Students, citizens gently chide city for ‘slacking off’

Old broken street lights downtown drew citizen comments Tuesday.

While the criticism of the city of Nocona and the Nocona Council was couched in polite terms last Tuesday night, the message was the city of Nocona is coasting and not moving forward, and the Nocona City Council needs to step up its game.

And the council was questioned and/or chastised by both greying businessmen and high school students alike.

With the city’s tiny council chambers packed with high school government students and a smattering of downtown merchants, Mayor Robert Fenoglio noted he was asked to speak to Leslie Rinehart’s history classes which resulted in the mayor extending an invitation for the students to attend the council meeting as the students had several observations about Nocona during the class sessions that the mayor thought the council and city staff needed to hear.

“I told them they’re either going to write a letter, it’s easier for some of them to communicate like that, or they had the opportunity come here and speak,” Rinehart told the council. “Some of the kids didn’t want to speak, so they’ll be writing you a letter,” he advised.

Read more in this week’s edition of The Nocona News.