Pearland council moves to appoint Catherine Semaan as interim presiding judge

The Pearland City Council returned from executive session at 06:01 and moved to new business, where an unidentified speaker motioned to appoint Catherine Semaan as interim presiding judge of the municipal court.

The motion, presented verbally as “I motion that we appoint Catherine Semaan as our Interim Presiding Judge from Municipal court,” was seconded and sent to a roll-call vote. The clerk was asked to call the vote, and the public transcript records Mayor Putzen Byron saying, “Aye.” The available transcript segments do not include a complete roll-call tally or a formal statement of the motion’s final disposition.

The appointment motion was confined to a single agenda item and there was no recorded discussion in the available segments about Semaan’s qualifications, term length, or start date. No additional legal authorities, statutes, or ordinances were cited on the record in these segments.

The minutes or the official meeting record may contain the full vote tally and any additional procedural language not captured in the public transcript. The council proceeded with other new business after the vote call; a short, incomplete fragment appears at the end of the excerpt that does not change the recorded sequence of events.

The Pearland City Council did not provide further details in the captured transcript about next steps for the interim presiding judge appointment, including whether the appointee will require confirmation at a later meeting or the effective date of the appointment.