2023
READERS’ CHOICE
Photos: Missouri City Kwanzaa Celebration - Page 8
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Grand opening for Fulshear Branch Library set for Jan. 13 Community Reports The grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony of Fort Bend County Libraries’ Fulshear Branch Library will take place on Saturday, January 13, beginning at 10 a.m., at the new library, 6350 GM Library Road in Fulshear. The grand opening will be officiated by Fort Bend County Judge KP George, who will be joined by Precinct 1 County Commissioner Vincent Morales and other county and local officials. All area residents are invited to come out and take part in the grand-opening reception. The Fulshear Branch Library, which replaces the Bob Lutts Fulshear/Simonton Branch Library, is now the third largest library in the Fort Bend County library system. Designed by HuittZollars, the 2-story building is 41,980 square feet in size. Flintco is the general contractor. Construction of the new Fulshear Branch Library is the final phase of a $19.8-million bond referendum approved by voters in November 2015, which included $13.4 million for a new library to be built on the north side of the county. The library was designed to be family-friendly, with individual areas for children, teens, and adults. The general library areas on the first and second floors are enhanced by natural light from a series of glazed windows framing spectacular views of the area. The library includes an outdoor patio with charging stations, a drive-through book return in the parking lot, community meeting rooms, study rooms, a puppet theater, and a computer lab for technology classes and public use. Additional computers will be available for public use outside of the computer lab. The library has free WiFi access for individuals wishing to bring their own laptop computers to the library. Children will be delighted with the interactive game table in the Youth Department, as well as with the whimsical musical elements outside the library. The Youth Services department will offer a full range of children’s programs, including Mother Goose Time for infants, Toddler Time for children from 1 to 3 years of age, Preschool Story Time for 3- to 6-year-old children, and school-aged programs for children in grades K through 8. The library will offer book clubs and craft groups, and introductory computer classes for adults will soon be available. Patrons may learn computer basics, such as how to use a computer, how to search the Internet, and how to use Microsoft Office programs such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
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Stafford council wades into property tax discussion By Ken Fountain KFOUNTAIN@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
Continuing a discussion they began in November, Stafford City Council members recently held a meeting where they tossed around the idea of instituting a property tax for the first time in nearly three decades. The issue has long been considered something of a third rail in Stafford politics, as the seven-square-mile city is one of the only municipalities in Texas without a property tax and has long used that as one of its calling cards for attracting new businesses and residents. The late mayor Leonard Scarcella, who died in 2020 after a half-century in office, had put the zero-property
tax policy in effect in 1995. The city relies primary on sales taxes, as well as permits and other fees, to generate revenues. In recent years, however, concerns over the city’s budgetary constraints, ailing infrastructure and deferred capital improvement projects have brought the idea of a property tax to the fore, with even some sitting Council members who campaigned last year on a pledge of not instituting such a tax are considering the possibility. At its December 20 meeting, the council members heard a detailed presentation from Alka Shah, the city’s chief financial officer since June 2021, on Stafford’s financial position over
the past few years. Shah, the city’s accountant, repeatedly stressed that she was there only to provide information to the policymakers at the dais, not make a recommendation on what they should do. While most cities’ budget planning cycles have three aspects - operating budgets, capital improvement projects and five-year forecasts,
Shah said, Stafford in recent years has been focusing only on the operating budget and does not have the capacity to discuss capital needs or long-term innovation “simply because of a lack of resources.” In the two budgets that the city has put in place since she came on board, between 20 to 25 city jobs have not been budgeted for, Shah said. Most of those positions have been in the police and fire and public works departments. “The department heads are expected to manage their operations with slim and sometimes nonexistent resources,” she said. “Our financial resources and revenues are not adequate and highly volatile in nature.
As a result, maintaining a growing and healthy fund balance and implementing a conservative approach for revenue projecting is critical.” The council’s recent decision, under new Mayor Ken Mathews, to raise the salaries for the city’s police officers and firefighters and other employees in order to make Stafford more competitive with peer cities is appreciated, Shah said, but it was funded by dipping into the city’s fund balance, essentially its savings account. “Since these expenses are recurring in nature, I’m not sure how we can fund them again next year,” she said.
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Missouri City Kwanzaa See Page 8 - for more photos from the Missouri City Kwanzaa Celebration
Taraja and Tyler Pearson light one of the Kwanzaa candles while discussing the principle of Ujamaa, or creative economics, during the Missouri City Kwanzaa Celebration on December 26. Photo by Ken Fountain
TSTC provost discusses 2023 while looking forward to new year Community Reports The year 2023 was a big one for Texas State Technical College across the state and at the Fort Bend County campus in Rosenberg. With record enrollment, the groundbreaking for a new building and the addition of some programs, the campus had a lot happening. Bryan Bowling, provost for the campus, emphasized the collaborative efforts between TSTC, local and regional officials, and the community in helping spur along the growth. “We’ve had the Legislature support us and the community support us,” Bowling said in a press release. “That of course involves industry as well. We simply could not
have done it without all those pieces working together in concert.” In terms of enrollment, TSTC’s Fort Bend County campus saw a 20 percent increase from the fall semester of 2022 through the fall of 2023. It was the largest growth in enrollment that the campus had ever seen, with just under 800 students on campus this previous semester. The campus also saw the groundbreaking of the new Transportation Center of Excellence, set to open by fall 2025. In attendance at the ceremony were TSTC leadership, local government officials, and TSTC industry partners.
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TSTC partners with industry leaders to find students highly lucrative careers and teach them the skills needed to be successful. Courtesy TSTC