DTX-MCK: Impact 10/13/2025

⛳️ The city of McKinney is extending its agreement with the Salesmanship Club of Dallas to continue hosting the CJ Cup Byron Nelson golf tournament through 2030.

The gist: McKinney City Council members approved a resolution authorizing the extension during an Oct. 6 meeting. The action comes after stakeholders announced the extension in June.

The Byron Nelson tournament has been played at TPC Craig Ranch in McKinney each year since 2021. The tournament held in May 2025 was its second year with CJ Group as its title sponsor.

The details: Under the extension agreement, McKinney will continue providing police and fire services for the tournament, according to a city document. The city is also expected to contribute $500,000 in infrastructure improvements for every $10 million spent by Invited Clubs on golf course improvements.

If the three-year extension is exercised, the city will contribute $500,000 more. The agreement also includes sponsorship terms for the city and the McKinney Community Development Corporation.

🚘️ Area RC, a radio-controlled car shop, is now open in north McKinney. The business, which also serves as the filming space for RC car enthusiast and YouTube creator Mark Santa Maria, offers RC cars and accessories as well as access to RC car tracks.

The gist: The shop offers a selection of RC cars, including Kyosho Mini Z's and Traxxas Mini Crawlers. Area RC also has RC car race tracks including a competitive foam track and a miniature test track as well as a miniature rock crawling course and other RC car obstacles.

The setup: Santa Maria, along with his wife Melissa Cantu, are McKinney residents and native Texans. Santa Maria has more than 15 years of experience in building, customizing and driving RC cars, according to his website, which is what inspired him to start his YouTube channel in late 2018, he said.

“I basically fired up a camera and said, ‘You know what? What I do is pretty cool, let's just show everybody,'” he said.

🐈️ McKinney leaders are considering a potential trap-neuter-release program for feral cats in the city.

What happened: City staff from McKinney’s Animal Services department brought the idea to McKinney City Council members during an Oct. 6 work session. Following a staff presentation and some discussion, council members voiced support for staff to put together different options for a potential program.

Those options are expected to be presented at a future council meeting, City Manager Paul Grimes said.

Current situation: Trap-neuter-release refers to trapping, spaying or neutering, vaccinating and ear tipping feral cats for identification before releasing them, Animal Services Manager Hannah Golden said. The target population is feral cats, which are different from stray cats, she said.

The goal of TNR is to reduce feral cat population over time through spaying and neutering, according to the presentation.

A closer look: Golden’s presentation broke down potential benefits and challenges posed by a TNR program and included information on what neighboring cities are doing.

🎶 Yixuan Han said there are myriad of reasons why people traverse the flight of stairs to get to HanOpera Music Academy in east Plano, including young children starting out on their music education journey and adults who are life-long singers desiring to join like-minded individuals.

“Children and teenagers really like musical theater and pop songs,” Han said. “The adults really like the choir—specifically solos.”

The set up: Han opened HanOpera Music Academy in 2019. Han, who earned a doctorate degree in musical arts from University of North Texas, said she trains all HanOpera teachers to instruct in the teaching method she has developed over 20 years.

The specifics: In-person group and individual voice lessons, ranging from vocal fundamentals to competition levels, are taught at HanOpera. Online singing classes are also available. Classes are offered for children ages 4 and older. Han said currently, the oldest HanOpera student is 60 years old.

⚡️Texas’ power grid is unlikely to have issues this December, according to an Oct. 3 report by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

The details: During the winter, demand for electricity spikes when people get up in the morning and return home in the evening. This December, the tightest period is expected to be from 7-8 a.m. each day, when little to no solar power is being produced. ERCOT found that there will be a 1.81% chance of a grid emergency during that time.

“Under typical grid conditions, the deterministic scenario indicates that there should be sufficient generating capacity available," the report reads.

The background: Texas' grid withstood three cold snaps early this year. ERCOT last asked residents to voluntarily reduce their energy use in January 2024.

Legislative approach: State lawmakers approved legislation this spring that is designed to make the grid more reliable by tightening regulations on large electric consumers, such as data centers. In extreme grid conditions, those customers will be required to switch to backup power to reduce strain on the grid.