Burn Ban Lifted for Brazos Country

Effective November 2nd, I have lifted the Burn Ban for Brazos Country.

The Austin County Burn Ban of August 19th, 2019 is still in effect for the Unincorporated Areas of the County. I urge all residents to review our Outdoor Burning Ordinance, 2006-04 (attached) and use caution when burning outdoors. Even with the past rainfalls, our County is still very dry.

If you have any questions or need a Burn Permit as required by Section 4 (g),(h) & (j), please contact Mary Lou Craig, City Secretary.

Ord-2006-04-Burn-Ord-1-2

Albert A. Sykes, Mayor

Urgent Post to all citizens

July 2nd,

Today, we received two reports of burglaries in the city from the Austin County Sheriff’s Office. One occurred on Willow Oak Lane in Section 5 and the other on Standing Oaks Rd. The Sheriff’s Office is investigating and our Constable, James Clark, will be adjusting his patrol to be more visible during the day. If you see something—-say something!

Residents should be more vigilant and should check all their doors and windows when leaving home—even for a short time.

Non Emergencies–Call Austin County Sheriffs Office–(979) 865-3111

Emergency–Dial 911

Albert Sykes, Mayor

Interstate 10 Construction Update

Friday, May 3rd, 2019 From Mayor Kalkomey

Here is a brief summary of what we should expect to see on IH10 in the next 12-18 months.

1. The frontage roads will convert to one-way next week between the river and Koy Road. We will have to exit where we normally do westbound and U-turn at Mlcak. They will
reduce the frontage roads to one lane while constructing 2 new lanes. Then they will switch traffic to new frontage road lanes and rebuilt the remaining lane. Then they will place a concrete barrier between the two outer frontage road lanes and divert all IH10 to the inner two frontage road lanes. This will allow them to fully rebuild the main lanes. It probably takes a year to rebuild the frontage roads before they start to divert the main lanes.
2. The FM 1458 (San Felipe exit) overpass and Mlcak Road overpass will be removed and rebuilt. They think FM1458 will be first, which may give them time to build some of the Chew Road interchange to give us some relief westbound. If not, then our U-turn will be FM1458 instead of Mlcak.
3. They will do the westbound river bridge first. Materials for new bridge scheduled for August. So westbound traffic will be diverted to the eastbound bridge. They say the bridge can accommodate 4 lanes of traffic. I suspect it will be tight. Schedule has to coordinated with the work on the Waller County side, so schedule may change.
4. We discussed the issues with all of the accidents on the Waller County side of the river and how those are impacted by the construction methods. This TxDOT office is well aware of the situation, and will make all practical efforts to not duplicate those conditions.
5. This contractor was not the low bidder. The same one on the Waller side was low. But the second low bidder bid a shorter time. So TxDOT chose the shorter schedule. But that schedule is still 3 1/2 years, with incentives to reduce that to 3 years. So even with that we are still looking at early 2022 for completion.
6. Be patient.