Resources, News, and Announcements

5/15/25

We'll be closed on Memorial Day, Monday, May 26, 2025.
We'll be back to our normal business hours starting Tuesday, May 27, 2025.
Enjoy the holiday and stay safe!

05/01/2025

SCAM ALERT: Beware of Fraudulent Emails Posing as City Communications

The Village of Surfside Beach has been made aware of scam emails being sent to residents, falsely claiming to be from official city departments. These emails may request personal information, demand payments, or contain suspicious links.

Please Note:

• The City will never ask for Social Security numbers or bank details via email.
• Official emails from the City will come from addresses ending in @surfsidetx.org
• If you're unsure about the legitimacy of a message, do not click any links or download attachments.

If you receive a suspicious email claiming to be from the City, mark it as spam. When in doubt feel free to call the City first. 979-233-1531

Help us spread the word by sharing this post. Stay alert and stay safe!

— The Village of Surfside Beach

From the Mayor’s desk – 5/16/25

Happy Friday! 

It looks like we jumped right into summer weather this week with higher temperatures and plenty of sunshine to be had.  Get out and enjoy it…ah, the beach life!

PD:

Final preparation and Op Plans for the Jeep Weekend has been completed.  We will have a full force from Surfside including reserves, along with extra patrol from other agencies.  The Brazoria County Sherriff has partnered with us and is providing extra patrol vehicles for the beach.  Much appreciated!  We are trying out a mobile command center station at the Crabbing Pier parking lot, as Stahlman is rented this weekend.  All of the local and guest police patrols will be ensuring that all State Laws and City Ordinances are being followed.  We want this to be a fun weekend and our PD will strive to ensure that they serve this community well.  In the past we have had great Jeep visitors in Surfside and really hope that trend continues as it has been a safe and fun event as experienced on our section of beach.  As we all know, “hope” is not a plan, and our plan is to have a heavy presence and enforce laws & ordinances to ensure a safe and fun event.

One word of caution for this weekend.  As I have communicated in the past, when we have other patrol here on these busy weekends, those outside agencies will enforce law and ordinance by the book.  This includes one way traffic on the beach for all vehicles.  You may be stopped and ticketed in a golf cart going the wrong way.  Take precautions to avoid that if you are travelling by golf cart this weekend.

Beach Drive:  Parking on Beach Drive requires a beach pass annual sticker or a daily pass hang tag.  If you are parking on Beach Drive without a beach pass, you will receive a citation. 

EMS:

With the storm season coming soon, we need to get citizens who may require assistance to register with 211 so we can have a detailed report on hand to be able to use in case of emergency.  Please contact Frank in EMS to complete and register this form before the hurricane season is upon us.  Always better to plan ahead, as success loves preparation!

EMS will also be staff for the beach this weekend to serve any incidents that occur immediately.

Human Resources:

The next two major HR initiatives to complete with respect to policy and procedure are Performance Management and Nepotism.  Once completed, these policies will be rolled out to all employees through training and sign-offs.

The Performance Management cycle will allow for all employees to hear directly from their supervisor about their work performance on regularly scheduled intervals annually.  This will include areas of praise for positive performance, areas for future improvement, and a dialogue between every employee and supervisor on how to improve the department.  It is very important for every employee of the Village of Surfside to fully understand their role & responsibilities along with receiving knowledge from feedback on how they are doing to meet or exceed those expectations.  I personally will be holding mid-year performance reviews with all the department leaders over the next few weeks.

Nepotism is a potential situation where a conflict of interest could be present due to a family or romantic relationship between two employees, or an employee and an elected or appointed official.  We are working with TML to comply with state laws and regulations as we complete our Village of Surfside Beach nepotism policy.  We must comply with law on nepotism and will rely on guidance from the experts at the state level, all while managing the fact that Surfside is only made up of roughly 600 folks who work and vote here in this small village.

Beach & Parks:

Toby is launching an effort to make the water accessible wheelchair “MobiChairs” readily available on the beach.  The idea is to take the MobiChairs from our storage under City Hall and move them to a beach location in order to allow for easier access.  These MobiChairs allow someone in a wheelchair to easily and safely enter the water, and get the most from their Surfside Beach experience.  We have multiple MobiChairs in our possession, stored under City Hall, and Toby wants to encourage their use on the beach.  The chairs are available for daily use with a $100 refundable deposit.  It’s a great idea that we will be testing out this weekend.  Spread the word!

Other Items of Interest:

Josh provided an update on some of the commercial projects that are currently in flight at this week’s City Council meeting.  To summarize, the restaurant on the corner of Ft Velasco and 332 is now under construction.  Over 80 pilings were installed this week to kick it off with a bang, bang, bang!  Also, the meat market grocery store next to the new restaurant is pressing forward with inspections and permits from outside agencies.  They are still pushing to open before the full on summer season.

Also at this week’s City Council meeting we discussed a few possible changes to ordinances that would impact the beach.  Nothing decided, nor passed, but here are the 3 topics that were discussed:  1) RVs prohibited from parking on the beach  2) Large holes dug on beach must be filled in before leaving and 3) Mobile vendors allowed on the beach with proper permits.  The action out of the meeting was to draft an ordinance for each of these and discuss/vote next council meeting.

Have a great day and I hope to see you around the island this weekend!

Thanks,

Zach

Notice

This year's levy to fund maintenance and operations expenditures exceeds last year's maintenance and operations tax levy. The following statements must be included in the ordinance, resolution, or order setting this year's tax rate. The statements must be in larger type than the type used in any other portion of the document.

VILLAGE OF SURFSIDE BEACH ADOPTED A TAX RATE THAT WILL RAISE MORE TAXES FOR MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS THAN LAST YEAR'S TAX RATE.

THE TAX RATE WILL EFFECTIVELY BE RAISED BY 3.50 PERCENT AND WILL RAISE TAXES FOR
MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS ON A $100,000 HOME BY APPROXIMATELY $-1.99.

Notice

Public Works After Hours: 979-248-2085 (Please Text)

Notice

If you need help obtaining a WPI-1 for Windstorm Inspection, feel free to call the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) Angleton Office at 800-248-6032, option 4, then option 3; or you may hire a Texas Certified Windstorm Engineer.