City of Georgetown Texas

City of Georgetown offices and facilities will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 22, and Friday, Nov. 23, in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. There is no solid waste or recycling collection on Thanksgiving Day (details below).

City facilities and offices closed Nov. 22-23 include the following:

• Animal Shelter, 110 Walden Drive
• City Hall, 113 E. Eighth St.
• Economic Development, 809 Martin Luther King Jr. St.
• Library, 402 W. Eighth St.
• Municipal Complex, 300-1 Industrial Ave.
• Municipal Court, 101 E. Seventh St.
• Parks and Recreation Administration, 1101 N. College St.
• Planning, 406 W. Eighth St.
• Public Safety Operations and Training Center, Police Records and Fire Support Services offices, 3500 D.B. Wood Road
• Recreation Center, 1003 N. Austin Ave.
• Tennis Center, 400 Serenada Drive

Other Facility Closures

The facilities listed below will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 22, and open these hours on Friday, Nov. 23:

• Airport Terminal, 500 Terminal Drive, open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Collection Station, 250 W. L. Walden Drive, open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Garey Park, 6450 RM 2243, open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Visitors Center, 103 W. Seventh St., open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The Georgetown Public Library will close at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 21, and reopen for normal hours at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 24.

GoGeo bus service

There will be no GoGeo bus service on Thursday, Nov. 22, or Friday, Nov. 23. Buses will resume normal operation on Saturday, Nov. 24.

Solid Waste & Recycling

There will be no trash or recycling pickup for Texas Disposal Systems customers in the City of Georgetown on Thursday, Nov. 22. Solid waste collection for Thursday and Friday slides one day:

• Thursday slides to Friday
• Friday slides to Saturday

Solid waste and recycling carts should be placed at the curb by 7 a.m. on pickup day. For questions, call TDS at (512) 930-1715.

The Collection Station at 250 W. L. Walden Drive will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 22 (Thanksgiving Day), but open regular hours, which are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., on Friday, Nov. 23.

Note that the Williamson County Recycle Center at 495 CR 156, which accepts vouchers for household hazardous waste, is closed Sunday, Nov. 18 through Sunday, Nov. 25.

Celebrate the holiday season on the day after Thanksgiving at the annual Lighting of the Square event Friday, Nov. 23.  The event will be held on the east steps of the historic Williamson County Courthouse, 710 S. Main St. The festivities include entertainment from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Williamson County Judge Dan Gattis and Mayor Dale Ross will flip the switch illuminating the courthouse lights and grounds at approximately 6 p.m. The lights around the Square are supported by Georgetown Utility Systems, your community-owned utility making our city 100% renewable.

Entertainment during the Lighting of the Square will be provided by the Austin Carolers, and refreshments will be provided. Stores will be open until 8 p.m.

Visit The Williamson Museum from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and children will be able to make their own stick ribbon tree. Enjoy live music by Evelyn Billington in front of the museum. This is free and open to the public.

Williamson County Brown Santa will offer photos with Santa for a $10 donation inside the courthouse after the lighting event from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Enter the courthouse on the south side on Eighth Street.

Toy donations to Williamson County Brown Santa and the Georgetown Police Department Blue Santa are encouraged. Williamson County Brown Santa and Georgetown Blue Santa have gone paperless for applications. Both organizations will be on the Square to accept applications. More information and applications are available at www.wilcobrownsanta.com for Brown Santa or bluesanta.georgetown.org for Blue Santa.

For details on holiday events and activities in Georgetown, call the Georgetown Convention & Visitors Bureau at (512) 930-3545, or visit or VisitGeorgetown.com.

Organizers of a communitywide dinner on Thanksgiving Day are seeking volunteers and monetary donations. Community Thanksgiving will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 22. Event organizers plan to serve a traditional Thanksgiving meal, free of charge, to 500 people.

The Community Thanksgiving will be served at two Georgetown locations:

• Georgetown Community Center, 445 E. Morrow St.
• Georgetown Housing Authority – Activity Learning Center, 210-B W. 18th St.

A sit-down dinner, as well as boxed take-out meals, will be served at these locations.

Community Thanksgiving is being planned and supported by the City of Georgetown, City of Georgetown Police and Fire departments, Do Yourself a Flavor Catering, CJ’s Catering, GW Pyro, and The Salvation Army of Williamson County.

The menu for the dinner includes turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans, rolls, and sweet potatoes. Water and tea will be served.

This event is free and open to the public. There is no ticketing involved. Meals will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis at each location.

Monetary donations to help fund the event can be made to Sertoma Club of Georgetown, with “Community Thanksgiving” in the memo line.

Donations may be mailed to Sertoma Club of Georgetown, P.O. Box 1501, Georgetown, TX, 78627, or call 512-565-1613 to make arrangements for someone to pick up the donation.

In addition to monetary donations, volunteers are needed to assist with event set-up, food preparation, serving, logistics, and clean-up. If you or your organization would like to help volunteer, or if you have questions, please contact the organizing committee at gtxthanksgiving@gmail.com or signup online at bit.ly/gtxthanksgiving18.

The City of Georgetown is recruiting highly qualified and dedicated individuals to serve on one of Georgetown’s Advisory Boards or Commissions. The City Council depends on citizen board members to assist in evaluating local issues to enrich and promote the community.

