🏛️ Township Cuts the Tax Rate, but Not Without a No Vote

🗳️ Four Names, Two Seats: Tomball ISD's November Election Takes Shape

⚓ A Conroe Sailor Serves Aboard the Navy's 9/11 Memorial Ship

📊 The Conroe CPA Who Wrote a Book Called "Fire My CPA"

🌦️ Mostly cloudy, rain possible · 89°F / 76°F

A humid day with a coin-flip chance of rain, so it's worth keeping an umbrella in the car.

Source: Apple Weather

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The Woodlands Township Board adopted its 2026 property tax rate at a special meeting Thursday, setting the combined rate at $0.1694 per $100 of taxable value. That is down from the 2025 total of $0.1714. The vote came right after the Board approved the 2027 consolidated budget and held a public hearing on the proposed rate, as required by law.

The total rate is made up of two pieces the Board has to adopt separately. The debt service portion, set at $0.0100 per $100, passed unanimously. The larger maintenance and operations portion, set at $0.1594 per $100, passed 6 to 1, with Director Shelley Sekula-Gibbs casting the only vote against.

Once both pieces were adopted, the Board approved Order No. 008-26, the Order Levying Taxes that formally puts the new rate into effect. That vote was also 6 to 1, with Sekula-Gibbs dissenting again.

Why it matters: a lower headline number is easy to nod along with, but a repeated 6-1 split on how to get there means at least one Board member thinks the number, or the process behind it, deserves more scrutiny than a quick vote gives it.

Source/Credits: The Woodlands Township

Filing closed last month for two seats on the Tomball ISD Board of Trustees, and four names are now set for the Nov. 3 ballot. Position 1 pits incumbent Patrick Beecher against challenger Lacey Derrington. Position 3 pits incumbent John McStravick against challenger Joseph Ferguson.

Early voting runs Oct. 19 through 30 for Harris County residents, per the county's election site. Montgomery County residents can find their own early voting details on the county elections page, with an Oct. 5 registration deadline that applies district-wide.

Why it matters: two of the district's nine board seats are in play this fall, and both incumbents are getting a real race instead of a walk-on.

Source/Credits: Community Impact

Seaman Elixandar Ceballos, a Conroe native who graduated from homeschool in 2020, serves aboard the USS New York, one of three Navy ships built with steel salvaged from the World Trade Center. He joined the Navy a year ago and works today as a culinary specialist, aiming next for the Flag Mess program that supports senior Navy commanders.

Ceballos said staying away from bad influences growing up in Conroe shaped the discipline he brings to the job, and that his grandfather's service in the Korean War helped point him toward the Navy. "It is an honor to serve on this ship," he said of the reaction New Yorkers have when they learn what the ship carries.

Why it matters: with the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11 landing this month, a hometown sailor serving on one of the ships built to remember it carries more weight than a headline alone.

Source/Credits: Woodlands Online

Sarah Jones built Sarah Jones, CPA in Conroe around a blunt observation: most successful business owners assume their accountant is already finding every tax break available, and most of the time nobody's actually looking. The firm's own book, "Fire My CPA," takes its name straight from the frustration that brings clients through the door.

The practice works with seven and eight-figure business owners on a trademarked planning system, and September and October are its busiest months, when every client gets a year-end roadmap session before the window to act on this year's taxes closes.

Why it matters: for a business at that income level, the gap between a CPA who files and one who plans can run into six figures a year.

🗓️ Kids Fishing Tournament | Creekwood Park | 7:30am–noon | Free | More info

🗓️ Township Pools Open | Nine Township pools | Noon–6pm | Free with season pass | More info

🗓️ Live Music at Hyatt Centric | Market Street | 6–10pm | More info

🗓️ Cars & Coffee for a Cause | Market Street | 6–10am | More info

🗓️ Township Pools Open | Nine Township pools | 1–6pm | Free with season pass | More info

🗓️ Labor Day Celebration | Waterway Square | 5–9pm | Free | More info

🗓️ Township Pools Open, final day of the 2026 season | Nine Township pools | Noon–6pm | Free with season pass | More info

🗓️ HSO: When Instruments Roamed the Earth | The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion | More info

Note: Dates and times are as announced online. Organizers may make changes. Always confirm before heading out.

Lake Conroe exists because a seven-year drought in the 1950s scared Texas water planners into building reservoirs. The City of Houston partnered with the San Jacinto River Authority to build it and held two-thirds of the water rights, making most of the lake Houston's emergency backup supply on paper. The SJRA bought the right to use Houston's share in 2009, which is how that water finally became available to Montgomery County.

"It's hot as a billy goat in a pepper patch out there." Translation: miserably, unreasonably hot.

A house key is worthless to almost everyone on earth and priceless to about four people.

What do you call a belt made of watches? A waist of time.