ABILENE, TX– The Abilene City Council met for their normal evening meeting Thursday, and the short agenda involved a pair of items related to the financial hardship many people are experiencing during the coronavirus pandemic.
With travel as slow as it is, the Abilene Regional Airport is more quiet than usual. That’s led to American Airlines, as well as the various rental car agencies at the airport requesting a pause on their rent.
Director of Transportation Don Green said, “The proposal is to defer those effective, again, April 1st through June 30th, so a ninety day period.”
The start time of the deferred rent is backdated. Once the time expires, the various entities will pay as normal, with an extra six installments to catch up on the deferred rent. Council voted affirmatively for that proposal.
A second item on the agenda also dealt with removing financial stress: a temporary suspension of the street maintenance fee.
City Manager Robert Hanna said, “If Council decided it was prudent to continue the postponement of those fees, we certainly could do that. If Council felt it was prudent and conditions warranted in the economy to go ahead and begin charging the street maintenance fee again, we could do that in August, or September, or whatever day Council deemed appropriate.”
Taxpayers will not need to pay back the fee that gets skipped over during that time, and Mayor Anthony Williams said there are no plans to raise the fee in the future to make up for the loss.
The same agenda item had a second part, with some discussion centering around the idea of billing less for water usage by combining levels of the tier system currently in place.
“Our water rates are actually tied to the repayment of municipal bond indebtedness. I do not believe a residential water rate reduction or collapse of the building tiers is prudent, because of the tie to the repayment of these bonds”, said Hanna.
The council ultimately decided to put a 60 day hold on the street maintenance fee, which will expire in late June. They can choose to extend the hold at that time. Council also decided against changing the water bill tiers.
