Some Thoughts and Observations on a Lively City Council Meeting and Plano's $700 Million Proposal to the Dallas Stars

I drove up to Plano on my Monday night so you don't have to

The mayor only had to ask the crowd to quiet down twice, and only one of those appeals came with a warning that further disruptions would result in folks being asked to leave. All that to say, if there’s a more entertaining way to spend a Monday night in June than attending a city council meeting, nobody suggested one to me last night.

You can watch the video stream of last night’s Plano City Council meeting here, beginning at 1:24:50. I opted to attend in person, partly out of a sense of civic responsibility, but mainly because I have a fondness for these kinds of things. One of my earliest on-location journalism assignments as a college student was to attend a city council meeting in La Mirada, California back in 2005, and here I was 21 years later, sitting in a much bigger but otherwise quite similar room to hear the latest news about the Dallas Stars’ proposed move to Plano in 2031.

The agenda for the June 8 meeting is here, but it’s clear that the bulk of the larger-than-usual crowd is present to give (and listen to) public comments preceding City Council votes on four specific considerations pertaining to the Dallas Stars’ proposed move to Plano. Those five items were:

1. The designation of a Tax Increment Financing Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) in the Willow Bend area. The TIRZ is the primary mechanism for how Plano will fund the city’s proposed $700 million contribution to the costs of a new sports arena projected to cost at least $1 billion.

   

   By the way, the city is not directly contributing towards the additional $1-2 billion projected to be needed for developing the surrounding entertainment district, some of which Tom Gaglardi’s Northland Properties will co-own, as reported by the Morning News.
   
   The City of Plano relased a statement about the TIRZ and other motions following the meeting, including the below excerpts:

   

   Excerpt from the City of Plano’s press release.

2. An Economic Development Incentive Agreement for the owners of the current Willow Bend mall site, possibly to encourage the cooperation of the current owners of the Shops at Willow Bend in quickly moving forward with demolition and construction to literally pave the way for construction beginning in 2028.

   

   You’ll note that Plano also stipulated that the property owners will include a new Visitor’s Center for a Visit Plano location of at least 6,500 square feet in the newly proposed complex.

   

3. A vote to approve the nonbinding Letter of Intent the Dallas Stars announced a few days ago.

4. “Consideration to approve a Resolution designating and providing for the planning, acquisition, establishment, development, construction, and renovation of a sports and community venue project under Chapter 334 of the Texas Local Government Code and designating methods of financing for the project, subject to voter approval at an election called for such purpose.

   

   Partial excerpt from Item #4.

5. Finally, the City Council had an unrelated vote to award a traffic detection improvement contract to a local engineering firm.¹ (Like the other four items, it also passed with an 8-0 vote.)

The Preliminary Stuff

Before all this happened, the City Council returned from their executive session, which involves a closed-door discussion about noncontroversial items that need to be voted upon. The Council then votes on all those items at once in what is called a Consent Agenda, which is described thus: “The Consent Agenda will be acted upon in one motion and contains items which are routine and typically noncontroversial. Items may be removed from this agenda for individual discussion by a Council Member, the City Manager or any citizen. The Presiding Officer will establish time limits based upon the number of speaker requests.”

On June 8, the preliminary session began around 6:30. No Stars-related stuff was on the docket here, though there was this fun graph about how 911 services are funded, if you’re interested:

Two other notable moments from the preliminary open meeting were as follows:

• The first three rows of one section were marked with taped-up pieces of paper that read, “RESERVED FOR JUNETEETH DAY [sic].” It was not clear to the casual observer whether these placards were intended to keep the rows clear until June 19th, on June 19th, or for that meeting only in commemoration of a Juneteenth holiday proclomation. Consequently, one or two people tentatively sat in the third row of those sections until the 7pm Open Meeting, which began with that proclomation and a photo op.

  

• A woman near the front of the gallery² had a coughing fit that suggested lungs at far less than their healthiest condition. After her second prolonged coughing spell, a member of the City Council (also the City Manager) stood up and walked a bottle of water over to her, and the coughing mercifully subsided.

• A middle-aged couple had arrived early, and they murmured audibly (and negatively) throughout both the preliminary and primary portions of the meeting. The man was particularly vocal (let’s say), though he clearly wasn’t planning to make any public comment, as indicated by his shorts and slip-on shoes, and as repeatedly demonstrated by his reading a book³ during much of the evening’s proceedings.

The Main Course

The Open Meeting itself began promptly at 7pm, with Plano Mayor John Muns banging the gavel to call the meeting to order. (You can view that part of the meeting starting at 2:09:38 in the video.) That was followed by an invocation⁴ from a local pastor and the pledges to both the USA and Texas⁵ flags. Business followed.

Before the City Council voted on the noncontroversial items on the Consent Agenda, they agreed to remove one item (“Item E”) from that list for the moment. That item was a proposal to spend $2.55 million to buy some land in Plano. Someone had requested to make public comments before that vote took place. As it turned out, that someone was a 30% stakeholder in said land (who is also a local dentist, though his website appears to be down) who expressed his concerns about how quickly he felt the process to be moving, as well as his disagreement on some of the land valuation itself.

He asked the Council to hold off on voting until more discussion could be had. After his three minutes of commenting time were up, the Council then voted 8-0 to move forward with procuring the land. This would prove to be a template for how persuasive other public comments would be later on.

After that, the Council opened it up for public comment on the first of the above five items, and this is where all the murmurings and quiet scorn finally got their time to shine. Specifically, people could get up to three minutes in which to give public comments on any of the five items up for consideration, starting with the formation of the TIRZ. Six people had signed up for that item, and all six were present.

Four of the six people who made public comments on the TIRZ had also signed to comment on at least three other items, though not all of them would choose to speak every time.

Here I should add a word about the nature of the public comment portion of these meetings, which can range from the above dentist’s quiet appeal to delay action to impassioned pleas from local citizens and, most entertainingly, gadfly grandstanding, as Parks and Rec lampooned repeatedly over the years.

But while the particularly strident objectors tend to get the most attention, I actually found it encouraging to hear passionate citizens devoting their evenings to make their views known to elected officials. On Monday, nobody sounded unhinged, even those who had clearly prepared pointed soundbites at the end of their comments. These were, by all accounts, concerned and passionate citizens trying to use democratic means to voice their concerns to elected officials. At its core, it was beautiful.

The six citizens commenting on the first item raised questions including the following:

• Plano had a hiring freeze related to budget issues last year, so why are we devoting $700 million to draw a sports team to our city? Will this abandon central Plano to prioritize the new sports arena district?

• Plano already has some areas with bad traffic bottlenecks. Can we appeal for a federal grant to address these and future traffic issues rather than rely on city funds to do so?

• What is the risk of taxpayer exposure should the TIRZ not end up being able to fund the entire $700 million?

• “This is nothing more than a corporate welfare scheme”

• More safety measures are needed to ensure local residents are kept safe, including AI-enhanced cameras for security and the consideration of asking for DHS funds for potential terrorist threats.

• What if the Stars relocate in 30 years, as the Bears and even the North Stars did previously? Will that leave Plano with the same dead stadium downtown Dallas might be saddled with right now?

After all the comments were made, Mayor Pro Tem Rick Horne spoke. He said that the proposed Stars arena and surrounding district would “revitalize” the city by taking the place of a mall that was “dead.” His comments prompt sporadic but audible “NO” objections from the gallery, which build to the point where Mayor Muns has to interject, reminding all in attendance that a City Council Meeting requires decorum, and that those unable to be present quietly would be asked to leave. Things quiet down, for the moment.