Council Sound Bites: 2023/06/19

The City of Richardson had a City Council worksession June 19, 2023. The agenda had some weighty topics: DART, Comprehensive Plan, and Mobility Work Plan. I'm not going to cover what was presented. You can review the slides used in the presentation yourself. Or watch the four hour video. I'm just going to cherry pick a few questions, comments, and suggestions made by Councilmembers. Call these my nominees for the best comments of the night.

---

The good news is that all of seven Councilmembers said something at some time during the worksession. Even better news, all seven Councilmembers said something good that The Wheel found worthy of mention.

The Good

Mayor Dubey, to the DART representative: "One thing that you didn't speak of was, I think y'all use the term rail to trail. How y'all have partnered with those amenities that are very important to our city and the connectivity through the trails." Good for the Mayor for speaking up for, not just trails, but connectivity of those trails with other transportation like DART.

Joe Corcoran, speaking of the homeless to the DART representative: "If any opportunity we have to work together to get into this whole network of homeless and housing advocacy groups, we should take that lunch." Good for Councilmember Corcoran for seeing the homeless as persons in need of services, not simply as nuisances for other persons riding DART.

Joe Corcoran, speaking to the DART representative: "Have you all heard of a group we have that used to be called Comets for Better Transit?" Good for Councilmember Corcoran for connecting DART with students at UT-Dallas. The City of Richardson should involve students on many fronts.

Jennifer Justice, speaking to the DART representative about the Silver Line: "I received a couple of comments from [members of Comets for Better Transit] related to the service hours on the Silver Line." Good for Councilmember Justice for supporting Councilmember Corcoran's urging the inclusion of UT-Dallas students in DART planning and treating students as stakeholders in Richardson whose careabouts need to be heard by City and regional government.

Dan Barrios, speaking of DART partnering with faith-based non-profits to train and employ homeless persons to clean DART trains: "I did not know about this, and I really liked that...I think that's the kind of program that can make a difference in communities." Good for Councilmember Barrios for looking for ways to help solve homelessness, not just move it somewhere else. Trying to keep homeless people off DART trains doesn't solve root causes of homelessness (mental illness and unemployment) and is ineffective as well (many homeless people have DART tickets).

Mayor Pro Tem Arefin, asking DART about their anticipated timeline of having the Silver Line ready for revenue service in late 2025 to mid-2026: "Is there any question or any pending issue about the construction?" Good for the Mayor Pro Tem. Given the opportunity to hedge their predictions, DART didn't hedge. They doubled down. "We have control over the budget. We have control over the schedule."

Curtis Dorian, asking about transfer times between the Silver Line and the Red Line: "What is the delivery time if someone were to hop on, let's say at UTD and transfer over to CityLine and transfer to the Red Line over to the Eisemann?" Good for Councilperson Dorian. If the Silver Line is going to be successful, people are going to have to use it to transfer to and from the Red Line. This means frequency of service is going to be more critical than it is now. Member cities need to keep pressing DART on this front.

Curtis Dorian, speaking of DART hiring people for cleaning jobs: "How many full time, part time, or even temporary individuals are utilizing that service and how do they come and apply for that?" Good for Councilmember Dorian. Keep looking for ways for the City of Richardson to partner with whoever to connect people in need of jobs with businesses like DART in need of employees.

Mayor Dubey, asking about the City surveying citizens about their careabouts in the Comprehensive Plan update: "I really appreciate the 100 different languages that we're able to communicate with our citizens and make them feel engaged and so forth. That's a great touch." Good for Mayor Dubey. We have to meet our residents where they are, and if that's in 100 different languages, we need to make the effort.

Dan Barrios, asking how the key stakeholders were chosen for the "20 interviews" to be conducted for the Comp Plan Update: "How are you identifying cultural groups, faith based community," etc. Good for Councilmember Barrios. In a demographic slide, it was shown that there are "18,146 multifamily rental units" in Richardson. Who is being targeted to get the renters' viewpoints? As usual, I didn't see any indication that the City cares about renters.

