Former Dallas City Attorney Larry Casto — who made a short-lived mayoral bid before dropping out in January — has a new job leading a prominent local political group.
Casto is the new executive director of Coalition For A New Dallas, an organization co-created by D Magazine owner Wick Allison and originally founded around a push to tear down Interstate 345. Matt Tranchin, the coalition's president, said Casto "has the institutional knowledge, political savvy and proven leadership" to help the group reach its goals.
As city attorney, Casto helped lead efforts to resolve some of the city's biggest and thorniest issues. Among them were the privatization of Fair Park, the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System's crisis and overhaul, decades-old police-and-fire back-pay lawsuits and the Love Field gate dispute. He also toyed with the idea of privatizing DFW International Airport, which D detailed in its March issue.
In his mayoral bid, Casto drew off his lobbyist experience, laying out a plan for the city, school district and county to coalesce around proposals to spur new development without displacing residents. He said the coalition's urbanist philosophy "dove-tails very well with what I was running on as mayor."
"I didn't want something that would disengage me from the issues I've been working on for the city for many, many years," he said.
Casto, who spent most of his career as Dallas' chief lobbyist in Austin, said he had preliminary discussions with Allison about the job after retiring from the city last year.
"I wasn't ready at that time because of this little thing called the mayor's race," Casto said. "The field at that time looked a lot different. There weren't 120 people running."
Casto, who struggled to raise money as more candidates jumped in, dropped out before the Feb. 15 filing deadline. He lent his support to Mike Ablon — one of five mayoral candidates who earned the coalition's endorsement — and took his time deciding his next move.
Now, Casto said, the job "feels right."
The coalition, which began with a splash around the idea of a 345 tear-down in 2015, could use a boost. Campaign finance reports filed with the state show little in the way of recent fundraising efforts, aside from an occasional hefty contribution from former Trammell Crow Company CEO Don Williams.
Casto, who spent Thursday morning in Austin to push for a bill that would give Dallas more control to start a municipal-management district, said he hopes "residents of Dallas see this as their organization."
"We've been missing that sort of comprehensive, nonpartisan organization that lays out a healthy vision for the city and is willing to push for it," he said.
But nonpartisan doesn't mean non-political. Casto said he's not looking to run a think-tank that proposes policies that sit on shelves. And the coalition could still back specific candidates and causes, he said.
"We live in a political world and need to realize that," he said.
