Pecan Creek Trail
City of Denton Provides 2026 Update
January 9 2026
FROM PUBLISHER: Progress. It has a different measure in North Texas, and especially where I live in Denton, Texas. Unfortunately, I know of what I speak, having spent some lost time employed inside the literal bowels of the City of Denton’s City Hall a few years ago. Strangely, the job was insignificant, but because of what I did there, I had a sense of the pulse of Denton’s City Government. And that pulse? Flat line. Go along and get along. Never raise your hand to solve any problems that come along locally, inside my own department, and let that department crash and burn with no parachute before it hits the ground with a thud – which is exactly what happened. Does this mean I am averse to the City of Denton’s flatlined, keep your head down and grab your ankles policies? Yes. But what else chaps my chapped, chair widened a$$ IS the citizens in Denton, Texas.
Denton is a Blue Dot City in the blood red State of Texas. It has witches, bible thumpers, is a homeless mecca, hippies, artists, musicians, realtors, lawyers, a blood sucking data center and two “Corporate Style” universities. And that’s just thinking off the top of my balding head. All these interesting and diverse groups, plus those I missed calling out, they all add up to a splintered mass that has no reason to believe they can, could or should do anything that looks like coalescing into a more powerful GROUP. Denton Citizen’s endemic attitude is, in a word, “pacifist.”
In historic times, I could reach out to the University of North Texas Journalism, possibly Texas Woman’s University school of journalism and throw them the news tip that goes with this story. And in past times, the students would take it like a dog takes a meaty bone. That was then. This is now. I could hand them a fully multiple sourced lead … and it would go nowhere, disappearing becauseit is actually WORK to be a “good” journalist, not a great one, a “good” one. This is why we have seen the demise of the Mainstream National Media. It starts HERE, on the ground, locally. And that is over and done.
CITY OF DENTON REPLIES
In relation to the Denton Greenbelt Debacle (and recent video), I decided to spend some of this winter downtime backtracking, in the old days it was called, “following up,” to the story on a huge story about the City of Denton’s funding for a brand new trail that might actually reshape newcomers perception of this old City. It is called the, “Pecan Creek Trail.” Read That Story Here – No Greenbacks for Greenbelt 2023
If you want to consider securing money and doing nothing with it a resume item, then it is easy to understand why at least one key player from the City of Denton has moved to a much bigger city government and a much higher paycheck. It kind of goes with the restoration of the Greenbelt 380 Park by TPWD, a restoration that didn’t fix anything but put new lipstick on a pig. That too contributed to a top award for a local TPWD leader in the years since that 2023 article.
So here we are. The Greenbelt is defunct and not what it says it is – by any real measure – because of the USACE and their mismanagement, no accountability (hey ya’ll it’s the FEDERAL Government), and no desire to do anything that would look like leadership regarding the HWY380 Denton Greenbelt debacle.
But the new Pecan Creek Trail offered up a grand plan, a plan to redirect, and redefine recreational options for Denton, Texas. I won’t recap all the ponds the City has allowed to go turbid, lakes that once were good family fishing ponds, and good fly fishing ponds. See ONE Video Here – North Lakes Park Turbid Pond June 2022
THE REPLY: “Regarding the Pecan Creek Trail, city staff are currently advancing procurement of the design contract for Phase 1 of the master plan. This includes detailed construction plans and specifications for segments 1, 3, and 4A to be followed by construction by separate contract. We anticipate this design contract to be considered for approval by City Council in February 2026. I’ve attached an exhibit that identifies those segments. / Please feel free to contact me or the project manager, Robin Davis, if you need any additional information on the Pecan Creek Trail project. I can also make myself available to discuss the Greenbelt Unit of the Ray Roberts Lake State Park to share any information that I have.”
A look at the map below immediately reveals one interesting thing: The Date: January 2024. My reply to this email is in to these representatives of this City of Denton project, and I am hopeful a response comes equally quickly. The response time was fantastic compared to my past contact, who has moved up the food chain in another city, a person who only responded when he felt compelled to respond, but otherwise was non-communicative, much less pro-active. NOTE – This is January 2026
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To Be Continued…
I am pretty sure how this story ends.
- More studies
- A few more years go by
- The $11M does what? goes where?
- Personnel at the City of Denton rolls over again – Promotions for Everyone!!!
- The plan changes
- More studies
- No journalists no citizens care about this
END NOTES: Sourcing a story like this is nearly impossible. This City’s Government is still “small,” and with its small-town-size comes a large dose of paranoia. I am left with a zero sum game – there’s no upside for me to dig into this story, a story that contains all the ingredients of another Texas local government debacle. And the dust on the horizon? It’s the barbarians overrunning the gate. They’re here. That dust was not the cavalry coming to the rescue. There is no rescue, no help coming to give you their insider knowledge, no journalist smelling a great story … nobody.
However, I did open the door shown to me, a door into more information on the Denton 380 Greenbelt Park, the worst TPWD Park in Texas. The question was simple, and I paraphrase slightly here: Who fights a fire in the Greenbelt around HWY 380? Is there a plan for the Denton Fire Department to fight a fire there?
My followup questions have been submitted. I await replies, but for NEWS stories, I work with what I have right now. And it’s a Friday in Denton, Texas. That means many City employees will take a half or full Friday off, and another three days will lapse. I appreciate the new responses I have from the City, and hope this level of new communication, so different from the past couple of years, continues to the start and finish of this single recreational project in Denton, Texas.
NEW COD CONTACT LIST
- Ziad Kharrat (Ziad.Kharrat@cityofdenton.com)
- Robin Davis (Robin.Davis@cityofdenton.com)
- Allison Wing (allison.wing@cityofdenton.com)
- MORE coming soon!
