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As an FYI, the violent crime rate in CS was higher than Bryan last year...
A homicide can easily change that number. One drug deal gone bad in any given apartment complex in town doesn't mean crime in CS is higher than Bryan (or vice versa).
I'm also curious as to how you get your numbers, because I see police on the roads patrolling every day, and I don't think I've ever been through a school zone without a cop or two (often, but not always, on a motorcycle) hanging around.
College Station probably needs to be flushed of its current administration--there are way too many "slums of tomorrow, today" apartment complexes designed for students going in, no big employers not connected to A&M to help increase wealth and support the tax increase, and not even enough retail to prevent people from going down to Houston. Post Oak Mall has largely fallen into disrepair and is not the major boost it used to be.
We don't have to cut off vital services or stop building things to prevent tax increases. What I would do, first and foremost, is:
1) Stop replacing stoplights that are functional and have been retrofitted with the blinking yellow arrow. Yes, I know the all-black poles look cool but they don't have to be uniform.
2) Stop wasting money with city beautification projects that don't actually make the city better. No one cares about those dozens of trees you planted at University and Highway 6. We especially don't want another "Super. Natural. Goodness." fiasco that wasted money.
3) Stop developing parks that have no demand (Southeast Community Park, basically ranch land next to the landfill).
4) Stop the administrative rigamarole developers claim about CoCS development to encourage commercial development.
Once that happens, then we can start talking about that list again, including a new (or at least expanded) city hall.