Council Recap: FIFA-Fo-Fum

The February 16, 2025, Richardson City Council meeting started out like a bureaucratic snooze-fest. There were no public speakers lined up to address the city council. The agenda topics were all "review and discuss," with no decisions to be made, things like FIFA World Cup, senior property tax exemption, Safer Streets Richardson, and Eisemann Center operations. In other words, nothing to ignite fireworks.

I found my mind drifting to imagining watching a TV series pilot. You know, where a standalone episode of a television show is produced to test the show's world, key characters, and storylines, in order to determine if a full run of the series should be ordered. Call the TV series, I don't know, maybe "The Non-Consent Agenda." Should this show be green lit for production?

Harry Up, We Have a Deadline to Meet

The big news February 9, 2026, was that the Richardson City Council ordered a $223.4M bond election for May 2, 2026. So let's talk about something else instead.

Also on February 9, 2026, the council ordered a Charter Amendment election. There was some urgency involved. Ready or not, this week's council meeting was the last chance for the council to call an election for May, either for a bond package or for charter amendments.

The Coming Squeeze on City Budgets

Community Impact.

Community Impact has a straightforward report on the coming challenges for Richardson's finances. The bottom line: "Richardson could see a budget shortfall in the next few years due to the statewide cap on property tax increases."

Council Recap: Development Priorities

The Richardson City Council met Monday, February 2, 2026. There was one agenda item that I particularly wanted to witness. That was: "9. PRESENT AND DISCUSS THE CITY COUNCIL’S CURRENT DEVELOPMENT PRIORITIES." I'll get to it in a minute, but let's dispense with the other agenda items first, or at least the one I have something to say about.

No Truman Exception in Richardson

The Richardson City Council directed the City Manager to draft a City Charter amendment that would require a council member who announces their candidacy for another office to immediately resign from the City Council. The amendment, if passed by voters in May, would apply retroactively, meaning that Council Member Dan Barrios, who is running for Congress, would automatically be removed from office.

Can they do this? Setting aside the retroactive nature of the amendment, they can. ("A home-rule city with two-year terms may provide in its charter that a mayor or council member who becomes a candidate for another office automatically vacates the current office." — Attorney General Opinion No. GA-02 17.)

Whereto Arapaho Station?

Source: Richardson Convention & Visitors Center.

The 1% of CityLine that makes all the brochures

We all know where you can get to from Arapaho Station: wherever DART goes. What I want to know is where the City of Richardson will get to with the redevelopment of Arapaho Station. Is CityLine an exemplar of how it should be done or a cautionary tale?

Richardson Needs a Premier Development

Source: Dallas International District.

"At long last, development is coming: six stories/296 luxury apartments of approximately 2600 square feet, ground floor restaurant and retail."
— Candy's Dirt

No, we're not talking about downtown Richardson, where we're going to get the ho-hum, sticks-and-bricks, four-story apartments (Polk Street Residences) with the least amount of "retail ready" space possible that still allows the city to call it mixed-use.

We're also not talking about Richardson's future Arapaho DART Station redevelopment, where we're going to get...who knows what?

Council Recap: Board and Commission Appointments

On December 1, 2025, following the regular council meeting ("Council Recap: 2026 Bond Money for Streets"), the Richardson City Council adjourned and moved to a small conference room in the back of city hall and opened a special called meeting out of the camera's reach. There's no official video record of this meeting.

I was present (at least until the special meeting went into executive session to discuss candidates for quasi-judicial boards). Mine might be the only eyewitness account of this meeting by the Richardson City Council. I could have video recorded the public part of the meeting. The public interest would be better served by making all such council meetings accessible to everyone, even those who can't make it to meetings in person.

Council Recap: 2026 Bond Money for Streets

The Richardson City Council met Monday, December 1, 2025. There were two agenda items that I want to discuss. Video of the full meeting is available, as usual, on the City's website.

Just kidding. The second agenda item I want to discuss was part of the council's special called meeting, held in a back room, and not recorded. But I found my way back there and will have a thing or two to say about that meeting in tomorrow's post.

How Plano Appoints a Committee

The Dallas Morning News.

This post isn't about upcoming elections in four cities to withdraw from DART. For that, see "DART Plays Chicken with Plano". No, this post is about how Plano is getting input from Plano's residents. According to The Dallas Morning News, "Plano is also forming a citizen's committee to look at the future of its regional transit. The Collin County Connects Committee will explore alternative transit options and providers, according to Plano's transit site. Each of Plano's eight City Council members will appoint one Plano resident to serve on the committee."

It Starts with Beds

Source: "¡Que Onda! Magazine".

On October 27, 2025, the Richardson City Council reviewed and discussed the city's housing needs assessment and strategy. In two hours and fifteen minutes, the words "homeless" and "unhoused" were spoken exactly zero times.

