In an August 9^th workshop session, members of the Waller County commissioners court continued discussion of the county’s mobility needs and a potential mobility bond.

Following concerns raised at prior workshops, a representative of Halff Associates returned to the commissioners with a revised list of projects and a revised total budget.  The revisions were made to accommodate commissioners’ previous concerns on allocation for city partnership projects, for contingency fees and for adequate funding for design and management fees.

The presentation by Halff at the July 19th meeting of the commissioners court contained 37 projects for a total of $258 million; the new project list is now 25 projects at an approximate total of $278 million.

The projects eliminated from the previous list included two safety projects in Precinct 1 (adding shoulders along Buller Road and on Laneview) and one capacity project in Precinct 2 (along Macedonia Road).  The other projects which were dropped were not listed at this meeting.

Walter Smith, Commissioner for Precinct 2, spoke on the necessity of the changes in order to have as much accuracy as possible in the projected costs of the mobility projects. “My concern is to bring something to the citizens to vote on, with a high level of confidence.”

Discussion continued on the merits of a single project manager versus individual project managers for each of the county’s four precincts.  “There needs to be some management for an overall county-wide perspective,” said County Judge Trey Duhon.

The impact of the proposed bond package on individual taxpayers was also discussed.  Duhon again stressed that all of the proposed bonds would not be issued in a single year, and that bonds would be issued carefully in order not to increase the tax rate. “It will be our approach to keep the burden off the individual taxpayer,” said Duhon.

Smith further explained the process.  “While this is an authorization to enter into that much debt, we will analyze on a year-to-year basis if we can actually issue these bonds. On a year-to-year basis based on projections we will take into account which we can afford to do in a particular year.”

“We will engage in more in-depth studies on potential growth and so on,” said Smith.

Before adjourning the meeting, Duhon noted that this is the first mobility bond project for Waller County.

The call for the mobility bond, in the amount of $278,798,560.00 was placed on the agenda for the commissioners court’s regular meeting on August 16^th and commissioners voted at that time.  That meeting took place after press time for this story in the Katy Times.