On Wednesday, Feb. 18, Student Government hosted Richardson Mayor Amir Omar in the Student Services Addition Auditorium for the first-ever Richardson town hall held on campus, running from from 6 to 8 p.m.
On behalf of SG, political science junior Jackson Logue and political science and public policy senior Rohith Raman moderated the semi-formal event and provided questions to Omar and Richardson City Council member Joe Corcoran. Corcoran represents the fourth place on Richarsdon’s city council, an area which includes the southernmost part of the UTD’s campus. Just before the event began, Omar showed the audience his UTD-branded socks and said he owned every Temoc sock set sold by UTD. For Richardson resident Mark Steger, a longtime observer of local government who attended the event, the format proved its worth.
“Anyone who wants to know what’s going on in Richardson government really ought to attend these town hall meetings,” Steger wrote in his blog following the event. “They are more informative than a year of attending City Council meetings. OK, that might be an exaggeration, but not by much.”
This event marked the third of four annual meetings around Richardson, each held in one of the city’s four electoral districts. Previous town halls took place at the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation and Coram Deo Academy. Though not required by any city charter, Omar has used the forums as a method of connecting with the approximately 12,000 active voters within Richardson city limits.
“It is exceptionally important to me that we make opportunities like this available to the 30,000 students that are here at UTD,” Omar said. “To make it easy, it’s part of the whole quarterly town hall concept: bring the show to the people as opposed to asking you to come to some centralized location.”
A full-circle moment for alumni
Among the roughly 50 attendees were students, longtime Richardson residents, local business owners and UTD alumni, some of whom had worked with Omar long before he became mayor.
Maria-Luiza Popescu, a 2012 graduate of the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, said she was happy to finally attend one of Omar’s town halls because she had served on the original student team that backed him when he was first running for Mayor of Richardson. Omar lost his first mayoral race to Laura Maczka. Maczka resigned as mayor in the middle of her term after her administration was rocked by a corruption and sex scandal.
“It was actually on my long-term to-do list to see Amir in action as mayor of Richardson,” Popescu said. “We tried to get him elected when he first ran in 2013, and we all know how that turned out with the political scandals that followed. So I was very excited to see one of the town halls that I could finally make here.”
Popescu said Omar’s relationship with UTD has been central to his approach from the beginning.
“During his first term, he was extremely involved in energizing his base by being very, very active in everything UTD was doing,” she said. “I remember when we were talking about the Northside development and the DART train station here, before they were even official plans. It’s been fantastic to see him in action and kind of see it become a full-circle moment.”
Reid Robinson, a Richardson resident of nearly 20 years and owner of Beyond the Bar, an alcohol-free bottle shop in downtown Richardson, said he’s watched the university-city relationship strengthen over time.
“I feel like over the last couple of years, the relationship has grown better,” Robinson said. “I think some of that’s through transportation — now that we have DART rail going on the Silver Line, letting off here from Spring Valley Station. That’s created a connective tissue.”
Robinson’s wife graduated from UTD in the early 2000s. He said the campus has always felt like a part of the city of Richardson, and is happy to see it become more integral.
The room where it happens
Omar touted recent transparency changes in Richardson, such as audio recordings of city meetings. He said this could allow smaller city boards to have more experienced members, as individuals could listen to these previously unrecorded meetings to understand how the board operates.
Omar pointed to his first official action as mayor — the selection of a mayor pro tempore — as evidence of his commitment to open government. A mayor pro tempore temporarily acts as the mayor in case of the original mayor’s absence.
“Historically, that was a scenario where you would say, ‘The next item on the agenda is selection of mayor pro tem. We are now going into executive session,'” Omar said. “Then we’d go back behind closed doors, make a decision and come back. No one would know how long it would take, what we were talking about, or even what the possible conversations were.”
Instead, Omar’s council first discussed in open session what attributes a major pro tempore should have, then debated the process publicly.
“I tried to push for us to have that last step — actually doing all those parts we just talked about — in a recorded session,” Omar said. “That failed 4-3, but at least we had a discussion. And when we did go behind closed doors, we came back in near-record time. Why? Because it was organized. Everyone in the audience knew what all those steps were going to be.”
Omar also said that for the first time in roughly 14 years, the city’s biennial goal-setting session was recorded and held in the council chambers rather than in an off-site conference room. And as of January, the city began audio recording nearly all of its meetings.
Shining the spotlight on Richardson
As part of his platform, Omar said he wanted to focus on enhancing Richardson’s business reputation. In response to questions regarding changes he has brought to the city’s perception, Omar pointed to recent coverage in the the Texas Monthly, Dallas Observer and Fox 4 News. He broke the news that he will be overseeing the race as a chair for Susan G. Komen, a nonprofit focused on breast cancer research which hosts regular “Race for the Cure” fundraisers, in approximately one month.
“Each of those things puts Richardson in a really great position to be looked at as a leader versus the quiet secret,” Omar said.
Omar said Richardson had a historical branding problem — a problem also shared by UTD.
