Advertisement
This is member-exclusive content
icon/ui/info filled

newsPolitics

Advocates for and against Dallas Hero charter proposals spar ahead of early voting

Early voting for the Nov. 5 election starts on Monday

Either the three charter amendment proposals backed by Dallas Hero on the bottom of the Nov. 5 ballot are a way to improve public safety and government transparency ... or they’re a path to ruin.

The choice is clear, former mayor Tom Leppert and Dallas Hero executive director Pete Marocco agreed at a forum hosted by the Dallas Regional Chamber on Thursday, days before polls open for early voting.

That’s about all they agreed on.

Advertisement

Dallas Hero is a nonprofit group that secured at least 20,000 voter signatures for each proposal to qualify for the ballot.

Political Points

Get the latest politics news from North Texas and beyond.

Or with:

The propositions would make it easier for Dallas residents to sue the city in certain cases, give the community power to influence whether the city manager is fired or receives pay bonuses, and mandate Dallas spend more on police hiring, pay and benefits.

Marocco said the amendments are necessary to help residents feel safer by mandating more money for the city’s police and fire pension and hiring 900 officers to decrease emergency call response times.

Advertisement

He believes they would also empower more residents to hold government officials accountable at a time when mistrust of government is high.

“Who does not want enforcement of the law by the very people who are making our laws?” Marocco said.

Pete Marocco, Executive Director of Dallas Hero, speaks in favor of an amendment during a...
Pete Marocco, Executive Director of Dallas Hero, speaks in favor of an amendment during a forum the Dallas Regional Chamber hosted on October 17, 2024, at El Centro College in Dallas to allow discussions on charter amendment proposals ahead of the upcoming elections.(Steve Hamm / Special Contributor)
Advertisement

But Leppert countered the propositions actually put the city on a path to ruin by undermining the authority of officials elected by the people, setting new barriers in the ongoing search for a permanent city manager and tying up so much of taxpayers’ money in the police department while fending off a possible increase in lawsuits that there will be little room to significantly invest in any other city service.

“We need to push our city forward, but these are amendments that have never been tested before,” said Leppert, who was Dallas mayor from 2007 to 2011. He added that he believed even “good intentions can have very bad outcomes.”

The Dallas Hero amendments have become the primary focus of the city election as they are the only ones with organized support and opposition. The focus is casting a shadow over more than a dozen other charter propositions, including proposals to decriminalize marijuana and increase the City Council’s salaries.

The process of updating Dallas’ charter typically happens once a decade. The document lays out the functions, structure and powers of the city’s government.

Dallas Hero’s proposals have been panned by city officials and the entire 15-member City Council publicly opposed them. Mayor Eric Johnson and Council member Cara Mendelsohn told voters to reject all 18 propositions.

The opposition campaign has included email newsletters with former police chief David Brown saying approval of the proposals would turn Dallas into a “police state,” and mailers featuring former mayors Leppert, Mike Rawlings, Ron Kirk, Laura Miller and others saying the propositions are “bad for Dallas.”

Billboards over Interstate 35E in South Oak Cliff show State Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas), Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins and Commissioners Elba Garcia and John Wiley Price urging voters to reject the propositions.

Advertisement

The most prominent backers of Dallas Hero have been the Dallas County Republican Party and hotel mogul Monty Bennett, who disclosed giving cash and office space to support Dallas Hero but won’t say how much. The group hasn’t disclosed any of its donors other than confirming Bennett, who is also a major Republican donor and publisher of The Dallas Express, as a contributor.

Proposition S would require the city to waive its governmental immunity to allow any resident to file a lawsuit alleging the municipal government isn’t complying with the charter, local ordinances or state law.

Marocco said it would give residents more tools to ensure local and state laws are followed. It would require at least 60 days notice to the city before any suit is filed, providing time for any alleged infraction to be corrected before legal action is taken.

“This is a very fair way for the citizens of Dallas to hold their leaders accountable to the enforcement of the law,” he said.

Advertisement

But waiving governmental immunity could have unintended consequences that could spread beyond elected officials to any city employee, Leppert said. It also wouldn’t filter out lawsuits that could later be found to be frivolous.

“All of these lawsuits are going to have to be litigated,” he said. “That means more lawyers at the city level. It means more time, more effort and more of your taxpayer money.”

Former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert speaks against a proposed amendment during an event hosted...
Former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert speaks against a proposed amendment during an event hosted by the Dallas Regional Chamber to offer a discussion forum on charter amendment proposals at El Centro College in Dallas on October 17, 2024, before the upcoming elections.(Steve Hamm / Special Contributor)

Proposition T would require Dallas to conduct an annual survey of at least 1,400 residents, rating the city manager’s performance on addressing crime, homelessness, litter, panhandling and the condition of streets. The consequences of the results would range from the City Council approving a financial bonus equal to the city manager’s base salary to termination.

Advertisement

Leppert noted the survey requires a tiny fraction of Dallas’ 1.3 million residents to participate and could force the city manager to prioritize issues in the survey over other community problems to keep their job.

City manager candidates would likely never seriously consider Dallas, he said.

“What happens is you take the responsibility and accountability off where it should be — the mayor and the council — and you’ve given them a free ride because they no longer have to be responsible for the city manager and the performance of the departments within the city,” the former mayor said.

Marocco said the City Council could decide to increase the survey minimum to any higher tally they want, the five topics are issues that resonate with residents and the city manager wouldn’t be subject to firing or bonuses via the survey until they’ve been on the job for at least 18 months.

Advertisement

“We need to take it seriously that our chief executive is held accountable for results,” Marocco said. “I can’t imagine anywhere else in the country where a chief executive is not held accountable for results.”

Proposition U would require the City Council to approve setting aside at least 50% of any excess yearly revenue for the police and fire pension system, increase the police force by 900 and mandate the city maintain a minimum of 4,000 officers while increasing police pay and other benefits.

Marocco said he believed the city’s plans to address police recruitment and retention aren’t enough to satisfy residents and the police and fire pension system needs more support.

The police and fire pension system has a funding gap of around $3 billion. In September, the City Council approved a plan for Dallas to contribute $11 billion to the system over 30 years to address the shortfall. The city has a plan to hire 250 new officers starting this fall, but estimates not reaching at least a total of 3,600 officers until 2033 due to attrition.

Advertisement

“There is no solution on the other side of the table,” Marocco said. “There is no better way to do this.”

Leppert said the police department would likely have to lower its standards to take in a large influx of officers to make sure the city isn’t sued for not having at least 4,000 officers. The proposal also ignores investments in community resources and other factors that go into improving public safety.

“I want to see more police officers, but this isn’t the way to do it,” Leppert said. “Because fighting crime is more than just police officers.”