Happy New Year, Bellaire. Today, we will install the City Council for the next two (2) years. Congratulations to the successful candidates during this past year’s election, Win Frazier, (Position 1), Ross Gordon, (Position 3), and Brian Witt, (Position 5). All three were re-elected to a second term. I was also re-elected for my second term as your Mayor. I know I speak for all four of us when I say thank you for your support and help these last two years. We have accomplished a great deal. In February 2026, I will be giving my third State of the City address and can preview that the state of the city is strong. It may also sound a bit odd, but I can truthfully say it has been fun. I have enjoyed serving as your Mayor. Interestingly, the most frequently asked question I get is, what has surprised you the most about the position, or what have you found to be different from what you thought? The answer is, the respect the position receives in the public, from other cities, the county, in the state, and nationally. I never saw that coming. Our City garners a great deal of respect, and that is attributable to our residents, the quality of our City Staff, and City Leadership. People are paying attention to what we do and how we do it, and for some time now, I think we have been doing it the right way.
As we embark on 2026, the message to the inquiring world is that the City of Bellaire is growing. We have certainly increased our footprint in the area with the acquisition of land (2.5 acres for our new public works facility, 13 plus acres in the land swap with Houston, by way of example), but what I am really referring to is our mindset. In all aspects, the City is on the move. We are about to hit the ground running on our 110 million dollar drainage project involving Cypress Ditch, which includes diverting our sewage flows to the City of Houston treatment plant across Beechnut and allowing for the use of those 6/7 acres for water detention (I hope some of you will get the 6/7 reference), and we have approximately 30 other capital projects planned for 2026, which includes designing and constructing a new public works facility on the 2.5 acres. On the development front, we are going to have a Trader Joe’s in Bellaire, and several other new restaurants have either opened or will soon open. With HEB next door, we will have the two hottest and best food market concepts across the street from each other in the center of town. While we continue to improve our parks in concert with our community partner, PATRONS for Bellaire Parks, major renovations are also afoot at the Nature Discovery Center and at Evergreen Park, and Evelyn’s Park is always tweaking what is already a gem in the area. Administratively, we have increased the size of our police force and increased protection for our officers in the vehicles they drive, with help from another of our community partners, the Bellaire Police and Fire Foundation. We have purchased a new garbage truck, police cars, and have ordered a new fire truck. New housing builds continue in the city unabated at a steady rate, and there is room for more. We have done all this without increasing your tax rate and without forsaking our soul: Bellaire, the city of homes. In the end, it is about the experience we want: a safe, relatively quiet, peaceful environment, with an appropriate amount of trimmings, e.g., small and some larger businesses, restaurants, places to worship and play, raise our families, a beehive if you will, always a Buzz, but never a roar. We will leave that to and in Houston.
Make no mistake, our growth in this manner is not only a good idea, but it is essential. The state legislature has made it clear they have and are likely to continue to seek ways to limit the revenue that cities will be able to collect through taxation. That is certainly a good thing for taxpayers, but as you can imagine, it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on small cities to continue to keep pace with expected and desired services and the costs that go with them. Therefore, we must plan for and seek out other ways to fund our city, e.g., increased economic growth and the capture of the sales tax revenue that corresponds with such growth. So far so good, as we expect to end our fiscal year in the black as we started, but we still have much to do in the coming year(s), to include addressing our ever increasing need to keep our streets and infrastructure in good repair.
We will also need to hold an election, likely in May 2026, for the selection of a city council member to replace Cindy Cohen Taylor in Position 4. In Cindy’s two years she served the City well, successfully launching our redevelopment effort for Evergreen Park, no small task indeed, as well as providing energy for her position and a practical resident focused approach to every decision. Thank you, Cindy. We will miss you.
I must admit I wanted to launch into the issue of how we, as residents, have been handling our trash and leaves, but that can wait for another day. For now, I will end as I started, wishing you a Happy New Year and urge you to come to the state of the city address in February 2026. In many ways and for our city, particularly, it will be a celebration and an acknowledgment of all of the previous year’s hard work and accomplishments, of which we can and should all be proud.
In the meantime, here’s to a safe and prosperous 2026.
Gus E. Pappas, Mayor of Bellaire