The future of high-speed rail in Texas is in Richardson's hands. Overstatement? Sure, but it's not completely wrong, either. The "hands" I'm referring to belong to our own Richardson City Councilmember Jennifer Justice. She's a member of the Executive Board of the North Central Texas Council of Governments. NCTCOG allocates billions of federal dollars for transportation projects. In contrast, the Richardson municipal budget is about $400 million. A hot project under consideration by NCTCOG right now is an elevated high-speed rail line through the City of Dallas going west to Ft Worth and southeast to Houston.
Thursday, March 7, 2024
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Council Recap: Outdoor Storage is the new "Edgy"
The Richardson City Council began consideration of a request for a Special Development Plan with a reminder of the vision for the Interurban Sub-district: "To create an edgy, mixed-use district built upon the existing bones of the district, focusing on adaptive reuse of existing buildings and targeted infill development. Exterior building materials should promote design creativity and unify the eclectic style envisioned for the Sub-district."
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Public Facility Corporations and Richardson
The Richardson City Council held a short meeting on February 19, 2024, where most of the substantive discussion took place behind closed doors, in executive session, which the public (and by that, I especially mean yours truly) was not privy to. So the rest of this blog post is based on conjecture.
Monday, February 19, 2024
Lessons in Power
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it
never will."
— Frederick
Douglass.
Frederick Douglass is not wrong, just incomplete. He was referencing slavery. It took a Civil War to get Texans (and other Southerners, but I live in Texas so let's keep this close to home) to concede their power to hold other human beings in bondage. When it comes to much less consequential matters, people sometimes concede power without a second thought. Sometimes they might not even realize that's what they're doing. The Richardson City Council is in process of ceding power to the Mayor, without a demand. It's an implicit power that Richardson Mayors have wielded since forever, soon to be made explicit by a compliant City Council. See "Committee Appointments" in "Council Recap: Rules of Procedure" for details.
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Council Recap: Rules of Procedure
"7. REVIEW AND DISCUSS COUNCIL RULES OF PROCEDURE"
With that innocuous wording, the Richardson City Council took up a question that has long puzzled me. That is, why don't City Councilmembers drive change in the City of Richardson? I attributed it partly to lack of will, but also partly to confusion over whether they even have the power to set the agendas for the City Council meetings. If it's not on the agenda, they can't deliberate it, they can't make motions for it, and they can't pass the motions that bring change.
Thursday, February 8, 2024
Council Recap: City Hall and Library
The Richardson City Council held a worksession February 5, 2024, to receive an update on the new City Hall and Library projects. The schematic design of City Hall is now complete and design development is beginning. There are enough details for the City Council and the public to have a good idea of what our new City Hall will look like. The new Library is farther along, with construction to begin in March, 2024.
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
Council Recap: Comprehensive Plan
The City Council and City Plan Commission (CPC) held a joint worksession February 5, 2024, to review progress on updating the City's Comprehensive Plan. Regular readers know just how much importance I place on this opportunity to reform Richardson's outdated regulations that limit a denser built environment, mixed-use developments, transit-oriented developments, missing-middle and affordable housing, and safe streets for bicycles and pedestrians.
Friday, February 2, 2024
The State of the City: It's an Outlier
The City of Richardson held its annual State of the City Address on Wednesday, January 31, 2024, highlighting the City's achievements in 2023. I'm here to give my instant feedback.
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
When the Creek Ran Red
Recently, a spill of detergent from a car wash into a tributary of Richardson's Cottonwood Creek turned the water red. The good news is that, according to the City of Richardson, "the spill has been successfully cleaned, and water quality tests show normal results."
My compliments to the City of Richardson for its reaction and its communications about this incident. My compliments also to Councilmember Dan Barrios for elaborating about the spill in his own Facebook posts.
Now, it's my own turn. I want to elaborate on something Barrios said.
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
RISD and CoR Election Filings
The Richardson ISD will hold an election for Board of Trustees on May 4, 2024. Two seats are up for election: Single-member Place 1, currently held by Megan Timme, and At Large Place 7, currently held by Chris Poteet.
Chris Poteet is the only candidate who has filed to run, according to the RISD's elections filings page. Megan Timme's plans are unknown by me. No challenger has yet filed for either seat yet. Deadline to file is February 16, 2024.
