Dear friends and supporters:

With the New Year in full swing, I thought it would be a good time to give you my top 11 highlights of 2019 as it relates to what we have accomplished on your behalf in Collin County. It’s hard to believe I am entering my 10th year as your Collin County Commissioner for Precinct 4. As always, my goal is to work extremely hard for you and keep the County budget lean, while providing the services each of you expect the County to provide.

•  Collin County officially topped 1 million in population. (Census Bureau estimates released in 2019 showed we had actually crossed the million mark in early 2018.)
•  Collin County reduced its property tax rate once again, from $0.180785 per $100 to $0.174951 per $100. This marks the 27th consecutive year with no tax rate increase. Collin County has the second lowest county tax rate in the State of Texas.
• After almost 3 years of hard work, the Texas Department of Transportation officials recommended a $2.597 billion bypass for US 380 from the Denton County line to the Hunt County line. The proposed project is now in the environmental phase. This is, along with conversation of the US75 HOV lane to general purpose, have been my top transportation priorities. If everything goes well, I am hoping that the 33 mile US 380 freeway project could start construction in the next 6-10 years.
• County departments completed implementation of a new financial accounting system to streamline business operations throughout the County and handle future growth and operation expansion.
• Our Elections Department launched a new voting system that gives ballot-marked printouts for each voter to verify before a ballot is scanned and tabulated. You will get to use it in the November election.
• Two new state District Courts opened in October to handle ever-growing filings and avoid serious backlogs in civil and family court cases. Three new judges were appointed by the governor to fill the two new District Court benches and a vacant District Court bench.
• Along a similar line, Commissioners Court authorized a dedicated, full-time Magistrate Court to keep pace with criminal cases and time-sensitive pre-trial judicial hearings for those arrested and booked into county jail.
• Commissioners Court selected an architect and began a study to add capacity and better efficiency to our County jail.
• Collin County continues to invest in cybersecurity, which protects our data and network from hackers and other malicious software and data threats.
• More than 12,000 housing permits were issued in the first 10 months of 2019, putting the county on track for another year of about 15,000 new housing permits. This equates to approximately 30,000 new residents in Collin County for 2019.
• In 1989, President Reagan expanded the Federally Qualified Health Center (“FQHC”) program. FQHC’s were established to provide a “patient home” to those patients with and without publicly funded insurance. In Texas, FQHC’s guarantee that those on Medicaid have access to services by providing wellness exams, disease prevention, pediatrics, women’s care, teeth cleanings and behavioral health counseling. The Commissioners Court entered into an $485,000 funding agreement with the Family Health Center in McKinney to assist in the purchase and construction of an approximately 6,800 square feet FQHC clinic to provide health care access to low income Collin County residents.

Thank you again for allowing me to represent you on the Commissioners Court. Please feel free to contact me with any questions and or concerns you might have regarding our County.

Sincerely,
Duncan Webb