This Week in Irving

Dec 14, 2025

Some Irving news that came out this week:

With the Irving City Council voting to call an election on DART withdrawal, D Magazine reviews the history of DART elections. “ Last time around,” the article writes, “in 1996, the measure was defeated in Plano, with 77 percent voting pro-DART, while things went down to the wire in Irving, with 57 percent voting pro-DART that same year.” Voters in Plano and Farmers Branch would need to be educated if they were to vote to withdraw from DART, according to a recent poll by Ross Hunt covered in the piece. (Maybe Irving voters could be told that with the money we spend on DART, regular riders could be bought a new BMW 2‑Series every year.)
Irving will get a second round of flood mitigation funding totaling $115 million from the Texas Water Development Board. This round was $70 million total: $51.25 million at zero-interest plus $18.75 million in grants. “The project aims to update one of the city’s ‘largest and most outdated’ drainage channels… [and] includes excavating 10,000 feet of concrete channel lining, adding reinforced bottom lining and concrete walls, and relocating some water and sewer lines,” according to reporting from KERA.
The University Park city council named William Palmer — former at-large Irving City Council Member — to the Dallas Central Appraisal District Board of Directors.

City Council held their last work session of the year on December 11, and dealt with a number of things.

Tourism

During the 2026 FIFA World Cup, AT&T Stadium in Arlington will host nine matches, including heavyweight teams like England, Croatia, and Argentina, which means packed hotels and sky-high room rates all over the region, including in Las Colinas.
City staff say visitors are effectively knocking off $757 a year from the average Irving household’s property tax burden. The Irving Convention Center held 183 events with about a quarter-million attendees, this past year, pulling in nearly $10 million in gross income. For the first time, it operated completely in the black and actually sent the city’s annual subsidy back — plus extra money that’s going into capital improvements.

Beautiful in the black

Firefighters’ pension

A few years ago, Irving’s fire pension was in bad shape — over $100 million in the hole and on track to run out of money in about 25 years. To fix it, the city issued pension obligation bonds and changed the way the system is funded so that risk is shared between firefighters and the city. Now, the fund reports roughly $23 million in net earnings from those bond dollars alone, and contribution rates for both the city and members have come down.

Inclement weather shelter

There was a proposal to spend up to $100,000 a year from the general fund to pay a nonprofit to open an emergency shelter on nights when temperatures drop to freezing or below, or just above freezing with precipitation. It passed on the consent agenda.
The shelter will serve mostly single adults, with families placed in hotel rooms if needed. It includes transport from pickup points, basic meals, and space for up to 85 people on cold-weather nights.
Council were worried about “mission creep” and accountability. Staff stressed that the contract is reimbursement-based, can be revisited every year, and if the partnership isn’t working, the city can rebid the service.

Public transportation

Irving has a Request for Information out for citywide microtransit and paratransit. More than 30 companies have already looked at the RFI, and council clearly sees microtransit as a way to fix gaps in DART service rather than compete with it. At the same time, they voiced ongoing frustration with DART’s governance and rising costs, pointing to the Silver Line rail project and its massive cost overruns as a cautionary tale.

The Irving Herald