Voters appear to have elected a new mayor and at-large city council member in McKinney.
McKinney’s Planning and Zoning Commission chair, Bill Cox received about 53% of the vote in the runoff election for mayor according to unofficial election night results, defeating former McKinney state representative Scott Sanford. And Ernest Lynch, a retired healthcare CEO, appears to have won the at-large city council seat with 63% of the vote as of Saturday night, defeating Jim Garrison.
Cox received 47% of the vote in the four-person mayor race during the general election. Cox, a principal at a local real estate firm, previously served as the at-large city council member and mayor pro tem.
Cox grew up in McKinney. He said at a mayoral debate ahead of the general election the city has changed.
“We can no longer think like we were a small town,” Cox said.
The Planning and Zoning Commission, including Cox, approved the site plan for the city’s controversial airport expansion in January after the city council passed a resolution expressing its support of the plan.
McKinney voters struck down $200 million in bond funds for expanding the city’s regional airport for commercial use in 2023. But the city is still moving forward with the project. The council approved $58 million in construction contracts for the expansion in early May.
Critics of the airport have said the McKinney city council is ignoring the will of the voters. Cox said at the mayoral debate the council did listen to the will of the voters by not using property tax dollars like the bond proposed.
“They heard what the citizens said,” he said. “They've dropped the idea of taxpayer funded expansion.”
Cox also said the public doesn’t have the inside knowledge that current council members have about the expansion He said the city has a duty to make city assets, including the airport, the best they can be for citizens.
Construction at the airport is scheduled to start sometime this month and finish next year. But The North Texas Conservation Association recently filed a federal lawsuit seeking to void seeking to void the environmental assessment for the airport expansion.
The environmental group alleges that TxDOT’s environmental assessment, which included a finding of no significant impact on the environment, failed to meet standards set in the National Environmental Policy Act. The conservation group is asking the court to remand the assessment back to TxDOT for a more thorough review.
The city said in a statement emailed to KERA it will “vigorously defend the findings” of the environmental assessment and seek to have the lawsuit dismissed.
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