The grouping of trees bunched on the frontage road of Bicentennial Boulevard and Expressway 83 are just above sapling size and draw little attention from motorists buzzing by on a busy McAllen intersection. But there they are, breaking up the concrete and urban life of a growing city. They add greenery with the benefits of a sound barrier and deep roots that will absorb stormwater when heavy rains come. McAllen’s…
McAllen is the third ranking safest city in the country for 2023 according to SmartAsset.com’s Top 10 Safest Cities list. The financial website analyzed a core set of common safety factors to identify and rank the safest cities in America, looking at data from 200 of the largest cities. The fiver metrics taken into consideration for rankings are violent crime, property crime, vehicular mortality rate, drug poisoning mortality rate and…
South Texas College continues to expand its partnerships across the border with a new letter of intent for collaboration with the Universidad Tecnológica de Matamoros that could promote the economic development of the region. “Texas and the Valley, like the rest of the country, are facing a manpower shortage and Mexico and the border partnerships we forge may well be the solution to the continued prosperity of our region,” said…
Javier Villalobos set out clear priorities when elected McAllen’s new mayor in mid-2021. “Water, sewer, public safety and the police department,” he said, recalling some of the key issues of his campaign. What Villalobos didn’t figure is that education would emerge early on as a pressing issue in his tenure. More than 20,000 students in the McAllen school district were suddenly put into remote learning situations. Public health concerns in…
The City of McAllen Transit Department and South Texas College has begun a new transit academy. STC will now offer training for prospective drivers of the city’s Metro Bus System, as an effort to address a severe driver shortage affecting the industry locally as well as nationwide. The interlocal agreement between the city and the college came with approval by city commissioners. The city is donating a 2011 Gillig 35’…
The McAllen City Commission approved an award of contract to Wilson Construction Company of McAllen on Monday for the construction of new inbound and outbound commercial facilities and related paving improvements at the Anzalduas International Bridge. The contract is for $81.8 million, with a contract time of 320 days, approximately 11 months. The funding source for the project is a $63 million loan from the North American Development Bank and…
McAllen now ranks sixth in Safest Cities in the United States according to SmartAsset.com. The financial website analyzes a core set of common safety factors to identify and rank the safest cities in America, looking at data from 200 of the largest cities. Since the last study, crime in the United States has continued its upward trend. In McAllen, however, crime decreases continued as the city moved up three spots…
Javier Villalobos settles into the chair of his mayor’s office on the third floor of McAllen’s City Hall. From there, he has a view of Main Street heading into downtown McAllen. Twenty months passed since downtown and the rest of McAllen had last seen its revenue lifeline of Mexican shoppers stream into their stores. That finally came to an end on Nov. 9, the day the U.S. government allowed Mexican…
McAllen ranks 15 in the United States in the Best Places to Celebrate Halloween according to SmartAsset.com. In 2019, McAllen ranked 17. SmartAsset.com compared 210 cities across the country, looking at 10 metrics in four overall categories. Metrics include Family Friendly, Safety, Halloween Weather, and Candy and Costume. Those categories are further broken down into aspects such as the percentage of children in the population, violent and property crime rates,…
McAllen ranks sixth lowest in Texas regarding burglary and theft, according to researchers at Porch.com. The city also ranks seventh lowest in the United States for Small Cities. This news comes soon after a recent report by the Texas Department of Public Safety showing McAllen ranks second lowest in Texas for violent crimes. The survey analyzes crime data regarding burglary and theft over a four-year period across 258 cities in…