Individuals interested in serving as a board member must complete an application. Resumes no longer than two pages may also be attached. Applications may be printed and submitted or completed online.

Printed applications should be mailed to:
Mayor Ross & the City Council
P.O. Box 409
Georgetown, TX 78627

The deadline to submit an application is Jan. 4. Board and Commission appointments are made in February, and new members begin serving in March.

For more information regarding the variety of boards and commissions and their roles in City government, visit georgetown.org/council-boards-agendas. Applications are available at government.georgetown.org/application-to-serve-on-a-city-board-or-commission.

For more information, contact the City Secretary’s office at (512) 930-3651.

The Williamson County Elections office has posted unofficial final results for the Proposition A street maintenance sales tax election on Nov. 6 in Georgetown. The proposition is for the reauthorization of a 0.25 percent sales tax dedicated to the maintenance of city streets in Georgetown.

These are the unofficial final results:

To see a complete Nov. 6, 2018, election results, go to wilco.org/elections.

Michael R. Bloomberg today announced Georgetown as a winner of Bloomberg Philanthropies U.S. Mayors Challenge, a yearlong competition that challenged city leaders to uncover and test bold, inventive ideas to confront the toughest problems faced by cities today.

Nine cities will receive $1 million to begin implementation on potentially breakthrough solutions to homelessness, the opioid crisis, mobility, climate change, and economic opportunity.

Georgetown was selected as a winner for their innovative approach to developing a “virtual power plant.”

Georgetown aims to lease rooftop space for solar panels and ground space for batteries from residential and commercial properties, offsetting the future need to purchase additional power from outside sources to meet growing peak power demand in this completely renewable energy-powered city.

While Georgetown is the first and largest city in Texas to secure 100 percent of its purchased power from renewable sources, there are cost uncertainty and reliability concerns related to transporting that energy over long distances. This plan will help shore up some of those uncertainties.

“Last year, the Georgetown City Council adopted a new vision statement: Georgetown: A caring community honoring our past and innovating for the future. Like all cities, we know in this radically changing world we need to be agile and innovative to remain sustainable, competitive, and resilient,” Georgetown Mayor Dale Ross said. “Bloomberg’s iterative approach helped us engage with the public in a way that dramatically improved our idea. With Bloomberg’s support, we’ve developed a model with greater community support and better financial viability. We look forward to making the ‘virtual power plant’ a reality.”

Georgetown joins Denver, CO; Durham, NC; Fort Collins, CO; Huntington, WV; Los Angeles, CA; New Rochelle, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and South Bend, IN as winners of the U.S. Mayors Challenge.

“Mayors across the country are tackling the big issues that Washington is ignoring. This competition is designed to help them do even more, by incentivizing and supporting big – and achievable – new ideas,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and three-term mayor of New York City. “Congratulations to all of the winning mayors, who represent cities large and small, in regions across the country. We look forward to seeing the results of their work — and to helping the ideas that prove most effective spread far and wide.”

The Mayors Challenge Selection Committee, co-chaired by Former Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and Former Xerox Chairman & CEO Ursula Burns, is comprised of distinguished policy experts, artists, academics, business executives, and social innovation leaders. The committee evaluated the cities applications based on their idea’s vision, potential for impact, implementation plan, and potential to spread to other cities to choose Georgetown as among the nine winning cities.

New to the Mayors Challenge this year was a 6-month “test and learn” phase where each of the 35 Champion Cities received up to $100,000 and technical assistance to test and build support for their ideas. Cities tested core components of their ideas with residents, improved and refined their proposals, and developed a plan for implementation and impact measurement.

“The process the City has undergone to test this idea is counterintuitive to how we typically work. Bloomberg’s iterative approach allowed us to present a rough outline of an idea and solicit public feedback that dramatically shifted the concept,” said Jack Daly, assistant to the City Manager of Georgetown. “This pivot helped us structure a new concept that had greater community support and better financial viability. Already the City is using the “test and learn” method in other programs like our ridesharing pilot and the update of our comprehensive plan.”

The U.S. Mayors Challenge builds on the success of previous Bloomberg Philanthropies-sponsored Challenges in the U.S. (2013), Europe (2014), and Latin America and the Caribbean (2016). Previous Mayors Challenge winners include São Paulo, Brazil with a program to increase farmers’ income and reduce urban sprawl; Barcelona, Spain for work to create digital trust networks that support at-risk elderly citizens; and Providence, RI, for a program to measure and reduce the “word gap” among low-income children during pivotal brain development years. For more information, visit mayorschallenge.bloomberg.org.

The City will host an open house meeting Oct. 29 from 4:30 to 7 p.m. in Council Chambers, 101 E. Seventh St., to discuss the results of surveys related to properties on the City’s historic resources survey and in historic overlay districts.

Individuals interested in providing feedback on the development process for historic properties can also sign up to meet with the City’s planning staff in 15-minute increments on Oct. 24 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. by emailing historic@georgetown.org.

The results of the City’s outreach efforts will be used to make informed decisions regarding what is working and any improvements that are needed to the development process related to historic properties.

For more information on the current processes, visit historic.georgetown.org.