Vote YES for the Collin County Bond Package

It is crucial for the continued growth of our county that we support this bond proposal to improve our regional transportation system. I am certainly not alone in my support for the Collin County Bond Transportation Proposal.

Additional Endorsements:
It was unaminously endorsed by the Frisco City Council as well as Frisco City Staff. It was also endorsed by the City Council of Melissa, Prosper, Allen, Anna, Richardson and Murphy. The Frisco and Plano Chamber of Commerce also endorsed the Proposal. Most importantly, it was endorsed by the citizen committee appointed to make recomendations to the County Commissioners and later approved by a vote of 4-1 in support of the proposal. Judge Keith Self was the dissenting vote.

NCTCOG (North Central Texas Council of Governments) further advised the committee not spend money on these freeways/major regionals (referencing Judge Self's proposal) as they were not the county’s mission and were prohibitively expensive for local funding. It was NCTCOG’s responsibility to obtain state and federal funding for these roads. County and city funding was most effectively spent on the major arterials/thoroughfares within the county---in and between the cities and towns. This is exactly what the committee has proposed to the voters.

See the full list of endorsements:

http://www.collincountybonds.org/

Additional links:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/collin/opinion/stories/DN-north_roads_1014edi.ART.North.Edition1.425d708.html

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/collin/opinion/stories/DN-north_bond_1021edi.ART.North.Edition1.424edd1.html

http://thecountyline.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html#7714481615393637540

Rebuttal to Keith Self's Objections to the County Bond Proposal

On November 6, 2007 the citizens of Collin County will have the opportunity to approve a 328.9 million dollar bond program, divided into three parts:

Transportation $235.6 million
Facilities $ 76.3 million
Open Space $ 17.0 million
Total $328.9 Million

This bond program has been developed by three county-wide citizens committees and approved for the November ballot by the Collin County Commissioners Court.

You are urged to support all three parts as they will provide significant benefits throughout Collin County without a county tax rate increase or an adverse impact on the County’s AAA bond rating.

Commissioner Self was the only County Commissioner to oppose the County Bond Proposal. Below are the 9 points that Judge Self has listed on his website to oppose the bond proposal. I have also included my comments to each point below.

1) Three out of four taxpayers will actually receive less money from the county match than they pay in county taxes into the bond funds. Those taxpayers who lose money are from large AND small cities.

The assumption Mr. Self is making here is that all cities should receive a pro rata share of funds based on the County taxes their City has generated. This is an illogical assumption. Below is the proposed distribution of the County funds:

Mr. Self is absolutely correct in the disparity of the distribution. However, the distribution of the funds is based on the County's most pressing needs to integrate our regional transportation system. Those appointed to research the County transportation system indicated that Frisco has the greatest need for improved major thoroughfares at this time, followed by Plano, McKinney, Allen, and then Wylie and Melissa. Remember also that the cities must match the County funds so with this proposal, each of these cities will also be contributing the most to our County transportation needs.

It is important to note that the County is responsible for developing a regional transportation system. There is no doubt that Frisco residents benefit from the Plano infrastructure and Prosper residents will benefit from the roads built in Frisco. The County has successfully been doing this for decades. In some bonds, one City may get more of their pro rata share, in others they get less. It depends on the growth of the County and the most pressing needs for a regional transportation system, regardless of which City the roads fall within.

2) The same taxpayers pay both portions of this "match" - county match and city match. The county match is not free money.


This is a true statement. Nobody is claiming this is "free money." It is the process of allocating regional resources to benefit the County as a whole, rather than having the Cities fight for themselves with no incentivized cooperation. I am not sure how this point benefits his proposal. We all know we will have to pay for these roads one way or another under any proposal, they are never "free."


3) The bond "partnership" is actually just a single source of taxes - you.


see comments to #2


4) Our county government is growing too fast; 16% growth in debt payment this year and 13% estimated average growth in maintenance and operations from 2006 for six years.

Collin County certainly is growing fast! This is why we need these roads built now! This bond package will not effect the tax rate for the County nor will it have an adverse effect on the County's desired AAA bond rating.

5) The total bond package more than doubles our debt payment, from $33 million this year to a peak of more than $60 million.


See answer to #4. In addition, as Cities, Counties, or even States grow, their debt service will increase as well. This is the natural order of growth as there are more citizens to support and more roads to build. Of course, there are also more tax revenues to pay for this higher debt service due to a higher population and more economic development associated with the growth.


