Council member Anthony Ricciardelli called the 2025 bond election “probably the most consequential bond election in Plano's history,” during council's Jan. 13 meeting.
Council member Rick Horne added that he believes the $700 million bond—nearly double the $364 million bond referendum called in 2021—will be a “tough nut to sell” to voters.
What you need to know
The largest chunk of the proposed bond funding would go toward road projects, with $342 million allocated to concrete repairs, residential street repairs and a variety of other transportation projects.
The proposed bond would include more than $306 million for public safety, municipal and library facilities, according to city documents.
A $155.16 million proposed replacement of the city’s police headquarters is the largest single project on the bond. More than $50 million would also be allocated to a rebuilt police training center and renovations to the Fleet Services building.
The remaining $51 million would go toward parks and recreation projects.
The park projects section of the proposed bond includes $10 million for Hall Park, a new city park planned for the corner of Alma Drive and West Park Boulevard. The city would also spend $20 million on the bond funds on land acquisitions for new city parkland, including $15 million set aside for a park at Lavon Farms—which is set to become a mixed-use development as part of Plano’s Envision Oak Point plan.
What they’re saying
Council member Kayci Prince suggested breaking some of the larger bond projects into multiple propositions, such as the new Plano Police headquarters and the police training facility.
Prince also recommended evaluating the immediate need for every individual project that the city’s Bond Referendum Citizen Advisory Committee marked as “low priority.”
Ricciardelli said that he would like to see the bond packaged “trimmed back” to a size that “might be slightly less onerous from a tax perspective.”
“This is an unprecedented ask—it's an unprecedented number,” he said. “I'd like to see us try to trim this back, recognizing that we absolutely have to take care of our facilities and have to take care of public safety and roads.”
Council member Shelby Williams added that he believes the proposed bond projects are “probably necessary, and probably immediately necessary."
What’s next
At its next meeting on Jan. 27, council will finalize the list of projects in the bond package, before considering an ordinance to call the bond referendum Feb. 10.
Early voting for the May 3 election begins April 21.
Quote of note
“We’re in maintenance mode here in Plano,” Mayor John Muns said. “We have to take care of a city that had a huge growth period, and now is asking for us to repair it so that it will be relevant for the next 30 or 40 years... I don't have a problem if we want to trim [the bond] down to a certain degree, but when we stop talking about taking care of our city—like some other cities that are close to us—and start kicking the can down the road, that's when we fall apart.”
