In This Issue

Everything below actually happened, and every item links to its source. We just refuse to be boring about it. This edition covers September and October. The budget is adopted, the seat is filled, the library is coming home — and with the loud fights settled, council spent most of October on the quiet stuff that decides the next ten years: housing finance, what Richardson asks Austin for, and whether anybody is watching.

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Richardson’s ask of the 2027 Legislature is, in a word, less. Less preemption, fewer unfunded mandates, and the restoration of authority earlier sessions took away. Police Chief Gary Tittle, who doubles as the city’s legislative affairs coordinator, presented the draft on Oct. 26; the final version comes back to council for approval. Staff tracked about a thousand bills touching city business last session and expect about the same again, which is the part worth sitting with: a city of 121,000 reading the entire output of the State of Texas, twice, in case one line of it rewrites how Richardson collects its own revenue.

The four stated priorities: preserve local governing authority; oppose bills that further erode home-rule authority or impose unfunded mandates; support bills that restore local control eroded by earlier legislation; and oppose limits on using public funds to communicate with legislators or to pay dues to organizations that employ lobbyists. Tittle named state efforts to restrict a city’s control of its own taxes, revenues and expenditures as the specific worry (Community Impact, Oct. 29; Mark Steger, Nov. 9).

Beyond local control, the focus areas are fiscal management, transportation, economic vibrancy, public safety, environment, and education and workforce — broadly the same agenda as last session, which led with home rule, fiscal transparency and transportation. Staff tracked roughly 1,000 bills related to city responsibilities and roughly 1,000 more on the criminal justice system in the last session, and expect similar volume in 2027 (Community Impact).

Where the Coalition stands.OUR VIEW The Coalition’s view is that the first three of these are easy. Local authority is worth preserving, unfunded mandates are worth opposing, and asking Austin to give back some of what earlier sessions took is worth doing. The direction of travel at the state level has been a steady chipping away at home rule, and we are against that direction, plainly.

The fourth plank is harder, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We are generally not comfortable with public money spent on lobbying. We also recognize that a city watching its own authority erode session after session may not want to surrender one of the few tools it has for being heard in Austin. Those two things pull against each other, and we have not resolved them yet. We would rather say so than sign on to something we have not thought through.

Dates that matter to the city: the Texas session convenes Jan. 12 and adjourns May 31; Congress convenes Jan. 3, 2027. Richardson Legislative Day at the Capitol is Feb. 23-24, 2027. This was a briefing on a draft — the final agenda comes back to a future council meeting for approval, which is the point at which a resident, or a political action committee, still has something to say about it.

Scope note, since the briefing covered it and we are not going to: Tittle also walked council through the state House and Senate districts covering Richardson, the candidates in each, and congressional redistricting. Federal, state and county elections are outside the Coalition’s bylaws (§1.3.2), so none of that appears here. The city’s own legislative agenda is a council action on city business, and that is what we cover.

The rest of the Oct. 26 meeting

All councilmembers were present, Councilman Arefin Shamsul led the prayer and pledges, and nobody signed up to speak. The consent agenda passed unanimously and included a $1.58 million fire pumper apparatus from Siddons-Martin Emergency Group and a $404,000 ambulance from Sterling McCall Ford, the annual adoption of the city’s investment policy, added authorized representatives for TexPool investments, and an underground easement letting Oncor relocate the transformer at the Service Center (Richardson Review, Oct. 26 meeting).

Two ceremonies worth a line. The North Texas Municipal Water District marked its 75th anniversary, with Richardson’s board representatives Randy Roland and Franklin Byrd presenting the city a video and a glass sculpture of a water drop — which, given that the water district’s wholesale rates are the reason your base charge is climbing to $20 by 2030, is a commemorative object with some narrative weight. And the 2026 CARES class graduated: 23 residents through eight weekly sessions on how the city actually works, with City Secretary Aimee Nemer presenting and council handing out the certificates. Twenty-three people now understand the municipal budget voluntarily. That is a civic win and we will take it.

The Oct. 26 agenda also listed interlocal cooperation agreements with UT Dallas covering fire, police and municipal court services. Nothing has come back to open session yet. It is worth watching: how a city and a research university of UT Dallas’s size divide emergency response and court jurisdiction affects response times, staffing and whose court hears what, and agreements like these tend to run for years once signed (Richardson Review, Oct. 26 meeting).

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The loudest item of the fall was the Place 3 appointment. The largest item of the fall got a work session, a slide deck and no vote at all.

