The next city to be officially designated as a Texas Music Friendly Community is Conroe—joining music metros such as Austin, San Antonio and Fort Worth—as the City Council voted unanimously to move forward with the final steps at Thursday's meeting. Conroe will be the first city with the business development designation from the governor's office in the Houston area.

Shannon Overby, director of the Visit Conroe convention and visitors bureau, said the program will help the city partner with the community to connect various musical entities—nonprofits, music education, musicians, venues and producers—through a collection of contact information.

"The next steps for this process is for the council to designate a music office liaison and sign a memorandum between the city and the [Texas] Music Office to create and share a database of [music industry] businesses in our community and establish protocols for keeping the directory up to date," Overby said at the Oct. 24 council workshop.

The council assigned the convention and visitors bureau to be the liaison, making it responsible for twice-yearly administrative duties of updating the database and uploading it to the state website.

"The fact we have live music every night in the community is a great tool to market when bringing tourists to the area [and] helps foster the growth of the music industry," Overby said. "[The official designation] helps drive those businesses into our community as well as allows us to market it a little bit more."

In other news Thursday, the council:
• Unanimously made an agreement to intake 240 shelter animals from the city of Willis, mirroring the same contract the city has with Huntsville.
• Unanimously renewed a police department agreement with the city of Houston to participate in the Houston Metropolitan Area Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Grant Program.