​The Plano Tomorrow Plan Saga Continues

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The saying, “It ain’t over til it’s over” seems fitting for the long three year saga of the Plano Tomorrow Plan lawsuit. On August 15th, 2019 the case will head back to district court.
 In case you don’t know, the Plano Tomorrow Plan is a comprehensive thirty year plan for the city. It lays out what City Council wants Plano to look like in thirty years. When this plan was passed in 2015, residents overwhelmingly disapproved of it. Hundreds of people packed the Planning and Zoning meeting to speak against the plan and to tell the board to vote no on it. The board ignored the residents, though, and the plan passed. The plan went to City Council where residents again packed the chamber, and again they were ignored and the plan passed. Citizens went on to file a petition with the City Secretary for a Referendum vote. That way the residents could vote up or down on the plan. The petition got more then 4,000 signatures. City Attorney Mim refused to let the City Secretary present the petition to council. Mim felt it would be against state law for the residents to vote on a comprehensive plan, and barred the secretary from presenting it to council. Residents filed a lawsuit. Three years, multiple rulings in favor of the plaintiffs, a trip to the TX Supreme Court and $400,000 of taxpayer money later, we thought we were approaching the end to this conflict.
On July 10, 2019 the city and the plaintiffs agreed to attend mediation. The discussions during mediation are confidential, but a statement from Plano Future that was released on their Facebook page said, “We anticipate that the agenda for the City Council meeting on July 22, 2019 will include repealing and replacing the Plano Tomorrow Plan. Depending on the outcome of that meeting, the lawsuit may become moot. Further information will be made available as the process continues.” The original July 19th court date was postponed to August 15th.
Between July 10th and 17th something happened that has caused whatever was agreed upon mediation to fall apart. Plano Future posted the following from the Plaintiff’s Lawyer Jack Ternan. “Over three years ago, I took on the representation of five citizens in a lawsuit regarding a petition--signed by 4,300 citizens--calling for a referendum on the ordinance adopting the Plano Tomorrow Plan. The rule of law and the democratic process are important, and that lawsuit continues.
On July 10, 2019, there was a mediation involving the plaintiffs and city staff. The plaintiffs understood that the City Council would meet to repeal the Plano Tomorrow Plan and replace it with a new comprehensive plan on July 22, 2019. Obviously, such an action would have a legal consequence on the pending lawsuit and, to give the City Council an opportunity to act, the plaintiffs agreed to move a court hearing set for July 19, 2019.
The plaintiffs complied with their end of the bargain and moved the hearing to August 15, 2019. The agenda for the meeting on July 22, 2019 still reflects that a discussion of the repeal and replacement of the Plano Tomorrow Plan will occur. However, city staff has indicated in a press statement that they intend to renege on holding such meeting. We will find out soon enough what actually happens.
Over the last week, it became apparent that the city's attorneys wanted to cast the replacement plan as a “settlement agreement” and needed my clients' consent in order to make that characterization stick. Having failed to obtain that consent, the city staff have taken to the media to contend that an “agreement” fell through. The public should be deeply concerned that the stated intent of the staff was to secretly negotiate a replacement comprehensive plan for the city. I am proud of my clients for not giving in to the temptation to usurp a function that properly belongs to the City Council and the citizens of Plano.
We put an end to the improper negotiations and intend to proceed with the lawsuit to compel compliance with the law.”
 In a statement to Community Impact city spokesperson Steve Stoler said, “the plaintiff ‘changed their minds’ after reaching a deal with city staff last week. When we walked away from the mediation, we believed we had a solid agreement acceptable to the plaintiffs to swap the land use provisions in the current plan for the counterparts in the 1986 plan that was repealed in 2015.”
In a statement to Community Impact plaintiffs lawyer Jack Terman also said, “Where the breakdown happened was they were trying to get my clients to agree to a replacement plan. My clients aren’t elected. The City Council is elected. The City Council should be the ones putting together the replacement plan.”
 
From the above statements, one can only conclude that the city wanted the plaintiffs to change the current comprehensive plan, or create a new one, and the council would vote on it on July 22nd. My response to this is, has the city staff all lost their minds? It is council’s job to change or create a new plan. A new plan could take a year to create. If the council wanted to, they could just replace the Plano Tomorrow Plan with the plan that was in effect in 1986, or the plan that was in effect in 2012 when the 86 plan was amended, then work on creating a new plan.
I have another question; what is the city attorney trying to pull here? The reason the lawsuit was originally brought was to get the city secretary to present the petition to city council. Once the petition is presented, Council can repeal the plan or put it up for a referendum vote. I believe the city does not want the district judge to issue an order to the city secretary to present the petition to council, because it would create a legal precedent the Municipal League does not want. That precedent would be that city comprehensive plans can be voted on by the residents. Giving residents a say on what their city looks like; the elitist politicians and bureaucratic planners cannot have that.
Whether by city council or a judges ruling, hopefully this three year ordeal will come to an end before Labor Day.
 
This is Plano’s Political Pit Bull Signing off.