Officials with Cakery are projecting an October opening for their new dessert shop location in Kingwood, owner Maral Veysalova confirmed Sept. 9.

The details: According to Veysalova, the shop will offer a variety of handcrafted cakes, pastries and sweets. The menu will feature the bakery's signature Honey Cake, Milky Bird, traditional baklava and other Mediterranean-inspired desserts.

Veysalova noted that the business focuses on freshness, quality ingredients and flavors, with the goal of creating a warm and welcoming feel for customers visiting the shop.

• Opening in October

• 2624 Chestnut Ridge Road, Kingwood

Humble ISD trustees unanimously voted on Sept. 10 to adopt a flat tax rate of $1.1052 per $100 valuation for fiscal year 2026-27. This is the same rate approved for FY 2025-26 and consists of:

• $0.7552 for the local maintenance and operations fund

• $0.3500 for debt service, bonded indebtedness and interest and sinking fund

The details: Average home values in the district rose from roughly $346,000 last year to $348,300 this year. Consequently, the average tax bill is projected to increase by about $28, rising from around $2,342 to roughly $2,370.

Some context: This vote follows the June approval of the district's FY 2026-27 budget, which projects $559.4 million in general fund spending and $560.1 million in revenue. The budget includes over 20 new special education positions and a 3% general pay increase for staff, raising the starting teacher salary to $68,000.

The Harris County Commissioners Court denied a recommendation for County Treasurer Carla Wyatt to receive a 30% raise. As a result, Wyatt will not join the slate of other county elected officials who received pay raises this year.
What happened: The county’s eight elected constables, the district attorney, county attorney, district clerk and tax assessor-collector will earn $305,000 annually.
The court approved those raises in August. Per an Aug. 24 press release, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth denied the raise.
Zooming in: The recommendation came as the county seeks to shutter the treasurer’s office. As part of its legislative priorities, Harris County officials will ask the state House and Senate to approve cutting the office. Other large counties in Texas, such as Galveston and Tarrant, have eliminated their treasurer’s offices.

The office of Gov. Greg Abbott announced a $138 billion investment in Texas transportation infrastructure, including projects in the Greater Houston region, according to an Aug. 27 news release from the Texas Department of Transportation.

The Unified Transportation Program for 2026 was approved during an August meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission.

The breakdown: The program’s funding is divided into two portions, $95 billion for transportation projects across the state, and $43 billion which is reserved for routine maintenance and development. The total of $138 billion is intended to be spent on projects and maintenance over the next 10 years, according to the news release.

Here are some of the plans for the 2027 UTP:

• The North Houston Highway Improvement Project continues to be a priority for the Houston District, with several projects planned within the first four years of the UTP.

Across Texas, the taxes that homeowners pay to their local school districts went down by about 13.6% in 2025, one state senator found.

The overview: Across the board, many Texas counties mailed out reduced property tax bills for the 2025 tax year, Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, reported. During a Sept. 1 hearing of the Senate Local Government Committee, he said the average homeowner's property tax bill went down by about $140 last year, falling from $1,037 per year in 2024 to $896 per year in 2025.

Texas' 2026-27 budget includes $51 billion in property tax relief, previous Community Impact reporting shows. Unless the legislature rolls back existing tax exemptions, the state will be required to spend that much or more on tax relief in future bienniums.

How it works: The state does not charge property taxes, meaning homeowners are taxed by local entities such as school districts, cities, counties and municipal utility districts. The Texas Legislature, however, can place limits on how much local governments raise taxes annually and require tax exemptions for certain groups.