Mayor Morrison Announces He's Running for a Second Term

San Angelo Mayor Dwain Morrison announced his intention to run for another term yesterday at the San Angelo Board of Realtors (BOR) meeting. The San Angelo mayoral election is scheduled for May 9. After his announcement, the BOR gave his campaign war chest a $5,000 donation.

“We anticipate some competition there,” BOR president Max Puello said. “But we appreciate your current term serving as mayor. You have been an ambassador for San Angelo. You have set San Angelo on positive pathway,” Puello said. “You hold two principles that are near and dear to the association’s heart: Promoting home ownership and protecting private property rights,” he said.

The $5,000 political donation was made in the name of the BOR political action committee, TRE-PAC.

Before accepting the donation, Morrison delivered a spirited talk on the direction of the city, touching on questions he said were frequently asked of him .

His speech began with what Morrison explained was a tangent, and a historical look at San Angelo’s values in light of the national news from Ferguson, Missouri and New York City, “ And I do not ever want this to happen in San Angelo,” he said. “The best way to prevent it is to realize who we are and who our people are... Each and every person is a cog in 100,000 wheels… and we have to love one another,” he said.

Mentioning the recent faith-based initiatives to bring rain to the city, Morrison recounted how citizens were “strung around Concho Avenue's Block One--possibly twice--holding hands and praying to the Lord for rain…” It was successful, Morrison argued, “Until my dying day, I’m going to tell you that the rain we got over Memorial Day was no natural rain. We were blessed by gentle hand of God,” he said.

Morrison then reached back into the history of San Angelo to explain how racial and cultural differences matter not.

“In 1867 black soldiers were at Fort Concho. And across the river there was this settlement that was 50 percent Mexican and 50 percent Anglo. And they were the sorriest group of people ever assembled,” he said. But, mutual respect for the things each of them brought to the community kept the society together back then, he said.

In the 1950s, the San Angelo school system desegregated before it was told to. “There were no National Guard troops,” he said.

In 1955, the late Ben Kelly, a black man, was allowed to play football for San Angelo College, Morrision reminded the audience.

“That is San Angelo, the kind of people we are. We need to love each other, respect each other, and care for each other,” he said.

“What that mayor did in New York City to the NYPD was the most horrible thing,” he said. Morrison said he didn’t want or expect something like that to happen here.

The mayor then told the Realtors why the City of San Angelo is in good shape, touching on several hot issues.

Water

The water department has a new director. The Hickory water is 95 percent complete. He expects a mid-February completion date. “Some electrical work still needs to be done,” he said.  When the Hickory is completely online, it will provide six million gallons of water per day capacity, and when all six wells done, the capacity increases to nine million gallons per day. “The treatment facility will take out all the lead and radon, and it will be the best water that you can buy,” Morrison promised. However, since the City is charged for the use of the Ivie Reservoir water whether the city uses the water or not, the City will continue to use the Ivie supply first and Hickory will be backup.

Morrison said that the council is moving ahead with wastewater reclamation, just like Big Spring and Wichita Falls are currently doing. The city has contracted with an engineering company to study wastewater and will inform the city by mid-year how to proceed. “Within five years, we’re going to be drinking [treated] wastewater,” Morrison said.

The proposed Red Arroyo project could net the city 5000 acre-feet of water. “If it is feasible, this will account to a third of our water supply.” But, Morrison said, the highest estimate on building the entrapments for the Red Arroyo is $50 million. If the economics make sense, the city will likely proceed with this project, he said.

Streets

The mayor initiated his discussion about the state of the city streets by explaining what happened with last year’s seal coating contract and why the failed project hasn’t yet been fixed. “They did it wrong, we told ‘em to fix it. We mediated it, they didn’t fix it, and I guess we’ll have to go to the courthouse,” he said, Then, mentioning that he was reprimanded by city staff for mentioning the courthouse at an earlier speech, he offered a more subtle phrase: “We have hired a specialized group of lawyers to explore options that will be best for the citizens and the City of San Angelo,” he said. Under his breath, he quipped, “I’d rather be at the courthouse.”

On a broader plan to fix city streets, Morrison defended the council’s hiring of an engineering firm to conduct a study before proceeding. “Normally I do not go for these engineering studies of our streets, but I did vote for and I approve of the study that we just authorized for our streets,” he said.  "Some of the streets need a mill overlay, and some of them need to be completely torn-out and re-constructed," he said. “But there’s a considerable difference [in cost] between a mill overlay on this side of the scale, it’s relatively inexpensive; and the total reconstruction of the street on this side of the scale that's extremely expensive.”

“By hiring an engineering firm to come in with very specialized equipment, and they will ride every mile of our streets, and [shoot] lasers through these streets and give us a report of which streets need a mill and overlay, which streets need to be resurfaced, and which streets need to be completely and totally reconstructed,” he said.

“And yes. Bell Street is at the very top of that list,” Morrison said to chuckles from the crowd, as the condition of Bell Street is always held up as an example of the city's streets.

The mayor estimates the city will need to borrow money to accomplish the street repairs program. “It’s a $150 million project,” he said.

This year, the city upped the amount that the city is dedicating to the streets fund. In the past, the council was putting in $1 million to $1.2 million for streets. This year, that number jumped to $4 million per year.

Morrision promised there is a plan in place, and every eight years, the city will refurbish and repair the streets in the city,

In addition, the city now has a crew dedicated to street repair. “There is plan to fix our streets,” he stressed.

Planning Department

“There have been some inconsistencies. We have a new director with explicit instructions that he is to clean it up and make it more consumer-friendly," Morrison said. The Realtors applauded

Police Headquarters.

“The building is falling down. We’ve got to do something. But we’re not going to build a Taj Mahal,” he said.

Options the council is exploring are refurbishing the existing building, finding an existing building that can be repurposed, or combining law enforcement from the county and the city into one facility.

“There are all sorts of options we can do and we have feelers out in every direction, “ he said.

Paying for a new police headquarters building may come to a bond issue, he said.

The mayor also mentioned that the council approved $13.5 million to be spent primarily on upgrades for emergency services, from a new fire station to a radio communications overhaul for police and fire departments.

"When the $13.5 million bond was approved, the city also refinanced a whole bunch of debt," he said. “We’re saving $82,000 per month by lowering the interest rates. The city’s bond rating is the highest that it can be, because we’ve taken care of business...our debt ratio is low, our credit rating is high, and that allowed us to refinance...so we’re saving $82,000 per month on our debt,” Morrison said.

Trash

“We signed this contract on Aug. 1 and on Aug 1^st, they [Republic Services] told us it will take about nine months to implement,” he said.  “I talked to Robert Searls yesterday, Searls is one of the big shots out at Trashaway, and I asked ‘where are you? You promised us education. You promised us that you would give us information and tell us about this system so that we would know what to do and when to do it. When is this education going to start? And Searls said, ‘Friday'," Morrison said.

The challenge is the recycling schedule, knowing what to recycle, and when the trash is picked up versus when the recycling is picked up.

”Republic is meeting with the city Friday (today) to map out what should be done, what kind of advertising should be done, where to advertise. And he said there will be a massive advertising campaign going out April or March to let people know how to put out your trash,” Morrison said.

 “Republic will have this full trash service in operation by May,” Morrison said. “They promised us an advertising campaign on the radio, on the television, on the Standard-Times, San Angelo LIVE! and wherever else.”