From the Mayor’s desk – 2/20/26

Happy Friday!

Human Resources:

A Big Week in little ol’ Surfside Beach.  We hosted 5 finalists for the City Administrator position on Tuesday.  Some last minute confusion to sort out leading up to the interview forum.  First off, there was one candidate that applied months ago to Clear Career Pros and was not interviewed with the others.  They made a mistake.  To rectify the mistake, they interviewed the candidate late last week and determined that he should be included with the other 4 finalists.  On Monday, he was informed that he would be interviewing on site the next day, Tuesday.  We put him in the last time slot of the interview slate as #5.  Next, the format as planned took an unexpected turn.  We were all prepared to publicly interview all candidates in Council chambers.  We were advised about 30 minutes prior to start that this shouldn’t be done, and had to quickly shift to a closed session along with a public forum.  It was not ideal, but I hope that everyone in attendance and on Zoom was able to participate as they had hoped.  The next step in this process is to reconvene next week on Wednesday at 5:30pm in executive session to make a decision on our final candidate.  At our disposal to make our collective decision, we have the first video interview with Clear Career Pros, our Zoom video from the public forum on Tuesday, and our personal interview that we held in closed session on Tuesday.  In my opinion, we had 5 great candidates brought to us from Clear Career Professionals and a tough decision is a great problem to have!

Again, we are actively hiring for seasonal positions.  Just like last year, we are offering a $500 bonus to anyone who works for the entire summer beach season in these seasonal roles.  If interested, please contact Human Resources at City Hall.

Grants & Major Projects:

Hats off to the Brazoria County Community Development Director who contacted me about the possibility of securing a CDBG-Public Facilities & Infrastructure grant.  This is a grant that is available for areas that are at least  51% low-moderate income residents.  For reference, the annual income limit for an individual resident is $65k and a family of up to 4 is $92k.  We have the potential to be granted up to $123,500 if we can identify projects in a 51%+ low/moderate income level area.  One important item that I learned in the discussion was that Short Term Rentals are to be considered commercial property and not residential homes for the survey.  So, the owner of a high dollar rental home would not be considered in the income calculation.  We are actively evaluating projects for looping and replacing water distribution lines in many areas that may achieve the 51% threshold.  More to come…and we may need volunteers to help with door to door income surveys!

The Groin & Beach Nourishment project released their final drawings for the new location of the East Groin which extends straight out from the terminus of 332 at the Gulf.  That East Groin will be 465 feet long, the West groin will be 423 feet long extending at an angle towards the Jetty.  The sand for beach nourishment extending from the jetty all the way to about Francis Cove Avenue is 150 feet of new beach per the drawing.  We have an update meeting next week scheduled with GLO and the Engineers and I will report back results next Friday.  If you remember the last update had an estimate construction start date of 10/4/2026 and completion estimate of 7/26/2027.

Tourism:

A reminder that Surfside is hosting a kick-off 2 day event at the Stage on March 20^th & 21^st.  “Surfside Sunset and Sound”.  We will have Vendors, Live Music, History, Food Trucks, and possibly Kite Flyers.  This will also coincide with the Texas Independence Celebration!! 

Beach & Parks:

Next week we will be putting in a cement pad behind the City Shop on Ft Velasco.  Included will be a vehicle/equipment wash station with a grease trap drain system to help with corrosion on all VOSB vehicles.  This small project will help all the vehicles in every department remove the salt coating that exists in Surfside, on a daily basis.  A small investment in preventative maintenance that will pay back many times over in equipment longevity.  It’s inevitable, but you can slow down the corrosion with careful preventative maintenance.

As always, I hope that you have a great day in wonderful (but again damp!) Surfside Beach! 

Thanks,

Zach