WTAW - Interviews

This podcast contains comments from the November 13, 2025 College Station city council meeting.

In July 2025, a consultant hired by the College Station city council met with representatives of local tourism businesses and committees.

At the council's November 13th meeting, the consultant presented an update to the council.

Click HERE to read and download presentation materials at the November 13, 2025 College Station city council meeting.

Five of the six recommendations made by consultant Dan Fenton involved collaborating with Texas A&M.

One idea is to get faculty members to recruit meetings and conventions to College Station. Fenton relayed an estimate from one hotel manager that because A&M has more than 4,000 faculty members, they could help bring as many as 10,000 meetings to College Station.

Another idea is having A&M's admissions office promote to out of town prospective students and families, staying longer in College Station.

The council was asked to consider the following ideas:
• Establish a dedicated joint event coordinator position
• Create a unified calendar system to eliminate scheduling conflicts between City and A&M
• Develop a “Venue Needs Assessment” so external planners know what’s available and when.
• Build package/event marketing for city venues as alternatives when A&M venues are unavailable.
• Target association meetings/conferences market with dedicated sales staff.The consultant is scheduled to present a final plan to the council in February 2026.

The nearly 40 minute discussion did not include the preferred access agreement for campus facilities that was made 13 years ago between the A&M system and the cities of College Station and Bryan and Brazos County. The agreement diverted 30 years of hotel occupancy tax money towards the expansion of Kyle Field.

This podcast contains comments from the November 17, 2025 Bryan ISD school board meeting.

Two weeks after voters in Bryan ISD approved bond issues for $397 million dollars of projects, administrators gave school board members the sequence of events that will take place.

Click HERE to read and download presentation materials from the November 17, 2025 Bryan ISD board meeting.

Construction will take place over multiple years. $290 million dollars of bonds will be purchased in August 2026, $60 million in August 2029, and $47 million in August of 2031.

BISD board members were told it will take two to six months to hire architects and engineers.

When an architect and/or engineer is hired, that is followed by negotiating professional service fees, the scope of work, and the estimated schedule among other things. BISD's construction manager Bobby Griffin said several architects/engineers may be hired in order to do multiple projects at the same time.

Griffin also said they have to package projects by identifying priorities and immediate needs, determine equipment that is at or near failure, consider immediate safety or security concerns, consider campus impact, and consider student displacement and construction timing on building operations among other things.

There are three options to determine a construction method for each project: CSP (Competitive Sealed Proposals), CMAR (Construction Manager at Risk), and design build.

This podcast is a visit with KBTX-TV anchor Rusty Surette on WTAW's The Infomaniacs previewing the 30th annual Food For Families event benefitting the Brazos Valley Food Bank. 

Click HERE to be directed to the Brazos Valley Food Bank website for more information about Food For Families.

This week's United Way of the Brazos Valley update features partner agency Brazos Valley Rehabilitation Center.

Andrea Buck, APO Director of Outreach, visits with WTAW's Chelsea Reber about the opening of Ally's Home.

This podcast contains comments from the November 13, 2025 College Station city council meeting.

College Station city council members make an exception in the normally routine approval of pre-qualifying outside companies to provide on-call services.

There was no opposition to Bob Yancy's request to drop one company from the list.

Yancy did not want on the list, the company initially hired to do soil testing at Texas Independence Park where it was later learned the soil would not support the construction of baseball fields.

The council unanimously approved the remaining 72 firms that were pre-qualified in 22 different categories.

Click HERE to read and download additional information from the November 13, 2025 College Station city council meeting before the vote to delete one company from the list of pre-qualified outside companies.

This podcast contains comments from the November 18, 2025 Brazos County commission meeting, chaired by acting county judge Kyle Kacal.

Brazos County commissioners vote three to one to continue using a consultant to manage road projects financed by a voter approved bond issue in November 2022.But the amount of money the consultants is going down as they are managing fewer projects.

The commission majority said the consultant's services will no longer be needed after January of 2027.

County engineer Prathana Banerji says the consulting engineers provide services that are beyond what is available at the county's road and bridge department.

