The College Station city council's first budget amendment of FY 26 includes money for statues in the Northgate district

This podcast contains comments from the July 16, 2025 College Station city council budget workshop.The College Station city council's first budget amendment of the 2026 fiscal year was approved at Thursday's regular meeting (January 8).The list includes spending $350,000 dollars from the city's hotel occupancy tax fund towards new statues in the Northgate district.First discussed last July during a budget workshop, the money will go towards finishing statues of musicians Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen, who got their start in Northgate while attending Texas A&M.City manager Bryan Woods said during last July's workshop that the A&M system and retired chancellor John Sharp were among other financial contributors to the statues that have a theme of the song "The Front Porch" that was co-written by Keen and Lovett.Speaking in support of the statues during last July's workshop was councilman Scott Shafer, who said "this sort of public art" "would be quite a draw".The budget amendment calls for an agreement between the city and the arts council to install the statues.There were no comments about the statues before the council approved the budget amendment.