During their May meeting, Pattison City Council heard an update from GrantWorks, the city’s grants consultant, regarding the city’s applications for Community Development Block Grant funds. Council members also heard an update from Mayor Joe Garcia regarding three upcoming community cleanup events.

“We welcome anyone that wants to come out and help (at those events),” Pattison Mayor Joe Garcia said.

The first event is scheduled for this Saturday, May 15 and will allow the community to pitch in and help clean up the area near Bell Bottom Creek, Garcia said. He added that he has reached out to the Reserve Officers Training Corps group at Royal ISD to ask for their assistance in coordinating the event. Cleanup operations will run from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. he said and volunteers are still needed to help pick up trash and debris in the area.

Garcia said he is hoping that the event will grant the city recognition with the Trash Free Texas Program. The statewide program is designed to help fight roadside litter along roadways across the state which costs taxpayers in Texas millions of dollars a year to clean up.

The second event – a hazardous household waste cleanup day – is scheduled for May 22 at the Pattison Volunteer Fire Department, according to a brochure provided by the city.

The event is funded through a grant from the Houston-Galveston Area Council and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will allow Pattison and Waller County residents to turn in household hazardous waste at the Pattison Area Volunteer Fire Department at 2950 FM 359 in Pattison, Garcia said. The event runs from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. or until the capacity of the available receptacles is reached.

Tires, electronics, household chemicals and cleaners, aerosols, camp stove propane bottles, fluorescent light bulbs, paint and similar chemical products (limit 25 gallons per household, household batteries, used oil filters and vehicle fluids, pool chemicals and lawn and garden chemicals may all be turned in at the event.

Industrial, commercial and business waste will not be accepted at the event, nor will TVs, computer monitors, copy machines, water or fire-damaged electronics, dioxins, tractor tires, explosives, ammunition, smoke alarms, medical waste, gas or propane cylinders or general trash.

The final cleanup event will be held June 12 in cooperation with Allegiance Bank in Brookshire, Garcia said. Final details for the location and time of the event are pending and Garcia said he expects them to be finalized later this month.

City Council also authorized Garcia to negotiate an agreement for animal control services through the Waller County Sheriff’s Office. Such an agreement would have the city paying WCSO for the service in conjunction with other Waller County towns that wanted to join in the measure. Such a contract would need to be approved by city council, once negotiated.

Evan Humphries wit4h GrantWorks updated the council on the status of the city’s CDBG application. If approved, the grant funding through the Texas Agriculture Commission would allow the city to upgrade water service to about 40 current residents and would improve 3,100 feet of water lines throughout the city and add 10 fire hydrants to the city, improving safety, she said. If approved, the grant application would allow work to start in the fourth quarter of this year. The application was submitted the afternoon of April 30.

“With everyone’s wonderful help and assistance, we were able to submit it on (that day) at about 3 p.m. So, we got it in early. We had no technical issues and there was no problem to report,” Humphries said.