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HARLINGEN — From streetsides to shaggy trees and along old alley ways, the city’s neighborhoods are ready to get spruced up.
Across the city’s five districts, commissioners are planning to join officials on walks through neighborhood streets, picking out eyesores for makeovers and tagging abandoned houses for razing.
At city hall, Commissioners Daniel Lopez and Ford Kinsley are proposing a program they’re calling the Harlingen Neighborhood Revitalization Project, aimed at fixing up and beautifying the city from the inside out.
“Although members of the commission drive through their districts and report issues to city staff, the project will allow for big-picture improvements such as more abandoned building demolition, tree trimming, street painting and new street signage,” Lopez said Tuesday in a statement.
Like Kinsley, Lopez is counting on residents joining in to help spruce up their neighborhoods.
“We want to inspire pride in how our city looks and inspire residents to improve their homes and yards so we can all live in nicer neighborhoods,” he said. “Harlingen is a wonderful city filled with amazing people. This project will just highlight that.”
A walk around the city’s neighborhoods helps pinpoint eyesores.
“The plan is to identify projects that public works can take care of in short order,” Kinsley, Keep Harlingen Beautiful’s past president, said in an interview. “When I go out walking or driving around, I see alleys with potholes that need resurfacing. Over the years, they’ve become uneven to drive through.”
Under the program, the projects won’t be carrying big price tags.
”We have elderly residents who may be needing some assistance,” Kinsley said. “There are nuisances here and there that can be taken care of in short order. The public works department can send a team in to take care of it.”
Last week, Lopez and Kinsley proposed the program, requesting Assistant City Manager Oscar Garcia help plan its projects.
“Each of us would go with staff through our neighborhoods to see which improvements they need,” Lopez said, referring to commissioners during a Sept. 18 meeting. “So the first weekend of the month, Oscar and I would walk through certain neighborhoods … and we would handle all those little projects that we could handle over the rest of that month.”
By November, commissioners might be hitting the streets across their districts, looking for neighborhood projects to take on, Kinsley said.
“It’s a good opportunity for the commissioners to have more communication with residents,” he said. “I think anything we can do to improve the quality of life of folks is important. The city is committed to trying to improve the quality of life in a timely manner.”
