Columns

A WORD FROM THE MAYOR I highlighted our comprehensive master plan in general in my last column and this week and in future articles I’ll cover specific topics in the plan. One is housing in Pearsall. The housing discussion covers our current population and expected trends for the future. The 2020 census reported Pearsall’s population…

NEWS FROM THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU  Every year, scammers and con artists capitalize on national, international and local situations to steal consumers’ personal information, time and money. While many scams reported to Better Business Bureau (BBB) are prevalent year-round, such as employment, online purchase or phishing scams, others surface in response to prevailing situations. To…

CAPITAL HIGHLIGHTS  Gov. Greg Abbot has issued a disaster declaration for Texas counties affected by the early February ice storm and is seeking a federal declaration as well for areas in Southeast Texas affected by rare January tornadoes. The ice storm caused considerable damage to property and power outages in the affected areas. The declaration…

A WORD FROM THE MAYOR The City of Pearsall’s last Comprehensive Master Plan (CMP) was completed in 1995. These reports are in-depth reviews of every aspect of the city and report on those conditions. They project growth and calculate what the city needs to do to prepare for that growth while also keeping everything running…

CAPITAL HIGHLIGHTS Residents in Central and Northeast Texas are still cleaning up after a winter storm last week snapped power lines and tree limbs, causing widespread power outages, canceled flights and damage to homes and vehicles. At its peak, nearly 400,000 Texas households were without power, according to poweroutage.us. As of Sunday, that number had…

CAPITAL HIGHLIGHTS A group of House Democrats is proposing a $15,000 raise for the state’s teachers and a 25% raise for other state employees by using some of the state’s record budget surplus. State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, announced the bill last week and was joined by Democratic legislators and teachers, the Austin American-Statesman reported.…

NEWS FROM THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU The season for filing 2022 taxes started on January 24, and while some Texas residents are planning on submitting their own returns, others are reaching out to reputable tax preparers for assistance. With roughly three months remaining until the filing deadline of April 18 for general tax returns, the…

CAPITAL HIGHLIGHTS For the Texas House and Senate, there is not much daylight between each chamber’s priorities in this year’s legislative session. Leaders say the focus will be on property tax relief, border security and employee raises. Preliminary budgets from both chambers were released last week, the Austin American-Statesman reported, with a record $288.7 billion…

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE There are very few people still alive today who can testify to the horrors of the Holocaust, largely because any who survived the Nazis’ so-called final solution would have to be in their 80s and 90s today. It was not until 2005 that the United Nations set a date for…

A WORD FROM THE MAYOR One of the chapters in the Comprehensive Master plan discusses the need for housing. There is very little housing for sale in Pearsall and this is an area of need for this community. It’s been years since any developer built homes that were to be sold on the open market.…