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Residents tell council to prioritize street repairs as budget figures draw scrutiny
Summary
Multiple residents urged the Abilene City Council to prioritize street maintenance after hearing staff budget figures; speakers said neighborhood streets need major work and criticized reallocations and lack of proactive public notice.
Several residents used the public comment period to press council to make street repairs a top priority, arguing neighborhood pavement needs outpace the city’s current schedule.
Marta Hollowell, who said she has lived in Abilene for 33 years, told the council Mesquite Forest ranks near the top of the street maintenance list but that budget reallocation risks pushing the neighborhood behind other projects. "With millions of dollars coming in from the AI center and sales tax revenue, my opinion... towards street maintenance before any more capital improvement projects," Hollowell said, urging the council to address residential streets first.
At the public hearing for item 5, Tammy Fogle criticized how a proposed reduction in a line‑item was communicated and raised concerns about chapter 380 economic development agreements. "The street maintenance fee is actually the fee fund," Fogle said during her remarks, and she argued citizens were not being proactively informed when funds were redirected to growth projects like Griffith Road.
City leadership responded during the item‑5 discussion by disputing media reports of a cut from $9 million to $3 million and noting staff slides showed roughly $13.3 million in street maintenance spending this year and $15.06 million budgeted for the next year. Council then moved forward with the consent item while clarifying the street‑maintenance suggestions had not yet been formally adopted by the budget process.
