Governor Abbott Adds To The Third Special Session, A Proposal To Increase Public School Funding

Brazos County’s Elections Administrator Responds To Public Concerns About Voter Registration Records

Brazos County commissioners hear about the work of a group looking through voter registration records. During public comments at Tuesday’s (July 23) meeting, Cindy Wiley said those records need to be cleaned up. One example described by Wiley was that she found 54 people who had the same birthdate of January 1 of 1901. Elections administrator Trudy Hancock told WTAW News that those voters have a false date of birth because when they registered, state law did not require that or other personal information. Hancock says Texas is one of the most stringent states when it comes to removing people from voter registration records…adding that most of the time that is done by the state. County commissioners by state law were not allowed to respond to Wiley because her comments were not part of an agenda item. Click below to hear Cindy Wiley’s comments during the July 23, 2024 Brazos County commission meeting, followed by Trudy Hancock’s visit with WTAW’s Bill Oliver. Listen to “Brazos County's elections administrator responds to public concerns about voter registration” on Spreaker.

College Station City Council Budget Discussions Includes Staffing The Enforcement Of Local Housing Occupancy Laws

College Station city council budget discussions during workshops last week (July 16) included having enough people to enforce local housing occupancy laws. City manager Bryan Woods told council members that since enforcement resumed June 1st, “generally speaking we haven’t seen a ton of activity, which is understandable” considering there are fewer Texas A&M students in town during the summer. Woods also said “my guess would be when school comes back, even if things go very smoothly, that’ll be an opportunity even if we’re coming back before the end of the year to report that we have not had much to report.” When councilmembers Elizabeth Cunha and Mark Smith brought up the proposed fiscal year 2025 budget added deputy municipal court clerks associated with enforcing the ordinance limiting occupancy to no more than four unrelated residents, mayor John Nichols said the city manager told him that staff believes they can cover that responsibility with existing employees. Click below to hear comments from the July 16, 2024 College Station budget workshop meeting.  

Brazos County Commissioners Adds $819,000 Dollars To Overtime Budgets To Pay Jail Employees

Brazos County will be spending up to $819,000 dollars to pay overtime for employees at the jail through the end of September. There was no discussion before Tuesday’s (July 23) unanimous approval of a budget amendment to have almost $84,000 dollars available for medical employees and to have more than $735,000 dollars available for other jail employees. This follows commission action in May to seek proposals to hire a consultant to evaluate jail staffing. Click HERE to read and download the budget amendment document adding $83,915 to the overtime budget for jail medical employees. Click HERE to read and download the budget amendment document adding $735,400 to the overtime budget for other jail employees.