Breckenridge Texan

By Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan

At the Breckenridge City Commissioners meeting last week, City Manager Cynthia Northrop updated the commissioners on a variety of city projects, including the plan to repair local streets. Additionally, she unveiled the City’s new logo, which is still a work-in-progress.

Breckenridge City Streets

The City of Breckenridge’s street improvement plan will begin July 27. The initial work will be concentrated around Breckenridge High School and South Elementary School.

“So this is the exciting news, and we’ve been talking about it for a long time,” Northrop told the commissioners. “And, of course, this was like one of the number one issues within the City of Breckenridge, but the first phase of our street improvement plan will be underway as of 7-27.”

The City has contracted with Raydon, Inc., for the work that will include upgrading Rose Avenue from Walker Street to Seventh Street; Elliott Street from Breckenridge Avenue (U.S. Highway 183) to Harvey Street; and Seventh Street from Parks Street to Breckenridge Avenue; as well as several intersections in town. Specifically, the intersections of North Miller Street and First Street, and North Miller and Second Street, both of which are intersections near BHS.

“We want to start with those areas that are closest to the school, so we can have that done before school starts,” Northop said.

Additionally, the commissioners approved the final pavement improvement report as presented by Enprotec/Hibbs & Todd, Inc., an engineering firm in Abilene. As part of the plan to address city streets, the City contracted with eHT to conduct a Pavement Evaluation to identify necessary improvements needed to maintain and restore quality and function to Breckenridge’s streets.

The company visually inspected specific streets to evaluate the current condition and provide recommendations for improvement. In conjunction with the visual evaluation, the condition of existing utility infrastructure beneath (or adjacent to) streets and the anticipated level of traffic were also considered, where information was available, according to information from the City.

Overall, the report states that “A number of City streets are aging and showing signs of distress that can lead to rapid deterioration, and resurfacing alone will do little to preserve or extend their life. The purpose of this report is to provide a professional opinion as to the type of required improvements along with cost estimates for such improvements. The City should expect to use this report as an aid in determining which pavement rehabilitation projects to pursue based on the necessary improvements and associated costs.”

The report identifies 26 streets in Breckenridge that need to be improved, and it provides specific details about each street that was evaluated.

For example, West Elliott Street was evaluated from South Harding Street to Breckenridge Avenue (U.S. Highway 183) and was determined to be a high-traffic area because South Elementary is on Elliott Street. The report’s evaluation states, “The majority of the street appears to be in sub-adequate condition with signs of cracking, alligator cracking, and previous patching present. Base conditions are suspected to be moderate. Resurfacing is recommended.”

The cost of improvement for the evaluated section of West Elliott Street was estimated at $550,000.

The report’s cost estimation for having all the repairs done is more than $12 million.

The Evaluation Report was included in the packet of information for the July 11 Breckenridge City Commission meeting. Click here to read the entire report from eHT.

The city commissioners voted to accept the report.

New City of Breckenridge Logo

Northrop presented to the commissioners a new logo that the City staff has been working on.

“We have spent a lot of time internally looking at this,” she said. “We had one of our own people actually design several different options, and the staff ranked all the different options. … I think the idea was trying to remain true to, you know, what is here, but make it cleaner and simplify it. And so this is what we came up with.”

Northrop said the logo is not finalized and will have some additional changes made to it. “I think we do need to have Texas in there somewhere, so people don’t think they’re in Colorado,” she said. “I think it looks a lot better. And we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on that.”

Proposed new City of Breckenridge logo

Convention and Visitors Bureau

David Miller, executive director of the Breckenridge Economic Development Corp., spoke to the commissioners about the new Convention and Visitors Bureau that the BEDC is funding.

David Miller talks to the Breckenridge City Commission about a proposed Convention and Visitors Bureau. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

“So back in February, we had the idea that most thriving communities have a convention and visitors bureau, someone that is purely focusing on tourism and marketing the community…,” he said. “And with that comes events, comes more of the entertainment factor that even the locals want to have.”

The BEDC decided to pay $26,000 a year for a part-time position to run the CVB.

“At this point, it’s kind of a pilot program for the remainder of this fiscal year, and then the full 2023-24 fiscal year,” Miller said. “We’re going to actually create this underneath the Chamber’s umbrella. Since they’re getting the hotel tax dollars, it’s going to keep everything in-house with them. And so they’ll create a whole new board. And it’ll have a own director that will work for that.”

According to information provided by the City, former Breckenridge Chamber of Commerce Director Rhonda Crawford has been appointed as the director of the new CVB, which will focus on tourism and events, such as the airshow, concerts and an art festival.

“You know, there are so many smaller towns that have these,” Breckenridge Mayor Bob Sims said. “This will be a first for us, Breckenridge, having something like this.”

Miller said many of the duties of the CVB have been done by the Breckenridge Chamber in the past. “It’s going to be a little bit of an education process just to tell everybody what specifically this thing is doing,” he said. “It’s purely putting heads in beds and marketing this community to people who live an hour or more away.”

The commissioners approved the recommendation by the BEDC to create a Convention and Visitors Bureau in Breckenridge.

Jaws of Life

Breckenridge Fire Chief Malcolm Bufkin reported to the commissioners that the fire department has two new Jaws of Life tools to be used for extricating people from wrecked vehicles.

The tools used by the Breckenridge Fire Department experienced a catastrophic failure during the Shattered Dreams drunk driving simulation earlier this year, and Stephens County offered to assist the City with the purchase of a new set of Jaws of Life tools, Bufkin said. The new tools will replace the old hydraulic set with a pump, motor and hoses. The BFD will keep the old tools to use as a backup.

“They’re cordless or battery-operated,” he explained. “They’re amazing. … Now you just grab the tool and go. And they say that tool can run, on the scene, a solid hour and a half.”

The County paid for the new Jaws of Life and will allow the City to pay for half of the cost at a later date.

Breckenridge Fire Chief Malcolm Bufkin points to an image of the fire department’s new Jaws of Life tools. Stephens County bought the tools and is allowing the City to pay for half of the cost at a later date. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

Other Business

Northrop announced that the City will stop allowing septic dumping at the Convenience Station.

“Right now, they’re pretty much dumping right at our convenience station,” she said. “And it goes right into the water wastewater treatment plant. And because of that, it has caused negative impacts to our system operations.”

The new rule, which will go into effect on Aug. 1, will impact about three or four businesses that dump at the Breckenridge Convenience Station, she said. “Most of these are businesses that are serving people outside of the city limits,” Northrop said. “We have no way of controlling the contaminants, the grease, and anything that they might be dumping into our system, which has caused some negative impacts with TCEQ violations. And, as we’ve looked around at some other cities, most other cities do not allow this type of dumping for these reasons.”

Additionally, the commissioners voted to oppose a proposed rate increase by Oncor for electricity distribution. The City of Breckenridge is a member of the organization Steering Committee of Cities Served by Oncor, which reviews and responds to electric issues affecting rates charged in Oncor’s service area. Oncor is seeking an increase in distribution revenues of approximately $152.78 million.

The City of Breckenridge now livestreams all of their meetings and posts the videos online afterwards. You can watch the entire meeting:

Cutline, top photo: Breckenridge City Manager Cynthia Northrop talks to the City Commission about the new city logo. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)