Saving San Angelo Roads: A Rocky Road Ahead

*Note: The names of the residents have been kept anonymous.

SAN ANGELO, TX – The City of San Angelo is busy concentrating its efforts on the recent reconstruction projects in San Angelo, most notably, Bell Street; however, the City has quietly been working on preserving residential roads across the city, and some residents are not too thrilled.

Residents who have raised concerns after "seeing what the city calls preservation of the streets," live in neighborhoods surrounding Cox Road, Nevada Drive and the Bentwood area. This new preservation process promises to keep streets preserved to last longer than the normal hot mixed asphalt currently used to construct city streets. The new process, Shane Kelton, City of San Angelo’s Operations Director, said, is called a seal coat process.

A seal coat process requires the city to pour a thin coat of asphalt over the existing pavement and then cover it with a coat of rocks.

Yet, the new preservation process has caused residents some hardships and has raised questions directed towards city officials on whether this new preservation process does more harm than good. Some residents claim that streets no longer allow them, or their pets, to walk on their neighborhood streets without rocks piercing through their shoes and family pets having small rocks embed themselves into their paws. Others say the new preservation process has also caused damage to their personal vehicles.

Furthermore, some residents who have called upon city officials as well as council members say the only response they received were snarky remarks, while others claimed they were never called back on the issue or given the chance to show their neighborhoods to city officials.

Though the seal coat process may be burdensome to some, Kelton said he feels that the San Angelo streets are the city's biggest and most expensive asset. 

“So when you get a street that is in good condition, you want to make sure that we keep that street in the best condition that we can keep it in for as long a time we can keep it in,” he said. 

Kelton explained that streets can stay in good condition for anywhere between 8-10 years before slowly deteriorating, and eventually leading to cracks and potholes forming from the ever-changing weather and constant use.

City Manager Daniel Valenzuela also weighed in on the situation saying, “We are trying to protect our infrastructure, which is really important to [the city].”

Funding for Road Reconstruction

Many residents were not only upset about the safety concerns from the new rocky roads, but the funding of them too. Several concerned citizens questioned how the city was paying for the new construction projects and if too many tax-payer dollars were being used to pay for the reconstruction efforts as their property taxes have seen an increase.   

Valenzuela firmly stated, “We will never do anything for the sake of doing it.”

Kelton added, “We are wanting to be good stewards of citizens' tax dollars … nobody wants a Bell Street in front of their house.”

The question then becomes, is the seal coat process the only way to preserve the streets of San Angelo? No, but city leaders say that the current process is the only cost-efficient means of doing so.

Valenzuela maintained, “On our part, we are doing the most that we can with the monies that are available to us.”

With the city's limited amount of money available, Valenzuela believes that city council has been doing very well when it comes to spending, building, and refurbishing city infrastructure. He reflected on his earlier days as city manager where the city only had “a little over 600,000 for street projects,” which he called “a drop in the bucket.”

Today, Valenzuela said the city is allocating “close to 4 million dollars a year just on seal coat treatments.” Furthermore, on reconstruction projects, like Bell Street and other major roads, the city is using 12 million dollar bonds every other year to cover the cost of reconstructing some of San Angelo’s worst streets.

In regards to property taxes, Kelton denies any claims of tax increases. 

“Tax rates have not gone up,” he said.

Kelton explained that the city has actually been able to reduce city residents' property tax charges because of successful sales tax revenue in the previous years.

Residents also raised the question of city leaders not approving SAPD raises but allowing streets to be reconstructed. Many people don't know, however, that the funding for the city to seal coat the city streets comes from a general fund built by both property taxes and sales taxes the city receives. These funds have been set aside and allocated towards the preservation projects for quite some time, said city officials.

San Angelo’s City Manager also “wants, more than anything, for SAPD to get pay increases;” however, this past year, the sales taxes in San Angelo “have dropped to almost 2 million dollars [below] what was projected.” This year does not look to be better. Within the first quarter, “San Angelo is down more than $400,000, and should San Angelo continue on this trend, we’ll be close to a million dollars shy of what was projected [for this year],” said Valenzuela.

He wanted to remind residents that the city needs “to be responsible with the money that [it] spends” and believes that, in the future, the city can work with the SAPD to come to a resolution, but, at this time, the city is trying to “do the responsible thing financially.”

Going Forward

For now, the city will continue to seal coat roads across the various residential streets for preservation. The city hopes to squash concerns over the rocks with the city sweepers. Should streets be seal coated, Kelton guarantees that the sweepers will sweep the streets directly after the tar has set, 30-45 days thereafter, as well as an additional sweep in the cooler months. The first two sweeps are fulfilled through the contractors, but city sweepers do the rest.

Though the seal coat will continue, Kelton said, “We are going to try our best to minimize the long-term effect of loose rock on people by sweeping, but unfortunately, it is a necessary evil.”

Within three years, Kelton said people won’t even realize the rocks anymore, as the rocks would have embedded themselves into the road.

Even though preservation projects will continue, this does not mean that the city does not want to hear residents' concerns.

City council members said they are always open to listening to residents on how they can better the community.

City council member Bill Richardson, who has also gone to Daniel Valenzuela and Shane Kelton on this specific topic, urges citizens “to contact their city representative with their concerns” so that they can pass on the information onto city management members.

Visit here to find your current city representative.