6 Takeaways From Round Rock Mayor's State Of The City Address

Round Rock TX

25 October, 2021

1:03 PM

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ROUND ROCK, TX — Last week, Round Rock mayor Craig Morgan held his first state of the city address since February 2020. Morgan held the address on Oct. 19 at the Kalahari Convention Center as part of the Round Rock Chamber's monthly Power Lunch. He discussed several topics including the city's economic development, transportation needs and COVID-19. Here are 6 takeaways from the Round Rock mayor's 2021 state of the city address. Live in Round Rock? Click here to subscribe to our free breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox and mobile devices. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and download our free mobile app on Android or iPhone. Switch Data Center near Dell Technologies Morgan mentioned the Switch Data Center coming soon near the Dell Technologies global headquarters. Switch, a Las Vegas-based technology company, announced June 2 it will build a fifth campus in Round Rock near the Dell Technologies global headquarters. The property purchased from Dell will allow Switch to construct a 1.5 million-square-foot Tier 5 data center, which will be called The Rock. It will also be powered by renewable energy. Morgan said he has high hopes for the deal and hopes it is as successful as the Kalahari Resort Texas. "When you do economic development deals, you want to make sure you have good partnerships," Morgan said. "During this time, Kalahari could have just stopped everything. But they continued. They built on time and under budget. As we have seen, they're exceeding their revenues—that's all performance-based development." University Boulevard's transportation projectTransportation was another key topic during the state of the city address. Most notably, the progress on RM 620 and University Boulevard, which started last March. In the future, Gattis School Road and Red Bud Lane will also see similar expansions, Morgan said. "I know University is a nightmare right now," Morgan said. "But I just want you to know that we issued bonds to do work on university in 2013. And we just now were able to start to get right of way [acquisitions for the project]. Right of way is hard to get. It's very expensive. Things get worse before they get better. So all I ask is be patient." Public SafetyMorgan pointed out the Round Rock Police Department has 10 new positions, and the Round Rock Fire Department has 14 new positions to address mental health-related calls. In fiscal year 2021-22, Morgan noted $65 million of the city's $122 million general fund has been dedicated to funding the two departments. Here are more takeaways on the new fiscal year budget. Cost of living in Round RockMorgan said the types of housing offered— from townhouses and apartments to single-family detached homes on varying lot sizes— is part of the city's 2030 plan to meet the varying housing needs of people living in and moving to the Round Rock community. He said "affordability" means different things to different people, and housing diversity coupled with continuing efforts to minimize the city's tax rate would meet those differing needs. "Sometimes when you're defining affordability, what may be affordable for one person may not be affordable to another," Morgan said. Power issues during February's stormMorgan said while Round Rock residents did not have to deal with a boil water notice during February's winter storms, there were some issues with power suppliers such as Oncor not getting information out to their customers, and that needed to be dealt with. "The biggest lesson ought to be that the grid wasn't prepared for a nuanced situation. There's no doubt that that's an issue," Morgan said. Program helped Round Rock business during peak COVID-19 pandemicMorgan said several local entities in March 2020 helped create Round Rock Cares, a program that has been providing local businesses with funding during the pandemic. "There were a lot of people involved in Round Rock Cares. It was not just me," Morgan said. "We had an initial seeding of money from the city, Dell, the chamber and the Greater Round Rock Community Foundation to get that started. The goal for Round Rock Cares was just to try to get them to the next paycheck to the next paycheck to keep the businesses open."