Thursday, January 11, 2024
A New Majority is Born in Richardson
At the January 8, 2023, Richardson City Council meeting, a property owner asked approval for a rezoning request (ZF 23-14) to convert an office building at 75 and Glenville into a five-story, multi-family apartment complex. On a slide titled "Items to Consider," City staff did everything they could to signal to the City Council that they could ignore the fact that apartments in that location are not consistent with the City's Comprehensive Plan.
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
Housing: The Calm Before the Storm?
Many cities are facing the same problem: how to meet the demand for housing, both in absolute numbers and in affordability. Richardson is no exception. The solutions Richardson adopts, if any, will have to emerge from the "Envision Richardson" planning process now underway. But that's been quiet recently. Too quiet. When will the calm break? How fierce will be the storm?
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Council Recap: Listening to the Community
"Retail Electricity Provider Procurement." That's the dry title of agenda item 7 in the December 11, 2023, Richardson City Council meeting. Richardson contracts with a retail electricity provider to purchase and pay for electricity used for all facilities, parks, pools, streetlights and traffic signals. The City spends $3 million annually on electricity, so we're talking significant sums.
Monday, December 18, 2023
Roads Can't Have Too Many Lanes
Do you remember that old cereal commercial, the one where a rabbit kept being foiled in its attempt to get a kid's Trix cereal, and the announcer kept reminding him, "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids." Well, in this analogy, the rabbit is a pedestrian, roads are Trix, and the kids are cars. I know, it's kind of a stretch, but bear with me.
Monday, December 11, 2023
Save the Ice House
An agenda item for the December 11, 2023, Richardson City Council meeting caught my eye. The City is on the verge of using eminent domain to acquire parts of two properties on Main Street across from the Police Department. One property is the address of the Ice House. The other is the address of Spice of Richardson, an Indian restaurant.
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Gaza Comes to Richardson
The visitors' section was full. There was an overflow crowd. For ninety minutes Monday night, speaker after speaker came to the podium and made heartfelt pleas for the Richardson City Council to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and to take measures to address the rise of Islamophobia in America.
Monday, December 4, 2023
How Parks are Named in Dallas
Recently, the Richardson City Council got into what passes for a contentious exchange over the question of naming parks (or, at least, naming of bridges in parks). What it boils down to is that the lack of any policies in Richardson results in naming by whim — i.e., when someone on City Council gets a notion to name something after someone, and just mentions it at a Council meeting, and others on the Council agree it's a good idea, it happens. Just like that. I called it government by whim.
Our big neighbor to the south has a different practice.
Monday, November 20, 2023
Council Recap: Bob and Lynn Townsend Bridge
At the November 13, 2023, Richardson City Council meeting, the Council approved a resolution naming a new park "Twin Rivers Park" and naming the bridge there "Bob and Lynn Townsend Bridge." The vote was 7-0. An uncontroversial action. So why did it feel like some people were left feeling more than a little frustrated, if not with the result, then at least with the process, or lack of one? And why did Mayor Bob Dubey feel a need to apologize?
Thursday, November 16, 2023
Council Recap: Kayla Walker Lawsuit
Coming out of an executive session during the November 6, 2023, Richardson City Council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Arefin made this motion: "I move that the City Manager be authorized to execute a mutually satisfactory settlement agreement in Walker at al. v City of Richardson, Texas, et al. civil action on 3:22-CV-01164-X pending in the United States District Court, Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division and any documents related thereto." Seconded by Councilmember Joe Corcoran and approved unanimously without comment, this motion at 10:59pm closed the book on a sorry story of Richardson's history.
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Council Recap: Public Engagement
On the agenda for the November 6, 2023, Richardson City Council meeting was this item: "REVIEW AND DISCUSS STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AND INVOLVEMENT." This is less than two months when they idea of a community engagement board was raised in the Council's goal-setting meeting, and less than a month since the Council first deliberated on this matter in open session (October 16). Then I was pleased to see the Council quickly tackle this need, but I was not as pleased with the scattershot ideas the Council had. Now I hoped that maybe this month they'd be focused and align on effective approaches.