Megan Navarro
DRIPPING SPRINGS — Dripping Springs City Council voted to approve a resolution for the design, location, construction and maintenance of two gateway monuments at its Tuesday, March 17, meeting.
The city is implementing a comprehensive wayfinding signage program to improve navigation, strengthen community identity and enhance the visitor experience, as stated in agenda documents. As part of this are proposed gateway monument signs at key entrances into the city of Dripping Springs.
In the fall of 2025, council approved the bidding process for the wayfinding signage and staff wanted gateway monuments to be included in the same bid package to provide council with a comprehensive view of the project scope and associated costs.
Now that city staff has approval from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) for the initial design for the monument signs, it is required that the city enter into an agreement before the start of construction and for the bidding process to continue. This is due to the signs being proposed within or adjacent to state highway right-of-way along US 290 and Ranch to Market Road 12.
At its March 17 meeting, the agreement was brought before city council in the consent agenda, but was pulled out for further discussion by council member Geoffrey Tahuahua.
“What this is doing is it is just having the resolution saying that … if these signs were to be constructed, that we will maintain them since they are in the TxDOT right-of-way and they will be installed in accordance with the TxDOT guidelines,” explained city administrator Michelle Fischer.
This does not mean that council must approve them, but in order to move forward with the bidding process, TxDOT needs to receive the city’s submission of the resolution before official approval from the district engineer is granted.
There is $121,200 in this year’s budget allocated for signage that could be for the wayfinding or gateway monuments, Fischer said: “Last time when we bid it out, we just did the wayfinding. This time, we’d like to do all of them, but do them in different base bids or alternates, so that we can kind of pick and choose which ones we want to focus on and hopefully, do these in phases.”
The project is anticipated to be funded through local hotel occupancy tax funds.
Council member Sherrie Parks asked for clarification that this would not currently cost the city any money to approve and it allows the city to go out for bid: “This doesn’t mean we have to spend money this year or next year, but it would just give us an idea of what it is going to cost us?”
Fischer responded that Parks was correct and continued to state that the city does not want to go out for bid until official TxDOT approval is received.
Tahuahua shared his opposition to the agreement, due to the anticipated costs.
“I understand that there is no money being spent now, but there is likely to be money spent in the future and we’ve seen what these wayfinding signs are and I think, from a cost priority standpoint, the last thing we should be spending money on is signs, as nice as they may look,” he said.
Council approved the resolution 3-1, with Tahuahua dissenting.
Dripping Springs City Council will meet next at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 7.
