The Richardson City Council conducted its annual budget workshop. Yesterday, I reported on Day 1's peculiar focus on one $5,000 budget expense ("Council Recap: Debating a Rounding Error"). Here I want to cover Day 2, specifically what happened to any leftover questions regarding that one item. This time, roughly 18–20 minutes was devoted to this topic. The mills of government grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. Spoiler: there was a surprise ending!
The Richardson City Council started its annual budget workshop August 3, 2026. Day 1 focused on the General Fund revenues and expenditures. Day 2 is scheduled to focus on the Operating Funds. (Note: this article was written after Day 1 but before Day 2.) The graphic above is one slide from the city's presentation. I am not going to discuss the $190 million General Fund Expenditures in the proposed budget. That would be too logical. Instead, I'm going to discuss one proposed $5,000 expenditure. Why? Because that's what the council spent time talking about. Too much time, in my opinion, given its tiny impact on the budget.
Source: Interurban-Richardson.netlify.app.
A developer has a website featuring fancy renderings (above) of what Richardson's Interurban District could look like if all the pieces fall into place. It sounds wonderful: "A walkable district of rooftops, patios, murals, and local shops is being explored on the rail line Richardson was born on. Before anything is decided, we want to hear from the people who live here. Tell us what you would want in it." The website contains a survey that may be little more than a marketing exercise, but it's worth participating anyway.
I know what it feels like to be Charlie Brown running up to a football teed up by Lucy, only to have her pull it away at the last second. But this time, I'm more hopeful than I've ever been that good things could happen here.
Source: City of Richardson and ChatGPT.
The Richardson City Council is in the process of filling a vacancy created by the resignation of Councilmember Dan Barrios. Project teams sometimes use a simple exercise called "Roses and Thorns" to reflect on a completed project and identify lessons learned. Things that went well and that we can be proud of are "roses." Things that didn't go well are "thorns." Barrios's seat isn't filled yet (and won't be filled until late September), but we can see how the process is likely to play out, so it's not too soon to hand out some roses and thorns.
Source: City of Richardson and ChatGPT.
The Richardson City Council met July 20, 2026. One of the topics was "Review and Discuss the City Council appointment process and consider approval of the application." The council had already voted 6-1 on June 8 to adopt the vacancy-filling process as part of its Rules of Order and Procedure. (The lone "no" vote was by Dan Barrios who objected to the process of awarding a Key to the City, not to the appointment process of filling vacancies on council.) Given that support, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this agenda item would be over quickly. You'd be wrong, for two reasons. First, the council had agreed on the twelve-step process, but not on the calendar. Second, Curtis Dorian. In effect, Dorian asked the council to revisit the process it had already debated and adopted just six weeks earlier.
Source: City of Richardson.
The Richardson City Council met June 22, 2026. One of the topics reviewed was the "FY27 Matching Fund Beautification Project Requests". According to the city, citizens, businesses, civic groups, and HOAs may partner with COR to improve the landscape on public property. COR matches partner group funds 100%. COR maintains the landscape after project completion. Improvements often are made in parks, on medians, and at neighborhood entry points. So far, so good. So what was the City Manager asking City Council to provide direction on?
Source: NTMWD.
The Richardson City Council met June 22, 2026, and heard a presentation by the North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD), which supplies all of Richardson's water. One particular exchange highlighted a question NTMWD did not answer.
"You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people
some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time."
— attributed to Abraham Lincoln
The Richardson City Council met June 15, 2026, and reviewed the FY 2026-2027 Transportation and Mobility Work Plan. In my blog post ("Council Recap: Less is More"), I quoted Mayor Pro Tem Ken Hutchenrider, who expressed concern about bike club riding in northeast Richardson, where he lives. I didn't find his statement to be particularly productive. I found it repetitive and lacking in constructive suggestions. But I didn't have anything brilliant to contribute, either, so I decided to ask ChatGPT. Here is our condensed conversation.
The Richardson City Council met June 15, 2026, and reviewed the FY 2026-2027 Transportation and Mobility Work Plan. I'm not going to review that here. If you are interested (and you should be), you can watch the whole discussion online. Here's what two of the council members had to say.
Source: h/t ChatGPT.