On Oct. 19, council was briefed on forming a Housing Finance Corporation (HFC), a Public Facility Corporation (PFC), or both — nonprofits governed by a council-appointed board that strike deals with developers to build or rehabilitate income-restricted rental housing, using property-tax exemptions, tax-exempt multifamily revenue bonds and low-income housing tax credits. The briefing came from Megan Rahmes, a vice president at Hilltop Securities, and the law firm Chapman and Cutler. Rahmes’s own framing: “a tool in the toolbox” (Community Impact, Oct. 23; Mark Steger, Oct. 21).

How it works in practice: a set share of a development’s units is restricted to renters at income levels council chooses, measured against area median income. At the 60% tier in Dallas and Collin counties, that is $50,800 a year for a one-person household up to $72,660 for a household of four, with rent capped between $1,272 and $1,889 a month depending on bedrooms. Rahmes put names to that bracket: city library clerks, animal services officers and administrative secretaries. Mayor Amir Omar turned it into the question on the table — “do we want to create housing that would allow these people to be able to afford living in this city?”

And there is money in it for the city. Hilltop estimated Richardson could collect $4 million to $7.4 million over 15 years through an HFC or PFC, depending on structure, with possible uses including single-family assistance, senior home rehabilitation, emergency rental assistance and community grants. City Manager Don Magner added the caveat that matters: the city has to put money up front and would see most of the return in the later years.

City Manager Don Magner told council it would need to set goalposts and identify the deal types it wants before proceeding, and said he expects strong developer interest: “I do think that we’re going to have a line at the door.” A second briefing is scheduled before council decides whether to form either entity, and staff are bringing back research on how existing arrangements have actually performed and what they do to school district revenue. This one is worth watching.

Nothing was decided. Magner asked staff to come back with research on how these arrangements affect school district budgets and on how existing HFC deals elsewhere have actually performed, and a second briefing is scheduled before council decides whether to proceed. Other tools from the city’s 2025 housing study — community development block grants, opportunity zones, missing-middle zoning — are promised for future agendas.

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On Oct. 12 council worked through its public-engagement options and reached agreement on four of them. No formal vote was taken on any; these were consensus decisions in a discussion item (Community Impact, Oct. 13; Mark Steger, Oct. 14 and Oct. 15).

1. Quarterly town halls, one in each district. Mayor Omar has been running these on his own — six so far, the most recent on Aug. 5 — with residents submitting questions, attendees voting on them, and the mayor answering the top vote-getters. The city will now coordinate the scheduling, all seven members get invited without being required to attend, and Omar moderates. The first one under the new arrangement is planned for January. Council Member Jennifer Justice put the ambition plainly: “The idea is that we just go out and we interact with residents and we answer questions.” Total cost of the six held so far, per Omar: about $600, of which $500 was venue rental. Six town halls for the price of a decent dishwasher.

2. A monthly video recap. Three to five minutes, modeled on Richardson ISD’s board-meeting videos, with council members rotating as presenters and staff writing the scripts. Justice’s pitch for it: “It’s monthly and it’s highly factual.” This one has already shipped — the city launched it in early November as Council Connection on Instagram and Facebook, with Mayor Pro Tem Ken Hutchenrider fronting the first edition (Richardson Today).

3. A Facebook livestream pilot. Council also agreed to pilot livestreaming meetings on Facebook alongside the existing stream on the city website, with comments disabled during the broadcast and turned back on afterward if the platform allows it. Anyone who has read a local Facebook comment section during a budget discussion will recognize this as less a restriction than an act of mercy. Worth saying plainly, too: Facebook comments were never how you get heard here. Speaking at the meeting and the city’s online comment form are, and both are still open.

4. A bigger room for the State of the City. The address moves from the Eisemann Center’s Bank of America Theatre to Hill Performance Hall, with a 7:30 p.m. start rather than the 6:30 p.m. of the last four years. Staff were asked to keep it inside the existing budget.

One practical note raised in the discussion and worth carrying forward: Council Member Joe Corcoran flagged that town halls should not run during election season, and candidate filing for the May 1, 2027 city election opens Jan. 13. Justice suggested January, then again after the election. Which means the January town hall and the opening of the filing window land in the same two weeks — a coincidence of calendar, and a useful one if you have been wondering what running for council actually involves.

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If your household budget felt different starting in October, it was not your imagination. Three separate rate changes took effect Oct. 1: the new city tax rate, the new water and wastewater rates, and the Atmos gas settlement. The first two were covered last edition and are unchanged — the rate held at $0.54218 for a third year inside a $432,226,829 budget, and the water base charge moving from $8 to $9.60, first visible on November bills. The third is new.

