#us 380

You know already that I love living in North Texas, particularly this city that is under construction. I refer, of course, to Princeton. The construction to which I refer is the highway work along the length of the city’s main drag … U.S. Highway 380. My family is nearby. I enjoy living so close to them that I don’t have to make a day out of traveling to visit. When my wife and I moved into our…

Allow me to stipulate this much about the No Kings protest movement, which is that it isn’t limited to the People’s Republics of Austin, Berkeley or Boulder, Colo. It is alive and well in Donald Trump-friendly venues such as, oh let’s see … McKinney, Texas. I just came from lunch near where nearly 1,000 protesters were lined up on the western side of U.S. 75 and the northern side of U.S. 380 in…

Princeton, Texas, is hurtling head first into municipal adulthood … but it appears to have little vision of what it wants to become or how it intends to get there. The city manager and his top assistant quit in December. The manager was on the job for less than two years. Now he’s gone on to pursue “other interests,” which is one way of saying he left without a clear idea of where he will end…

My head is still spinning over the news that former Princeton City Manager Mike Mashburn quit after less than two years on the job in the fastest-growing city in the United States of America. I am trying to process the enormous task that awaits the City Council as it ponders who to hire to manage that explosive growth. Frankly, this is where the council is going to earn its keep … which doesn’t…

Driving south along Beauchamp Boulevard in Princeton, Texas, a day or so ago, a couple of orange signs jumped out at me as I entered the intersection with US Highway 380. One sign had an arrow pointing west along 380 that said “Road Work 2 miles.” The other sign had an arrow pointed east on 380 that said “Road Work 6 miles.” That’s when it hit me. The fun I have known would come to those of us…

It has happened. I am now getting the look from those who ask this question: How was the traffic coming here? And what is the look? It’s the look that tells me the person asking the question knows what the answer is going to be. I fielded the question several times this morning while attending a breakfast meeting in McKinney. They knew how I would answer the traffic question. “It was terrible,”…

Quite soon, Princeton, Texas — the city I have called home for the past six years — is going to assume a title I don’t think anyone ever wants for their community. Princeton will become known as the City to Avoid at Rush Hour.  How do I know that? Because the Texas Department of Transportatio is going to lay waste to the major east-west thoroughfare that runs straight through the middle of…

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas — Forget high school football, or fried beer that they peddle at the state fair in Dallas, or the 12th Man that fills the stadium in College Station. The newest “Texas thing” has to be the highway construction projects that disrupt traffic flow in virtually every corner of this vast state. I returned to Dripping Springs in the Hill County to introduce Sabol, my new…