Commissioner Fred Brown, who voted against the contract extension, said a consultant was not needed to work with TxDOT.

Click HERE to read and download the second amendment to the Brazos County contract with Innovative Transportation Services that was approved at the November 18, 2025 county commission meeting.

Click HERE to read and download the original contract with Innovative Transportation services was signed in 2020.

Click HERE to read and download the first amendment to the contract was signed in 2024.

This podcast is a visit with assistant Brazos County district attorney Jessica Escue and WTAW's Bill Oliver.

A Brazos County district judge sentencing a Temple man to prison for evading arrest with a prior conviction resulted in additional criminal charges.

One of the prosecutors at the sentencing hearing, Jessica Escue, says when 24 year old Jeffery Warren reacted to the prison sentence by creating an outburst in the courtroom that included cursing at court staff, resisting arrest, and briefly escaping custody, knocking over furniture and equipment in the courtroom before being forcibly apprehended by bailiffs and investigators with the district attorney's office, and damaging fixtures in the courtroom.

Escue says the following day in the county jail, Warren assaulted a detention officer seriously enough to require hospital treatment. Escue says Warren has been indicted by a grand jury on a charge of assaulting a peace officer.

Escue says the indictment and any charges from the courtroom outburst will be handled by a different Brazos County district judge and another group of prosecutors.

News release from the Brazos County district attorney's office about the sentencing of Jeffery Warren:

On November 13, 2025, Jeffery Warren, 24, was sentenced by District Judge John Brick to five years in prison for the offense of Evading Arrest with a Previous Conviction. Warren’s sentence followed a plea of guilty and a punishment hearing in front of Judge Brick.Warren’s conviction stemmed from an incident on August 27, 2022.

Around 6 pm that night, the College Station Police Department responded to Highway 6 after receiving a call regarding a stolen vehicle out of Killeen, Texas which the owner was able to track via satellite GPS. The owner informed CSPD that the vehicle was travelling northbound on Highway 6 towards College Station.CSPD spotted the vehicle and attempted to initiate a traffic stop. Instead of stopping, the vehicle travelled at a high rate of speed, crossed into the grassy median and then into oncoming traffic on Highway 6. Because of the danger to the community, officers terminated the high-speed pursuit.

Shortly thereafter, Officers located the now wrecked and abandoned vehicle in a nearby neighborhood. Officers set up a perimeter and canvassed the area. After speaking to residents, combing through the area with a K-9 unit and watching Ring Camera footage, officers located the defendant hiding in a nearby creek. His codefendant, the driver of the vehicle, was also located nearby. At the time of this offense, Warren was on probation for felony evading out of Bell County.

After the sentence of five years in prison was announced by Judge Brick, Warren began cursing at court staff, resisted arrest, and briefly escaped custody, knocking over furniture and equipment in the courtroom before being forcibly apprehended by bailiffs and investigators with the District Attorney’s Office. In his efforts to escape, Warren damaged fixtures in the 272nd courtroom. Investigations into additional charges are currently in progress.

Statement from assistant Brazos County district attorneys Jessica Escue and Jordan Jordan: “Every police chase is a dangerous event for law enforcement and innocent civilians. The defendant’s behavior — while on probation for the same offense — requires a strong response to protect our community.”

College Station Mayor John Nichols visits with WTAW's Scott DeLucia about nickels, parking regulations in neighborhoods, responding to informed citizen input, The Big 6 project, Dave & Buster's and Sprouts coming to College Station, and more during his appearance on The Infomaniacs.

This podcast contains comments from the November 17, 2025 Bryan ISD school board meeting.

Bryan ISD school board members at the November 17th meeting were given an update on the education foundation bringing comfort dogs to three elementary schools. 

The principal at Kemp-Carver, Alison Boggan introduced June, who is a one year old black Labrador.
Boggan and Kemp-Carver teacher Cara Peters shared the overwhelming response in the two weeks June has been in their building.

The board was told during December, Mochi will be introduced at Neal elementary and Rhys will be introduced at Sul Ross.