“Our new president here at UTD, President Moghe, commonly talks about the fact that UTD is the best-kept secret, and he doesn’t want it to be a secret anymore,” Omar said. “I would suggest that Richardson has that exact same problem.”
To combat this, Omar has launched initiatives like “Meal with the Mayor,” a Facebook video series filmed with students from Richardson ISD and Plano ISD that highlights local restaurants. The series has already drawn attention from other North Texas mayors who Omar said were impressed by this effort to make Richardson a city for “foodies.”
“I’m now getting other mayors talking to me about how we’re pulling that off,” Omar said.
Audience questions
SG leaders praised the event’s turnout and the quality of audience questions.
“I think today’s town hall went amazing,” criminology junior Jasmine Kouhestani said. “The event was hosted perfectly by the Legislative Affairs Committee. Everyone that asked questions was very thoughtful, and as always, the mayor was incredibly insightful and engaging with the crowd.”
Steger agreed, and then some.
“I thought the questions from UTD students were as good or better than those asked at many campaign forums,” Steger wrote.
Questions from the audience touched on some of the most pressing issues facing Richardson and its university community.
Click on each topic to read more.
DART and transit access
Benjamin Goodine, accounting junior and president of Comets for Better Transit, asked about the future of DART services in Richardson following intense negotiations between the agency’s 13 member cities this year. Several cities, including Plano and Irving, had introduced referendums to withdraw from DART in upcoming elections before a last-minute agreement was reached to temporarily keep them in the system.
“The good news is, UTD is here in the city of Richardson,” Omar said. “DART services that are well-used — and that includes anything touching UTD — are not going to be going after the busiest ridership areas. They’re going to be looking for the lowest ridership areas and determining whether there are more efficient ways to do them.”
Corcoran said he has personal stakes in the DART debate.
“When I was first elected to council, I was single, I had one car, the car broke down,” Corcoran said. “I used DART to get everywhere. I have employees that report to me at my day job — they take DART to work. It is really, really critical.”
Corcoran said he hopes funds returned to cities under the new interlocal agreement can be directed toward bike and pedestrian infrastructure rather than building more roads. Both Omar and Corcoran expressed support for applying any allocation of funds received by Richardson from the General Mobility Program to active transportation and pedestrian infrastructure.
ICE cooperation
One attendee asked whether Richardson had signed a 287(g) agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and what the Richardson Police Department’s cooperation with ICE looks like. The agreement allows local law enforcement to enforce certain immigration laws under ICE’s supervision.
“We cooperate with ICE only as far as we’re legally obligated to, to enforce our own local laws,” Corcoran said. “I personally have no desire for us to go any farther than that. Our police budget is strained as it is. We don’t have as many officers as we would like. I certainly don’t want our police detail to do anything else besides local police work.”
The response drew the first applause of the night, something that would not happen again until the town hall ended.
Omar said the previous city council had already made a policy statement against voluntary cooperation with ICE, and the current council has reaffirmed that position.
“The best thing we can do is what the previous council already did: state our policy, and then frankly hope for the best,” Omar said. “If Richardson becomes a target — which we have no reason to believe it would be — there’s very little we can do on the local side other than say we don’t support it.”
Omar also addressed community anxiety about perceived ICE sightings, noting that several recent reports turned out to be large police responses to criminal incidents.
“My only hope is, just because you see an unusual-looking vehicle or a person maybe not wearing the full uniform, don’t automatically assume it’s ICE,” Omar said. “Reach out to your elected officials and ask them point-blank if that was an ICE situation. They should within hours, if not minutes, be able to answer you and hopefully dispel the concerns.”
Sustainability and tiny forests
Colton Rupe, supply chain and computer science sophomore and SG’s Green Initiative chair, asked about Omar’s history with environmental advocacy, including “Tree the Town,” a program he launched years ago to increase Richardson’s tree canopy.
Omar responded with enthusiasm, announcing that the first “tiny forest” in Richardson — a dense, biodiverse planting method developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki — will be planted in March at Coram Deo Academy, a private school in the city’s southeast.
“The theory is that in even a small area like a tennis court, you can become as biodiverse as a 100-year forest within 10 years,” Omar said. “You plant all five layers of the forest … and hypothetically within 10 years, you’ll have the biodiversity of a 100-year forest.”
Corcoran provided additional updates on parks and tree planting commitments. He said the city has ongoing construction along Renner Road which required that trees be cut down; however, he said the city was committed to planting more trees there than it cut down. Omar also said the Prairie Creek wetland and wildscape, a nature preserve he said he only discovered during his mayoral campaign, was an example of the city’s growing commitment to native landscapes.
Glenville Avenue and construction delays
A resident asked specifically about construction delays on Glenville Avenue, a project that has stretched on for months with unclear timelines.
Omar used the question to outline a broader frustration: road construction delays are often caused by utility companies, not the city, but the public has no way of knowing who’s responsible.
“The bad news about the way we’re handling things today is you can’t tell whose reason or why the thing is taking so long,” Omar said. “There’s no real direct feedback.”
Omar floated a pilot program that would place signs at construction sites listing not just the expected end date, but the current status — “in progress” or “pending” — and which utility the city is waiting on.
