The Lewisville Civic Club is hosting a Candidate’s Forum on October 20, 2005 from 7:30 – 10:00 p.m. at the Lewisville Elementary School auditorium.

Click here to see the candidate bios (PDF) and informational flyer about the event.

Lewisville is a great little town to live in and although we’ve only lived here for 16 months we are very interested in helping it stay that way. As with most communities Lewisville is facing significant changes in the coming years and the leaders we select now will have a large impact on the direction that change takes.

On Saturday Celeste and I attended a dinner hosted by the Mayor for the town’s volunteer community (members of various boards and committees) and we definitely had the sense that the town has a lot of people who have lived here most of their lives and have seen it grow from a rural, agricultural community into a bedroom community for Winston-Salem.  Now they are faced with the inevitable development of becoming a full-fledged suburb of the city.

Having grown up in the Northern Virginia area Celeste and I saw first hand what happens when areas grow in a haphazard and uncontrolled fashion.  Sprawl, traffic and a general degradation of quality of life.  That’s one of the things that prompted us to move to Lewisville and that’s why we don’t want the same thing to happen here.

But change happens and the only thing we can do is decide how change happens.  As much as some people might like to keep everything as-is, it just doesn’t work that way.  If I’m in town on the 20th I plan on attending the meeting to find out which candidates understand controlled growth and how to build a sustainable community and those are the folks I plan on voting for.

Specifically I think we need to concentrate on developing a mixed-use town square, with green space, shopping areas that can be easily accessed on foot and homes on smaller lots (cluster homes maybe).  Mixed use will broaden the towns tax base, give residents an option for shopping without having to hop in their cars, and build on the activities being held in Shallowford Square.

Quick aside: Events like the free Friday night movies in Shallowford Square (next one is School of Rock on October, 15), and the free theater productions put on in the square are a great family activity.  Definitely a jewel in the town’s crown…here’s a schedule of events.

Something else I’d like to see is for us to embrace the bicycling community.  We literally have dozens (maybe even hundreds) of visitors from outside the town who drive in, park their cars and then ride the bike routes on roads throughout Lewisville.  Why not capture some of that energy by hosting special events to attract them and perhaps even contribute a few dollars to Lewisville’s coffers?

Okay, I could go on and on, but I won’t.  What I will do is get more involved, starting on the 20th.