Princeton High Forum

On Thursday, February 21st I had the opportunity to participate in a Candidate Forum sponsored by the Princeton High School Debate Team and the Princeton Chamber of Commerce. Princeton’s debate team, coached by instructor Kyle Brenner, is in The People Speak’s contest, and has a chance to go to New York for the United Nations Foundation.

This was a good, yet brief, opportunity to debate with Joe Jaynes and one of Corbett Howard’s representatives, and respond to questions from the audience and from students in the crowd. The audience was interested in how we County Commissioner candidates would tackle the growth of the area and how we would face the impending water shortages that are certain to plague Collin County.

After the debate, I had a lively conversation with several members of the Debate Team. We discussed everything from local politics and the growth of Princeton to how Collin County could best tackle our green space issues. These teenagers are excellent speakers and were very well informed on the topics of today! I look forward to speaking with the Princeton Debate Team again, as well as other high school groups throughout Collin County!

Victor Manuel,
Candidate for County Commissioner, Pct 3

MLK Parade in Plano

To help celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., we joined the Democratic Party’s group with our own pair of PT Cruisers! Thanks to Deloris LaJoy, I had the opportunity to ride in style and visit with the throngs of supporters who lined Plano’s Avenue K in remembrance of the sacrifices Doctor King made for all Americans who want to live in harmony.

We topped off the parade with a presentation from the Mayor of Plano, and then went to raise voter awareness with a Voter Registration drive that lasted throughout the day. All in all, it felt good to connect with friends from all walks of life, and to ensure that people remembered the rights that all people of color have won in America!

Time With The Kids

What could possibly be more important than spending time with our children. As the Primary season grinds on, the time I get to spend with all four of my children is ever more precious. With Patrick in college, Anthony at high school, and Ed & Winter in elementary, every moment with them truly counts.

To say Christmas has been the calm before the storm is only slightly right; Christmas has seen its own share of parties and festivals for my family. It’s really been kind of the mini-storm before the Big Storm in February.

Winter and I took a moment here to go over one of the family picture albums and remember how she got to be such a precocious nine years old, then it’s off to bed for her!

Christmas With The Democrats

The Democratic Party of Collin County held their annual Christmas Party at the Spaghetti Warehouse in Plano this year, and it was a blast! Everyone was there, from Dan Dodd, the party chairman, to Tom Daley, candidate for U.S. Congress District 4.

It was a great chance to sit and speak with several of the party members and celebrate Christmas with close friends. Politics took a back seat to remembering the reason for the season, as they say. Merry Christmas to all!

A loss for Collin County - and its employees

After almost twenty years of receiving annual bonuses based on longevity of service within the county, our county employees will now have their own bonuses reduced, and any new hires to the county will not receive them at all. Commissioner Hoagland, who had his longevity pay severed last year after it became a political issue, has finally succeeded in decreasing this benefit to the employees of the county.

But what did they lose? More than anything else, a motivational tool for hiring and retention of county employees. Longevity pay was touted as unneccesary because Collin County is 'agressive' in their salary system. But being agressive as a government entity is near impossible unless you take into account annual bonuses and benefits that private sector employees receive. And longevity pay USED to do that for the county.
It was a retention tool and a morale builder because it not only gave employees a reward for sticking around, it gave them something to look forward to in the far future. Now in five short years, we'll have two classes of employees - those who get big checks at the end of each year, and those who wonder what the heck they're still doing working for the government.

Winners and Losers in the 2007 Bond Package

In today's bond election, voters agreed to disagree with Keith Self about expansion and maintenance for Collin County's roads. We gained a leg up on the inner-city congestion and poor infrastructure of roads in nearly every city of the county. Even parks throughout the county received a boost, although by the time $17 million gets spread out over every city in the county, no single park project will be totally funded.
There was one big loser, though. Keith Self led a one-man crusade to stop progress in the county, and he kept citizens from understanding what the real problems were until it was almost too late. Fortunately, labelling vital infrastructure needs as "pork" didn't quite resonate with voters, and it looks like Collin County will move into the next phase of its development after all.

Another area of progress is the School Board bond packages for Prosper and Lovejoy ISDs, and the tax increase for Blue Ridge ISD. These school districts need funding to increase their capacity for our ever-growing county, and we're fortunate that the voters recognize how fast their cities are growing.
As we continue on, with our oasis of home price increases and new home building, Collin County is going to need forward-thinking citizens more and more.

If Keith Self doesn't trust himself, should we?

The argument about whether or not to vote for our November County Bond comes down to one of trust. Both sides say that they’re certain money can’t be raised by any other means than by a bond package – the Commissioners say the cities need money, the Judge says the main thoroughfares need it. But both can’t be right, can they?

Well they’re both correct about who NEEDS the money, because the cities desperately need more infrastructure at the local level to handle the increase in population – McKinney, Allen, and Frisco have all grown at phenomenal rates over the last five years, and Prosper, Melissa, and Celina are expected to grow at equally high rates over the next five years.

Yet at the same time, we have a definite need for money to build up Hwy 75 north of Allen, as anyone who lives north of 121 can easily attest. The wait in traffic to arrive in Dallas at 8am from the town of Prosper already requires you to leave home at 6:30 in the morning on a good day! Let’s just imagine what five years of continued growth would do to that commute.

So it’s a question of who should the County help FIRST and who has to wait. If the cities wait, we in McKinney will have to foot a higher tax bill over the next five years to pay for an increase in municipal infrastructure. The local mayors seem ready for the challenge either way, although who wouldn’t be happy with getting half the bill when the tab is twenty million dollars?

If the highway upgrades have to wait, who’s going to foot the bill for them? The Texas Department of Transportation just spent $3 Million on a campaign to inform people that they’re out of money. Write your own joke there, but we know for certain that TxDoT is out of the picture. Can the North Texas Toll Authority pay for it? The NTTA is giving the North Texas Council of Governments $2.6 Billion to pay for expansions in the area. But counties from Waco to the Red River have submitted over $8 Billion in requests for their local projects. What’s the chance of Collin County to have Hwy 75 and surrounding projects actually receive the needed funds? Very slim, indeed.