Brazoria County commissioners Stacy Adams, left, Mary Ruth Rhodenbaugh and Matt Sebesta and County Judge Joe King took questions from a Pearland audience Tuesday at the Hilton Garden Inn on Shadow Creek Parkway.
Brazoria County Judge Joe King and the three county commissioners whose precincts include parts of Pearland were somber Wednesday when talking to a Pearland audience about finances for the coming year.

One solace, they told those at a Pearland Chamber of Commerce luncheon, is that the county is better off than many others that are reeling from the recession.

"Last year, times were tough," said King reflecting on the loss of tax revenue that caused a financial crunch for the county. "I wish I could tell you this next year's going to be better."

Echoing that sentiment in their "State of the County" addresses were commissioners Matt Sebesta, Mary Ruth Rhodenbaugh and Stacy Adams.

Adams, who represents Precinct 3, which includes the east side of the city, told the gathering at Hilton Garden Inn that a 3.2 percent decline in property values and the faltering economy's effects on Port Freeport have taken a lingering toll.

He said the commissioners dealt with a situation in which "for the first time in 15 years the county experienced a property value drop and money problems.

"When you have a downturn like we had, there's not much fat in the budget," he said.

"I don't know this year that we've got many bright spots other than the fact that for many years the county has been run so conservatively we're in a lot better condition than other counties around us," he said.

"I do ask people to be patient," Adams said. "I know there's a lot of initiatives we want to attack. It just takes time."

Rhodenbaugh, whose Precinct 4 includes Pearland west of Texas 288, lamented that motorists on that highway won't soon have a toll-road option.

"I wish sometimes I had a magic wand," she said. "We would have a toll road out here on (Texas 288) and we would have it available for people who would like to use a toll road."

Precinct 2 Commissioner Matt Sebesta, who represents the central part of the city, seconded that sentiment, but added: "Unfortunately, with (the Texas Department of Transportation's) funding issues and everybody else's funding issues, it's a very slow progress."

Still, the county officials cited some projects in which they said the county is working to improve lives of residents in the northern part of the county.

Adams is part of a committee that he said will recommend that a staffed library station be established soon near Texas 288 to serve patrons frustrated at having to drive across town to the Pearland Library.

Sebesta said the county has taken steps to boost its ongoing battle against disease-carrying mosquitoes.

The county has started doing in-house testing of mosquitoes to detect diseases such as West Nile virus. That speeds ability to react much more quickly to a disease threat, he said.

"In the past, we would trap mosquitoes, send it off to Austin and 10 to 12 days later we would find out we had West Nile," he said.

Now, "we catch the mosquitoes that morning, we test in the afternoon. If we know that there's West Nile in that batch of mosquitoes, we can go out, and that night we can start treating those areas," Sebesta said.

The county is in the process of buying a plane to replace one that crashed in the fall.

The spraying "is something that has an effect over the populated areas quite drastically of knocking mosquitoes down," he said.

Sebesta also reported that a county project to extend CR 94 south to CR 101 should "open within a month or two."

And he is hopeful that the Metropolitan Transit Authority will be able to make a deal soon for a site in the Texas 288 corridor from which a Park & Ride facility can operate. Negotiations for an initial property fell through.

"Hopefully, within the month the Metro board is going to get that deal worked out so that within the coming months we'll have a Park & Ride on the (Texas 288) corridor in Pearland to get folks into the (Texas Medical Center)," he said. "And that will help relieve some congestion on Texas 288."