Mayor Pro Tem Arefin, followed up on this question, asking about the kiosks planned to disseminate information and solicit feedback: "How will you choose those locations that [the kiosks are] going to go?" Good for Mayor Pro Tem Arefin. Again, don't overlook multifamily apartment buildings. Get to the people where they live.

Ken Hutchenrider, asking about a map showing retail trends in Richardson: "It's alarming to me if I'm interpreting your slide correctly. If I'm understanding what your slide is telling me is that everywhere there's a red circle, that saying there's retail vacancy rate that's over 15%." Good catch by Councilmember Hutchenrider. That slide definitely needs to be explained. Neither the presenter nor City Manager Don Magner could explain it. And that's all I'll say about it for now.

Jennifer Justice, talking about outreach for the Comp Plan Update: "I just want to applaud you on the amount of public outreach that you've done. It's the ambassadors, it's the online survey and 100 languages, as our mayor said. It's the civic events." Good for Councilmember Justice. Inadequate citizen engagement is a repeated failure on City programs. Councilmembers need to monitor this closely to make sure public engagement is not just lip service.

Joe Corcoran, on maps showing potential reinvestment areas: "When it comes to maps like that and a lot of the other data that we've seen, what really springs to mind is it's going to be an interesting conversation that we have on this side." Good for Councilmember Corcoran for putting his finger on a key outcome of this Comp Plan Update. If I understand the slides, four potential reinvestment areas have been identified (Coit Rd, West Campbell, West Campbell, and Plano/Beltline), with my emphasis on "potential." The Council will decide, as early as July 31, which will move forward for additional "visioning." The City Council had better be able to defend their decision to neighborhoods near those areas not selected.

Joe Corcoran, on a key difference between a Comp Plan and zoning: "Is there any chance that you guys, even though this is not zoning itself, would have a Comp Plan that recommends to us some kind of zoning recommendation for certain areas?" Good for Councilmember Corcoran. Comp Plan and zoning go hand in glove. One drives the other. Unless the City has a plan to update zoning based on the Comp Plan update, and do it in a timely manner, this exercise could be wasted.

Dan Barrios, asking about speeding cars using neighborhoods as cut-throughs: "What is the process for neighbors who are concerned about" addressing that problem? Good for Councilmember Barrios. If the City didn't cover this in new Councilmember training, demand that they add it. And get the City to publish a one page how-to guide for residents, too. It has to be one of the top resident complaints year-in and year-out.

Curtis Dorian, asking about bike lane construction: "What do you see [will be] the increase of bike lanes in the future?" Good for Councilmember Dorian. The answer was that the City thinks we are coming to an end of the major construction of bike lanes. Going forward, the Council needs to listen to residents to learn of the need for additional bike lanes, and the need for maintenance of existing bike lanes.

Mayor Pro Tem, asking about walk signals at intersections, "When you push buttons, sometimes it takes three, four minutes to change the light. Sometimes it's changed within a few, you know probably 30 seconds. So if you can explain that." Good for Mayor Pro Tem. If I understood the answer, the traffic lights are on a fixed timings and pressing the button doesn't change the timing. It only means the walk light will be lit on the next programmed timing cycle. But my confidence in that understanding is low. And if I do understand it, why should a pedestrian have to push a button at all? Why not have the "walk" signal light up at the start of every cycle? Anyway, if Mayor Pro Tem can get the City to publish a dummy's guide about walk lights, I'd be grateful.

City Manager Don Magner, speaking about the Comprehensive Plan Update, "In terms of baseball analogy, you know, this is the first inning of this comp plan process." Well said, Mr. Magner. I know a thing or two about baseball. ;-)

The Bad

The good comments left no room for bad comments this week. That's good.

The Furniture

None earn the "furniture" award. The Texas Monthly uses that term for members of the Texas Legislature "who, by virtue of their indifference or ineffectiveness, are scarcely distinguishable from their desks, chairs, and spittoons." There was no furniture in the Richardson City Council this week. That's good.