Council member Adam Bazaldua recalled when he first learned about the Dallas mayor’s proposal to cut City Hall salaries.
Instead of hearing about it from Eric Johnson, though, Bazaldua says he found out from the mayor’s social media blitz that included the hashtag “defund the bureaucracy.”
Bazaldua said he wasn’t the only one on the council who felt it was “somewhat of a slap in the face.” He called it “a gesture of disrespect” for Johnson to skip personal phone calls and seek support from his colleagues through a media tour.
“We have built real relationships among colleagues where we actually collaborate and listen to each other,” Bazaldua said.
The stage was set for a bitter budget battle.
The sore feelings stemmed from a communication breakdown between the mayor and many on the 14-member council that started before the coronavirus pandemic began wreaking havoc in North Texas early in the year.
And it has precipitated a war of words between proponents of two competing proposals to trim the budget: the mayor’s $6 million in staff salary cuts vs. a $7 million decrease in police overtime favored by Bazaldua and a coalition of 10 other council members. Both sides want to reinvest the savings in other areas, though Johnson’s proposal failed, 13-2, more than a week ago.
One consequence of the impasse is that a group of council members have come together to fill the void. They say they’ve built their own coalition through regular contact and close collaboration.
As the mayor appears headed for a sound defeat in his first budget battle, he is showing little sign of backing off the heated rhetoric. In an interview this week with The Dallas Morning News, Johnson accused his colleagues of stifling debate on important budget issues, trying to trick the public and cutting “backroom deals."
“They want to just vote on this budget in a cloak of darkness and move on,” he said.
The mayor plans to make the public aware of what he says are “deals that are being cut behind the scenes and off the record that are against their interests.” And he wants to inform residents that they’re going to be "the loser” as a result.
“What we don’t need is for the mayor to join the backroom dealing,” Johnson said.
Bazaldua and five other council members said the mayor hasn’t spoken to them in months or shown the slightest interest in working with them to build a consensus on the issues.
“It’s quite an accusation to make about your colleagues that you don’t have any communication with,” he said. "It seems baseless and the spirit of a sore loser.”
Council member Omar Narvaez said that he’s spoken with most of his colleagues, "and all of them have said that they don’t have conversations with the mayor either.”
“He quit communicating with council members,” Narvaez said of the mayor.
Mayor Pro Tem Adam Medrano said: “The mayor chooses to communicate with me through his staff.”
Other council members who were contacted did not respond.
Johnson acknowledged that while the pandemic has made communication more difficult, “we could always stand to talk more."
"And I would certainly encourage City Council members to reach out to discuss their issues,” he said, adding that he’s willing to work with them in the future.
Council members agreed that social distancing protocols during a deadly pandemic have not helped matters. City meetings since the outbreak have been conducted remotely via teleconference.
Why exactly communication has broken down depends on whom you ask. Regardless of who is to blame, it’s not clear how the relationships can be mended after the budget is passed and the council moves on to other issues.
This year’s heated budget debate stands in stark contrast with this time last year, when the newly elected Johnson presided over a budget that passed unanimously for the first time since 2014. That budget boosted pay for officers and focused on retention and recruitment of cops.
They mayor said at the time that the consensus demonstrated “a return of civility” for City Hall.
Restoring civility
Johnson, a former state representative, promised during last summer’s City Council inauguration ceremony to restore civility.
And City Manager T.C. Broadnax said at the time that he was hopeful the new mayor would “find ways to unify” the new council around big issues of poverty, income inequality and a stronger police force.
That unity, however, will have to wait.
Johnson said he has heard that some in City Hall are trying to stop his very public campaign for pay cuts by contemplating an ethics complaint against him. He said it’s because they aren’t happy hearing from members of the public who support him.
“Apparently, people are trying to keep me from talking about it by threatening me with ethics complaints if I continue to talk about it publicly,” he said.
The city secretary said Thursday that no ethics complaints have been filed against the mayor.
