By N. Bradford
City leaders tackled questions ranging from who paid giant pear sculptures to the city’s homestead exemptions during a town hall style discussion Aug. 23.
Held each quarter on a different topic, Talk of the Town allows residents to ask questions and engage in dialogue with city officials.
“We try to find something relevant to what’s going on in our city during that particular quarter,” Mayor Kevin Cole said.
The next Talk of the Town is planned for November with details to be announced.
288 Beautification
A frequent question he is asked, Cole said, is how beautification along the Highway 288 corridor — which include the city’s highly visible pear sculptures — is funded.
“The funding sources is actually the Pearland Economic Development Corp.; they have a half-cent sales tax that goes to economic development and other improvements in the community that benefit economic development,” City Manager Trent Epperson said. “You know when you’ve arrived in Pearland. We fund the construction through the EDC; that’s not part of your property taxes.”
Maintained by a management district, the beautification corridor is designed to help attract business investments.
“It is an attraction tool. Companies are going to invest $20 (million) or $100 million in your community, it’s just like when you buy a home,” Mayor Cole said. “You’re going to look the neighborhood up.”
Property tax relief
The forum included a discussion on the city’s budget for the upcoming tax year that begins in October. In November, Texas voters will decide on a significant increase on school district taxes, which likely will be reflected in residents’ tax bills. The missing revenue will come from the state, Cole pointed out.
“(Cities) don’t have that option; the state doesn’t fund us like they do schools,” he said. “If we do something with the homestead tax exemption, it’s going to have an impact somewhere.”
A discussion on how increasing the city’s current 2.5 percent homestead exemption will likely happen in October, Cole said.
“We need to have an honest discussion about where does that money come from,” he said. “We’d like to attract more companies and want to make sure they’re welcome in our community as well.”
Bond project updates
Introduced at the forum was city’s new engineering and public works director, Lorenzo Wingate, a Beaumont native who joined the Pearland staff from La Porte.
Wingate provided an update on the city’s 2019 bond referendum projects. The largest of these yet to begin construction is Bailey Road improvements. Those will begin this fall and are expected to be completed in 2025.
A 2023 bond election was driven largely by drainage projects that drew the most voter support, Mayor Cole said. All four propositions passed.
“We are moving one of those projects from debt service on your property tax to the Economic Development Corporation,” Cole said. “They’re going to pick up the Hickory Slough Sports complex after the detention is done and take on roughly a $17 million project through their resources that won’t come to your property tax. We want to make sure we’re listening to that 48 percent that voted no.”
