Welcome to the Milwood Neighborhood Association - Austin, Texas 78727

The annual Milwood Neighborhood Association Independence Day Parade and Picnic is tomorrow, so here are some details to keep everyone informed about what’s going on.

• The parade will begin at 10:30am at the Milwood Baptist Church parking lot. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to participate in the parade, whether you want to walk, ride, cycle, or whatever… just as long as you are in the holiday spirit. View Parade Route Map
• The parade will end at the Balcones District Park where volunteers will be grilling hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixings for everyone to enjoy.
• During the picnic we will be holding a general raffle for some great prizes donated by several local businesses. Tickets for the general raffle will be sold for 1 dollar each. Get a FREE ticket by signing in and providing the neighborhood association your email address.
• We’re still looking for volunteers to help with setup, cooking, cleanup, and a few other odds and ends. If you can spare some time to make this event a success, contact us to volunteer.

(what happens if it rains? Well… it won’t! But if it does, we’ll try to target something for Saturday July 7.)

This year July 4th will again include a general raffle with several of our fine neighborhood businesses including:

Taco Deli – free lunch for two
Bear Rock Café – Gift Certificates for Sandwiches or Salads
Gift of serenity massage certificate
Fashion Forward gift certificate
a book store certificate courtesy of The Author’s Assistant
A hardware store gift certificate courtesy of Realtor Ryan McGahey
Salsaritas gift certificates
Kolache Factory gift certificate

Coffee provided by It’s a Grind

Tickets for the general raffle will be sold for 1 dollar each. Get a FREE ticket by signing in and providing the neighborhood association your email so we can save on postage in the future!

Grand Prize –
Flag flown over the State Capitol provided by Mark Strama plus a set of multiple gift certificates provided by the above businesses.

The Grand Prize can only be won by dues paying members of the neighborhood association. Dues paying members in attendance are automatically entered in the grand prize drawing AND receive a free ticket to the general raffle!

Dues are 15 dollars a year and can be paid right here. Your support is crucial to enabling the Neighborhood Association to produce free events that help you meet your neighbors and do mailouts to all the houses in the neighborhood 4-5 times a year. We also help you have a voice downtown, and keep you informed! (and you can win the grand prize, did we mention that?)

“Dear friends,
We just made the decision and wanted you and the neighbors to be aware of it as early as possible. Our July 1st event at the Quarries will not take place this year. The rain has crippled our fields and the obvious uncertainty about the weather all the way through the weekend has forced us to make this difficult decision. We apologize for the inconvenience this may make on our neighbors who have made plans to enjoy the fireworks that evening. We will hope to have a great and “dry” event next year.”

Original note:
Hyde Park Baptist hosts a major fireworks display in NorthWest Austin, rivaling downtown to some eyes. This year it will be Sunday , July 1st. If you go to the event itself you can get free BBQ, hot dogs, funnel cakes while they last, bouncy houses for the kids that sort of thing. The event is at The Quarries. If you don’t want to go, all you have to do is go outside, you can see fairly clearly from the neighborhood. There more open view you have of the south, the better the view.

Before we posted bulk pickup would be on the 13th of July – its actually on the 23rd. At least we got the month right! Your utility closet will have to keep that stuff for an extra 10 days. Sorry, sorry….

Now that Legislature has left town and all the bills have been signed (or vetoed), our state representative Mark Strama will help us make sense of it all and tell us what we need to know. The meeting will be at the Spicewood Springs Library at 7pm on June 26. This meeting will involve other Northwest Austin neighborhoods so be early if you want a seat!

Impact News, which publishes about NW Austin happenings – had an article on Robinson Ranch worth reading. In the Cap Metro report mentioned earlier, Robinson Ranch is thumbnailed as a transit oriented development north of us at potentially equal size as the North Burnet Gateway zoning.

The interesting thing about Robinson Ranch, is information on the city site related to this project disappears after 2004. This article gives a little insight as to why: “The next step in the process is up to the Robinson family. While the land is annexed and zoned, it is not sold, and the Robinsons made it clear in their annexation agreement that they would be able to continue their current operations unhindered.”

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It’s probably close enough to mention that the next bulk pickup day for our neighborhood is July 13th. Time to figure out what that random stuff in your utility closet is!

The Austin Chronicle is working with Austin Energy to create a citywide Kill-a-Watt Challenge. Sign up and Austin Energy will compare the amount of electricity you use each month this summer (June through September) to the amount used on the premises last year. Whoever drops their energy use the most compared to last summer – proportional to what they were using to begin with – wins. There are countless ways to save electricity, from turning off the lights when you leave the room to setting your thermostat at 85 degrees when you’re away, and you can read about them (along with special tips for renters and low-income Austinites) on the Kill-a-Watt Challenge website.

There will be both monthly and overall-summer prizes for homeowners, residential renters, and businesses. Plus, Austin Energy will calculating your energy savings on a neighborhood basis with prizes at that level as well.

Visit the link above for rules, registration, tips, ongoing updates, and resources (including the Quick Guide to Free Stuff). And don’t forget to check back in mid-July, once all of June’s kilowatt data has been been tallied.