When Florence Shapiro talks about public service in Collin County, she still sounds like a problem solver more than a politician. The former Plano mayor and Texas senator helped launch a civic push this week aimed at getting more residents to the polls in local elections that often draw only a fraction of voters.
The Collin County Business Alliance introduced the non-partisan Collin County Votes initiative as part of Collin County Celebrates, a countywide effort tied to the group’s 15th anniversary and the nation’s 250th anniversary. The campaign is meant to educate residents, simplify voting and remind them that the decisions made in city halls and school-related meetings shape school funding, public safety, zoning and parks.
That message lands in a county that is growing fast but still struggles to translate that growth into ballot-box participation. Collin County is one of the fastest-growing areas in Texas, with new developments, corporate campuses, parks, roads and neighborhoods spreading across the region, yet municipal election turnout in 2021, 2023 and 2025 has hovered between about 10% and 14%.
Shapiro’s own career helps explain why the alliance picked this moment to make the case. She began public service in 1979 after years of volunteer work with the Plano Service League, later served as mayor of Plano and spent 20 years in the Texas Senate. After the 1993 murder of 11-year-old Ashley Estelle in Plano, she formed a task force focused on changing sex offender laws in Texas, a moment she has described as a reminder that local problems can demand immediate public action.
“People bring me their problems and I try to help them find solutions,” Shapiro said in describing the role of elected officials. That practical view matches the alliance’s pitch: local elections are where residents decide who influences the daily machinery of a community, even if the races rarely attract the attention of higher-profile contests.
Shawn Jackson, executive director for Kaleidoscope Park in Frisco, said the county’s civic and private leaders have already shown what can happen when they work together. He called Kaleidoscope Park one of the most impactful projects he has seen come to life and pointed to it as an example of what philanthropy, public-private partnership, civic leadership and art can produce.
The contrast is hard to miss. Collin County keeps building outward, but many of the voters who live there are still staying home when municipal races come around. Collin County Votes is designed to close that gap, though its real test will not be the launch event or the talking points. It will be whether more people actually show up the next time local names appear on the ballot.
