From the Desk of Mayor David Rutledge

I don’t know about you, but this finally feels like fall is here. Temperatures are making their way into the 50’s in the mornings, not getting into the 90’s at midday, all of that spells autumn. The leaves are even beginning to act like it’s that time of year.

Speaking of fall, that’s a good time for festivals in this part of the country because of the weather. I hope everyone was able to attend the National Night Out last evening. I would like to thank all the citizens that came out, the Bridge City Chamber of Commerce for once again hosting the event, all the organizations that had booths and demonstrations. It was a great night for everyone.

Speaking of festivals, believe it or not it’s getting close to time for the Christmas Festival and the Parade of Lights. This year’s festivities include the tree lighting in the City Park, just like last year. We’ll have vendors on hand just like last year as well. The difference is, this year the City and the Chamber of Commerce are joining forces. We’re expanding the event to include Friday evening and Saturday daytime at the Park. Then around 6:00 pm on Saturday the Christmas Parade begins. That means we’ll have a two-day event for the whole family, one you won’t want to miss. If you didn’t get a chance to attend last year, you probably heard from your friends and neighbors what a good time everyone had. This year should be even better. We learned some last year from our first festival, and we’ll continue to improve. I’ll bring you more details next month, so stay tuned to the Penny Record for more information as we get closer to Christmas.

Around the City, we continue to work on our program of resurfacing streets. This is will be an on-going process where we get a number of them done each year as budgets allow, beginning with the ones that in the opinion of our engineers are most in need. This is all part of the comprehensive plan that City Council and staff are developing. In the coming days and weeks, you will probably see some other work going on around City facilities. The library building is getting some needed roofing work done, along with some siding repairs and replacement. We’re sprucing up the restrooms at the City Park, and making a few modifications to the Pavilion to improve it.

The Highway 1442 widening project is going wide open and progressing well. Yes, it might take a little longer to navigate through that area, but it’s going to all be worth it when it’s complete. Please remember to slow down, stay alert, don’t text or talk on your phone while traveling through this construction zone. The workers are in close proximity to the roadways and need you to help keep them safe. The contractor working this project is local, so the folks working on the road are your neighbors. Please watch out for their safety.

We’ve got some more infrastructure assessments and planned work coming up over the next months as well. It seems there is always work to do, whether it’s around the house or around the City. I’ll fill you in on what’s going with that as we continue to move Bridge City forward.

That’s about it for now. See you around town. Take good care of “Bridge City, the Gateway to Lake Sabine.”