Public Safety
The most important responsibility of city government is Public Safety. For the past few years, the Frisco City Council has not listed Public Safety in the top 10 priorities for Frisco. Anyone who practices goal setting and priorities understands you will not truly focus on things that are not a priority. As mayor, Public Safety will be my number one priority and goal. But to understand Public Safety, we need to understand the various parts of our public safety team. Both our Police and Fire Departments have independent and different needs.
For our Police Department
As our city continues to grow and change, a consistent focus on staffing, training, and equipping our police officers must remain paramount. We need to be vigilant in planning for future growth as well as ensuring we are adequately and appropriately staffed for the many events we are bringing to town—without consistently using overtime pay and creating burnout for our current officers. It is important to evaluate salaries and benefits to be competitive with the north Texas region. We want to keep and hire the best of the best.
We need to ensure that we have adequate staffing for patrol, traffic and detectives. Not just staffing that is adequate for day-to-day responsibilities, but for the events that we hold in Frisco as well. We must assess our traditional 1 officer to 1,000 residents model and ensure that it continues to hold as we grow and become a more mature and complex city.
For our Fire Department
For a long time, Frisco has put off adding a 4th person to selective equipment in certain parts of our City. It is my view, given the responsibilities of a Truck company, that Truck companies should always have 4 person crews. In the parts of the City where there are high rise buildings, such as along the DNT spine, around Hall Park, the Star, and the PGA area, I would further advocate for 4 person crews on the Engines and Quints that serve those parts of the City.
Additionally, for our Fire Department, we have seen response times increase. Today whenever there is a medical call a large piece of equipment such as an engine, quint or truck will accompany the medic on the call. Also, not all of our Fire Stations are home to a medic. As Mayor I would advocate that all of our Fire Stations house medics and bring back the squad program. The squad program allows a smaller piece of equipment to accompany the medic thus saving wear and tear on larger equipment and keeping more firefighters available to respond to other emergencies.
Lastly, we need to better understand that it is sales tax and property taxes that fund our public safety teams. We have to stop giving away the property tax and sales tax to developers and then state we cannot afford to invest in our fire and police departments.
Public Safety needs to be a top goal and focus of our city leadership always.
Quality of Life
The residents of Frisco chose to move here because the community offered a high quality of life. Quality of life includes everything from traffic, quality developments, an engaged and vibrant community, adequate infrastructure, and lower tax rates that allow families and residents to flourish. Frisco is a great city and has seen exciting growth. However, that growth has come at the price of addressing the challenges of becoming an older city.
Traffic
It has often been said that Frisco uses technology to move traffic along effectively. In no way does it feel that way anymore. It is time to take a real look at the technology we are using and understand if we have outgrown its efficiencies. Lights are not timed appropriately for the time of day causing residents to wait long periods of time for lights to turn even when no traffic is visible. Construction on our roads needs a clear strategy that does not tear up roads in proximity all going east/west or north/south limiting alternative routes. If Main Street is under construction, none of the other close east/west thoroughfares should also be under construction. As well, we can’t have traffic signals on major thoroughfares at every intersection. While some argue the need for completion before events in the future, they are ignoring the negative experience of the residents who live and work here. Construction is a necessary thing, but we can be much more strategic about it.
Quality Developments
While Frisco has certainly benefitted from some great projects, we now can be selective about what projects we do. We do not have to give in to plans that will only create extreme density, nor do we have to incentivize every single project that wants to come to Frisco. The land is valuable, the community is valuable. It’s time we became a self-confident city, confident in the value we bring to business and make choices based on what is best for the residents as a whole rather than a select few or buying developments with taxpayer money. Phasing of developments to require retail and office space to be built before allowing multi-family will ensure “multi-use” projects actually become multi-use.
Tax Rates
The current tax rate has in fact decreased and yet our residents do not feel the relief because their values have continued to go up. It is time to work to actually provide real relief. And while projects like a performing arts facility are proposed with the idea that your tax rate “won’t go up”—most residents would prefer their actual taxes to go down. Until things like infrastructure, maintenance of our existing parks, roads, and assets can be effectively taken care of with the money we already have, we should resist using language that insults our residents and their hard-earned dollars.
Reinvestment In Frisco
Our city is aging. And much of it is aging at the same time. Many of our streets, parks, and buildings are beginning to show a great amount of wear. Our sidewalks in older neighborhoods are months behind in repairs. Our older parks are in great need of a real and consistent refresh. One can walk through our older parks and see how they are not maintained either through routine maintenance or needed capital improvements. Your eyes tell you that maintenance of parks is not a priority. The medians along older parts of town are full of weeds. The landscaping in front of City Hall is lacking. Before we move on to new projects and new demands on our city budget, we must be able to appropriately and consistently care for the assets we already have.
Our Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones (TIRZ) around the city are supposed to be using the tax dollars to “reinvest” in the areas around Stonebriar Mall. Our Community Development Corporation funding is supposed to be investing in our parks like Grand Park. But those dollars are being shifted to fund other projects that may be “cool” or the personal agendas of others. It’s time to refocus those dollars on the assets and needs Frisco has today. In doing so, we truly can look at real ways to not only decrease the tax rate, but to decrease it enough to create real relief on rising home values.