The Richardson City Council met June 15, 2026, with an agenda that did not presage anything particularly comment-worthy. But public comments spurred discussion that proved me wrong. One was about water rates. One was about an unwelcome business in the neighborhood. And another was about the state overriding local control on zoning matters. Much of the night's deliberations turned on the same question: when Austin tells Richardson what it can no longer regulate, should the city comply narrowly or surrender broadly?
Source: ZF 26-08 (enhanced by ChatGPT).
On June 8, 2026, the Richardson City Council approved a special development plan and special permits for the motor vehicle body shop and motor vehicle storage lot in the Interurban District, including all City Plan Commission conditions such as fence screening so vehicles are not visible from public view and completion of required improvements within 180 days of the ordinance's effective date. The vote was unanimous.
"I wish I knew how to quit you" — Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) to Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) in the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain.
Source: ZF 26-08 (enhanced by ChatGPT).
A zombie is shambling in Richardson, this time in the form of Zoning File 26-08. The City has a "Car Lots and Repair Shops District" that it insists on calling the "Interurban District" despite the fact that the City Council approves what feels like every zoning application for that district with an automotive use. The latest zombie incarnation is a property with three lots formerly owned by Clay Cooley Volkswagen. In 2024, the City Council, by a 4-3 vote, gave a special permit to Clay Cooley to operate a car repair shop there ("Council Recap: Sell Out for a Mural"). The question now is, will the City Council award a permit to another zombie? After all, zombies are notoriously difficult to kill.
Source: City of Richardson.
I've already covered the Richardson City Council's deliberation on applying for grants from CDBG and creating a UDC ("Council Recap: CDBG and UDC Spell PROGRESS").
The agenda also had an item for how to honor individuals or organizations. There were two parts. The first is awarding a "Key to the City." The second is namiing a City asset like a building after a person. At the time, I said I'd cover these when a final draft policy came back before council in a week or two for approval. But I don't expect the final policy to differ much from the draft policy we saw. The design of the "Key to the City", on the other hand,...
Let's celebrate. For the first time in a while, every substantive agenda item deliberated by the Richardson City Council had an outcome I liked. And I'm not easy to please, I know. The three topics were CDBG, UDC, and Naming Things. The first two will take a long time to implement. I'll cover those in this week's council recap. The third will be decided when it comes back to council in a week or two. I'll cover it at that time.
The Richardson City Council approved the Greenwood Park Planned Development (ZF 26-02) application. It will raze a nursing home and build 40 single-family detached homes. The City received 5 statements in support of the request and 3 that were neutral. No one spoke in person for or against. That sounds like a nothingburger matter for a city council. And in the end, it was a unanimous yes vote, but one that several council members seemed less than completely happy with.
Flock Safety is a growing surveillance company. They are growing by selling their mass surveillance camera system to cities around the country. The sales pitch on their website entices cities with, "Join the Largest Fixed LPR [License Plate Reader] Network. With billions of monthly plate reads, Flock connects communities, businesses and law enforcement in a shared network built to stop crime." LPR is a bit of a misleading term. The technology does a lot more than read license plates. Elsewhere in the sales pitch, it says, "No Plate? No Problem. Capture more detail with Vehicle Fingerprint® and Flock FreeForm®. Turn images into actionable evidence — no plate required." Flock's website even includes a helpful webinar: "How to Speak to City Councils: Meeting the Moment with Confidence." That gives me a sinking feeling that cities across America stand little chance against Flock's smooth-talking salesmen. You see, fighting crime is a higher priority for voters than protecting privacy. Because council members have to, in turn, sell the systems to voters, they end up talking like Flock salesmen themselves and maybe even believing the sales pitch wholesale.
Source: City of Richardson.
May 11, 2026, marks one year since the current Richardson City Council was sworn in. That's the halfway mark of the 2025-2027 term. It's time to look at how this City Council is working. So, I asked ChatGPT to analyze the votes taken by the council, looking for coalitions and opposing factions. There were only nine contested votes all year. That's a small sample. Any analysis is subject to swings on the very next vote. Nevertheless, I found ChatGPT's interpretation of the voting results to be worthy of consideration. The following was written by ChatGPT.
If you think traffic gets snarled, you should see the snarl developing in the alphabet soup of local government bodies intended to solve those problems. It's hard to say just what caused this current snarl in government, just like it is for many traffic snarls. But here is what I can see from my position way back here on the road.
