San Angelo’s Neighborhood Blitz is Friday!

Most City of San Angelo offices will be closed this Friday, May 16, as City employees participate in the annual neighborhood blitz.
Most City employees will spend their work day painting and making minor repairs to 26 selected homes in the Rio Vista neighborhood, cleaning alleyways and streets in the area, and attending to special projects. Those special projects include waterproofing the wooden playground structures at Kids’ Kingdom Park, painting part of the pavilions at El Paseo de Santa Angela, repairing porches at Fort Concho, and replacing traffic signs.

Employees who provide public safety services, such as police officers, firefighters and dispatchers, will not participate in the blitz. Among other City departments that will operate as usual are Water Distribution, San Angelo Regional Airport, Animal Services and Municipal Court. The water billing office will be closed.

As part of the two-day effort, this Saturday an army of volunteers affiliated with the grassroots organization West Texas Organizing Strategy and local churches will also be painting houses, using supplies provided by Habitat for Humanity through its Brush with Kindness program.

This week's blitz will mark the sixth time City employees have fanned out across a neighborhood in an effort to help revitalize it. Previous blitzes have targeted the Lincoln, Fort Concho, Reagan and Blackshear areas. To date:

•157 homes (many of which were occupied by the elderly, disabled or families with single parents) have been sided and painted.

•More than 700 tons of debris and 700 illegally discarded tires have been taken to the landfill.

•Two Little League baseball fields have been spruced up.

•Both City recreation centers have been painted.

•The Concho River walking path has been resurfaced.

Last year the effort garnered the City of San Angelo the City Spirit Award for cities with populations of more than 25,000 from the Texas Municipal League.