McKinney board highlights Undertold McKinney program and recent demolitions; staff to post oral histories

Board members and staff used the meeting's non-agenda time to highlight the city's Undertold McKinney Black History Month program and other preservation outreach and documentation efforts.

One board member noted a recording of the Undertold Black History Month panel (led by neighborhood planner Tori Brown) is available on the city's Undertold page and encouraged others to view it. Another member praised newly installed history-timeline panels in the courthouse breezeway and thanked HPAB and staff for their work.

Members discussed the downtown redevelopment project and anticipated demolition of the old Development Services and City Hall buildings; staff said documentation of those buildings—including oral histories and architectural surveying—has been completed and will be uploaded either to the downtown redevelopment site or to the Historic Preservation website.

Several members raised recent demolitions in East McKinney, including the house that belonged to Iola Lee Davis and Arthur Malvern (Malvern family), which a board member said was demolished in the last month and is now owned by Mike Rediker/Inter McKinney LLC. A board member emphasized the community loss, saying the Malverns "were special to our family" and that "we are losing history." The group discussed the Undertold marker awarded to Doty School and clarified that the Undertold designation is honorary and does not confer additional legal protection to a structure.

Neighborhood planner Tori Brown is expected to brief the board in a future meeting on the Undertold McKinney program and marker process. Staff said it will try to post the downtown documentation and the oral-history recordings online. Board members also noted interviews completed with longtime community members, including Lena Milstead and Arlie B. Milstead, and thanked staff for preserving those accounts.