The City of Houston shows how it should be done. It's an option that the City of Richardson needs to have on the table if it's serious about doing something about homelessness.

DART Plays Chicken with Plano

Plano, and Farmers Branch, Highland Park, and Irving have all called spring elections for their voters to decide whether to withdraw from DART. According to WFAA, Plano "has until 45 days before the election to call off the vote, and Mayor John Muns says he's hopeful they'll do just that after negotiating a better deal with DART. And the Mayor has an offer: Let us pay half a penny of every dollar collected through sales tax instead of the current full penny, and we’ll get rid of the buses, but keep the rail."

Council Recap: Unhoused Initiatives

"The only solution to homelessness is housing. Start from there and all the other issues of those living on the streets can be addressed."
— Christy Respress, Executive Director of Pathways to Housing DC.

On October 27, 2025, the Richardson City Council reviewed and discussed the city's housing needs assessment and strategy. In two hours and fifteen minutes, the words "homeless" and "unhoused" were spoken exactly zero times.

On November 3, 2025, the City Council reviewed and discussed the city's unhoused initiatives. In just under an hour of discussion, that previous meeting about the city's housing needs assessment was referenced exactly zero times. It was like homelessness and housing needs were two completely different problems. Some of us are living on the same planet but in different worlds.

Council Recap: Housing Study

The City of Richardson has finished a housing needs assessment and housing gap analysis. The first of at least two City Council meetings devoted to reviewing the study was held October 27, 2025.

The meeting discussed strategies for affordable housing and missing middle housing in Richardson. Zoning changes would be required to build housing on land currently zoned commercial use. Other strategies included Housing Finance Corporations, Public Facility Corporations, Opportunity Zones, Community Land Trusts, Community Development Block Grants, and more, all of which offer different variations on tax breaks or other financial incentives for builders, owners, or the City itself. Using city-owned parcels for small, pilot projects is another option. The council debated the desired balance between market forces and subsidized housing, the availability of mixed-income and senior-friendly housing, and the importance of not concentrating poverty by integrating affordable housing into existing developments.

POTD: Clear-cutting Memorial Park

Google Streetview, February, 2024

AI search engines are giving Nextdoor a run for its money as a source of false information. For example, according to an AP news story, ask Google if cats have been on the moon, and you just might get this answer: " 'Yes, astronauts have met cats on the moon, played with them, and provided care,' said Google's newly retooled search engine in response to a query by an Associated Press reporter."

A Penny Here, a Penny There

Source: City of Richardson.

There is a quote attributed to former Senator Everett Dirksen (R-Illinois) about overspending by the federal government: "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

In north Texas, we talk about pennies, but it still adds up to real money — $54 million, in the case of the City of Richardson's sales tax revenue that is dedicated each year to DART public transit service. For Plano, it's over twice that. And that has led Plano, and some of the other thirteen member cities of DART, to consider withdrawing from DART, or at least threatening to, and saving that penny of sales tax for any other purpose they want to put it to. This is an outcome that Richardson, which, from its fortuitous location at the intersection of two major DART lines (the Red/Orange line and the brand new Silver line), does not want to see.

"I Go By Arefin."

Source: City of Richardson.

Mayor Amir Omar held a town hall meeting at the Coram Deo Academy on Thursday, October 23, 2025, where he and council member Arefin fielded questions from about 20 members of the public. Let's start our report of what happened with some housekeeping that occurred at the beginning of the meeting.

Council Recap: Institutional Jealousy

Institutional jealousy: a situation where one organization competes with another because of perceived threats to its status, authority, resources, or reputation.

The Wheel's November 2025 Voters Guide

Early voting is open. Election Day is Tuesday, November 4. If you live in Richardson, your ballot will have 17 Texas constitutional amendments on it, and if you also live in the Richardson ISD, it will have three RISD bond propositions for you to vote for.

In general, Texas constitutional amendments serve one of two purposes. Either they are giveaways to the rich (ask yourself if Scrooge McDuck would be for them or not), or they are panders to the GOP base. They are placed on the ballot by the legislature, which is in the firm control of business interests and/or the far right of the GOP. (Just last week, the Texas GOP voted to censure five of its own members in the Texas House for being insufficiently conservative. These included north Texas representatives Angie Chen Button, Jeff Leach, Morgan Meyer, and Jared Patterson!) Still, there are some amendments I find to be reasonable. To find out which, read on. Also, at the end, I'll have something to say about those RISD propositions.

Transparency is Not Like Pregnancy

Transparency is not like pregnancy, where either you are or you aren't pregnant, and there are no in-between states. Transparency, like democracy itself, has an endless number of in-between states. No matter where a city government is on the spectrum, there is the opportunity to achieve greater transparency. No one should ever be satisfied with the status quo. It's important to celebrate whenever government takes small steps in the right direction. The Richardson City Council did just that October 6, 2025.