Several council members contacted on Wednesday and Thursday disputed Johnson’s claim of backroom dealing, saying it’s perfectly normal and legal to communicate on issues outside of public meetings so long as there’s not a quorum. That can mean as few as three council participants in the case of some committees with five members.
They said the mayor is not engaged with them on city business.
Narvaez said members often seek support for proposals by reaching out to colleagues and discussing them.
“Individual discussions are not a violation of the Open Meetings Act,” he said.
Council member Paula Blackmon said collaboration with colleagues on city issues is about “listening to the needs of the community and trying to fulfill it.”
Narvaez, Medrano and council member Lee Kleinman said that if the mayor has evidence of an Open Meetings Act violation, he should file an ethics complaint.
That is preferable, Narvaez said, to “being divisive by throwing out baseless accusations.”
Making the rounds
Under Dallas' form of government, the mayor isn’t the city government’s chief executive but rather a board chairman who is the only council member elected citywide. But the mayor’s power comes from agenda-setting, coalition-building, appointing people to boards and committees, and cheerleading for causes.
Like the mayor, nearly half of the 14 council members are newcomers. And most of that freshman class has banded together to support police overtime cuts at a time when social justice activists are demanding that up to $200 million be slashed from the $516 million proposed police budget.
Blackmon, who has worked at City Hall since 2007, said she recalls last speaking to Johnson in January, not including public meetings. She said she is listening to her colleagues and trying to find “middle ground.” That involves regular phone calls to find out what’s going on and whether they need help with anything, she said.
“There’s so many things going on,” she said. “You can’t know everything that’s happening in everybody’s district plus citywide.”
Blackmon worked for two previous mayors — Mike Rawlings and Tom Leppert — prior to joining the council. She said Leppert would make rounds and talk to people, always asking “how are you doing?” Rawlings did the same early on, she said. They were both engaged, she said.
“They wanted to talk to people,” she said.
While the pandemic has made that more difficult today, Blackmon said, she stressed that the council has to work together. She said she and her colleagues are close, especially her fellow freshman class, and they stay in regular contact and even socialize at times. Blackmon said she considers them her “work buddies.”
As a result of the mayor’s hands-off style, she said, other members are stepping in to fill his traditional role of setting the tone and agenda and are “bringing people together for a single vision.”
Tensions between the mayor and the council are nothing new to the city.
Even Rawlings could alienate his colleagues on the council by sometimes working in private without consulting them on certain issues like the future of Fair Park and the Dallas school district.
And years before him, Laura Miller was a polarizing figure who butted heads with Black council members in southern Dallas and struggled to form consensus before leaving office in 2007.
Council member Chad West said he and other members have met and collaborated on the budget for two years in a row and that they’re “very cognizant of quorum rules.” Staff monitors who’s in the room and what topic is being discussed. Sometimes, a council member has to leave during a discussion, he said.
“Collaboration is important … some things need to be discussed with staff and each other prior to a meeting,” he said. “How do you know what direction you’re going to go?”
West said he’s been in regular contact with Broadnax, and that the council members work well together. He said his correspondence with the mayor is brief, amicable and to the point.
A city spokeswoman said Broadnax and the mayor do not have regularly scheduled meetings and that they last met in early June.
To the ‘bitter end’
As the council is set to vote on the city’s $3.8 billion budget on Wednesday, Johnson said he plans to continue getting his message out to the public any way he can, including more television appearances, radio spots, social media posts and emails.
Johnson also said his efforts are paying off — the response has been overwhelmingly supportive of his budget position.
The mayor said he was elected by the entire city, and that it’s his job to “advocate for the people to the bitter end.”
But he added that some on the council are not “heeding the voices of the public.” His approach, he said, is to tell people that the council is “not listening to them.”
Johnson is not willing to compromise on police overtime cuts and will oppose any attempt to reduce that expense in the budget. He called the proposal a “shell game” and said overtime pay is needed in the middle of a violent crime spree.
He said that although he is in a “very contentious public debate right now” with his fellow council members, he is ready to move on after the budget vote. He says he is ready to collaborate on the next policy that comes up.
“I will work with them on anything that will move the city forward.”