The Atmos settlement. Council approved the negotiated settlement on consent Sept. 28, as one of 190 member cities on the Atmos Cities Steering Committee. Atmos had asked for a systemwide increase of $398.5 million; the settlement came in at $356.5 million, about 10.51% below the ask. What that means at the mailbox: the average residential bill goes from $94.48 to $107.85, an increase of 14.15%, and the average commercial bill from $452.95 to $497.75, just under 10%. Atmos reports more than $1.8 billion in 2025 infrastructure spending companywide, including $12.5 million of capital improvements inside Richardson (Community Impact, Oct. 2).

Worth being clear about what the city did and did not do here. Atmos sets gas rates through a state process; the cities’ leverage is to band together and negotiate the number down, which is what the steering committee exists for and what it did, to the tune of $42 million off the original request. Your bill still went up 14%. Both of those sentences are true, and anybody telling you only one of them is selling something.

$375,000 in arts grants. Also on Sept. 28, council unanimously approved $375,000 from the hotel occupancy tax fund to 22 local music, theater and performing arts organizations — against $552,794 requested. The largest single award went to the Richardson Symphony Orchestra at $82,000, with Richardson Theatre Centre, Chamber Music International and Repertory Company Theatre also among the biggest recipients. The seven-member Richardson Cultural Arts Commission picked them, weighing focus on Richardson residents, community impact, financial health, application quality and fit with the city’s Arts and Culture Master Plan (Community Impact, Oct. 1). Hotel guests fund the arts in Richardson, which remains one of the better deals in municipal finance.

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ZF 26-16 — Golf Ranch Richardson, 3570 Waterview Pkwy. The City Plan Commission recommended approval unanimously on Oct. 8; council approved the special permit amendment unanimously on Oct. 26. One written comment came in, in support, and nobody spoke at the hearing. What gets built: the uncovered hitting bays come out and a covered structure with 28 bays goes in, taking the total from 71 to 79 (the existing count includes six in the golf barn and 45 under an aluminum canopy, per senior planner Derica Peters). Also a new paved lot with 109 spaces, a food-and-beverage building with a 5,000-square-foot outdoor patio, 500 square feet added to the existing container, and a median opening and left-turn lane on Renner Road. A special condition requires the existing gravel lot to be converted to landscaping within 90 days of the new northeastern lot being finished (Richardson Review, Oct. 26; Community Impact, Oct. 30).

One exchange from the hearing explains more about Richardson land than the staff report does. Councilman Arefin Shamsul asked why asphalt rather than concrete. The applicant’s answer: it is an economic decision, and the leases run five years at a time because the land belongs to UT Dallas. Five-year horizons are why the surface is asphalt. That is not a complaint about anyone — it is how a driving range on a university’s balance sheet is supposed to pencil out.

A three-story bed tower at Methodist Richardson. The City Plan Commission voted unanimously to recommend zoning amendments for a new bed tower at Methodist Richardson Medical Center, reported Oct. 27; the request still has to go to council, and no council date has been set. The design: level one holds an imaging suite with MRI and CT plus mechanical space, levels two and three each hold a 25-bed patient unit, and the hospital’s total rises to 369 beds. On day one the first two levels are built out and the third is shell space. The tower gets its own utility system, a mechanical yard and a healing garden, and the parking lot circulation changes. The rezoning folds the southern property into the hospital’s planned development. Long term — and this may take many years — three more floors would make it a six-story, 113,000-square-foot tower with 125 beds, plus at least one more parking garage (Community Impact, Oct. 27).

Standing disclosure we will keep making: Mayor Pro Tem Ken Hutchenrider is president of Methodist Richardson Medical Center. He abstained from the portion of the Sept. 21 budget ordinance covering Methodist Richardson Medical Center Foundation sponsorships, citing a conflict of interest, and that abstention is on the record in the official minutes. We note the relationship every time the hospital appears in these pages because that is what disclosure is for, not because anything about it is irregular.

The Hawthorn becomes apartments. The commission also unanimously recommended rezoning to convert the Hawthorn Extended Stay by Wyndham into an apartment community called Hudson Heights, reported Oct. 28; council considers it next. Developer Culby Culbertson described studios of at least 550 square feet at roughly $950 to $1,000 a month and one-bedrooms of at least 820 square feet at roughly $1,600 to $1,800. The zoning would require 144 parking spaces and the property has 90, so a reduction is part of the ask. A full renovation could finish within a year; the fitness center, pool and tennis courts stay, with the courts also marked for pickleball. Commission member Kristen Schascheck and Vice Chairman Jeremy Thomason took part in the discussion (Community Impact, Oct. 28).