6) This bond debt will not be paid off until your small children have small children of their own.


By definition, this is how a bond issue works. The tax rate is predicted based on making the debt service payments over the term of the bond. Would Commissioner Self prefer to write a single check today to pay the roads and how would he fund that? This is meaningless propaganda.


7) Many of our smallest cities are penalized by this bond and receive little or nothing from it.


They receive much from this proposal. The regional transportation system is being developed which will ease commutes from the residents of all cities as they travel throughout the County. A few cities did not received funding from this bond program. This is because they did not submit a project for consideration.


8) The transportation pork proposal does not relieve congestion at the major chokepoints.

I fail to see how the proposed roads would not relieve congestion. See for yourself with this map of the proposals:

http://www.collincountybonds.org/roads/webmap/webmapcollincounty.htm

Commissioner Self wants to dump all of our resources into our state roads. The $235.6 million County proposal would not make a dent in these roads. Who then would pay for the proposed roads above? Of course, it would fall on the City. However, it would not be under the cooperation developed under the bond proposal. See my blog post on how the County Bond program incentivizes cities to cooperate in building a regional transportation system:

http://bloggingfrisco.blogspot.com/2007/10/in-collin-county-c-stands-for.html

I asked Commissioner Self how, as our elected County representative, he would coordinate the cooperation among cities if we do not approve this bond. The only answer he could give is, "It's not rocket science, I would pick up the phone and call." Sorry, I am not betting the infrastructure of the County on Mr. Self calling the cities to facilitate the cooperation to build a seemless county system. I will favor the payment matching system that has been in place for decades that incentivizes cities to cooperate naturally.

9) And there is an alternate program already submitted to the state that will quickly start to relieve our congestion chokepoints if we fully fund it.

The roads targeted in the bond proposal had a requirement that they have the ability to start within 5 years to assure the project will have a relatively near term impact. When questioned by Frisco City Manager, George Purefoy, Commissioner Self could not give a response to the timelines on the roads he proposes to fund. It was certainly disconcerting when Mr. Purefoy was giving Mr. Self updates on why his date assumptions were unrealistic. These roads will take DECADES to build and are state and federal responsibilities. This bond proposal builds our local chokepoint roads NOW!

This "pass through funding program" is not funded and there are no guarantees we would be reimbursed once we built them. On top of having our County citizens pay the burden of our state and federal roads, they will still have to pay taxes to built the critical roads that this bond proposal addresses.

Sorry Commissioner Self, but your proposal does not add up. I urge Collin County residents to vote in favor on the Collin County Bond Proposal.

Eldorado Town Hall Meeting

On Thursday, October 25, Frisco hosted a special Town Hall Meeting to discuss the construction of Eldorado. Residents in NW Frisco have become increasingly frustrated with the traffic on Eldorado. The worst was the first week on school as residents were trying to figure out their routes. We received several hundred e-mails that week when traffic and frustrations were at their worst. There has been some relief as traffic patterns have become more established and with the opening of the Tollway extension. Also, Panther Creek was made a higher priority which should we open late next summer. This, along with the opening of some new schools, will help to relieve Eldorado further. Since Eldorado is 2-3 years from opening, any relief will be appreciated. We will continue to explore any ideas to help our residents in NW Frisco.

Here is a link to some FAQs regarding Eldorado:
http://www.frisco-online.com/article.cfm?id=2912

Here is an article discussing alternate routes for Eldorado:
http://www.frisco-online.com/article.cfm?id=2824

In Collin County, The 'C' Stands for Cooperation

I often get asked if the County should be building roads or should that be the responsibility of the individual cities? The answer is "Yes!" the County should absolutely be involved with the construction of our local roads. With the County's assistance, the cities within the County are incentivized to cooperate to build our growing infrastructure.

The cities within the County are required to pay 50% of the costs associated with the road construction. County participation and leadership in this process assures the funding is spent for major arterials/thoroughfares (generally 6 lane divided) carrying traffic through and between cities and towns. It permits concentrating funds on the highest priorities in the county. County participation and leadership also assures coordination between cities and towns for continuity of the overall road system and to prevent bottlenecks/discontinuities at city/town boundaries in a cost effective manner. In addition, all projects in the bond program are required to be started within the next five years to help mitigate congestion as rapidly as possible.

Dallas News said it well:
Think of the upcoming election as a referendum on more than 25 years of planning. That's how long the county has been partnering with cities to build and expand roads throughout the county. Partnership and comprehensive planning have resulted in six-lane divided thoroughfares that are the envy of other counties.

