Thoughts on Victoria, anyone from there? Married, no kids, my company might have an opening there in the next year or so. Seems like high crime compared to other towns the same size, any general comments welcomed...

Great community, lots of old money (which means that the non-profits are well funded). It's a good place for an outdoors-type of person with access to good hunting and fishing all year 'round. A majority of the religous-types are Catholic, but there are churches of every major denomination represented; including a Jewish temple and a Muslim Mosque.

Housing costs are low and there are some nice public and private schools (should you chose to have children). Taxes are low, the majority of the people are Democrats, and there isn't much traffic to speak of (except for the "rush half hours" between 7:30am-8:00am and 5:00pm-5:30pm).

It's pretty easy to get plugged into the community if you feel so inclined, with volunteer opportunities all over the place. There is a plethora of organizations under the umbrella of the Chamber of Commerce, including the Young Professionals, Keep Victoria Beautiful, etc. that one can find a network of friends.

Night life is nothing spectacular, but you can find a niche. You can hit up Scorboard for monday night football, the softball fields on tuesday for company-league games, Greek Bros. on Wednesday, Earnie's Place for biker night on Thursday, 205 Bar for martinis on Friday and cut a rug at Schroeder Hall on Saturday.

Some of the big events in town are the Jazz Festival, the Bach Festival, Corporate Cup, and all the major holidays.

As for the crime, that type of activity stays mostly in the south part of town. Victoria is on THE major drug pipeline from Mexico and the resulting gang activity is to be expected. The Sheriff has made some drastic steps to curb this activity and get those responsible for violent drug crime behind bars. I sit on the board of Crime Stoppers and work closely with the DA, the chief of police, the Sheriff, and members of various task forces and they are constantly upping efforts to tackle our problems.

Hope to see you around town!

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Everything Opie said is true.

Read this thread for more info:

http://www.texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=710413&forum_id=44

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