Read those two paragraphs together with the housing finance briefing above and the shape of the fall becomes clear: a $950 studio arriving by private conversion in about a year, while council studies a financing vehicle that would deliver income-restricted units on a longer clock. Same problem, two very different timetables.

Construction and office. GEICO is renovating two suites — 500 and 700 — at 1011 Galatyn Pkwy., Bldg. D, in Galatyn Commons, for office, meeting and training space: an estimated $6 million total, running May 15 through Nov. 10, 2026, under state filings TABS2027004117 and TABS2027004118. It is the company’s third Richardson building, and earlier reporting put the hiring plan at 1,000 jobs. West Coast University is renovating the third floor at 2323 N. Central Expwy., $1.55 million, Oct. 22, 2026 through Feb. 22, 2027 (Community Impact, Oct. 27; Oct. 20).

Housing market. August’s median sale price was $460,000, down $24,800 year over year on 94 sales (Community Impact, Sept. 22). The September figures ran on Oct. 20 under the headline “more than 70 homes sold,” but the median price and the year-over-year change live in an embedded chart we could not read; rather than guess at them we are flagging the gap and will carry the number next edition (Community Impact, Oct. 20).

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The temporary branch closed at 6 p.m. on Oct. 11 after three years of standing in. The renovated building at 421 W. Arapaho Rd. holds its grand reopening Nov. 21 at 1 p.m., with performances, arts and crafts, a scavenger hunt and demonstrations of the new equipment (Community Impact, Nov. 2; Richardson Today).

What is different inside: much more natural light, a new glass-enclosed staircase, a relocated main entrance on the southeast corner with a drop-off lane, and expanded youth services across the first and second levels — separate space for young children, older children and teens — plus the event space, test kitchen and makerspace described when the plans were published. The renovation started in 2023 and is funded through the 2021 bond. Some work continues into 2027, and the new City Hall next door is still due for completion in early 2027 (Community Impact, Oct. 12).

Six weeks without a library is a long six weeks, and the city hit the date it gave itself. Worth saying plainly, since the last two editions of this report have spent a fair amount of ink on things running late elsewhere: this one did not.

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The city’s October roundup of road work put hard dates on the two projects most people are waiting on. Custer Parkway, Campbell Road to the President George Bush Turnpike, $23.09 million, is scheduled to finish this fall after starting in the winter of 2021. Richland Park Drive — Sheffield to Tiffany Trail and Stillmeadow to Wentworth, $2.77 million — also finishes this fall. The Vernet Street asphalt overlay, $430,000, wraps up in the same window.

Still going: West Shore Drive and Fontana Avenue, $10.39 million, through summer 2027. Already done: Sherman Street and Lingco Drive, $6.56 million, completed in summer 2026. And newly on the books, an interlocal agreement with the City of Dallas approving design work at a city-funded cost of $481,712, with construction penciled for summer to fall 2027 (Community Impact, Oct. 19).

The arches got their lights. Mid-October brought a lighting ceremony for the accent lighting on the DART Silver Line bridge arches over US 75, attended by council members and DART. The arches went up in June and July, run about 400 feet long, and stand 80 feet above the roadway at their highest point. The Silver Line itself opened in October 2025 — 26 miles from Plano to DFW Airport, with two Richardson stations, one at UT Dallas and one at CityLine (Richardson Today, Oct. 16). Richardson now has a lit landmark visible from the highway that is not a billboard, which is progress.

Also from DART. A new GoLink zone opened in southwest Plano on Oct. 5; rail ran every 20 minutes on State Fair weekends from Sept. 25 through Oct. 18, and the Oct. 10 Red River Showdown shuttles ran out of Richardson’s CityLine/Bush Station (Community Impact, Oct. 6). DART also published public dashboards with ridership data in September, which is the sort of thing that sounds dull and then quietly settles arguments for years (Community Impact, Sept. 9).

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Richardson’s restaurant and retail pipeline got long enough this fall that prose stopped working. Have a table.