“I personally believe that if there was a sign that proclaimed it was pending and then AT&T, and there are thousands of cars seeing it every day, the folks at AT&T — if they start seeing that — my guess is they might move a little faster,” Omar said.
He also revealed a new enforcement tactic: holding permits for new utility work until existing delays are resolved.
“We’d love to be able to give you that permit, sir, but please complete your work first,” Omar said.
Developing and redeveloping the city
One of the most pointed questions of the evening came from a resident who challenged the geographic distribution of the city’s investment.
The resident noted aging retail “along West Campbell, Coit and Arapaho. In many cases, it’s decades old and declining. At the same time, there’s a heavy investment in downtown CORE, the [Innovation Quarter], Interurban, Lockwood — all on the east side. So the investment on the west side pales. Can’t even compare the two.”
Omar’s response was candid.
“I’ve heard for years that it’s been the east side that’s always getting robbed, and all we care about is Canyon Creek and everything on the west,” Omar said. “So this is a first. So thank you, because I always enjoy a good first. But that doesn’t mean that your concerns are not relevant.”
Omar said the city prioritizes economic development opportunities based on potential return on investment, not geographic favoritism, and emphasized that incentive programs are available citywide.
“I can tell you that there are a few different incentives that we do for shopping centers, and we don’t discriminate east versus west,” Omar said. “We don’t say that money’s only applicable for the east versus west. All we need is applicants that will come to us with those particular needs.”
Omar invited the resident to share specific locations of concern.
“If you don’t mind, maybe send me a few of your kind of bigger concerned areas — I’d love to go put my eyeballs on it and see if there’s something that I think we could do or be creative about,” he said.
Corcoran said the area around Campbell and Nantucket was one that could benefit from redevelopment, noting it was identified in the city’s comprehensive plan as a potential site for a “walkable urban community” with mixed-use development.
A Duck Creek resident raised a related economic development question: with so many empty office buildings between Beltline and the IQ, why are developers still choosing to build on green space?
“The reality of this development period is that everyone wants to develop on green space,” Omar said. “You could have 100, 1,000 empty offices, but if they’re going to build a new building, they would much rather do it on grass than buy an old building, tear it down and do that. There’s a cost difference usually, and it’s just easier and less complicated.”
Omar also said the city and developers face a structural obstacle on this issue: many empty buildings are owned by institutions that benefit financially whether the building is full or empty, reducing their incentive to sell or redevelop. Still, he expressed optimism.
“I personally believe that if we aggressively and continuously market ourselves to the specific sectors that we are trying to attract in Richardson, whether in the Innovation Quarter or elsewhere, we have a really high chance of being able to start repopulating a lot of those older buildings,” Omar said.
SG and Omar: going steady
Logue said the town hall at UTD has been in the works since the beginning of the academic year.
“Mayor Omar has a goal of having quarterly town halls, and he really wanted to hold one at UTD,” Logue said. “Of course, we were more than happy to accommodate him.”
Logue said the event had three main goals: strengthening SG’s relationship with Omar, bringing more students into the civic process and welcoming community members onto campus.
“We had a lot of people from outside UTD come in — a lot of community members who cared about his mayorship and different issues important to his campaign,” Logue said. “We got a lot of great questions. We had pretty good turnout from our community members, and I saw some of my classmates and professors, which was a great sign.”
Logue, who described himself as “a pretty big fan of Mayor Omar,” said he hopes SG’s partnership with the mayor continues.
“He’s not only passionate, but he’s engaged, and he seems to genuinely care about what his constituents want,” Logue said. “Someone like that is invaluable in a local leadership role.”
Steger, in his post-event reflection, offered a broader assessment of the night’s proceedings — and those who made them possible.
“I am sometimes accused of being negative,” Steger wrote. “This time I have nothing negative to say, from the UTD Student Government hosts’ professionalism to Mayor Omar’s candor to Joe Corcoran’s informative answers, everything about this town hall was excellent.”
What’s next?
The town hall concluded with a group photo and an invitation from Omar for attendees to connect one-on-one. He reminded those present about the Healthier Texas Community Challenge, noting that Richardson is currently ranked first among cities its size.
“We are killing it, as it were,” Omar said. “I would love to make sure we win.”
For students who may have been hesitant to attend the two-hour town hall, Popescu offered a recommendation.
“At the end of the day, these decisions are impacting everyone’s activities related to Richardson — whether you live on campus or not, you are traveling through Richardson.” Popescu said. “There’s plenty of reasons to come attend, to see what’s going on in the city, to hear how people outside UTD are perceiving the performance of the Richardson government.”
Robinson echoed the sentiment.
“It’s important to be involved,” Robinson said. “It’s also a great way to speak to your councilperson and to your mayor and to get more information on what’s happening in the city directly.”
Robinson added a final thought for students watching from campus: “I’d love to see more students involved in SG. This should be, especially coming up on an election year, really important to getting people to come out and vote and be a part of the process.”
The fourth and final quarterly town hall will be held later this spring in a location to be announced. Meanwhile, Omar said he plans to continue showing up on campus, socks and all.