m.
On June 16, the Murphy Community Development Corporation’s 4B members met to discuss budget plans for various projects in the city and for the fiscal years 2010 and 2011.
Linda Truitt, city director of finance, discussed the FY2010 budget amendments to fund projects for this year. At the end of FY 2009, $59,000 was spent for unexpendable promotional expenses when only $10,800 was budgeted. Adjustments included increases to the unexpended promotional budget, the capitol, and conceptual master plan for municipal complex for a total increase of $116,000.
These budget changes will have an effect on events groups seeking unexpendable promotional money from the board, but this will be included in the budget for FY2011.
Kim Lenoir spoke to the board about the plans for the old Murphy School Community Center. After reviewing the plans and request of the citizens, the committee discussed the budget for the project.
The project will require $2.5 million to complete the renovation of the building, but is short an additional $500,000 for furniture and fixtures. “The bottom line is we can get this building done for what we have,” Lenoir said.
The additional money needed would go towards furniture, fixtures, extra parking spaces and an additional room. The plans will soon be presented to City Council.
Truitt then presented the changes to the FY2011 budget. The main changes will be to travel and training, promotional expenses and consulting fees.
4B president Cary Walker asked for a contingency for consulting fees. He said he would feel comfortable cutting the $8,000 in half for travel and training costs and putting $4,000 towards consulting. Because the city has already limited the number of people who go away for training and conventions, the cost is already limited. He said he thinks this is working.
After this meeting, the board chose to change their meetings to the third Wednesday of every other month at 6:30 p.m. and whenever needed.
At the May 24 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, Heather Rimmer, Denton division director of real estate for Aldi Inc. and Bryan Burger, civil engineer from Lawrence A. Cates & Associates working for Aldi Inc. appeared before the committee seeking approval for a specific use permit to build a new grocery store. After discussing the location, design and appearance of the loading dock, the original motion carried with a 3-1 vote.
The proposal will allow Aldi Inc. to build a store in the block A, lot one of the purposed Murphy Plaza addition on West FM 544 and West of North Murphy Road. The 16,657 square foot grocery store meets all requirements of the board.
Gus Delaloy, Murphy resident, approached the committee to speak about what impression the Aldi grocery stores have made on himself and his family. He would like to see this business here rather than in further down FM 544 in Wylie.
The main point of concern brought up to Rimmer and Burger about the project was the appearance of the loading dock. With this plan, the dock will be facing the parking lot in plain sight of customers in the shopping plaza. Council chairman Kelly Smith said this is “a bit of an issue” for him. Burger said in order to make the prototype of the store work, this dock must be in plain sight. There will be landscaping around the area to help block sight of the dock. It cannot be moved to face the north because the retailers on the store’s north side may be using the parking lot area needed for the semi trucks to enter. The interior of the dock will be built to match the rest of the building, he said.
“You can match the brick, you can match the paint, a loading dock is a loading dock and they’re still ugly,” Smith said.
The committee asked about adding a gate to the dock as a way of hiding it. Burger and Rimmer both said a fence will be ineffective since many times store management will leave it open causing it to become damaged. After discussing different options for the loading dock’s design, the committee moved to keep the case as submitted and carried. Aldi Inc. will appear on June 21 City Council agenda.
Alexandra Pedrini is a 2010 summer intern for the Murphy Messenger.
joined the Murphy department in 2006 as assistant chief. Now as chief, he said even though riding the fire trucks was more fun, he learned the new challenges of administration.
printer version
The committee plans to bring a variety of events to the festival for adults and children of all ages. The first event of the day will be the Murphy Maize Days A-Maize-ing 5K Run at 8:15 a.m.