What	Where	Status
Jubran Roastery & Market	751 S. Sherman St.	Opened Oct. 17. Jordanian grocer’s first store in the United States — coffee, spices, nuts, gelato, seating inside. The parent company started in Jordan in 1986 and runs 18 stores there.
Ross Dress for Less	Plano Road, in the former Big Lots	Opened in October. The company’s second Richardson store.
Ajeena Mediterranean Café & Bakery	Richardson	Open as of Oct. 20, after a soft opening earlier that month.
Urban Tandoori Pizza	Richardson	Open as of Oct. 7. Pakistani-Italian fusion, which is either a bold idea or an obvious one depending on how much you like garlic.
Serenity Mental Health Centers	Richardson	Clinic opened, reported Oct. 15.
Enclave Coworking	Richardson	Open, reported Oct. 9.
L’Abri Salons & Wellness · SaponiQ · inLIFE Wellness	Richardson and just outside it	Beauty and wellness services (Oct. 2), a botanical soap brand (Oct. 8), and a Pilates studio (Oct. 19).
Milk Cake Bakery	801 S. Sherman St., in the new Habibi Market center	Coming soon, opening date to be announced. Specialty coffee, honey cake, a brownie in a chocolate shell.
Sire & Sons Smokehouse	Downtown Richardson	Coming. Halal barbecue, announced Oct. 13.
Kunafa Factory · Nashmi · NYC Bagel House · Creamwala	Richardson	All coming: a Mediterranean bakery (Oct. 23), a Jordanian shawarma and kebab house (Oct. 14), a bagel shop (Oct. 6), and an ice cream flagship (Oct. 1).
Elia Greek Tavern	Richardson	Took reservations from Oct. 30; grand opening Nov. 6.
Luna Coffee Co.	1144 N. Plano Rd., Ste. 121	Urban Mocca rebranded, with Vietnamese coffee from beans shipped from Vietnam, plus patê sô and kolaches. Reported Nov. 3.
Vivi’s Boutique & Pink Pagoda Room	Near Richardson	Relocated, reported Oct. 27.
Magic Cup Cafe	Richardson	Closed, reported Oct. 5. The boba shop’s Richardson location is done.
Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea	Shire Blvd.	Closed, reported Nov. 4 — just past this edition’s window. Open since 2019.

The pattern in that table is worth a sentence. Of fourteen entries, seven are Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, South Asian or Vietnamese, and two of them chose Richardson for a national or American debut. Whatever else is true about this city’s economy, the restaurant market has decided Richardson is where you launch something.

Carried over from last edition and now open: Original ChopShop at CityLine Market (Sept. 24), Kami Sushi Seafood Buffet (Sept. 23), Bread Zeppelin (Sept. 30), and Rembrandt Florist’s storefront near the Dallas border (Sept. 25), back for the first time since the 2019 tornado. Sources for this section: Community Impact’s Richardson business and dining coverage, September through early November 2026.

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It was a very good two months on Campbell Road.

• The university’s endowment passed $1 billion for the first time, announced Sept. 30 (UT Dallas).
• The Harry W. Bass Jr. Foundation committed another $10 million on Oct. 22 to finish Phase II of the O’Donnell Athenaeum — a nearly 67,000-square-foot music and performance building opening in spring 2027, with a 680-seat concert hall that will carry the foundation’s name. The Bass School expects more than 60 music events and more than 8,000 community visitors a year once it opens; the foundation gave $40 million in 2023 (UT Dallas). A 680-seat hall ten minutes from most of Richardson is a quality-of-life asset, not just a campus building.
• The Crow Museum of Asian Art is receiving the MacLean art collection plus a $10 million gift, announced Oct. 28 (UT Dallas). The museum also opened a new exhibit in late September with a State Fair tie-in.
• Rankings: Forbes named it the best university in North Texas (Sept. 22), and the Princeton Review listed it as a Best Value and No. 1 in Texas for internships (Oct. 16).
• New programs: a master’s in sustainability and policy (Oct. 7) and an interdisciplinary degree combining cybersecurity and public policy (Oct. 30).
• And a UTD quality-of-life survey released Oct. 23 measured North Texas affordability and attitudes under the headline “less connected, less happy.” Worth reading if you want the regional mood in numbers rather than anecdotes.

Also relevant to that executive session: the interlocal agreements with UTD for fire, police and municipal court services are the unglamorous machinery underneath all of the above. A university growing this fast changes a city’s emergency-response math whether or not anyone writes a press release about it.

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Coverage note: we report Richardson ISD’s budget, tax rate, facilities and academic programs, because those affect every household in the city. School board elections are outside the Coalition’s bylaws (§1.3.2) and are not covered here.

