Plano City Council Preview - April 27, 2020

Executive Session

• Litigation regarding the petition of Plano appealing North Texas Municipal Water District Rates
• Parker Road DART Station Real Estate

Preliminary Open Meeting

• Emergency Management Departmental Report
• Noise Ordinance Update
• Discussion and Direction regarding the Declaration of Disaster for Public Health Emergency of March 17, 2020

Regular Meeting

• Item (c): award of contract for Sanitary Sewer Manhole Lining for $1,249,850. The need stated in the agenda item is that if we don’t perform the lining, it will allow “for the possibility of infiltration and structural damage.” I assumed we weren’t talking about infiltration of communist spies, so I inquired, and was informed that “infiltration” refers to the infiltration of rainwater into our sanitary sewer system, which is separate from our storm sewer system. We must pay for the sanitization of water in our sanitary sewer system, which means we also pay for any rainwater that gets into the system. This is on top of shoring up the structural integrity.
• Item (j): consideration of an agreement for the renovation of a building maintained by Lamb Crafted in Downtown Plano, for which the city will provide $200,000 in Tax Increment Financing (TIF), toward a total renovation expense of not less than $1 million. Tax Increment Financing is an additional tax levy assessed only on properties within a specified geographic boundary, in this case Downtown Plano. These additional taxes are used to make improvements within the same boundary, which are intended to accrue to the benefit of the entire area.
• Item (l): to expand the list of Child Predator Offenses considered for Residency Restrictions to any offense which requires registration with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Sex Offender Database
• Item (n): to extend and fully amend the city’s Declaration of Disaster of March 17, 2020, related to Coronavirus. The proposed amended ordinance gives the City Manager discretion on the closure of city facilities and sports leagues, but makes no mention of businesses, which are subject to the latest Executive Orders issued by Governor Abbott. The Governor is scheduled to speak at 2:30 PM today about his plan for re-opening Texas and getting Texans back to work. Watch here.

Items for Individual Consideration

• Item (1): to rezone 3.7 acres of land near the southwest corner of Legacy and Coit (850 feet south of Legacy, 40 feet west of Coit) with a Specific Use Permit (SUP) to allow for Commercial Antenna Support Structure and Single-Family Residence-6
• Item (2): to grant an SUP for the Montessori New Beginnings Academy at the southeast corner of Legacy and Ohio to operate a private Montessori School in addition to a daycare. This one is really special to me. You may remember this under its former name of “Archgate Montessori” whose SUP application drew 34 speakers (17 for/17 against) at a council meeting last August. We don’t usually get 34 people to even attend a council meeting–including the council members–let alone 34 people speaking on a single topic. As you can surmise from the speaker count, it was contentious. In the end, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Anthony Ricciardelli made the motion to pass the SUP with an expiration date of the end of the school year (right around now), in the hopes that the two parties would come together and work things out. I was skeptical, wanting to pass it that night, concerned that they would only re-entrench themselves and things would only grow more contentious. His motion ultimately passed. In the next few weeks, I reached out to the school and the homeowners to see how things were progressing. I offered to facilitate and mediate meetings between them and was told that–quite independently–Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Ricciardelli had just offered to do the same! So we scheduled, and he and I together attended meetings with the homeowners and the school. Phenomenal progress was achieved over the next several months, but Anthony and I only attended a small handful of these meetings to get the ball rolling. Credit is due to the involved parties for coming together and working with one another with a genuine interest in resolving the issues and mending the relationship. Full credit as well to Anthony Ricciardelli for having the optimism and foresight to see the potential for a positive outcome. Tonight’s vote is the culmination of that. I don’t believe in counting my chickens before they hatch, but the school has communicated clearly about the new SUP process, and the neighborhood has followed things through the process. We won’t know whether anyone is signed up to speak until the meeting tonight, but at the Planning & Zoning meeting where this was taken up three weeks ago, there were 83 statements of support, and 0 in opposition. Stay tuned; we could all use a Happy Ending during these times.