North Texans helped pass all but one of the 14 constitutional amendments on Tuesday. They also passed several local bond issues. Collin County reporter Caroline Love, Claire Williams from the Denton Record Chronicle and enterprise reporter Jacob Sanchez from The Fort Worth Report talked with KERA's Sam Baker about the big ticket items for cities, counties and school districts — and what that means for North Texas communities.
SAM BAKER: KERA's Caroline Love covers Collin County. Caroline, Collin County had a lot of money for roads on the ballot. What's going on there?
CAROLINE LOVE: The $380 million proposition for road improvements passed overwhelmingly. About 75% of the voters were in favor of it. And that all comes back to growth. Collin County is the third fastest developing county in the nation. That's according to the U.S. Census. More than a million people already live there, and that number keeps going up. All those residents have to get around on county roads and city streets. Some of those roads weren't built to handle this much traffic, so they need to be expanded and repaired after years of extra wear and tear.
SAM BAKER: So that's one form of growth. But a number of the bond propositions were related to area's growth in other ways.
CAROLINE LOVE: You know, more residents means there's a greater need for all kinds of government services. And three of the other propositions that passed will pay for new or expanded facilities, including additions to the county jail and the county animal shelter. You know, Collin County Commissioner Susan Fletcher touched on this in a previous commissioners court, and she said in a social media post that the average Collin County employee serves more people than staffers in other large counties.
Marla Fields is with a Frisco animal advocacy group called Frisco's Pet Project. And she told me that the animal shelter has been overcrowded for at least a decade, and it's only gotten worse as more people have moved to the area. The bond proposition would double the shelter size, but construction won't finish until 2027.
SAM BAKER: I want to pivot to Prosper ISD's bond for a moment. What happened there?
CAROLINE LOVE: More than half the voters voted against the $94 million bond for the athletic stadium. There was another school bond proposition that would have paid for expanding current sports facilities, and it didn't pass either. They did approve more than $2 billion for adding in, expanding to schools and money for a new performing arts center.
SAM BAKER: Okay, let's pivot to Denton City bond election. Claire Williams supervised election coverage for the Denton Record Chronicle. What were some of the big ticket items on the ballot in Denton?
CLAIRE WILLIAMS: The city of Denton voters here passed seven of the eight propositions, which are all part of a $309 million bond package, the biggest the city had been asking voters to approve. And some of the big ones on there that did pass were $45 million for street improvements, $58 million for drainage and flood control and $49 million to rebuild the South Branch library. It was built in 1995. The growth in the area has really contributed to those needs there. Voters also did approve $33 million for parks and recreation improvements, as well as two new fire station buildings and a new or expansions to the animal shelter here. The one proposition that did not pass was to improve City Hall West, which is a historic building up here that has been vacant since 2016. The city was hoping for approval for $18 million to do renovations for office and event spaces there.
SAM BAKER: So a lot of items there on the ballot. Tell me this. What are the city's main goals with these projects?
CLAIRE WILLIAMS: The main goal of the bond was to improve quality of life. So that was the focus for city council on this one. And their focus in the future will be on roads specifically.
SAM BAKER: And is this going to affect taxes for Denton residents?
CLAIRE WILLIAMS: Not by much. The program is estimated to be no more than $0.05 per $100 valuation.
SAM BAKER: Looking at Fort Worth now, Jacob Sanchez is as an enterprise reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Jacob, two Fort Worth area school districts voted on bonds yesterday. Can you tell us more about these proposals from the Hurst, Euless, Bedford and Eagle Mountain Saginaw Districts?
JACOB SANCHEZ: Yes, the H-E-B School District approved a nearly $1 billion bond that is the largest in the district's history, officials told me. And what that money will do is improve the district's old aging campuses. Many of the schools were built around the start of the Cold War last century. So, we're going to see a lot of new replacement schools there. In Eagle Mountain-Saginaw, voters approved just over $560 million in bond projects. The district is dealing with lot of growth right now. So, we'll see several new schools there. But voters in Euless have now rejected two bonds that are a lot better related to athletics, and those totaled about $98 million.
SAM BAKER: Still, they manage to get two proposals in there after and this is what their second attempt at a bond in a year. So what did the district do differently this time?
JACOB SANCHEZ: What they did differently was they went out to the community and asked the community, what do you want? And what the community wanted are more projects that touched all the schools in the district. The previous bond was very small compared to this one and really focused only on growth. Now, we're going to see a lot of improvements at most of the schools, if not all the schools in the district.
SAM BAKER: So what should residents of the Eagle Mountain, Saginaw and H-E-B districts expect going forward?
JACOB SANCHEZ: The district is going to move very quickly on the construction projects. Both districts said they plan to start in 2024. So just right, just next year on the bond projects, we're going to see lots of new schools over the next few years in both districts. [00:08:32][14.1]
SAM BAKER: Texas voters also passed 13 out of 14 statewide constitutional amendments on the ballot. Caroline, can you tell us about how North Texans voted?
CAROLINE LOVE: North Texas saw a higher voter turnout this year than the last off year election. Most people voted against Proposition 13. That would have increased the retirement age for state judges. And, you know, most people in North Texas voted similarly. But there were some differences. Fewer people in Dallas County voted for banning a state wealth tax than voters in other parts of the area.
SAM BAKER: That was KERA's Caroline Love, Jacob Sanchez with the Fort Worth Report and Claire Williams with the Denton Record Chronicle. For KERA News, I'm Sam Baker.
Got a tip? Email Caroline Love at clove@kera.org.
Caroline Love is a Report For AmericaCorps member for KERA News.
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