Lost in the finger-pointing over mismanagement of millions of dollars in Fair Park donations are the people most likely to pay the highest price — South Dallas residents.
Six years ago, Fair Park First and its for-profit partner promised neighbors a signature Community Park and a strategy that would bring people and their money to South Dallas year-round. In a cruel rerun, those commitments are, at best, shaky.
Neighbors have mostly shrugged their shoulders over the news $5.7 million in donations, much of it earmarked for their green space, wound up misspent. Why wouldn’t they? South Dallas has gotten sleight-of-hand and grandiose promises for generations — even as other parts of town have been made whole.
Fair Park First, the nonprofit that holds the contract with the city, and Oak View Group, which Fair Park First hired to run daily operations, have been locked for months in an escalating war of words over who is to blame for the misspending of donor-restricted funds.
Each new detail splinters the credibility of operators. The controversy forced Fair Park First to put fundraising for the neighborhood’s long-promised signature park on hold. Once the campaign resumes, those asks will be a heavier lift given understandable skepticism.
Shortfalls in the park’s finances, made public during recent City Hall meetings, raise more questions about whether the current Fair Park First-Oak View Group operation is workable.
Except for the State Fair, which isn’t affiliated with either group, the only buzz around Fair Park is a negative one — mismanagement of donations and budget shortfalls.
The situation didn’t have to devolve to this point. Many previous Dallas mayors, with the park board president in tow, would have pulled the two sides into a room and said something like:
“There’s money missing, but you say it didn’t leave the park. Let’s figure out if that’s true or not — and if it is — OVG, figure out how you pay back those donations. Fair Park First, figure out how this never happens again.”
That’s not how things work under Mayor Eric Johnson. He stayed on the sidelines and an already terrible situation has grown worse.
The Fair Park showdowns at multiple City Council, committee and park board meetings have been painful to watch. At times discussions designed to get to the bottom of things sound like sixth-graders trying to debate quantum physics.
What happened isn’t the most important question. Rather, it’s what happens next.
Is there any way this complex of historic art deco buildings can become the 365-day-a-year financial engine for South Dallas that was promised six years ago?
At the very least, will residents get their Community Park?
While jobs and decent housing are of most concern to Fair Park’s neighbors, the Community Park has consequential significance — the belated delivery of an asset promised when the city forced hundreds of Black families from their homes in the 1960s and 1970s.
It’s a tragedy Dallas can ill-afford to forget: After a consultant reported in 1966 that Fair Park was unpopular because of “the poor Negroes in their shacks” and City Hall should “eliminate the problem from sight,” Dallas cheated homeowners with low-ball offers and used eminent domain to take other properties.
More than 50 years later, the Community Park is a small step toward healing. It is set to replace a sea of concrete alongside South Fitzhugh Avenue near the Dos Equis Pavilion — a parking lot built over the rubble of bulldozed homes.
Fair Park First board chair Veletta Forsythe Lill is adamant the Community Park will be built. “This is the centerpiece of all our work at Fair Park First,” she said. “We fully intend to deliver that in coordination with the community and the parks department and our donors.”
Lill knows how to sell a vision, bring people together and raise money. Her civic track record includes serving as the founding executive director of the Dallas Arts District and as a City Council member for eight years.
Nothing she has faced is as difficult as this controversy, which has sparked financial audits, lawsuit threats and finger-pointing. One of the original Fair Park First board members, she now leads the group as it navigates the misspending scandal and plunges back into the Community Park work.
Alyssa Arnold, Fair Park First’s chief operating officer and interim CEO, said the team will begin meeting with community members next month to provide updates on the park plans.
Construction, originally set to begin in January 2023, now will start in late 2025, Arnold said, and the park is expected to open in late 2026 or early 2027. The need for an extra environmental study, which took most of 2023 and came back clean, led to the first delay. Most recently, the misspending issue has led to slowdowns.
“This year has been a lot of repairing for the organization,” Arnold said, “a lot of looking back but also how do we want to move forward.”
Fair Park First’s former CEO Brian Luallen said in April 2022 the Community Park would be 14 acres. Two months later, he said a new parking garage plan would allow the green space to grow to 18.5 acres.
Lill and Arnold told me the park’s size has been reduced to nine or 10 acres, partly because the parking garage has been removed from the plan and a parking lot for 200 cars is required. They also said the “great lawn” feature has been trimmed to the size neighbors recommended, not a larger space appropriate for commercial ventures.
“We are staying within the scope of the amenities the community wants,” Lill said, “and have matched those with donors’ investments.”
Among Lill’s first actions after becoming board chair in June was to put financial guardrails in place to keep Fair Park First’s finances separate from those of the Oak View Group. In addition, the Dallas Foundation will oversee donor dollars.
Without the parking garage — a feature not popular with residents — the price tag for the Community Park is $43 million to $47 million, Lill said. Fair Park First already has secured $28.1 million in donations, pledges, partnerships and governmental grants.
About $12 million has been received; the misallocated $5.7 million at the heart of the financial dispute comes from donor-restricted funds to four projects, including the park.
“We believe — and people have indicated — there is still an appetite to invest in this park and this community,” Lill said.
I hope she’s right. Fair Park’s neighbors don’t deserve more broken promises from overconfident operators claiming help has finally arrived.
