An Airport Bond Failed, Again

Results are in, and the airport bond of 2023 failed worse than the last failed airport bond of 2015. 

Saturday's failed final bond vote (not official) showed a total of 21,846 votes cast. Of those votes, 41% were cast for the bond, and 58% were against the bond. It looks like a doubling of voters in an off-year election too!

Here are the results from the failed $50M airport bond election from November 2015 48% for the bond and 51% against the bond. A total of 10,473 votes were cast in that election.  

In this particular election, there were 7 propositions on the ballot:

Prop 1 Passed - street projects

Prop 2 Failed - airport improvements for land acquisition and hangar construction

Prop 3 Passed - public safety facilities

Prop 4 Passed - municipal building improvements for a library expansion

Prop 5 Failed - downtown parking structure

Prop 6 Passed - flood protection in some areas

Prop 7 Passed - to revoke $13M in park bond capacity (MCDC pays instead)

See the Community Impact article about the 2015 bond election

McKinney’s Airport/Downtown Reality

City of McKinney 2019 Community Opinion Survey regarding commercial airport flights

The results of the 2019 National Citizen Survey for McKinney and city Budget Survey show that citizen opinion on the airport is conflicted. However, the new City Council goals for 2019 show the airport continues to stay as a top 5 priorities. This means more and more money will be put into the airport. 

In the annual Budget survey on the city of McKinney's website, the airport has been listed as the bottom priority of 10 priorities for at least the past two years. For the 2019 National Citizen Survey, 48% of paper survey respondents and 38% of online respondents strongly favor offering commercial airline services in McKinney (out of about 340 who actually responded). About 70% of those who support commercial service would be fine with low-budget carriers like Spirit or Frontier (see p. 27 of the opinion survey). Maybe those who support commercial airline services believe we would all benefit financially from such an arrangement. 

The complex revenue bubbles (TIRZ traps) the airport, downtown, and their surrounding areas are under mean that the general fund will not see the tangible results of any success in any of those areas past the low amounts the general fund already gets each year as long as the two TIRZ remain in place:

• No matter how successful the downtown TIRZ #1 area gets, that area will only give the general fund about $2.6M in sales, use, and property taxes a year maximum.
• No matter how business explodes, the airport TIRZ #2 area will only give the general fund about $1.2M in sales, use, and property taxes a year maximum.

TIRZ1 & TIRZ2 on the right and left of Hwy 5

The rest of the profits in the downtown and airport areas stay in their TIRZ funds to be used only on their respective TIRZ areas for very specific projects (not for things like fire, police, or other city services). The TIRZ funds are controlled by appointed City Council members and representatives of the county and ISD.

Let’s say that the McKinney airport starts commercial low-budget flight services and commercial business multiplies in the industrial zones located all around the airport. One would think that our dreams of a higher commercial tax base that could lower our residential property tax burden would be realized. One would think that the whole city would directly benefit from successful downtown and airport areas. Unfortunately, the rest of the city will only benefit indirectly, if anything. Maybe more people rent apartments or go to the grocery stores outside of the TIRZ areas. Maybe there is a prestige that makes people feel good.

For more, click here.