City Council to Consider TPWD Public Hunting Program

Tuesday's City Council meeting will include a presentation on adopting the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Public Hunting Program for the recreational hunting lands at the Twin Buttes Reservoir properties.  The city has long offered public hunting around Twin Buttes.  TPWD's public hunting program currently lists San Angelo State Park.  It comes with an annual fee:

Access is provided by two types of annual permits: the $48 Annual Public Hunting (APH) Permit which allows full privileges including hunting, fishing, camping, hiking and other recreational uses and the $12 Limited Public Use (LPU) Permit which also provides access for all other recreational activities except hunting.

It's not clear how citizens will pay these fees or how funds will be used to improve primitive conditions at Twin Buttes.

Other than closing Twin Buttes for public fireworks the July 4th weekend this is the first recreation item City Council has considered on Twin Buttes since adopting a Master Recreation Plan.  The plan was created in 2012 and officially approved by council in 2013.

Progress has been slow to nonexistent on the City's Lake Nasworthy and Twin Buttes Master Plans.  Only one vendor bid to develop the Mary Lee Park area of Lake Nasworthy and the city rejected that bid as nonconforming.

Most city action at Twin Buttes since 2012 has been installing and removing pumps. My October water bill still has the "pumping fee" despite pumps having been removed in May of 2014.  I guess it's a perpetual fee.

The City recently played catch up by devoting another $4 million to San Angelo's Performing Arts Coalition, a project that has lingered since 2011.  I've long hoped Council would find the Twin Buttes project ripe for a kick start.  That hope will go on longer given Council materials state "there is no financial impact." Thus, staff recommends City Council stick to its miserly history in funding anything non-water at Twin Buttes.

Update 5-15-16:  City Council approved the TPWD Public Hunting Program in an April meeting.