The number the district took to Austin. RISD identified nearly $40 million in state-mandated costs the state does not fund: $6.4 million for safety and security, $10.5 million for transportation, and $12.2 million for special education. Its three legislative goals are responsible technology use, reducing critical funding gaps, and reducing regulatory burdens; the asks include more money for armed security officers and special education, a higher basic allotment, and funding for unanticipated enrollment declines. The board reviewed the priorities Sept. 17 and was scheduled to adopt them Oct. 15 — we could not confirm that the adoption happened and are not asserting it. Superintendent Tabitha Branum and Board President Chris Poteet led the discussion; the district’s Rally Day at the Capitol is Feb. 22, 2027 (Community Impact, Sept. 18).

Set that next to the city’s own agenda and the two governments are in Austin asking for versions of the same thing: stop assigning costs without sending money. The city calls it unfunded mandates; the district calls it a funding gap. Same sentence, different letterhead.

A closed school becomes a community center. The Esperanza Community Center opened Oct. 15 in the former Dobie Pre-Kindergarten School, housing a senior center, a food pantry, medical clinics and childcare. Dallas County Commissioner Andy Sommerman directed $4 million in Economic and Community Development funding to create it. Dobie Pre-K was closed before the 2025-26 year as part of Project RightSize, the district’s response to its budget shortfall (Community Impact, Oct. 19). A building the district could not afford to run as a school is now a food pantry and a clinic. That is not a happy ending, exactly, but it is a long way from an empty building.

Magnet applications move earlier. Every RISD magnet program now runs on one shared timeline: applications open Nov. 1 and close Dec. 18, with decisions targeted by the end of February. Last year the windows were staggered — junior high in November, elementary from December, high school in January. Current RISD students still begin Feb. 23, and magnet enrollment remains limited to families inside district boundaries. The district’s stated reason is competing with private and charter schools, which make offers earlier (Community Impact, Oct. 20). If you have a child who might want a magnet seat, that Dec. 18 deadline is the one line in this report with a hard personal cost for missing it.

Also: the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas opened a club at Richardson High School, announced Oct. 14. And the district has announced two microschool models for 2027-28 — reported in early November, after this window, and carried here only as a flag for next edition.

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Straight reporting in this section. The jokes stay out.

Waffle House. On Sept. 24, charges were dropped against three people arrested in connection with the March 2026 shooting at a Richardson Waffle House that left a teenager paralyzed. Richardson police are still investigating and the shooter has not been identified (Fox 4, Sept. 24).

SWAT standoff, Sept. 9. A drug suspect barricaded himself behind a home after a short chase; the standoff ended with his arrest and no injuries (Fox 4, Sept. 9).

A reunion worth noting. On Oct. 9, patrons who tackled and held a stabbing suspect at a Richardson bar roughly six months earlier — an attack that wounded four people — reunited with the bartender they helped (Fox 4, Oct. 9). Most of what a police department does is respond. Occasionally a room full of strangers gets there first.

Also in the window. A Berkner High School teacher arrested Aug. 28 on a felony online-solicitation charge was placed on leave; we are not publishing the name. And a water main break on Sept. 29 on E. Collin Blvd. temporarily cut service to Yale Elementary and nearby homes (Fox 4, Sept. 29).

What we could not get. The city’s police department page would not load for us this run, so we have no September or October crime statistics and no confirmation on the Flock follow-ups. Both are flagged below rather than guessed at.

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Flock license-plate readers. Six transparency and audit follow-ups were asked of staff on Aug. 10 with no deadline attached. We could not confirm that any of them have been published, and the city’s police page was unreachable this run, so we are reporting a gap rather than a failure. The contract itself does not come up for renewal until December 2027. OUR VIEW The Coalition’s recorded position stands: keep the readers, and publish the policy — retention period, who inside the department may query the system, which outside agencies get access and on what basis, and how misuse is detected and reported.

Short-term rentals. The rules that took effect Aug. 25 — 500-foot spacing between new rentals, existing registrations grandfathered, annual fee raised from $100 to $300 — have produced no enforcement action and no litigation that we can find. Registrations run by calendar year, so the next renewal cycle opens Jan. 1, 2027. The Coalition has no position here, deliberately, and we said last edition we would revisit if enforcement or a suit landed. Neither has.

The Unified Development Code. Phase 1 — the diagnostic, where consultants write down what is wrong with the 1956-era zoning ordinance — was scheduled to run October through December. No council action appeared in the window and no diagnostic findings have been published. OUR VIEW The Coalition’s recorded position is unchanged: no position yet, watching closely, and we expect to weigh in once an actual draft exists.

