Oak Ridge North City Council approved a new municipal judge at its Dec. 15 meeting following the resignation of Amanda Webb, who had been in the position since 2023.

The gist: City Administrator Heather Neeley told council members the resignation would take effect Dec. 31, then named Joel Daniels as the replacement until the term ends in May, and he will be reappointed following the May election.

Looking ahead: Neeley announced that the filing for the city's May 2 elections will be open from Jan. 14 until Feb. 13 for City Council positions 1 and 3 as well as for the position of mayor.

Also on the agenda: City Council also approved an ordinance to change the due date of water utility bills for residents and to remove the grace period for late payments from its billing policy. The policy states there was a six-day grace period for late payments, and the due date was previously the 16th of each month. Residents must now fully pay for water service by the 20th of each month.

Montgomery County commissioners approved two extension requests Dec. 16 tied to disaster recovery grants used for buyout projects stemming from Hurricane Harvey and the 2016 storm and flooding events.

What happened: Commissioners considered and approved extensions to Hagerty task orders connected to the county’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery grants—one related to Hurricane Harvey and one tied to the 2016 storm and flood event, according to the agenda.

The specifics: The Harvey grant extension request runs through Feb. 28, 2027, while the 2016 storm and flood grant extension request runs through April 30, 2026, according to the items.

More details: During the meeting, Jason Millsaps, executive director for the Montgomery County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, told commissioners the extensions would allow the county, along with the General Land Office and the Texas Water Development Board, to keep working on the grants and “buyout property,” describing them as existing grants being extended to continue the work.

Sam Houston State University plans to partner with Tri-County Behavioral Healthcare and Huntsville Memorial Hospital to launch a new psychiatric residency program in 2026, according to a Dec. 15 news release.

What we know: The program plans to welcome its first four residents in July and plans to train 16 residents in total at full capacity. These residents will be given faculty training, educational oversight and academic resources, according to the news release. The residency is designed to meet the needs of East Texas.

Also of note: Tri-Country Behavioral Healthcare provides services to residents with mental illnesses and intellectual/developmental disabilities, and is sponsored by the commissioners courts of Liberty, Montgomery and Walker counties, according to its website.

In their own words: “This collaboration is a critical step in expanding mental health resources by training compassionate, competent psychiatrists who are equipped to meet the growing needs of the populations we serve,” Evan Roberson, executive director of Tri-County Behavioral Health, said via news release.

The Texas power grid is expected to hold up this winter, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Dec. 9. This is due in part to “tremendous supply growth on the ERCOT grid,” ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said, amid an influx of data centers coming to the state.

The overview: Since last winter, over 11,000 megawatts of generating capacity have been added to the ERCOT grid, Vegas said. That growth, which largely comes from battery storage and solar facilities, could be used to power about 2.8 million homes during periods of peak electric demand.

Zooming in: Under most weather conditions, there is a less than 2% chance of a grid emergency through February, ERCOT found.

However, Texas could be in trouble in the unlikely event that a repeat of Winter Storm Uri hits large parts of the state this winter, although ERCOT noted that the probability of such a severe storm happening again was "well under one percent." The February 2021 freeze devastated an unprepared power grid, resulting in nearly 250 deaths.