Juan Fernando Piña is fed up with the alleyway behind his drive-thru business in Pharr.
"We're so close to the border of Mexico, and this even looks like Mexico already," Piña complained.
Potholes, trash, and debris litter the small street, making it difficult for vehicles to travel through.
"If you can see in the back, you can't even pass,” said Piña. “If you have a nice car, you can't even go through here because the branches would be hitting your car."
Piña says the alleyway has even been the source of damage to his own property, when a vehicle slammed into his fence in an effort to miss one of the potholes.
So what Piña did was rally up a petition with multiple pages of signatures from business owners and homeowners who live in the area.
He said he contacted the city many times about these issues, but he feels his complaints have been ignored.
"Every three months they used to come out in the alley and clean all that stuff out,” said Piña. “But it's been more than a year, and they haven't come to clean nothing. We keep our end of the bargain, we pay our taxes. But apparently, they're not doing their job."
Action 4 News spoke with the city of Pharr.
They said they were aware of the trashy alleyway, but a series of events and bad weather kept postponing the cleanup.
“It was just one of those things that was just a miscommunication,” said Gary Rodriguez with the city of Pharr. “Now that we were able to explain what happened, our code enforcement and code compliance officers are out there, and our public works department is out there cleaning it up and trying to make everybody happy.”
Rodriguez says the trash and debris are in the process of being picked up.
He said the city’s main priority is to listen to the complaints of citizens, and to be proactive in resolving their concerns.
As far as the potholes, the alleyway is on the list to be fixed as soon as possible.
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