Plano’s “City of Excellence” motto is at risk of becoming a big joke if the boomtown’s anti-government crowd wins May’s local elections. Contested races will take place in most every North Texas city this spring, but Plano faces a very real referendum on its future.

Over the years, the bedroom community became a city that could attract major businesses and residents with top-notch amenities — such as libraries, parks and recreation centers — because it prepared itself for the future. The angry crowd would have the city government stripped down to little more than police, fire and road repair.

May’s election will be the biggest wake-up call yet in a city that’s faced more than its share of community-changing events. And for the first time in 28 years, Plano won’t have the steady hand and vision of City Manager Bruce Glasscock to guide it forward.

Glasscock retires at the end of April, not long after he turns 75. On Monday, the council chose senior deputy city manager Mark Israelson to replace Glasscock.

Last week I talked Glasscock into an exit interview of sorts, both to discuss Plano’s response to past challenges and to consider what will happen next in the city that he’s helped shape.

This city manager doesn’t sugarcoat things. “I’m known to cut through the bull and I’m not afraid to tell the council what I think about issues,” said Glasscock, who was Plano’s police chief in the 1990s.

Plano's City Manager Bruce Glasscock served as police chief for more than a decade before moving into the leadership team in 2011. (Daniel Carde / Staff Photographer)

And these days, Glasscock worries about the May election and the makeup of the new council.

“We are at a pivotal point as to whether or not we want to continue to be the city we are today or do we want to go back to something else,” he said. “That’s the decision that voters who put that council into place will make.”

Glasscock is still called “Chief,” despite moving to City Hall in 2001, first as deputy manager and then, eight years ago, assuming the top job.

His steady hand at the police department guided Plano through enormous tragedies, included the 1993 kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old Ashley Estell and, in the late 1990s, a rash of teen overdose deaths caused by cheap black-tar heroin.

“In the weeks after Ashley’s body was discovered, I saw parents holding onto their children, not letting them out of their sight,” Glasscock recalled. “Same with the heroin crisis.”

Glasscock wanted to ensure that residents could again feel safe after each horror and to do everything possible to make sure those things didn’t happen again.

He was among those who advised then-state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, on what came to be known as Ashley's Laws, which help protect children from sexual predators. And the police department’s changes to confront the heroin epidemic — including handling drug overdoses as criminal investigations, not accidental deaths — became a model used across the U.S.

Glasscock’s reputation for being honest and transparent goes back to his days as chief. He knew his openness about the extent of the heroin problem would give Plano a black eye. But “we gotta do it. We gotta save kids,” he recalls saying at the time.

Since moving to City Hall, Glasscock has taken pride in his staff’s success to build on the vision of elected officials such as Shapiro, who served as a City Council member and mayor.

“Those leaders had the courage to do what needed to be done — to be ready for growth with the right infrastructure,” Glasscock said. “Lots of suburbs are having to scramble to catch up.”

But these days Plano faces a more difficult obstacle than lack of infrastructure or the often-forgotten budget shortfalls of 2009: deteriorating trust in anything connected to City Hall.

A loosely bound faction of residents is suspicious of most anything the city’s leaders or staff put on the table. Many citizens have no basic knowledge about how local government works. Some just want to say no to everything.

“You’ve got a vocal group that’s become known as the angry crowd, they seem to be the ones who are putting out misinformation,” Glasscock said. “They don’t choose to be factual. And people buy into that.”

Every city has a version of a change-resistant angry crowd. But few are as organized, as big and as social-media-savvy as the anti-establishment crowd Glasscock and his staff deal with on a regular basis.

A luxury apartment tower under construction in the Legacy West area of Plano is reflected off another nearby building. (Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer)

And these opponents will no doubt play a big role in the May elections. Four of the seven council seats will be on the ballot; in two of those four, incumbents are stepping down. One of those is pro-establishment Angela Miner; the other is Tom Harrison, who is more sympathetic to the anti-government faction. The council censured Harrison last year after he shared an anti-Islam social media post.

Glasscock told me Plano's future depends on residents who are satisfied with their city but not plugged into the election’s consequences. Those are the people — including the large percentage that responds enthusiastically to surveys about Plano’s amenities and services — who have to turn out in May, he said.

As best I can tell, if council candidates representing the angry crowd win a majority of seats, they are likely to make drastic changes. They could scare off potential business relocations and re-evaluate the emphasis on amenities such as parks and libraries.

Glasscock understands that the angry crowd has tapped into discontent over the city’s tax rate, but like most municipal leaders, he maintains that cities aren't the problem. Both the appraisal and school financing systems are broken, he said, and the state won’t fix them. And the city’s tax rate is around the same as Frisco’s and still much lower than in Dallas and Arlington.

As a longtime Plano resident, Glasscock also understands his neighbors’ worries about their once-sleepy suburb’s transformation into a boomtown. But he said city planning must match changing needs. If the city were to revert to a bedroom community, Glasscock said, it would lose the businesses that help pay for so many of the amenities residents enjoy.

What Glasscock can’t abide is “the vile, outright prejudicial bias” that has increasingly shown up in critics’ communications and conversations. He cited concerns about apartments as just one example. "A vocal segment of this community refers to ‘those people’ in the apartments or ‘those kids.’ That’s disturbing."

It’s too bad that city will face its next challenges without Glasscock at the helm. But after half a century in public sector jobs, he deserves a break from the fight.

“I am ready to retire. I want to see what it’s going to be like,” he said as I closed my notebook. “If I get bored, I’m sure I can find something to do.”