The 2026 bond program. Year 1 of the voter-approved $223.4 million program is underway with $36.94 million to be issued, and no sale date has been announced. The city’s 2026 bond page is still serving pre-election content, so we are relying on the implementation schedule published earlier rather than on anything new (city bond page).

Northgale. City of Richardson v. Northgale Village Association (Dallas County, DC-26-01294), over more than $200,000 in unpaid water bills with the city seeking a receivership, still has no outcome we can confirm. The county court portal was not reachable. This is the third consecutive edition in which we have had to say that, and we would rather say it than invent a result.

Amazon Prime Air drones. Nothing new since the Sept. 28 council meeting and the Fox 4 coverage that followed. The city’s position remains that flight routes are the FAA’s call, and no formal council step has been taken.

Arapaho Center Station. Redevelopment at the DART station remains on hold, which city leadership attributes to market conditions (Richardson Today).

Distractions at the podium. None in this window. The Oct. 26 meeting had no speakers at all. Credit where it is due.

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Everything above already happened. This is what has not — the items still headed to a vote, a date or a decision, where a phone call or ten minutes at a podium still counts for something. This is also where the Coalition weighs in, because a position on a finished vote is just commentary. Two items here are from the first week of November, after this edition’s news window closed; they are carried as what comes next rather than as news.

The housing finance decision. A second briefing on forming a Housing Finance Corporation or Public Facility Corporation is scheduled before council decides whether to proceed, and staff are bringing back research on the school-district revenue effect and on how existing HFC arrangements have actually performed. Other tools from the 2025 housing study — block grants, opportunity zones, missing-middle zoning — are promised for future agendas. No date has been posted. This is the biggest open question in the report, and the one place where a resident voice still has room to move the outcome.

The final 2027 legislative agenda. What council reviewed Oct. 26 was a draft. The finished agenda comes back to a future council meeting for approval, and that vote is the last point at which the city’s ask of Austin can be changed.

Public money on privately owned medians. Council gave staff direction to point the Matching Fund Beautification program at medians that homeowners associations actually own, starting with an entry at the Knolls at Breckinridge that lost an argument with a car. Magner’s framing for the category is “a private asset within a public realm” — private on the deed, public to everyone driving past it. About 25 of the 281 HOA-owned parcels in the city could qualify; private streets inside gated communities are excluded. The program dates to 1972, matches partner funds dollar for dollar, and carries $80,000 for this fiscal year. A Chapter 380 agreement would be required with each association, and the city would not take on long-term maintenance of private property. Staff are writing the conditions now (Community Impact, Nov. 5; Richardson Today).

Where the Coalition stands.OUR VIEW The Coalition’s view is that this one is worth doing. A driver going past an entry median cannot tell which strip of grass belongs to the city and which belongs to a homeowners association, and an attractive city is the whole point of the program. Two things seem worth getting right while the conditions are still being drafted. One is a cap on what any single project can draw, so that one median does not consume a year’s worth of an $80,000 fund; we do not have the data to say what the right number is. The other is that eligibility should turn on what the public actually sees from a public street. Wording that properly is council’s job and not an easy one, but it is the line that keeps this from drifting somewhere nobody intended.

The summer internship program comes back from the dead. Council directed staff to hire a consultant and spend 30 days finding out whether Richardson should restart the Mayor’s Summer Internship Program, which ran from 2018 to 2023 before the school district discontinued it. Magner proposed paying for the study from prior-year money already parked in the reserve for special projects. Several members backed the idea and still asked the useful questions, timing, cost per student, whether the sponsors materialize, which is roughly what a feasibility study is for. The decision on whether the program returns in summer 2027 or summer 2028 comes after the study (Richardson Today; Mark Steger, Nov. 3). One figure is deliberately missing: a dollar cost for the study appears in a single blog source and in no official document we could reach, so it is not in this report.

The Slagel bridge. Council was set to consider a resolution at its Nov. 9 meeting asking the DART board to name the arches of the Silver Line bridge over US 75 for former mayor and DART board member Gary Slagel — elected to council in 1987, mayor from 1991 to 2007 and again from 2009 to 2011, and DART board chairman from 2023 to 2025. The outcome of that meeting is not yet in any source we can reach, so we are reporting it as pending (Richardson Today). Twenty years as mayor and two as DART chairman is a reasonable claim on 400 feet of lit steel.

Parks, mowing, and a weed with a grudge. Parks and Recreation briefed council in early November on alternative landscape strategies — mowing and fertilizing schedules by area type, and the trade-offs around low-mow and no-mow areas and invasive brush removal — plus a separate update on KR Bluestem, an invasive grass the city describes as hard to manage. The Parks and Recreation Commission reviews the options and reports back to a future council meeting (Richardson Today; Richardson Today).

