Many City of San Angelo offices will be closed Friday, April 24, as City employees participate in the annual neighborhood blitz.

Most City employees will spend their work day painting and making minor repairs to five selected homes in the East Harris Avenue neighborhood between Bell and Main streets, cleaning alleyways and streets, and attending to special projects on City property. Those projects include improving playing fields and painting at Texas Bank Sports Complex, cleaning the Animal Shelter and improving Lake Nasworthy facilities. City crews will pick up bulk trash left in alleyways before 8 a.m. Friday in the area bounded by Main, Bell, Rio Concho Drive and the Houston Harte Expressway.

Employees who provide public safety services, such as police officers, firefighters and dispatchers, do not participate in the blitz. Among other City departments that will operate as usual are Water Distribution, San Angelo Regional Airport 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, local churches and the Angelo State University football team will be painting 21 houses, using supplies provided by Habitat for Humanity through its Brush with Kindness program.

The blitz will mark the seventh time City employees have fanned out across a neighborhood in an effort to help revitalize it. Previous efforts have targeted the Lincoln, Fort Concho, Reagan and Blackshear areas. To date:

  • 183 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 and both City recreation centers have been painted.
  • The Concho River walking path has been resurfaced.

In 2013, 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.

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