Coalition’s Areas of Interest Include:
Excellence in Quality of Life:
Award-winning amenities for citizens:
Thirty-six public parks, including:
- Five with swimming pools
- Two with recently constructed complete recreation centers:
- Huffines
- Heights
- Recently-acquired 60 acres (approximate) to add to our park system; these are old forest woods and make an outstanding contribution to our “green” initiative.
- Specialty facilities:
- Widely-acclaimed Sherrill Park golf course
- Richardson Senior Center
- Tennis Center
- Gymnastics Center
- Barkway Park for your furry friends
The City’s park system is always undergoing improvements with bond elections that revitalize city amenities and provide maximum value to our residents.
- Eisemann Center for Performing Arts and Corporate Presentations
The Eisemann Center has been visited by over 2,400,000 people since its opening in 2002. With two acoustically tuned performance halls and a recital/reception area, the Center provides opportunities for professional groups from all over Dallas, Collin and surrounding counties.
Over 450 events are held each year in the Center, including:
- Richardson and Plano Symphonies
- Dance
- Ethnic
- Asian
- Middle Eastern
- Hispanic
- Corporate meetings are frequently held and utilize the Center’s unique satellite and Internet transmission capabilities to their facilities worldwide.
- Outdoor Festivals
The Eisemann Center is fulfilling its role as a regional facility with performances by groups from all over Collin as well as Dallas counties. In addition, the Center has been shown to be an excellent venue for Texas and USA regional events.
The City is abundant with outdoor festivals:
- The award-winning WildFlower Festival originated with our 50-year-old widely-acclaimed Richardson Symphony
Two arts festivals:
Dedicated Senior Center:
Excellence in Residential Neighborhoods:
Recent City Awards
- “Triple A” Bond Rating from both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s rating agencies (This saves residents millions of dollars by obtaining the lowest interest rates possible for city debt financing.)
- Class 1 ISO Rating from the Insurance Services Office (This provides residents the lowest fire insurance rates. Richardson is one of a handful of cities in Texas holding this rating.)
- Digital Cities Award – Top 10 Cities in America from the Center for Digital Government
- Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada
- Achievement of Excellence in Procurement Award from the National Procurement Institute
- Bicycle-Friendly Community Bronze Award from the League of American Bicyclists
- Certificate of Distinction from the Government Treasurer’s Organization of Texas
- Recreation Facility Design Excellence from the Texas Recreation and Park Society
- Library Excellence from the Texas Municipal Library Directors Association
- Park Design Excellence from the Texas Recreation and Park Society
- Certificate of Achievement for Planning Excellence from the Texas Chapter of the American Planning Association
Excellence in Education:
School Districts
Two school districts (RISD/Richardson and PISD/Plano) are within city limits.
All schools within Richardson city limits scored “exemplary” or “recognized” on recent TAKS tests. These are the two highest rankings the Texas Education Agency awards.
Richardson ISD was founded in 1854 and serves Richardson’s Dallas County residents. Richardson ISD covers 38.5 square miles and includes most of the city of Richardson and portions of the cities of Dallas and Garland (60 percent of RISD is in Dallas, with 35 percent in Richardson and 5 percent in Garland). RISD is comprised of 55 campuses that serve almost 38,000 students. Including administration and support, RISD maintains 70 facilities covering more than 6 million square feet with 35 million square feet of grounds.
Plano ISD serves Richardson’s Collin County residents. Plano ISD serves the residents of approximately 100 square miles in southwest Collin County. This area includes 66 square miles in the City of Plano, with the balance including northern portions of the cities of Dallas and Richardson and parts of the cities of Allen, Carrollton, Garland, Lucas, Murphy, Parker and Wylie. PISD is comprised of 72 campuses that serve almost 55,000 students.
Colleges & Universities
University of Texas at Dallas in Richardson
UT Dallas at Richardson is one of the leading math/engineering/business/arts universities in the state, offering Bachelors through Doctoral studies.
As a strategic goal, UT Dallas is aiming to become a Tier One institution. UT Dallas stands to gain a sizable advantage in deepening its resources and attracting the best students and educators. History shows that corporate interest goes hand-in-hand with Tier One schools, which in turn spurs job creation and drives innovation in technology, medicine and engineering locally and in the world at large. (For more info:
Interesting Facts as of 2015:
- Faculty: 552 tenured and track tenured
- Student body: 24,000
- Endowment funding (2015): $392 million
- Entering student average SAT scores: 1258 (among the highest for Texas Public Universities)
- In 2015 there were 102 entering freshman National Merit Scholars and there are 332 total at UT Dallas.
Dallas College – Richland Campus
Richland Community College is adjacent to the City with a wide range of student offerings.
- There are 20,000 students representing 130 countries.
- Richland won the Malcom Baldridge National Quality Award.
