Twenty Peaceful Minutes

Welcome to Twenty Peaceful Minutes (20PM) - a community website for Forney, Texas. In addition to this blog, 20PM is home to the Forney discussion forums, which you may reach by clicking the Forney discussion forum link or going to http://20pm.net/forums; also, considering signing up for email or newsreader (RSS feed) notifications of new posts to the 20PM blog!

I have an alert service that lets me know when pretty much any news hits the ‘net with the word “Forney” in it, and it catches a lot of random things - local students winning scholarships, news about athletes that attended Forney High School, etc. I used to just ignore it, but I thought it’d be cool to pass some of it on and give these students and other local residents that are mentioned in these articles some kudos.

So when an article from the Denton Record-Chronicle went online this afternoon about the upcoming North Texas Battle of the Bands sponsored by UNT, the Denton Record-Chronicle, Texas Music Project and Lone State Attitude, I thought I’d let everyone know that after voting by readers of the Denton Record-Chronicle paper and website as well as judging by other judges, a band from here in Forney has been named one of the six finalists.

The finalists will perform at the North Texas Battle of the Bands, to be held this coming Friday at 7PM at the Murchison Performing Arts Center at the University of North Texas.

The Forney band competing in the contest on Friday is called Stalled - I’m not familiar with them, but the Denton Record-Chronicle article says all five members of the band are freshmen at Forney High School. According to the band’s website and the newspaper article, the band is comprised of Nick Rothouse on vocals, Garrett Jensen on drums, Ken Patterson on lead guitar, Caleb Trotter on rhythm guitar and Jacob Wikoff on bass. All five members are freshmen at Forney High School, who formed the group in December 2006 and released their first CD in June 2007. They’ve already won a number of contests, including the national Virgin Megastores Battle of the Bands in October 2007. Here’s a link to their MySpace page as well as their OurStage.com fan club website.
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• Forney North High School Groundbreaking Ceremony This Monday

  Monday, November 5th from 5:30 to 6PM, Forney ISD is holding a groundbreaking ceremony at Forney North...

• Forney ISD School Board Moving to Place Bond for 2nd High School on May Ballot

  In what became a 3+ hour meeting with a record-breaking turnout of 90-100 members of the public...

• Forney High School #2 Virtual Tour & Sketches Available

  Forney ISD has posted sketches and a virtual tour created by the architect designing Forney ISD's new,...

Forney residents currently driving to Mesquite, Dallas and Rockwall for their medical needs will soon have a hometown hospital right here in Forney to serve their needs, at the intersection of FM-548 & Rogers Parkway. Indeed, Cirrus Health officials expect the Forney Regional Medical Center to attract patients from throughout East Texas.

In a groundbreaking ceremony today attended by local and state dignitaries such as Forney Mayor Darrell Grooms, much of the Forney City Council and the Forney Economic Development Corporation and State Representative Betty Brown (as well as Forney local, Wade Gent, who is challenging Brown in the Republican Primary), Cirrus Health unveiled the floor plan and a virtual tour of the facility. In addition, in a moving ceremony, Cirrus Health announced that the ‘House Call’ playground that will be located on the hospital’s property is being dedicated to and named after Dr. Christine Walker who, until her retirement in May of 2007, practiced medicine in Forney for a number of decades and delivered approximately 500 Forney babies!

The 102,000 square foot hospital will include an emergency room, an obstetric unit with four labor and delivery rooms, two procedure rooms, four operating rooms, a heart cath lab and an initial capacity of 40 beds. Dr. Ira Korman, Senior Vice President of Cirrus Health, assured attendees of the groundbreaking ceremony that the virtual tour was an accurate representation of what the finished hospital will look like, right down to the sofas, chairs and beds. For more about the groundbreaking and this beautiful facility, and information on how to view the virtual tour yourself, click ‘Read On’, below…
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• Forney Regional Medical Center & Forney Medical Plaza Update

  This past Friday, Cirrus Health announced that the land on which Forney Regional Medical Center will be...

