The tourism events coordinator for the Destination Bryan tourism office, Amanda Kile, visits with WTAW’s Bill Oliver about January’s First Friday and a review of holiday events.
Listen to “January 2023 update from the Destination Bryan tourism office” on Spreaker.
The College Station City Council will convene Thursday night. Highlights for items on the agenda are housing density, rezoning, spending, and real estate. The board will discuss the possible incentives that come with an increase in housing density in the city. The City’s Housing Action Plan focuses on affordable housing, but its strategies include increasing the housing supply in hopes of stabilizing or even lowering prices. The Council will consider a request to rezone approximately 7 acres on Harvey Mitchell Parkway South near the Earl Rudder Freeway. The tract sits on the south side of Harvey Mitchell between Dartmouth Street and Highway 6. The applicant seeks to change the land use designation from General Commercial to Urban Residential. The spending agenda includes approximately $1.2-million dollars for the following projects: $500,000 for annual pavement striping and marking services $141,240 for roofing at Fire Station 1, the Bachmann Park Community Center, and the Wolf Pen Creek green room $160,743 for a sponsorship agreement for the Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL) Championship at Dell Diamond July 23-27, 2026 $275,000 for apparel $145,583 for relocation and improvement to overhead power lines related to the Big 6 construction project One of the items on the executive session agenda is a discussion of real estate at Post Oak Mall and 28 acres in the Midtown Business Park. We’ll have more for you on Friday morning about the outcomes of the meeting. You can view the agenda by clicking HERE.
The South Brazos County Fire Department will break ground on a new fire station Thursday morning. Fire station #4 will be located at 21053 State Highway 6 South. Groundbreaking will take place July 9, 2026 at 10:00am. The approximately 6,500 square foot facility will be constructed by Grossman Design Build and is expected to be operational by summer 2027. Brazos County Emergency Services District 1, in conjunction with the South Brazos Fire Department, provides fire, rescue, and EMS for the unincorporated area of Precinct 1. They serve from the southern city limits of College Station to the Brazos County line. Fire Chief David Cooper took to Facebook to promote the event and share a mockup of the new fire station.
A former Brazos County juvenile probation officer was sentenced to nearly 16 years in federal prison for attempting to have sexual relations with an 11-year-old girl. The United States Attorney General’s office in the Eastern District of Texas announced that 51-year-old Steven Dale Criddle was arrested in September 2025 in Wylie, Texas, a Northeastern suburb of Dallas. The release says he used the dark web to communicate with someone he believed to be the girl’s mother, consenting to the meeting. Officials say Criddle was also found in possession of child pornography on his cell phone. He was sentenced to 190 months in prison on July 1st. This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael A. Anderson. It was part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice in an effort to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, you can visit www.justice.gov/psc.
Bryan Broadcasting Corporation