In addition to college-level courses, Richland College also offers students living in contiguous counties the opportunity to enroll in Richland Collegiate High School (RCHS), one of the first junior-senior dual credit charter high schools administered by a community college. The TEA exemplary-rated RCHS has capacity for up to 900 students who may simultaneously earn a high school diploma and an associate degree.
Excellence in Financial Stability
- Richardson is one of the few cities in Texas to receive a AAA bond rating from both Standard & Poor’s as well as Moody’s (The highest rating available). This rating has saved taxpayers millions of dollars since 2009 by assuring the very lowest possible interest rates for bond programs.
- With the economic development success, the City’s commercial tax base will continue to expand dramatically over the next few years as more projects are completed. During difficult times, residents paid 60% of the City’s budget. Today this has reversed, with businesses paying 60% (and growing).
Excellence in Health Services
MRMC recently opened a new Richardson hospital at 190 and Renner which serves the North Texas region. With 150 beds, the hospital is also served by adjoining doctors’ offices and a cancer treatment center.
MRMC is a not-for-profit acute care hospital offering medical, surgical and behavioral health services. Included are:
- An advanced electrophysiology lab
- Interventional cardiovascular and neuroradiology suites
- Extensive outpatient services focused on minimally invasive treatments
- An adjacent Cancer Center with leading-edge diagnostic and treatment technologies
- 400+ physicians in 35 specialties
- Mayo Clinic affiliation: e-consults and research opportunities
Campbell Campus for Continuing Care
- Emergency Department
- Behavioral Health and Addiction Recovery
- Wound Care
- Hyperbaric Center
Excellence in City Services
The City Council and City Manager’s office have a defined objective to provide the highest quality of service to Richardson residents. As residents of Richardson, we have become accustomed to a responsive and competent city staff. This is not the case in many cities! This mantra of service is no accident; it is by design with a dedicated city services staff.
Not to discount other city services, we highlight two of our city’s great service organizations that affect our lives in dramatic ways:
- The Richardson Police Department continues to provide a safe environment through active citizen involvement.
- There are 24 crime watch areas with 755 trained citizen volunteers.
- There are 98 active Volunteers in Police Service who donated almost 18,000 hours during the past year helping to patrol our streets and provide administrative support for the department.
- The Citizen Police Academy offers classes to increase Police Department transparency and awareness. Almost 1,000 citizens have been trained.
- The Citizen Police Academy Alumni Association has over 100 members.
- Crime Watch Patrols with over 750 trained citizen volunteers patrol 24 designated areas.
- Richardson’s National Night Out is the 12th largest in the nation, with almost 200 registered parties.
- The Police Explorer Program has won many awards in Texas State Law Enforcement competitions.
- The Department conducts an annual Youth Citizens Police Academy.
The Result:
There has been a steady decline in both property and violent crime since 2009. Richardson’s crime rate trends track below both national and state crime rates. The “Higher Caliber” police force combined with high citizen involvement has created an environment where the bad guys just don’t want to operate.
- Since 2009 the following incident rates have all improved:
- Residential burglary
- Business burglary
- Burglary of a motor vehicle
- Auto theft
- Simple assaults
- Aggravated assaults
- Robbery of individuals
- Robbery of business
- In addition, the following have significantly improved over the past 15 years:
- Property crime rates
- Violent crime rates
- The Richardson Fire Department with support from the City Council, the City Manager’s office, and residents’ support of bond programs, has relocated several stations and upgraded others to assure all residents have timely response from fire, EMT and rescue units.
- Class 1 ISO rating was awarded for excellent services offered and timeliness of response by the Texas Insurance Board. This rating has been given to very few cities in Texas and has resulted in significant savings to property owners on their insurance premiums.
- Most fire department firefighters are EMT qualified.
- The fire engines are equipped with most of the medical equipment available in an ambulance; that is why a fire engine sometimes shows up on a medical call. It’s all about the quickest possible response.
- For almost 20 years the fire department has conducted an annual Citizen’s Fire Academy.
- The Citizen’s Fire Academy Alumni Association is very active and provides valuable support to the department.
- The Richardson Fire Department also conducts an annual Explorer program for younger citizens.
Excellence in Economic Development:
The City partners with the Richardson Chamber of Commerce in the management of the Richardson Economic Development Program. This program has had stellar success in recent years. The sheer volume of these successes will produce major additions to our tax base and better balance the tax burden between citizens and businesses.
Some examples of recent successes are:
- The $1.5 billion CityLine development started in 2013 is continuing to expand.
- Some major new corporate residents:
- State Farm (insurance)
- Raytheon (electronics)
- RealPage (software)
- Geico (insurance)
- TD Ameritrade (financial services)
- Yankong (LED leader)
- Linkedin (data center)
- MedeAnalytics (data analysis)
- Frontier Communications (telecom)
- E2V (British Defense)
- AdvoCare (office/distribution center)
- The City/Chamber effort has also produced major progress in attracting quality entertainment venues and restaurants.
These successes are largely a result of the emphasis placed in this area by the Richardson Chamber of Commerce.