It didn't use to be this way. Back in the early 1980s, roads were planned and built independently by cities and the four precincts that make up the county. Ever wonder why Texas back roads zig and zag all over the place? A lack of coordination resulted in roads that didn't quite link up at city or precinct lines. That's also why some four-lane concrete roads with medians abruptly become two-lane asphalt roads lacking even a shoulder.
That's increasingly rare in Collin County, and it's not by chance.

Every few years, citizens work closely with engineers, city staff and elected leaders to go over the needs of their communities. This year, for example, they considered 180 requests, matching them with the master plan for the county to help set priorities.

They work with engineers to determine where the public's money will do the most good, and they consider the work done in previous bond packages. That's because large projects don't get done in one step. An engineering study in this bond package, for example, may lay the foundation for actual construction in the next.

It's a complex but well-oiled machine, a process that has been nearly perfected by dedicated citizens, staff and engineers.

see the full article here:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/collin/opinion/stories/DN-north_roads_1014edi.ART.North.Edition1.425d708.html


I urge the voters of Collin County to vote "Yes" for the bond proposal and continued cooperation and growth in Collin County.

Ever wonder how the Collin County Bond Priorities Are Set?

If you wonder how the County funds are allocated, below is some information on how the process works. As the Transportation bond proposal is the most complex of the three and directly addresses Collin County’s most critical issue – traffic mobility/congestion – this discussion explains the Transportation proposal.

• The Commissioners Court appointed a 37 person committee representing cities and towns throughout the county to develop a proposed transportation bond program. This committee was supported by an independent consultant as well as city/town and county staffs.
• The committee was exceptionally well staffed to make recommendations: many staff members were professional engineers, the consultant was a large, highly respected engineering firm, one of the co-chairs has a PhD in civil engineering, another co-chair, a former mayor, led the two prior transportation bond programs and hence has an intimate knowledge of the roads in the county, and Commissioner Jack Hatchell is a professional traffic engineer.
• Joint county and city funding and the use of a citizens committee representing numerous cities/towns assure the funds are spent wisely—where it is most needed to relieve current and future congestion.
• The Commissioners Court gave guidance that included a budget of about $200 million for 2007 county bond funds, not to include funding for projects eligible for sharing of NTTA revenues (Comprehensive Development Agreement or CDA funds) or state reimbursement funds (pass through funding), and submit recommendations by mid June.
• The county and the cities and towns initially submitted 180 projects totaling $1.3 billion. This listed the roads most needed to minimize congestion caused by local, county-wide, and through traffic over the next 5 years or longer. These projects were then screened primarily against the following criteria:

- The road must be included on the County’s 2007 Mobility Plan to assure the road is or will be a significant thoroughfare critical to county as well as city/town traffic.
- Capable of a construction start within 5 years to assure the project will have a relatively near term impact.
- Must add capacity and/or provide operational improvement
- City/town funding available for at least 50% of the project cost thereby leveraging the ability of the county and the city/towns to improve both countywide and city/town traffic flows. Without such leveraging many projects would not be affordable at the city/town level.
- Must result in a fair, balanced program county-wide
- Total county bond participation costs of approximately $200 million

The projects surviving the screening were evaluated by the consultant and prioritized by the committee on the following criteria:
- Population growth trends
- Average daily traffic volumes for year 2030
- Congestion factor (volume/capacity)
- Cost efficiency (cost/vehicle miles)

The result of this intensive evaluation and discussion is a transportation bond program of 113 projects in19 cities and towns, as well as the county, totaling $235.6 million in county funds. When the city and town funding is included, this totals $484.7 million in transportation improvement benefits to the citizens of Collin County. This is 17.8% over the Commissioners Court’s original guidance to the Transportation Committee. The county’s increasing growth and resulting traffic issues are so critical, the additional projects represented by this overage are warranted and will not increase the county’s tax rate or adversely impact the county’s AAA bond rating. This is summarized as follows:





The proposed transportation improvements were approved by 100% of the committee and also approved for voter consideration by the Commissioners Court in a 4 to 1 vote. The four Commissioners, including one who is a traffic engineer, approving the bond package were those who were most experienced with county affairs. The newly elected county judge was the only person to vote against this beneficial package.

The above information has been reviewed by the three co-chairs of the committee.

Vote FOR the Collin County Bond Proposal
Election day November 6th
Early voting starts October 22nd.