During  a special called council meeting on Monday, the Frisco City Council took no action to put the Arts of Collin County on the May ballot for a revote.

The meeting came about after a very long regularly scheduled meeting last week in which the council showed that they were very split on the project. The point on Monday’s meeting was simply to decide if the item should be put back on the ballot to let voters decide if they wanted to continue with the project.

After more than an hour in executive session council came out and shared their thoughts .

Council member David Prince felt strong about letting the voters have a say in such a project.

“This is far too important an issue to be cramming through this fast - no matter which side of the issue you are on.  None of this haste is good for Frisco.  Period,” Prince said. “With all the facts, and information, that I have at this time I firmly believe that this bond request should go back to the voters.”

Prince was alone in his push to get the item back on the ballot. He also suggested a citizen referendum. Other council members agreed that it might not be the right time to sell the bonds but none said it should go back on the ballot.

“The bonds are the same now as they were then,” council man Bob Allen said. “As in all things I think we need to look for a win-win situation and a revote is not the answer.”

Council member Pat Fallon wants to see changes made to the ACC Web site to make what they are doing more transparent. The public meetings that have been held aren’t enough for him. He suggested the commission add a history of the project to their Web site, as well as post a good faith estimate for the cost and additionally the commissions own budgets and salaries that they operate from.

“I don’t think in the economic times I would support the sale of the bonds,” he said. “I just can’t wrap my arms around it.”

Several council members and the Mayor also vowed to take a more active role in the project from here on out. Scott Johnson even suggested that someone from the Frisco City Council join the Arts of Collin County Board.

“I did clearly hear that we are not in the position to move forward selling the bonds,” Mayor Maher Maso said.

The council originally passed a bond package back in 2002 for $19 million. They still have $16.4 million in bonds to sell and the ACC commission was pushing for those bonds to be sold sooner rather than later because they have received a guaranteed maximum price 23 percent lower than originally said and would like to continue with construction.

The Frisco City Council will continue their relationship with the Arts of Collin County but have not indicated when they may sell the bonds.

As a result of the March 2 Frisco City Council meeting the council is meeting again today to decide whether or not they should revote on the Arts of Collin County Project. The project was previously voted on in 2002 and passed with approximatly 63% of the vote.  The special  meeting today only has the one item on the agenga and it can be found at http://sire.friscotexas.gov/sirepub/pubmtgframe.aspx?meetid=502&doctype=AGENDA

Coffee, donuts and a  chat with the mayor is a good way to start off a Monday morning and the way Frisco Mayor Maher Maso starts off his Monday morning once a month.

‘Coffee with the Mayor’ is program Maso started in 2008 to maintain open lines of communication with the residents of Frisco.

At this morning’s coffee the Mayor talked about the NCCA coming to town in Jan. 2011 and what the city is doing to prepare.

Other topics he covered included the census. He is encouraging all residents to fill out their census form when it comes in mid-March and return it. There are no more long forms and this year’s form is the shortest ever.  The census was last taken in Frisco in 2000 and the city has seen tremendous growth since then. It is important that every resident in Frisco is counted because federal funding and grants are based on the population of cities.

He briefly spoke on the low income or section 8 housing project that appeared on the city council agenda last month. The city did give letters of support to the two projects that want to build in Frisco. The projects are now going through the application process and are number 31 and 40 on the list of projects that the state is considering giving grants to. The outcome of the process will not be known until July or later.

The Arts of Collin County is also something he addressed. Many residents have expressed concerns about the rising cost of the project. The bond ACC is asking for is $19 which is the same amount they have been asking for all along. Maso said the Maintenance and Operation cost of the project were estimated between $110,000 and $440,000 back in 2003 and even with the rise in operating cost it should still fall within that range. The city council is having at meeting at 2 p.m. today to decide whether or not to re-vote on the ACC project.

The topics for the meeting came for residents that attended. The program is open to any resident in Frisco. The next ‘Coffee with the Mayor’ is scheduled for April 12 at 8 a.m. on the fifth floor of the George A. Purefoy Municipal Center.

 

There was an agenda item added to Tuesday night’s council meeting to discuss and give direction on the Arts of Collin County Project.

The council may or may not decide to sell the $16.5 million in bonds that they pledged to the Arts of Collin County (ACC) back in 2002. Frisco passed a $200 million bond package that year with a portion of the bonds being sold for ACC.

The Arts of Collin County according to their Web site is “a nationally recognized, innovative, public-private partnership to develop a 100+ acre arts park.  Co-owned by the cities of Allen, Frisco and Plano, with operational support by member cities, Fairview and Melissa, the development of the arts park is supported with $57 million in bond monies, up to $3 million in Collin County Open Space Grant funds, and an additional $10 million financial support from private individuals, corporations and foundations.”

The project 124 acre will be located in Allen on SH 121 north of Custer Road. The land that the project will be located on was donated to the ACC.

The project proposed to include Frisco, Allen, Plano and McKinney. McKinney back out of the project. The other three cities held elections and approved their bond packages. The ACC has taken on private fundraising to cover the cost of McKinney withdrawing from the project.

