From the Desk of Mayor David Rutledge

Here’s a few things happening around City Hall.

As you well know, the Atlantic hurricane season is upon us. It’s time to start thinking about your preparations and plans for the upcoming summer and fall around this. From what I can gather so far, it’s supposed to be an “above average year for cyclone activity”, so a little diligence now may save some heartaches later. There are numerous sources out there to help with planning for emergencies, just do a quick internet search, and you should find plenty of information to help you plan ahead.

Speaking of planning ahead, have you signed up for STAN, the Southeast Texas Alerting Network? That’s the best way to stay apprised of official information, the straight scoop, during emergencies. It’s easy to sign up by going to theSTAN.com, click on the big red “Register” button and follow the directions. You can sign up for any or all the various means of contact including text, email, voicemail, and TTY. Take your choice and sign up now.

STAN can also be used for non-emergencies. Just last week we used STAN to alert city water customers of the outage of one of our main water supply wells. We had some important maintenance work that had to be done, so we scheduled it where it would have the least impact on our citizens. We planned for a 72-hour outage, but because of the hard work by our well contractor and City crews, we completed the work, disinfection, flushing and sampling in 56 hours. Mother Nature was kind enough to drop the temperature a few degrees and give us a little rain for our yards, and our task was completed without any interruptions in service. We’d like to say “Thanks” to all the citizens who helped reduce water usage during the outage. So that is another good reason to sign up for STAN, to get important non-emergency information from an official source along with any emergency information vital to our citizens.

We’ve also got some new faces at City Hall. Gloria Aguilar has signed on to work with us as a Utility Clerk. She’s the new face in the window when you pay your water bill. Shelley Fields, who joined us late last year, is now “flying solo” in the Finance Department after Karen Morgan retired last week.

Speaking of new faces, we’ve also gotten one returning and two new City Council members. Mike Reed continues to serve us as Council Member Place 2. Patty Collins was elected to Council Member Place 4, taking the seat where Danny Harrington served for two terms. Sherby Dixon was voted in as Council Member Place 6, replacing Richard Savoy. I would like to thank Danny for his years of service and commitment to the City. He worked hard for all the citizens and was dedicated to making the City better. I’d also like to thank Richard for stepping up to help us when we had a vacancy and needed a full Council for the work we knew was coming. Although his “day job” was quite demanding, he came on board as an experienced Council member, ready and willing to tackle the extra work. Thanks to both of y’all for serving the citizens of Bridge City.

That’s about it for now. See you around town. Take good care of “Bridge City, the Gateway to Lake Sabine.”