What you need to know
At their Sept. 9 meeting, council members delayed approving 17 recommended members for the May 2026 bond committee due to questions about the scope of the committee’s work.
City Secretary Ashley Owens said the bond is currently planned at about $400 million spent over five years.
According to city documents, Celina is planning a hybrid funding approach for upcoming city projects, including:
- Certificates of obligation: bonds that do not require voter approval and are typically used to fund city infrastructure
- General obligation: bonds that require voter approval and are used for quality of life projects such as parks and recreation
The May 2026 bond package would only include general obligation bond projects, meaning voters would decide only on those items, whereas certificates of obligation bond projects would be determined separately.
Mayor Ryan Tubbs said the current plan limits the committee’s work to $20 million designated for parks projects and questioned if that role should be expanded.
“If we’re going to proceed with [issuing certificates of obligation], I think the bond committee themselves would be very disappointed to be brought into a room for five weeks and only be narrowly focused on $20 million worth of parks bonds and absolutely nothing else,” Tubbs said.
Dates to know
Council members voted to table the vote until their Oct. 14 meeting to give staff more time to determine the bond committee’s involvement. Additionally, Celina officials have several steps ahead including:
- Bond committee appointment vote: Oct. 14
- Bond committee meetings: October-December 2025
- Committee recommendation to council: January 2026
- Council consideration of bond election: Feb. 10, 2026
- Voter registration deadline: April 2, 2026
- Early voting: April 20-28, 2026
- Election Day: May 2, 2026
