Jacinto City, TX. – June 11, 2015 The Jacinto City Mayor and Council at the regular Council Meeting honored the Jacinto City’s 2015 Honor Graduates from both Galena Park and Furr High School.
Fourteen graduates were presented a city certificate of recognition, souvenir gifts and a cap with the city’s logo. Each graduate came to the microphone to introduce themselves, give the college they planned to attend and what they’re majoring in. Miguel Mendoza of Jacinto City, the Valedictorian of the 2015 class of Galena Park High School made a brief statement of thanks to the city and said he was honored to have made the Graduation Class Speech.
Other city business, Public Works Director Kyle Reed gave the 2014 Annual Drinking Water Quality Report. Mr. Reed said the report also known as the Consumer Confidence Report stated the city’s water was safe and met the Susceptibility Assessment Standards of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Public drinking water systems providing drinking water to the public must submit water samples routinely to an accredited laboratory which checks for dangerous contaminates. The laboratory must submit its findings to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality which then compares the level of contaminants in the samples with the acceptable limits established by the EPA.
Chad Burke with the Economic Alliance Houston Port Region gave a report on both recent past and future planned activities of the agency. He said this year’s service agreement would include an increase in fees. The Council approved the new contract raising the city’s cost from $3,000 to $4,000 annually.
The Economic Alliance Houston Port Region was created in 1985 and serves as the economic development corporation for the Houston Ship Channel region with a defined mission to “to market and grow a vibrant regional economy.” It has service contracts with Harris County, the Port of Houston Authority and the 11 cities that surround the Houston Ship Channel. Houston is not a member but is to join this year Burke said.
The Council approved the funding of a replacement police department computer aided dispatch system (CAD).
City Manager Lon Squyres said the CAD system was not budgeted but will be funded with drug seizure funds. The old server that hosts it operates on ”Server 2003” which will no longer be supported by Microsoft. He said he also discovered that there has not been a maintenance agreement in place for it since it was installed. For those reasons Squyres said he’ll upgrade the CAD system to a newer version and migrate it onto our primary server at the PD which is very robust and can easily handle it. Since we are using the same CAD software company we will not put it out for bids.
The Council approved a resolution adopting the Harris County Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan. City Manager Lon Squyres said the mitigation plan allows the city to apply for mitigation projects in the event that the area becomes eligible for that opportunity. It identifies areas of weaknesses such as exposed glass doors and windows on city buildings that would benefit from roll up steel shutters. We have been part of that plan for years but every 5 years the city goes back and formalizes the agreement with the county, Squyres said.