Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Downtown business owners and East Side residents press Wichita Falls council over youth outreach, TIF and drainage
Loading...
Summary
Multiple residents urged the Wichita Falls City Council to address downtown public‑safety incidents they attribute to an unsupervised youth outreach program, while others pressed for East Side development, drainage fixes and equitable use of TIF and federal Justice40 funding; staff said drainage planning and funding take time and are under review.
Wichita Falls — In public comment at the City Council's April 21 meeting, residents and community leaders pressed elected officials to address two recurring concerns: downtown public‑safety problems that some attributed to a youth outreach program, and longstanding development and drainage needs in East Side neighborhoods.
Amanda Grace, a downtown resident and business community member, said a program intended to help youth — described in testimony as the "Straight Street" program — is operating under policies that in practice allow juveniles to move unsupervised through the downtown area late at night. Grace told council she observed about 20 children in downtown alleys around 11:30 p.m. last Friday and said business owners report vandalism, loitering, fences and windows damaged and tampered doors. "A youth program should not create a situation where minors are effectively released into downtown without supervision or accountability," she said.
Crystal Washington, speaking later during citizen comments, linked the downtown concerns to broader East Side development issues and alleged long‑running discrimination affecting neighborhood redevelopment and access to drainage improvements. She asked council to prioritize removing flood‑zone designations that limit development on the East Side and to use tax increment finance (TIF) and other funds to address drainage and infrastructure there. "We want y’all to take us out the flood zone so that we can develop," she said, calling for transparency and follow‑through on previously promised repairs.
A separate speaker outlined how the federal Justice40 framework (signed in 2021) can sometimes increase funding leverage — for example, moving a typical 75/25 match to a 90/10 match for higher‑need communities with a low social vulnerability index (SVI) score — and suggested the city consider matching and interfund loans to maximize the available pool for East Side projects.
City staff responded to drainage concerns: staff said the city has already identified drainage needs, is reviewing the master plan with a contracted engineering firm and is considering whether an overall plan update or targeted projects are appropriate. Staff cautioned that state and federal funding processes can be time‑consuming and depend on cost‑benefit analyses and scoring thresholds used by funding agencies. "It does take time," staff told residents during the meeting, acknowledging the urgency but noting procedural and financing constraints.
Council did not take policy action on these public comments during the meeting; staff said they would continue reviewing drainage approaches as part of the upcoming budget work and indicated options for TIF or grant matching were under consideration.
What's next: staff said drainage planning work will continue with the engineering firm and that council and staff will evaluate funding strategies ahead of the next budget cycle; no binding commitments to rezone flood areas or reallocate TIF funds were made at the meeting.
