Collin County voters rejected every piece of the county's $817.5 million bond program Tuesday, including money to add jail beds, rebuild county roads and build a new elections office, unofficial returns show.
All 90 vote centers had reported when the county posted its summary early Wednesday. About 57.9% of the county's 795,862 registered voters cast ballots.
The four propositions, and the share of voters who backed each:
- Proposition A, $296.5 million for court and jail projects: 37.4% for, with 265,539 votes against and 158,685 for
- Proposition B, $475 million for roads: 48.3% for, the closest of the four, losing by about 14,000 votes
- Proposition C, $6 million for parks and open space: 46.7% for
- Proposition D, $40 million for an elections and records storage facility: 30.0% for, the widest margin of defeat
What the money would have paid for
The county's bond presentation lists the projects behind each measure. The largest single item was $190 million to add about 586 beds to the Collin County Jail through new construction and the build-out of shell space. The county says the jail runs at or near capacity every day of the year and that it contracts for beds in other counties to hold its inmates.
Proposition A also included $50 million for a new courthouse roof, six escalators, 11 elevators and about 30,000 square feet of finished office space; $30 million for a new adult probation building; and $16.5 million to replace aging jail safety, heating and cooling systems and elevators.
The road measure split into $350 million for regional roadways and $125 million to rebuild county roads that carry heavier traffic as the county grows. The elections facility would have brought election offices, training and equipment storage together on the county campus with county records, and freed courthouse space for criminal justice uses, according to the presentation.