Public Safety
The most important responsibility of city government is Public Safety. For the past few years, the Frisco City Council has not listed Public Safety in the top 10 priorities for Frisco. Anyone who practices goal setting and priorities understands you will not truly focus on things that are not a priority. As mayor, Public Safety will be my number one priority and goal. But to understand Public Safety, we need to understand the various parts of our public safety team. Both our Police and Fire Departments have independent and different needs.
For our Police Department
As our city continues to grow and change, a consistent focus on staffing, training, and equipping our police officers must remain paramount. We need to be vigilant in planning for future growth as well as ensuring we are adequately and appropriately staffed for the many events we are bringing to town—without consistently using overtime pay and creating burnout for our current officers. It is important to evaluate salaries and benefits to be competitive with the north Texas region. We want to keep and hire the best of the best.
We need to ensure that we have adequate staffing for patrol, traffic and detectives. Not just staffing that is adequate for day-to-day responsibilities, but for the events that we hold in Frisco as well. We must assess our traditional 1 officer to 1,000 residents model and ensure that it continues to hold as we grow and become a more mature and complex city.
For our Fire Department
For a long time, Frisco has put off adding a 4th person to selective equipment in certain parts of our City. It is my view, given the responsibilities of a Truck company, that Truck companies should always have 4 person crews. In the parts of the City where there are high rise buildings, such as along the DNT spine, around Hall Park, the Star, and the PGA area, I would further advocate for 4 person crews on the Engines and Quints that serve those parts of the City.
Additionally, for our Fire Department, we have seen response times increase. Today whenever there is a medical call a large piece of equipment such as an engine, quint or truck will accompany the medic on the call. Also, not all of our Fire Stations are home to a medic. As Mayor I would advocate that all of our Fire Stations house medics and bring back the squad program. The squad program allows a smaller piece of equipment to accompany the medic thus saving wear and tear on larger equipment and keeping more firefighters available to respond to other emergencies.
Lastly, we need to better understand that it is sales tax and property taxes that fund our public safety teams. We have to stop giving away the property tax and sales tax to developers and then state we cannot afford to invest in our fire and police departments.
Public Safety needs to be a top goal and focus of our city leadership always.
Quality of Life
The residents of Frisco chose to move here because the community offered a high quality of life. Quality of life includes everything from traffic, quality developments, an engaged and vibrant community, adequate infrastructure, and lower tax rates that allow families and residents to flourish. Frisco is a great city and has seen exciting growth. However, that growth has come at the price of addressing the challenges of becoming an older city.
Traffic
It has often been said that Frisco uses technology to move traffic along effectively. In no way does it feel that way anymore. It is time to take a real look at the technology we are using and understand if we have outgrown its efficiencies. Lights are not timed appropriately for the time of day causing residents to wait long periods of time for lights to turn even when no traffic is visible. Construction on our roads needs a clear strategy that does not tear up roads in proximity all going east/west or north/south limiting alternative routes. If Main Street is under construction, none of the other close east/west thoroughfares should also be under construction. As well, we can’t have traffic signals on major thoroughfares at every intersection. While some argue the need for completion before events in the future, they are ignoring the negative experience of the residents who live and work here. Construction is a necessary thing, but we can be much more strategic about it.
Quality Developments
While Frisco has certainly benefitted from some great projects, we now can be selective about what projects we do. We do not have to give in to plans that will only create extreme density, nor do we have to incentivize every single project that wants to come to Frisco. The land is valuable, the community is valuable. It’s time we became a self-confident city, confident in the value we bring to business and make choices based on what is best for the residents as a whole rather than a select few or buying developments with taxpayer money. Phasing of developments to require retail and office space to be built before allowing multi-family will ensure “multi-use” projects actually become multi-use.
Tax Rates
The current tax rate has in fact decreased and yet our residents do not feel the relief because their values have continued to go up. It is time to work to actually provide real relief. And while projects like a performing arts facility are proposed with the idea that your tax rate “won’t go up”—most residents would prefer their actual taxes to go down. Until things like infrastructure, maintenance of our existing parks, roads, and assets can be effectively taken care of with the money we already have, we should resist using language that insults our residents and their hard-earned dollars.
Reinvestment In Frisco
Our city is aging. And much of it is aging at the same time. Many of our streets, parks, and buildings are beginning to show a great amount of wear. Our sidewalks in older neighborhoods are months behind in repairs. Our older parks are in great need of a real and consistent refresh. One can walk through our older parks and see how they are not maintained either through routine maintenance or needed capital improvements. Your eyes tell you that maintenance of parks is not a priority. The medians along older parts of town are full of weeds. The landscaping in front of City Hall is lacking. Before we move on to new projects and new demands on our city budget, we must be able to appropriately and consistently care for the assets we already have.
Our Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones (TIRZ) around the city are supposed to be using the tax dollars to “reinvest” in the areas around Stonebriar Mall. Our Community Development Corporation funding is supposed to be investing in our parks like Grand Park. But those dollars are being shifted to fund other projects that may be “cool” or the personal agendas of others. It’s time to refocus those dollars on the assets and needs Frisco has today. In doing so, we truly can look at real ways to not only decrease the tax rate, but to decrease it enough to create real relief on rising home values.
