Let’s Keep Plano a City of Excellence!
Plano must remain an attractive destination for families and businesses.
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I’m committed to preserving what makes Plano exceptional while addressing challenges with a citizen-first approach.
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I’ll champion excellent city services, strong public safety, outstanding libraries, recreation centers, and well-maintained roads.
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I’ll prioritize keeping families in Plano, supporting seniors who want to retire here, and help young families build their futures.
Together, we’ll strengthen our schools, energize our economy, and foster a thriving community.
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Value for Our Residents and Businesses
We must maintain the value that our residents and businesses expect. People and organizations moved to Plano for a reason. They recognize that Plano provides a great quality of life for citizens, and a great partnership for businesses. Being a great place to live is one reason businesses want to be in Plano.
For citizens, Plano provides high quality services such as excellent libraries, award-winning parks and recreation centers, and high-functioning city services such as water and trash collection. If there is a problem, someone answers the phone and takes action. This is the level of service that our citizens expect.
For small businesses, they want to be near the demand. Plano residents never have to leave the city boundaries because we can find what we need within Plano. Thriving businesses are important citizens and vice versa.
For large businesses, it is important to be where they can get what they need. That includes an educated and skilled workforce, economic development and growth, and to be in an influential region and community. We want Plano to be an employment center where companies have their staff work. This is great for the economy and ensures Plano remains relevant and influential to our region.
Housing
The current housing market is making things challenging for new families who want to build a life in Plano, and for seniors who want to retire here. The current housing in Plano is primarily split into apartments and large homes. This leaves few places for seniors to down-size to, or for new families to get started.
We need more choices! The City Council must be open to solutions to this problem.
Public Safety
When discussing Plano and its future, public safety is universally a top topic. Thriving communities are safe communities, and it is critical that Plano fund Plano Police and Plano Fire Rescue at appropriate levels. Our insurance rates are lower due to the high rating of our Fire Department, Plano consistently ranks as one of the country's safest cities.
Our citizens expect this to continue, and the budget must reflect these expectations.
Renewal
Plano has fully transitioned to a mature city. For the immediate future, and more importantly for the long-range future of the city, the time for renewal is here. City Council’s role is to ensure that the city continues to bring in businesses, and that retail centers transform.
The city and the Plano Economic Development Corporation need to work together to leverage Plano’s regional influence and power to bring in the right businesses.
The process to renew includes updating four corner retail into space that is suited for the future. The City Council will set the direction for this renewal.
Roads & Infrastructure
The last couple of years, we have seen lots of maintenance and updates to roads, water and sewer across Plano. While it is inconvenient, this work must continue. The age of nearly all our infrastructure requires significant maintenance. These updates will position Plano to serve its residents without interruption for decades to come and allow for the free flow of traffic.
Water, sewer, and trash collection are some of the most important services that our city provides. We have seen other area cities experience crisis when needed maintenance is kicked down the road, such as the inability to deliver clean water, or roads that are buckled and broken. The result is higher cost to repair or replace and significant impact on the lives of the residents.
Plano should continue to perform significant maintenance and improvements to our infrastructure in order to maintain these services while keeping long-term costs as low as possible.
Traffic
Traffic is a growing concern. We are expecting our county to continue to grow, and that means more traffic to Plano or through Plano. It is important that our planning takes this into account and that we continue to monitor traffic lights and resynchronize them periodically.
Our relationship with DART must bring more value to Plano and lower costs for our taxpayers.
Taxes
The tax rate in Plano remains one of the lowest in the region. However, the cost of housing is higher than in the past which means the total taxes paid continues to grow. The city must continue to review all costs and ensure that the value to the taxpayers remains high.
Maintaining our business tax base, which pays more than 50% of local taxes, is critical to keeping homeowner's taxes low.
Corporations and Economic Development
Global and regional corporations are an important part of the identity of Plano, and an substantial component of the tax base. To keep our city vibrant, it is critical that the city and the Plano Economic Development Corporation (EDC) continue to aggressively pursue bringing in corporations, and businesses of all sizes.
Small businesses are also an important part of Plano, and the EDC. My wife and I have small Plano-based businesses ourselves and we want Plano to remain a great place to start and run a business.
Global, State and Regional Influence
Plano is well regarded as a great place to do business, a great place to live, and a leader in city operation. Plano, TX is known throughout the globe and many global companies have their Company or US headquarters here. We are a powerhouse economically, socially, and operationally. Plano has influence particularly in the region.
This is part of what drives families and companies to move to Plano. I believe that the city must continue to pursue this influence and retain its leadership.