ACC moved forward in November of 2009 with sending out bid packages to get cost estimates for Phase I of the project. Their Web site states that they received 265 bid replies, said a press release on their Web site, with a substantial savings from earlier bids. In March 2009 the project was estimated to cost approximately $86 million and in December they received a bid for $69.9 million.

The City of Allen has taken the next step in moving the project along. “During the City of Allen City Council meeting on February 23, the Council voted to proceed as the guarantor of a line of credit from a financial institution to support the gap in fundraising related to pledges not to exceed $5M.” (http://news.cityofallen.org/2010/02/groundbreaking-in-sight-for-arts-of.html)

Now it is Frisco’s turn to show support and sell their bonds.

The problem is that certain members of the Frisco City Council, such as Patrick Fallon, do not feel like selling the bonds is the right thing to do, because he said the project was originally presented in 2002 as being a four-city partnership and that is no longer the case.

“…a clear promise was made to the citizen’s of Frisco. That promise being that the city would not sell these bonds for the Arts of Collin County unless all four cities participated,” Fallon said in an email.

Council Member Bob Allen feels the opposite of Fallon and said that people were aware that McKinney would not be part of the project when they voted to pass the Frisco bond package in 2002.

“I've heard this misinformation a lot lately.  Speaking as someone that lived here and was a part of it at the time, we knew McKinney was out before agreeing to move forward,” Allen said in an email. “It’s a great project for the region and McKinney's decision to not be a part of it should be more disappointing for their citizens than for ours.”

Fallon thinks there are two costs associated with this project that everyone may not be aware of. The first is the cost of the actual project which includes covering the $19 million that he said was supposed to come from McKinney.

“The Arts of Colin County (ACC) now claims over $10M has been raised in donations and pledges.....remember that word, 'pledges'.  They do not have anywhere near $10M!!!!  They only have, at present, a mere $2.4M on hand.  The rest is pledged!   There is no telling how much of that pledged money will actually come in.  If there is a shortfall, the taxpayers of this city will have to make up the difference; that is assuming of course that our city council voted to sell bonds and commit the city.”Allen stays firm on the fact that the future cannot be predicted at this point and stands behind the project as he said it was passed.

"Everything has the potential to impact the tax rate; if you allow it to do so,” said Allen “It will be up to the City Council and Staff to work through the details.  This project is no different than countless other initiatives that could equally have an impact.”

The other cost Fallon thinks is associated with the project that has not been highly publicized is how the operating cost of the facility will be covered. The $69.9 million is just the cost to build the building without ever opening the doors or turning on the lights. Additional expenses will follow yearly to operate the building.Other fundraising options that ACC has outlined on a presentation on their website (http://artsofcollincounty.org/images/PDF/2009-12-11_presentation.pdf) include selling Dedication Bricks which would bring in an estimated $2-$4 million in additional revenue and seat sales could potentially bring in between $3-$5 million. Fallon does not feel like that would cover the operating cost. He calls the ongoing operating expenses of the building a “business loss.” He said ACC stated their estimated loss to be $1.5 annually.

“Now this is important for two reasons.  First, this was promised to Frisco voters as a four city project.  That means that these annual losses would be divided up between the four municipalities based on their overall population.  Well, when McKinney backed out, along with their 125,000 residents, their share was thrust upon the remaining cities,” Fallon said. “This would mean that if this is built, after the doors open, Frisco voters were told in 2002 that we would be responsible to pay the ACC roughly $96,000 a year in taxpayer funds for their business loss.  Now, according to documents that the ACC has provided the council recently, this number has mushroomed to between $350,000-$500,000 annually!”

Fallon wants the project to go back on the May 8 ballot to see if this really something that the voters in Frisco want since this is not what was originally approved back in 2002. The item will be discussed tomorrow by the council with a time dedicated to public input.

Allen does not think it needs to go on the May ballot.

“I appreciate that new citizens (and for that matter a majority of the current Council) have moved to Frisco in the past few years, but we should not revote this issue any more than we would the plethora of other decisions that have occurred in the past 10-20-30 years,” he said. 

In a phone call Monday afternoon Fallon said that he has received more than 100 emails with “the vast majority in favor of putting it back on the ballot.”

Allen wants to see the project continue to move forward with the city involved every step of the way to ensure that Frisco is getting the best project possible. He said the item was voted on in 2002 and the outcome was that the city stood behind the project.

“Agreements and contracts were developed and executed based on the passage of this citizen approved bond package, which by the way carried an over 2/3rds majority,” Allen said. “ I believe that our word is our only true value.  I deplore people that say what you want to hear only to achieve a goal.  As a member of the Frisco Council in 2002, I gave my word based on the bond election.  I will keep it.”

The Frisco City Council will discuss today, March 2, the project . If a majority of council are in favor of putting it on the ballot they can decide to call another special council meeting later this week make an official action to call for an Election. If the council decides not to have a public vote than they will decide on an alternate direction to take the project with the best interest of the city in mind.

*Editor’s Notes: As of 5 p.m. Monday, March 1, all city council members, the Mayor of Frisco and the ACC Executive Director, Mike Simpson, were contacted to contribute to this story and no one responded except for Council Member Patrick Fallon. This story was updated on March 2 at 10  a.m. with additional comments from Bob Allen.

Photo Courtesy of The Arts of Collin County