Joan Hollier, Freelance Writer

Joan "Jo" Hollier is yet another immigrant to Georgetown. She spent most of her life in Louisiana's Cajun country (her name is pronounced Jo-ann O-lee-ay) with occasional stints in Latin America while her husband worked as a petroleum engineer for Conoco. Retired from a career teaching high school English, Jo has taken up writing various freelance articles, mostly for Georgetown's twice-weekly newspaper, The Williamson County Sun.

Having moved to Georgetown almost a decade before this recent growth spurt began, Ms. Hollier is one of the most outspoken critics of Georgetown's lack of growth planning and control. The town still has only one post office, which now services enough people that she typically has to wait in line behind at least ten other people. She believes the city will continue to expand westward for some time, since the land on that side isn't really good for agriculture. At the same time, there is a small movement to rebuild the older neighborhoods for Georgetown's poorer residents, but Habitat for Humanity is drawing a lot of criticism for building multiple low-income houses in the same neighborhoods.

The black community, according to Ms. Hollier, is "up at arms" over a plan to expand the criminal justice center into their neighborhood, while the library "desperately needs to expand" but can't. Sun City residents voted down an expansion of the current downtown library, and the city doesn't want to tackle the difficulty of building a branch. "So for every book they buy, they have to throw one away."