What We Do For You is the 2024-2025 theme for the City of Mont Belvieu, and City Manager Brian Winningham, made that clear during Tuesday’s Mont Belvieu Area Chamber of Commerce State of the City event.
“This is a really special group of people,” Winningham told the audience. “I want to make
sure you are reflective of that. When you come to these meetings or participate in Chamber of Commerce events, it matters for the people that reside in Mont Belvieu, partly because I think you are somebody special.”
Winningham said the people in the audience, mostly made up of Mont Belvieu and Chambers County workers, that they are doing something to make everyone’s lives better.
“And not just in our community, but in your workplace where you are at and the people around you,” he said. “They are watching. So, it matters that you are here today just to talk about the State of the City.”
Winningham went over the city’s vision statement: “Mont Belvieu will continue to be a family-friendly
hometown that provides a safe, high quality of life for our residents while embracing forward thinking and progress.”
“This matters because this is our vision, this is what the horizon looks like,” Winningham said. “How do we get there? Where are we going? This vision right here, we stay true to it. We talk about being family-friendly, we talk about someplace that you are
going to live that is safe, that has high quality of life for the residents. We are the city that puts multiple millions of dollars into quality of life.”
Winningham said quality of life means sewer, water and roads to him.
“But we go above and beyond that because of our directors and what they care about in their community,” he
added.
Winningham said it takes an incredible and dedicated commitment for people like those on the Mont Belvieu City Council to put themselves in front of others and ask for votes.
“To represent your constituency and also say I am doing this because live here, I must reside here and I am going to do
this almost out of the care of my heart because none of these individuals are paid a dollar,” Winningham said. “And they do it willingly.”
Using a chart, Winningham showed that Mont Belvieu’s population has grown significantly. The population numbers were 3,200 in 2005. In 2015, it grew to 5,162. Five years later, the number was 8,200. Last year, it was 11,500 and the latest figures show it at
12,600.
“But as the city grows, our staff is not growing,” Winningham said. “You cannot pay for that so I have to have exceptional people. You do more with less because you hire the right people.”
Winningham also pointed out that on Mont Belvieu’s organizational chart, citizens are always at the top.
“This is put out in every budget manual that is produced,” he said.
For Mont Belvieu’s demographics, Winningham showed that its service area population is at 35,000-plus. That is a population increase of about 6% to 9% annually. Mont Belvieu was also listed as Houston area’s fastest growing city in 2018, according to Winningham’s
chart.
There are also about 3,600 total households in Mont Belvieu with 8.1% of them being multi-family units with 91.1% being single-family units. The median household income is $126,602. The number of residential homes is 2,936 and the year-over-year increase is 350 homes.
For the city’s tax rates,
Winningham showed that the 2023/2024 tax rate is $0.444252 per $100 of valuation. Between 2009 to 2023, the tax rate was $0.41 to $0.44. In addition, the 2023 taxable values added up to $5.94 billion.
“It’s tough to be building a city in flight,” Winningham said. “But that is what we are doing. We are building as we live. That makes it very difficult because you cannot make any mistakes. You have to get
the roads right. You have to get the infrastructure under the roads right because you do not want to go and tear it out and redo it.”
Winningham said the taxable values mean a lot to the city.
“We are a city that can do it,” he said. “We just have to design it and get it moving.”
Winningham also said that it was no small matter for any taxing entity to be taken for granted.
“And we do not,” he said.
Winningham also showed that the Top 10 taxpayers give $3.1 billion, or 59.32%, of taxable assessed value to the city.
“This is to ensure that you are all able to live as you want to, not as you must,” he said.
Winningham said since his last State of the City address, 31 projects have been completed. This includes the Hackberry dog park, the FM 1409 signal lights, a new fire station, a town center/city hall landscaping and parking lot, the
Toasted Yolk opening, Riceland Community’s sections 1 through 6, a wastewater treatment plant groundbreaking, Enterprise Products and Targa Resources pipelines, a county annex expansion and much more.
“This is an incredible amount of work that was done in partnership with our community, council and city staff,” Winningham said.
For the Critical Infrastructure Projects, Winningham said that within the past 10 years, 66 projects were completed at a cost of $183.6 million. For the current CIPs, Winningham said people could log on to the city’s website at https://montbelvieu.net/66/Capital-Projects to see the latest happenings.
Some of the projects Winningham said the city is looking at for the next 10 years include 10-plus sanitary sewer projects, 15-plus waterline projects, 20-plus roadway projects, eight drainage projects, 24-plus parks projects, eight facilities projects at a total cost of $391.6 million.
Winningham said the city has an incredible drainage program that coincides with
Chambers County.
“They worked very diligently on it and it helps Mont Belvieu with its drainage program,” Winningham said.
Overall, Winningham said the future is looking better and better for Mont Belvieu.
“We have an incredible city,” he
said.
