See this year's Readers' Choice winners - Page 2
The Stafford Spartans will be the first area football team to kick off the 2020 season Friday against La Marque. Read more inside today's edition on Page 7. (Photo by Landan Kuhlmann)
WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 26, 2020
Fort Bend / Southwest • Volume 44 • No. 2
Visit www.FortBendStar.com
Cities seek citizen input on property taxes 2020 voter-approval tax rates in Fort Bend Missouri City
4.2 percent decrease ($0.630000 to $0.603024)
Sugar Land
Daily Specials! Call for details
9920 Hwy 90A Suite #D-120 Sugar Land, TX 77478 832-532-7816
1.35 percent increase ($0.31762 to $0.33200)
Richmond 1.73 percent increase ($0.687772 to $0.699900)
Rosenberg
3.61 percent decrease ($0.415000 to $0.400000) Decrease Increase
0.3
0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 $ figures are per $100 in property value
0.7
The above graph illustrates proposed 2020 property tax rates in four municipalities in Fort Bend County as compared to their tax rates from 2019. (Graphic by Brooke Nance)
Now Specializing In Protective Partitions
By Stefan Modrich SMODRICH@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
As municipalities within Fort Bend County absorb economic stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic, several cities are giving residents an opportunity to make their voices heard on their respective property tax proposals in the coming weeks. The Fort Bend County Commissioners recently voted to approve property tax relief measures. The county’s tax
See related story on Page 12. assessor-collector, Carrie Surratt, has hosted on the county’s website a database with tax information that features a drop-down menu to show each taxable entity and its adopted tax rate. Stafford has no residential or commercial property tax.
Missouri City is asking its residents to approve a 4.2 percent decrease (from $0.630000 per $100 valuation to $0.603024). Sugar Land’s city council voted 7-0 in favor of a 1.35 percent increase (from $0.31762 to $0.33200), which translates to about $27 in additional taxes per homestead. The city is set to hold a public hearing at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 8 at City Hall, and the referendum on the new rate is
SEE TAXES PAGE 9
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281-690-4206 Area officials advise storm readiness By Stefan Modrich SMODRICH@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
With Tropical Storm Laura advancing toward the Gulf Coast, the Fort Bend County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management has begun its preparations for the coming storm. Inclement weather may impact delivery of the Fort Bend Star. Marco weakened from a tropical storm to a tropical depression while making landfall Monday night near the mouth of the Mississippi River. According to Monday projections from the National Hurricane Center, Tropical Storm Laura is expected to make landfall on the Texas coast late Wednesday or early Thursday. Tropical Storm Laura is projected to gather speed and upgrade to a hurricane as it turns north toward the upper Texas Gulf Coast and Southwest Louisiana. The City of Sugar Land announced in a news release Monday its plan to delay its Healthcare Heroes Week, which was supposed to start Tuesday, until September. Among the activities planned for Healthcare Heroes Week were hospital drive-by parades. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s request for a federal emergency declaration from FEMA to provide “emergency protective measures assistance and
SEE STORM PAGE 2
Code Ninjas employee Sam Madamba, left, helps a student during a remote learning session Friday in Sugar Land. (Photo by Stefan Modrich)
Off-campus learning takes on new significance during pandemic By Stefan Modrich SMODRICH@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
STEM education and the rapidly evolving world of coding and computer programming is becoming an increasingly influential and normal part of children’s everyday lives in Fort Bend County. Kalika Sinha’s entry into that world, as an experienced architect and construction manager and working mother, was driven by the motivation of finding a way to be there for her son, Ishaan, as he navigates his way through fifth grade at Anne Sullivan Elementary School. She owns the Sugar Land locations of Code Ninjas, which teaches coding to kids. “My son has ADHD, and we have two dogs at home,” Sinha said. “It’s not a good combination to be at home with all of
these distractions. So this is the reason why we’re here. He’s focused, he’s sitting at his desk. OK, we don’t have (in-person) school right now, that option doesn’t exist. This is the next-best thing.” Abid Abedi, the CEO of iCode, a similar, Dallas-based company with locations across Texas and the U.S., made Missouri City iCode’s first entry into the Houston market. “Being a parent myself, I’ve struggled with this,” Abedi said. “I have two daughters in college and one in high school. It’s tough. Parents are stressed out. We have work to do.” Both Abedi and Sinha find themselves to be in ideal roles to be practicing their educational disciplines as problem-solvers during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when schedules and lives have been uprooted and ad-
Shown are laptops and headphones at Code Ninjas for student use. (Photo by Stefan Modrich)
aptation has become a necessity. Code Ninjas has 17 locations in the Houston area, five of which are in Fort Bend County. It has hundreds of locations across the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. Since 2018, when Sinha and her husband became franchisees of Code Ninjas at their Riverstone location in Sugar
Land, she has established herself as one of the go-to sources of extracurricular enrichment and activities for children from kindergarten through eighth grade. She is the manager and developer of three other Code Ninjas locations, including another in Sugar Land that services the communities of Greatwood, River-
park and New Territory, and another that serves Richmond and Aliana. In 2021, Sinha plans to open a location in Sienna. The majority of her clients are attending schools in Fort Bend ISD, which began its 2020-21 school year via remote learning on Monday. Other Code Ninjas participants come from Lamar Consolidated ISD and Stafford Municipal School District or are home-schooled. Code Ninjas is providing the first week of classes free for children whose parents are essential workers. “We wanted to make sure that they (the parents) can do what they need to do,” Sinha said. “We’re giving it to nurses, doctors, teachers, cops and firefighters.” Sinha’s children attend
SEE LEARNING PAGE 11
Ballot set for Stafford mayoral race in November By Stefan Modrich SMODRICH@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
The race to replace the longest tenured mayor in the U.S. just got a bit more crowded. City Secretary Tomika Lewis conducted a ballot drawing Monday in the Stafford City Council chambers for the special election for Stafford mayor scheduled for Nov. 3. The city is in search of a new leader after the June 28 death of Leonard Scarcella, who served as mayor for
more than 50 years. The ballot order is as follows: A.J. Honore, a former city council member; Mayor Pro Tempore Wen Guerra; council member Cecil Willis; and Jim Narvios, a local activist and Texas Southern University law student who was the last entrant to throw his hat in the ring. The four candidates made official their bids to become the fifth mayor in Stafford history after Scarcella died earlier this summer at age 79. Guerra, Honore, Nar-
vois and Willis have all said maintaining the city’s zero property tax is part of their campaign platform. Honore, a former Stafford City Council member, received the endorsement of the Fort Bend County Tejano Democrats in 2019 and challenged Scarcella in last year’s mayoral election, garnering 34.9 percent of the vote. He created the Stafford Convention and Visitors
SEE MAYOR PAGE 10
Stafford City Council member Cecil Willis signs his name to certify his place on the ballot for the Nov. 3 mayoral election Monday inside Stafford’s City Council chambers. (Photo by Stefan Modrich)