11/07/2025
CITY MANAGER’S SNAP SHOT for October 2025: From hosting a very successful National Night Out/Community Expo to Smoke testing and Public Meetings, here’s a snap shot of notable activities in October to kick our new fiscal year off right.
• County Fair information booths: The City departments of Public Works, Development Services and City Manager were set up at the County Fair again this year to answer questions and hand out information. We were surprised to find that many people did not know that they could attend City Council and other City board meetings! YES, the public is always and definitely encouraged to attend any meeting of the City Council or our various boards. All regular meetings are held at City Hall, 202 N. Virginia St. City Council meets the 2nd Monday of every month at 6:30 pm; Port Commission meets the 3rd Tuesday at 3:30 pm; Planning Board meets the 4th Tuesday at 5:30 pm and the Parks Board meets the 4th Wednesday at noon. All meetings are shown in the City events calendar on line at https://portlavaca.org/events/ and the agendas are posted on the north door of city hall and on our website www.portlavaca.org.
• Second annual National Night Out/Community Expo: This event at the Bauer Community Center on October 7th was a huge success with an estimated attendance of between 400-500 people. We had 6 First Responder agencies, 21 nonprofit 501(c)(3) agencies, 9 for-profit businesses and 11 other government agencies represented. Next year’s event will be on Tuesday, October 6.
• PLPD: The number of Traffic stops for the month of October was 550
• TIRZ: To encourage and stimulate economic development, the City Council is considering the adoption of a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ). A Public Meeting was held on October 13 to share information with the public about the proposed TIRZ and emphasize this is not a new tax. There will be another Public Meeting next Monday, November 10 at 6:30 pm at the start f the Council meeting to again share information about the proposed TIRZ prior to the Council’s schedule vote on the second reading of the adoption ordinance. For more information please come to the Public Meeting or you can find information on the Texas Comptroller’s website at https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/development/prop-tax/ch311/about-tirz.php
• Comprehensive Plan Neighborhood meetings: On October 21 and 22, we held neighborhood meetings for the residents in Council Districts 2, 3, and 4. SAVE THE DATE: DEC. 2nd at 6 pm at the Bauer Community Center for a Community Open House to provide information and get feedback as our consultant begins to works on developing the comprehensive plan and discuss zoning in Port Lavaca
• Joint Workshop with the Planning Board: The City Council and Planning Board held a joint workshop on October 27 to discuss various code enforcement issues and proposed amendments to our ordinances. These included Junk Vehicle, Street Vendors, Temporary Signs and Illegal dumping. The public is always encouraged to attend these workshops to provide input for the discussions.
• Smoke Testing: During the month of October, inspection crews were out conducting a physical survey of portions of the City of Port Lavaca’s sanitary sewer system using Smoke Testing to locate breaks and defects in the sanitary sewer system. The areas surveyed were those that drain to the Main Lift Station on Houston Street and included Brookhollow, Oak Grove, Lynnhaven, and the areas around HEB and the stadium. Breaks and defects in sewer mains can allow rainwater into the sewer system and cause flow exceedance at the wastewater treatment plant. This study involved the opening of manholes in the streets and easements and blowing smoke into the sanitary sewer system from the manholes. Residents were notified ahead of time with door hangers and the smoke used is NON-TOXIC AND CREATES NO FIRE HAZARD.
• Ann Street Lift Station: Work on the rebuilding of the Ann Street Sewer Lift Station began this month. The lift station has been set and Lester Contracting is working on installation of the force-main. The water that you may have seen running down Ann and Main Street this past month was groundwater that was encountered in the excavation at about a 12 ft depth.
• Regan Building: We have received engineered plans to provide shoring of the Regan Building on Main Street and are currently soliciting bids from contractors. In the meantime, we have barricaded the adjacent Faye Bauer Sterling Park and ask that the public stay out of the park area until we can get that west wall fully secured and shored. The conceptual plans for the building are to build some sort of a truss system to replace what was the second floor and roof of the structure and convert the area to an open air plaza to compliment the Faye Bauer Sterling Park.
• Independence Drive: Independence Drive from Virginia to Sandcrab has been seal-coated and was recently opened to traffic. Lester Contracting has closed Independence from Half League to Sandcrab to work on that section. Once both sections are complete, 2” of hot-mix asphalt and traffic striping will be completed.
• Water Restriction: Undine, LLC is working on improvements at the Port Lavac Water Treatment Plant and have had to shut the plant down twice during the month of October for construction. During both instances, emergency water use restrictions were triggered, and water customers were asked to conserve water. Both construction projects were a complete success without any issues, thanks in part to the customers conservation efforts. When possible, Undine provides us one week’s notice so we can place a notice in the Port Lavaca Wave, but sometimes notice is only a couple days. To make sure you are aware of these types of notices and others, make sure to sign up for our CODE RED notification service at https://portlavaca.org/codered-emergency-alerts/
• LHB Vehicle entry Gate: Month one of collecting fees again at LHB is in the books with relatively little issue. To date we’ve sold 153 annual passes and show about 2,000 daily pass entrances to the park.
• Smith Harbor waterfront access improvements: The construction of a 30’x50’ fishing/crabbing deck in Smith Harbor was completed this month. Soon we will be bidding a project to reconstruct the parking lot behind Nautical Landings complete with green infrastructure storm drainage components.
To keep up with any Capital Improvement or grant project in the City, go to our Projects Transparency Page on our website:
https://cleargov.com/texas/calhoun/city/port-lavaca/projects