Two zoning cases still need council. The Methodist bed tower and the Hawthorn-to-apartments conversion both cleared the City Plan Commission in late October and neither has a council date posted. If either one affects your street, the commission stage is over and the council stage is the one left.

The library and City Hall. Grand reopening Nov. 21 at 1 p.m. Some renovation work continues into 2027, and the new City Hall next door is still due early 2027.

The May 1, 2027 city election is less than six months out, and candidate filing opens Jan. 13. Place 3 returns to the voters when Daniel Burdette’s appointed term ends that day. Council Member Joe Corcoran has said he will not return after the 2027 election and intends to serve out his term through it. That is at minimum two seats in play. The first city-coordinated quarterly town hall is planned for January, in the same two weeks the filing window opens — which makes it the single best place in Richardson to find out what the job actually involves before deciding whether the person you wish were running is you.

A standing note on the podium.OUR VIEW Council chambers continue to draw public comment on national and international matters the city has no authority over whatsoever. The Coalition’s view has not moved: there are places to be heard on Washington and on the wider world, and a Richardson council meeting with a Richardson budget on the agenda is not one of them. Council time is finite and it belongs to the water system, the streets, the code, the cameras and the $432 million.

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Date	The Main Event
Now through fall	Custer Parkway ($23.09M), Richland Park Drive ($2.77M) and the Vernet Street overlay ($430K) all finish this fall. Custer started in winter 2021.
Nov. 1 – Dec. 18	RISD magnet school application window, all programs on one timeline. Decisions targeted by the end of February.
Nov. 20, 7 p.m.	Justin Pickard at Truck Yard, 740 S. Central Expwy. Free.
Nov. 21, 1 p.m.	Richardson Public Library grand reopening, 421 W. Arapaho Rd. Performances, arts and crafts, a scavenger hunt, equipment demos.
Nov. 21, 7 a.m.	21st Annual Richardson Gobble Hobble, 2351 Performance Dr. One-mile fun run, 5K or 10K through the Spring Creek Nature Area. $44-$74; proceeds to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas at Richardson.
Nov. 23	City Council regular meeting, 7 p.m., 2360 Campbell Creek Blvd.
Nov. 30, 7 p.m.	Improv Theatre at UT Dallas, University Theatre, 800 W. Campbell Rd. Free.
Dec. 5-6, 11-13, 18-20	Santa’s Village, Huffhines Park, 1500 Apollo Rd., 6-9 p.m. Free. Santa visits and live performances.
Dec. 14	City Council regular meeting. The 2027 council meeting calendar is usually adopted in December.
Dec. 18	RISD magnet application deadline. Hard stop.
Jan. 1, 2027	Short-term rental registration renewal cycle opens.
January 2027	First city-coordinated quarterly town hall, moderated by the mayor, all seven council members invited.
Jan. 12, 2027	Texas legislative session convenes; it adjourns May 31. The city’s final legislative agenda comes to a council vote before then.
Jan. 13, 2027	Candidate filing opens for the May 1 Richardson city election.
Feb. 22, 2027	Richardson ISD Rally Day at the Texas Capitol.
Feb. 23-24, 2027	Richardson Legislative Day at the Texas Capitol.
End of Feb. 2027	RISD magnet decisions targeted.
Early 2027	New City Hall move-in, next door to the library.
March 2027	Sherrill Park maintenance barn and Titleist Fitting Center due complete.
Spring 2027	UT Dallas Athenaeum Phase II opens — 67,000 sq ft and a 680-seat concert hall, ten minutes from most of Richardson.
Summer 2027	West Shore Drive and Fontana Avenue improvements ($10.39M) complete.
May 1, 2027	Richardson city election. Place 3 returns to the voters.
Ongoing	Second housing finance briefing; Matching Fund Beautification conditions; Methodist and Hawthorn rezonings at council; Flock policy publication; Unified Development Code diagnostic; bond Year 1 design work and a sale date; Northgale receivership; Arapaho Center Station still on hold.

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Each edition covers the prior two calendar months, so September items overlap with last month’s edition by design and every one of them is dated. Where this report says a vote was unanimous, that is the word the source used rather than a tally counted against the official minutes, which had not posted for October. Federal, state and county elections sit outside the Coalition’s bylaws (§1.3.2) and do not appear here; city council races, Richardson bond and proposition elections, and the city’s own legislative agenda are in scope under §1.3.1 and are covered.

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