WTAW - Interviews

The director of Texas A&M's veterinary emergency team, Dr. Deb Zoran, visits with WTAW's Will Welch and Tucker Young on The Infomaniacs June 24, 2026 to talk about the New World Screwworm.

This podcast contains comments from the June 15, 2026 Bryan ISD school board meeting.

Bryan ISD school board members agree to go through a different process to replace mechanical equipment. 

Deputy superintendent Brian Merrell's recommendation was unanimously approved at the last board meeting (June 15) to pay for replacing air conditioning chillers at six elementary schools with bond money from 2020 instead of 2025. 

Merrell also said to meet the deadline to spend bond money from 2020, the purchase will be done through a cooperative that takes less time instead of going through competitive bids.

The budget was not announced to replace chillers at Bonham, Crockett, Houston, Johnson, and Navarro elementary schools.

There were no presentation materials associated with this agenda item.

This podcast contains comments from the June 11, 2026 College Station city council meeting.

The city of College Station is in the middle of the public comment period about how more than $3.5 million dollars in federal community development grant money will be spent next year.

Raney Whitwell of the city's community development office told the city council at their last meeting (June 11) that the most common recipients are those meeting income guidelines.

Recipients can also qualify by what Whitwell describes as being part of a limited clientele.

A third option is to live in a neighborhood that qualifies having enough low and moderate income residents.

The public comment period continues through July 13.

The College Station city council is scheduled to take final action on the 206 page draft plan on July 23rd.

Click HERE to read and download the more than 200 page draft community development plan.

Click HERE to read and download presentation materials from the June 11, 2026 College Station city council meeting.

This podcast contains comments from the June 9, 2026 Brazos County commission meeting.

A committee appointed at the last Brazos County commission meeting (June 9) has more than 50 people. 

After county judge Duane Peters spent more than five minutes reading the names, the initial reaction from commissioner Fred Brown was that this committee, to consider salary appeals by elected officials, was "going to be a train wreck" because there are so many members.

County judge Duane Peters explained this committee is composed of members of the Brazos County grand jury. Only nine members gather for an individual appeal.

Peters says state law controls the committee's action, saying if all nine members support the appeal it is automatically approved. If eight members support the appeal, commissioners make the final decision. If seven or fewer members support the appeal, the appeal is denied.

After the explanation, the list of committee members was unanimously approved.

This podcast contains comments from the June 16, 2026 College Station ISD school board meeting.

College Station ISD school board members adopt a budget for the 2026-27 school year which requires taking more than $6 six million dollars out of savings and decreases the property tax rate by almost one cent.

CSISD chief financial officer Healther Wilson told board members the budget reflects adding $4.5 million for pay raises and adding employees at the expanded career and technical education center.

Wilson is estimating fewer students in CSISD next year will result in a loss of $2 million in state funding.

Wilson also said 60 percent of CSISD's net taxable value was in the appeal process. As of the June 17th board meeting, Wilson said successful appeals lowered CSISD's total valuation by $588 million dollars. That lowered Wilson's estimation of valuation growth from seven to 3.9 percent.

Not impacted by property taxes is a separate fund controls CSISD's food service operations. The board approved Wilson's recommendation to increase student school lunch prices for the first time since 2019. Wilson said the 25 cent increase was due to the end of temporary federal grant money.

Click HERE to read and download presentation materials shown at the June 16, 2026 College Station ISD school board meeting.

This podcast contains comments from the June 9, 2026 Bryan city council meeting.

The first activity hosted by the new Bryan Youth Sports Association received rave reviews at the June meeting of the Bryan city council meeting. 

Councilwoman Marca Ewers-Shurtleff said a tackle football camp drew the maximum registration of 125 fourth through sixth grade students in Bryan ISD.

Shurtleff said "And even if you don't have a heart and you're not interested in molding children and getting them on the right path, from an economic standpoint it is a huge cost saver if we can save one of these kids from going down the wrong path and ending up in the system, we certainly have tripled our investment on them."

Councilman Paul Torres added "We're really excited about it because it is for every kid. It's not just for elite kids, it's just for every kid where they can go out there and they can really learn the game in the beginning so that way when they get to the high school level they've already learned the game."

Funded by the city of Bryan, the organization is led by retired Texas A&M head football coach and athletic director Jackie Sherrill.

This podcast contains comments from the June 15, 2026 Bryan ISD school board meeting.

Bryan ISD school board members approve the purchase of online monitoring of buses and express no opposition to the administration's plan to schedule the replacement of buses.

The cost of a pilot program to track buses, more than $261,000 dollars, will be paid from surplus money in BISD's 2020 bond issue. 

BISD's transportation director Brian Washington says this will benefit students, their parents, and bus drivers who will no longer have to read paper bus routes while they are driving.

Click HERE to read and download presentation materials about the online bus monitoring pilot program that were shown at the June 15, 2026 Bryan ISD school board meeting.

Washington's proposed bus replacement program is to ensure BISD buses are driven for no more than 15 years.

Washington's proposed use of new buses from year one to year five will be for out of district trips. Year six through ten, the bus will move to in-district routes. And after ten years buses will be used on a substitute basis.

Washington also said BISD currently has 40 buses that do not have seat belts, which is a state requirement that starts in 2019.

Click HERE to read and download presentation materials about the proposed bus replacement schedule that was presented at the June 15, 2026 Bryan ISD school board meeting.

This podcast contains comments from the June 11, 2026 College Station city council meeting.

The College Station city council agrees with the city manager to not require owners of student rental housing and short term rentals to notify renters about city ordinances. 

City manager Bryan Woods promoted at the last council meeting (June 11), the city doing more to inspire owners to voluntarily tell their tenants about complying with city codes. 

College Station's education efforts includes collaborating with Texas A&M to tell students about how to avoid common violations.

Additional ideas during the council discussion included using the city of College Station's "see-click-fix" app and placing a large Q-R code on city structures to direct people to city information.

Click HERE to be directed to the city of College Station's "see-click-fix" webpage.
No presentation materials were shown during the council discussion.

This podcast contains comments from the June 9, 2026 Brazos County commission meeting.

Last year, Brazos County commissioners approved $1 million dollars in this year's budget to hire an outside consultant to develop a 20 to 25 year master plan. 

At the commission's June 9th meeting, approval was given to recommendations to start accepting proposals and form the committee that will review the proposals.

The county's project manager, Trevor Lansdown, responded to a public speakers question about the timing because there will be a new county judge and one or two new commissioners taking office January 1st. Lansdown said the timing wasn't great, but authority to spend the money didn't happen until last October and staff has been working since then to get to this point.


The purpose of the Brazos County master plan, quoting a county document, "will serve as a twenty to twenty-five (20–25) year roadmap guiding growth, service delivery, infrastructure, and operational efficiency. The plan will align the County’s people, facilities, technology, and policies with projected demographic and economic trends to ensure effective, data-driven governance and resource stewardship. This comprehensive plan will provide both a long-term vision and short-term actionable strategies for elected officials, department heads, and staff."

College Station city councilman Bob Yancy visits with WTAW's Tucker Young on The Infomaniacs June 19, 2026. Topics includes a preview of a upcoming council discussion on the Northgate District area plan, data centers, the impact in College Station of the proposed SpaceX project in Grimes County, public participation in council meetings, and Yancy's possible candidacy for mayor.