• Hospital in Forney - Summer 2008

  Sorry it's been a while since I've posted any news; I've actually been in the process of...

• Forney North High School Groundbreaking Ceremony This Monday

  Monday, November 5th from 5:30 to 6PM, Forney ISD is holding a groundbreaking ceremony at Forney North...

It’s a fairly unknown fact that Forney was originally called Brooklyn, which is no doubt is the origin for the name for a new proposed development just outside of Forney’s city limits at the intersection of FM-548 and Reeder Lane, just north of Wal-Mart. This development will be within Brooklyn Crossing Municipal Utility District (MUD) No. 1, the creation of which was authorized by the City Council on January 9, 2008. The problem most local city, county and school officials have with this MUD is simple - it was authorized by the Dallas City Council.

Sure enough, records show that on January 9th, as part of the consent agenda - meaning there was no debate or even discussion on the topic - the Dallas City Council authorized the creation of this MUD. The developer, Jay Woomer, and his company B C Partners, utilized another little-known fact - the City of Dallas owns Lake Ray Hubbard, giving them extraterrestrial jurisdiction in limited cases within about 5 miles of the lake. The parcel of land Mr. Woomer wants to develop happens to lie in just the right spot - mere feet north of Forney’s city limits - that he was able to completely bypass the City of Forney and all of Kaufman County and go to an unusual place for the approval of this development - the Dallas City Council. While some ire has been directed at Dallas, as the agenda and minutes for their meeting when they approved this item state, this development has “No cost consideration to the City”.

The cost to Forney and to Kaufman County, however, could be great, because this proposed development includes about 430 apartments, 200 townhomes, 16 acres of “commercial services”, and about 30 acres to be used for a gas station and other retail. Even though this land is located in the Dallas ETJ and would be located within this developer-created MUD, it would depend on the Forney Fire Department, the Forney Independent School District and the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office for its services. The site plan for the development appears below - clicking the image displays a larger, more legible version.

Surely if you were going to place this large of a burden on a city and a county, you’d work with them to plan this development for your mutual benefit, right? Not in this case, apparently. Click ‘Read On’ for more twists in the story behind this planned development, including a drawing of the proposed layout of the development.
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• Random Forney Development News

  As much as I hate to admit it, the Aggies manage to do something I find useful...

• Plantation Plaza - New Retail Development in Forney

  Forney's Planning & Zoning committee recently discussed a new retail development, a 0.6 acre lot west of...

• City of Forney Hosting Retirement Reception for City Secretary, Odessa Moore

  The City of Forney will be hosting a retirement reception this coming Sunday, March 30th for Odessa...

On February 4th, investigators from the Kaufman County sheriff’s office were attempting to locate Brian Edward Manning Jr. due to outstanding felony warrants. They had staked out a location on County Road 3702 in southern Hunt county where they had learned Mr. Manning had been staying. While they were watching the location, another tip was received that Mr. Manning was aware that they were closing in on him. The officers decided to approach the location in an attempt to apprehend Mr. Manning before he could flee the scene - to read the rest of the story and find out what happened, click “Read On”, below.
(Update: On Tuesday, February 12, Brian E. Manning was captured without incident by the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff’s Office is currently seeking indictments for an additional 17 counts of burglary.)
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• Sheriff’s Office Shuts Down Vehicle Burglary Ring

  Reminds Citizens Not to Leave Valuables in Automobiles Thirteen victims suffered losses totaling $20,000 when their vehicles...

• Are You Registered to Vote? Kaufman County Tax Office Gets Inundated with Registrar Applicants

  Kaufman County Tax Office Gets Inundated with Registrar Applicants Are you registered to Vote? April 12th is...

• Kaufman County Primary Results - 42 of 42 Precincts Reporting

  I'll update this post as additional votes are tallied, and provide some commentary tomorrow, as well. UPDATE...