Abilene City Council approves infrastructure overhaul, DCOA budget
By Makalah Wright
The Abilene City Council held their first meeting of the month on July 9, opening with service-award presentations for two Abilene Public Library employees, Heather Carter and Alyssa Crow. Both were honored for their 20 years of service and spoke briefly about their long tenures with the library system, including its move to the new main branch at Abilene Heritage Square.
The council also proclaimed July as Parks and Recreation Month. Parks and Recreation Director Lesli Andrews brought a large group of parks, recreation and senior-services staff to the meeting and highlighted departmental statistics — including 56,000 meals served to seniors over the past year and an average of 175 seniors using the Adventure Cove water-walking program three days a week.
The Development Corporation of Abilene (DCOA) was recognized separately for a series of national and international awards earned over the past five years. President Misty Mayo credited the DCOA’s board — including chair Tracy Howle, vice chair Buddy Napier, and board members Mark Colman, Floyd Miller and Shea Hall — along with her staff for the recognition, noting the organization had received four national awards for community-enhancement projects this year alone.
The council approved a $455,000 contract with the Kimley-Horn and Associates for the first phase of a new Integrated Infrastructure Management Plan, planning to replace the utility’s practice of commissioning periodic master plans with a data-driven planning process across water treatment, water distribution, wastewater treatment and wastewater collection. The staff also discussed plans to use in-house AI tools to reduce reliance on consultants for routine reporting, hoping to give the public a realistic view of capital projects and how utility bills are spent.
Supporting the contract, an additional contract with HDR Engineering for PFAS treatment design work was approved. The contract is expected to be funded through the city’s $8.7 million share of a settlement with chemical manufacturers.
For zoning and land use, the council approved a conditional use permit for contractor services at 411 E. South 11th St., along with approving a rezone project of roughly 0.36 acres at 1358, 1366 and 1374 Barrow St. from residential to general commercial.
In the meeting’s final items, Mayo presented the DCOA’s fiscal year 2027 economic development plan and budget. Mayo reported that the DCOA has worked with 52 business investment projects within the past six years, with the majority of them being with local companies. The organization owns and operates more than 700,000 square feet of buildings across two industrial parks and roughly one in three jobs in Abilene can be traced to DCOA-driven development.
Following that, Mayo presented the budget of FY 2027, totaling $26,820,166 million in revenue, with $9,787,813 million allocated to core operating expenses and $17,032,353 million reserved for incentives and capital expenditures. The council ratified the DCOA’s budget and approved the economic development plan.
