Proposition A was approved by a margin of 37 percent, while Proposition B was rejected by about 5 points.
The first, Proposition A, was for $400,000,000 for “purchasing, acquiring, reconstructing, renovating, rehabilitating, improving and maintaining streets, roads, highways and bridges in Tarrant County.”
The second, Proposition B, was for $116,000,000 for “purchasing, constructing, improving and equipping a Criminal District Attorney Office Building to provide space for prosecutorial efforts and for other non-judicial county activities, and facilities in support thereof.”
According to the commissioners court documents, the bonds will be issued over the course of several years and the details of each bond issue, including rates and dates of maturity, will be approved by the commissioners at each issuance.
Proposition A, according to the commissioners court website, is meant to address the “explosive population growth in Tarrant County and the stress that it has placed on our local mobility infrastructure.”
The wording of the bond proposition does not include public transportation projects, such as the TEXRail or Trinity Railway Express. TEXRail is planning a 2.1 mile extension into the medical district for service beginning in the fall of 2025 at a cost of $120 million.
In an email to the community supporting Proposition B, Criminal District Attorney (DA) Sharen Wilson urged voters to support the bond issue, stating that her office has outgrown the facilities it has occupied since 1990.
“Along with Tarrant County’s growing population, criminal case filings and technology needs in the DA’s Office have increased dramatically since 1990,” bond election information stated.
In 1990, the Tarrant County DA’s caseload was 33,658 cases annually and in 2020, it stood at 43,638, an increase of nearly 30 percent.
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Kim Roberts
Kim Roberts is a regional reporter for the Texan in the DFW metroplex area where she has lived for over twenty years. She has a Juris Doctor from Baylor University Law School and a Bachelor's in government from Angelo State University. In her free time, Kim home schools her daughter and coaches high school extemporaneous speaking and apologetics. She has been happily married to her husband for 23 years, has three wonderful children, and two dogs.
