CITY & COUNTY
News from Katy, Harris County & Fort Bend County
QUOTE OF NOTE
Katy opts for surface repairs for sanitary sewer line
“ACROSS THE BOARD, OUR COSTS ARE GOING UP. IN ADDITION, EACH ONE OF [THE DEPARTMENT’S] POSITIONS COSTS MORE THAN IT DID IN SHORT FISCAL YEAR [2022].”
BY ASIA ARMOUR
of this nature in recent months,” Kasper said in the memo. Instead, he recommended the city reject the bids and opt for a temporary fix: to perform surface repairs to reduce the flow rate of drainage and slow the rate of erosion at the bottom of the ditch. This would require
KATY On Sept. 12, the city of Katy, at the urging of the city’s engineering officials, opted for a temporary, surface-level solution to a broken sanitary sewer line that runs under the banks of a roadside drainage ditch
alongside the I-10 frontage road. The cracked and broken pipeline, which routes from the city’s wastewater treatment plant located at 25839 I-10 Frontage Road, Katy, to detention areas near Pin Oak Road, has caused sinkholes to develop along the bottom of the ditch. The original plan was to replace six small segments of the damaged sanitary
engineers to excavate sections at the bottom of the ditch where the sinkholes have formed, fill the area with com- pacted cement-stabilized material and top it with soil and sod. Kasper states in the memo this $131,656 project is only a temporary solution to a larger issue, and degra- dation and even failure of the gravity sewer pipe is a future possibility.
"BIDS HAVE BEEN SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER ON SMALLER PROJECTS OF THIS NATURE IN RECENT MONTHS." DAVID KASPER, CITY ENGINEER
DANIEL RAMOS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE HARRIS COUNTY OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
NUMBER TO KNOW is the cost to provide surface-level repairs to a broken sanitary sewer line in Katy. $131,656 LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS HARRIS COUNTY Members of the Harris County Election Commission voted 4-1 to approve Clifford Tatum’s appointment as Harris County’s next elections administrator on Aug. 16, and he was sworn into the role Aug. 23. Tatum said in an email he looks forward to serving voters in Harris County and working with a professional team to run smooth elections. Before serving as an elections attorney, Tatum previously served as the District of Columbia’s elections administrator and the interim director for Georgia’s elections. FORT BEND COUNTY On Sept. 13, Fort Bend County commissioners approved the county sheriff’s office to apply for $783,151 in funds from Gov. Greg Abbott’s Public Safety office for bullet-resistant shields. Expanding training for active shooter scenarios and protective equipment is state sponsored and comes on the heels of the Uvalde Elementary School shooting. Katy City Council meets the second and fourth Mondays of the month at 6:30 p.m. The next meeting is Sept. 26 at 910 Ave. C, Katy. 281-391-4800. www.cityofkaty.com Harris County Commissioners Court usually meets Tuesday mornings twice a month. The next meeting is Sept. 27 at 1001 Preston Ave., Ste. 934, Houston. 713-755-5000. www.harriscountytx.gov Fort Bend County Commissioners Court meets at 1 p.m. the first, second and fourth Tuesdays each month. The next meeting is Sept. 27 at 401 Jackson St., Richmond. 281-342-3411. www.fortbendcountytx.gov MEETINGS WE COVER
sewer pipe—as opposed to replacing the entire trunk main. The budget for this project was $250,000, but bids for the construction were particularly high, ranging from $392,575-$817,295, City Engineer David Kasper wrote in a Sept. 6 memo to the city. “Bids have been significantly higher on smaller projects
However, city officials anticipate the sanitary sewer pipe will have to be relocated in the next three to five years due to an I-10 widening project by the Texas Department of Transportation. Until then, engineers and city staff must monitor the line segments twice a year, Kasper wrote.
Harris County cuts proposed budget, waits on tax rate vote
TRACKING INVESTMENTS Visit www.safeharris.com for information on public safety investments being made in Harris County.
Courts and law enforcement
Youth safety
Community
BY RACHEL CARLTON
$0.58135.
HARRIS COUNTY Commissioners voted 3-0 to adopt an amended fiscal year 2022-23 budget during their Sept. 13 meet- ing, but delayed a vote on Harris County’s tax rates until Sept. 27. Commissioners Tom Ramsey and Jack Cagle did not attend court, but both released email statements saying they would not show to vote on the proposed overall tax rate of $0.57508 per $100 valuation—a 1% decrease from last year’s rate of BUDGET CHANGE Harris County commissioners approved the fiscal year 2022-23 budget on Sept. 13.
They cited inflation’s
SOURCE: HARRIS COUNTY/COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
impact on residents, increasing property values and wanting more consta- ble officers as reasons for not attending. The final deadline to adopt tax rates is Oct. 28. Without a four-member quorum, the court could not legally adopt a set of tax rates. Instead, commissioners Rodney Ellis and Adrian Garcia as well as County Judge Lina Hidalgo voted 3-0 to adopt a smaller FY 2022-23 budget than initially proposed. Daniel Ramos, the executive director of the Office of Management and Budget, said all depart- ments would face cuts. “Across the board, our costs are going up,” he said. “In addition, each one of [the department’s] positions costs more than it did in short fiscal year [2022].”
Harris County launches new website to document public safety investments
BY RACHEL CARLTON
keep the public informed. “Safeharris.com is
HARRIS COUNTY Officials announced the launch of www. safeharris.com—a website to track Harris County investments in public safety—at a news confer- ence Aug. 17. The site filters invest- ments into four catego- ries: community, courts, law enforcement and youth safety. It includes links to dashboards tracking the jail popula- tion, data on defendants in criminal courts and approved bail bonds. Perrye Turner, deputy county administrator for justice and safety, said the website will be consistently updated to
a living, breathing, ever-evolving docu-
ment,” Turner said. “An educated community is a safe community. It is also about transparency ... and keeping law enforce- ment and elected officials accountable.” County Judge Lina Hidalgo said the website gives the community a way to understand different pieces of the public safety investments made by the county. “Everyone has a right to public safety [and] to feel safe in their homes,” she said. “And that’s why we continue to invest in these smart initiatives.”
FY 2022-23 budget Proposed FY 2022-23 budget Adopted
$2.24B
-5.29% change
$2.12B
SOURCE: HARRIS COUNTY/ COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
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KATY EDITION • SEPTEMBER 2022
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