By KIM ESTES, Four Points News

Recent predatory attacks on family pets and reports of wild animals seen in the area have created a greater sense of vulnerability in Four Points and Steiner Ranch especially.

While this once rural setting continues to develop as a suburban retreat, residents wonder what wildlife is being displaced, what is actually adapting, and what protective measures should be taken.

Bobcat

Jacob Hetzel, a Texas Wildlife Services wildlife biologist, says known wild animals in Steiner Ranch include coyotes, gray fox, raccoons, skunks and ringtail cats. “Most likely,” he adds, “there are bobcats too.”

The most recent concern of residents, mountain lions, is not on the list.

Last month, a violent attack on a Welsh corgi in her family’s Hills of West Ridge backyard had some indicators similar to the work of a large cat. However, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wildlife biologist, Blake Hendon, said last week it is unlikely TPWD will be able to identify the specific type of predator responsible for the pet’s death.

Mountain Lion

“Is there a possibility that there are mountain lions here? I think it is highly unlikely,” TWS’s Hetzel says, “but anything is possible.”

The TWS office gets 12 to 15 reports a year of mountain lions in Travis County. None have been confirmed.

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By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News

A District 6 Candidate Runoff Forum featuring Austin City Council candidates Don Zimmerman and Jimmy Flannigan took place a couple of weeks ago in Four Points. The candidates hashed out the issues in anticipation of gaining more votes for the runoff election.

Early voting started last week and Dec. 16 is voting day for runoffs.

Election results in November showed that Zimmerman received 24.21 percent of the vote and Flannigan received 24.05 percent.

About 35 people attended the forum on Nov. 18 which was held at Austin Baptist Church and sponsored by the Four Points Chamber of Commerce.

“It went great. It covered a lot of issues relevant in Four Points and beyond,” said Brian Thompto, Steiner Ranch Neighborhood Association chairman.

The SRNA Facebook page has a link to the video of the forum including the questions asked by local residents at: www.facebook.com/Steiner.Ranch.Neighborhood.Association

Questions were submitted beforehand via email and during the event to a panel which included Scott Crosby, head of the River Place HOA, and Tiffany Speaks, Four Points business owner including Trails at 620 and Moviehouse & Eatery.

Paul O’Brien moderated the event. He is a Steiner Ranch resident, chief marketing officer of MicroVentures and author of the Steiner Ranch Post.

The issues at the recent forum revolved around traffic, transportation, utilities and development.

This is the first Austin City Council election with geographic representation. Four Points now has representation in District 6, which sprawls from Brushy Creek near Round Rock and Cedar Park in the north, southward through Anderson Mill and the surrounding commercial areas, all the way down a corridor to Bee Caves Road. It includes all or portions of River Place, Grandview Hills, Comanche Trail, homes in Steiner Ranch within 100 feet of Lake Austin, and older areas outside and nearby Steiner Ranch including south of Selma Hughes Park Road.

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By SCOTT W. COLEMAN, Four Points News

The District 17-5A champion Temple Wildcats blew through the competition in a geographically monstrous district that includes teams from Waco, College Station and Pflugerville, winning by an average of more than 30 points a game.

Though the margin of victory has dropped in the postseason, the Wildcats have continued to show that they can pass when they need (442 yards against Waco University and 377 against Ridge Point in a third-round playoff game) and run when the game plan calls for it (449 yards against Pflugerville Connally and 511 against A&M Consolidated).

For Vandegrift, the offense has been consistently among the best in Central Texas. It’s the defense that has grown and matured throughout the season and the Viper defense is playing its best in the postseason.

“Our defense has completely changed these last three weeks,” said Vipers head coach Drew Sanders.

The Viper defense has been opportunistic, winning the turnover battle this postseason. It has also been resilient, holding opponents on several fourth-down attempts, including several in deep Vandegrift territory. That improvement has been crucial to the postseason campaign. Now, just one win away from competing for a state championship, this Saturday’s game will be the biggest in school history. And the Vipers will need to play their best game yet.

Photo by Scott W. Coleman

By SCOTT W. COLEMAN, Four Points News

Senior quarterback Jamie Hudson threw for 416 yards and 5 touchdowns to lead the Vandegrift Vipers past Austin LBJ on Saturday afternoon and into the Class 5A, Division I state semifinals where the Vipers will meet Temple this Saturday at the Alamodome.

Hudson accounted for a total of 524 yards of Vandegrift’s 613 total yards of offensive production in the biggest win yet in the school’s brief history.

Photo by Scott W. Coleman

But it was the defense, yet again, that made the difference in a tough contest against the Jaguars, who were driven by the memory of a former player who lost his life in a tragic accident just before the postseason began.

“I can’t say enough about how impressed I am with our team, and especially our senior leadership,” said Vipers head coach Drew Sanders. “We had multiple big fourth down stops and consistently stopped them in the third quarter when our offense was struggling.”

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By SARAH DOOLITTLE, Four Points News

Four Canyon Ridge Middle School parents attended the Leander ISD School Board meeting Thursday to protest the contents of the seventh-grade LifeGuard sex education presentation. Additionally, parents were angry that an opt-out letter sent to parents, as well as the preview materials available in the CRMS library, did not accurately reflect the presentation’s contents.

Sex education presentations were to have begun at CRMS on December 4 and have now been postponed.

Veronica Sopher, LISD spokesperson, says that, for now, “We sent out a communication to our parents letting them know that there was an error in the materials that were made available to parents and the materials that were being presented, that they did not align. And that was an oversight. We apologized in the letter and we told parents that we would be delaying the presentations until we could look into it a bit further.”

Parents at the school board meeting were especially concerned that the presentation includes one slide that defines different types of sexual activity.

More than that, parents alleged that the District deliberately misled parents about the presentation in their opt-out letter, made available on the District website. The letter did not indicate that graphic definitions of sexual behaviors would be presented. The letter did indicate that the curriculum is abstinence-based, which it is.

Additionally, preview materials made available to parents in the library were out-of-date and did not include the slide in question.

Cindy Yates, who attended the meeting with her husband Mo, said that, “If they think this is the education that’s needed, stand up and say it. Give us the correct materials to look at. Give the correct opt-out program to look at. And say this is the studies, this is what’s going on in our schools, this is what we’re going to teach you. That’s not what they did.”

Mo added that, “Whether it was was malicious or whether it’s incompetence, neither of them are particularly acceptable.”

LifeGuard presentation is widely used

The LifeGuard presentation has been used in LISD for nine years, and the slide of sexual definitions was added approximately four years ago, according to Corey Tabor, Director of Austin LifeGuard, the organization that contracts with LISD to teach sex education.

He said the slide was added because, “For medical and legal accuracy, we need to define sex.”

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