The Montgomery City Council will consider a slew of items that portend the city’s growth, including finalizing the arrival of an H-E-B grocery store, planning for a future Lowe’s Home Improvement store and studying the city’s expected wastewater plant capacity needs. 

Items worth mentioning: The council at its Oct. 27 meeting will consider a proposed escrow agreement between the city and Lowe’s Home Improvement. The agreement says Lowe’s plans to acquire and develop a 9.12-acre plot of land called Buffalo Stewart Crossing Tract. 

The escrow agreement would require Lowe’s to pay into an escrow fund to reimburse the city for any costs it incurs overseeing the development. A contract included in the council’s agenda documents shows Lowe’s will pay $7,000 into the fund.  

What else?: The city could also approve commissioning an analysis of the city’s wastewater treatment plant capacity to learn how best to accommodate future growth.

At its Oct. 20 regular meeting, the Montgomery ISD board of trustees reviewed a report on the district's Emergent Bilingual program from Chris Summers, the assistant superintendent of academic accountability.

In the classroom: The program currently includes English as a second language and one-way and two-way dual language immersion. For the 2025-26 school year, the district had 400 students in the program, up from 385 the prior year. While the district only provides direct instruction for English and Spanish, it is home to 17 other languages. On the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, bilingual students showed their strongest academic performance in reading, while eighth-grade social studies needs the most improvement.

One more thing: For the 2026-27 school year, the district has 130 students enrolled in its dual language program and 244 in the ESL program.

Montgomery County commissioners voted 5-0 on Oct. 22 to approve additional law enforcement for The Woodlands Township’s mounted patrol services. This follows the township's September vote to approve the sheriff's office proposal, transitioning from Alpha & Omega Mounted Patrol services. Under the new agreement, the county will house seven horses in stables at a park off Fish Creek Thoroughfare.

The specifics: The township agreed to pay one-time costs of up to $954,000 and close to $1.4 million in recurring costs. Two full-time county personnel will move to the facility to assist with the horses. The agreement adds a sergeant and six deputies to the unit.

Also of note: Commissioners also unanimously approved:

• Plans to complete the David Memorial Drive extension to Hwy. 242, awarding a $1.8 million contract to JFO Services.

• A contract awarded to Thompson Consulting for San Jacinto River Watershed flood mitigation efforts.

In July, Texas' top elected officials directed most state agencies, appellate courts and public universities to cut spending by 3% in their base budget requests for the next two years.

The overview: Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows said those reductions will help Texas hold a "strong fiscal position" by expanding property tax relief and maintaining public education funding when the legislature returns to Austin next year.

The issue: Dozens of agency leaders have warned that the cuts, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, are not sustainable. They would cause Texas residents to lose "essential" services and lead to losses in state revenue, leaders said at the capitol and in budget documents.

Government institutions protesting the budget reductions include the comptroller's office, the attorney general, Texas' Cancer Prevention and Research Institute, state criminal justice agencies and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.