Despite Opposition, Dallas is Paying $1M to Outsource Community Engagement, Historic Preservation Policy

The Dallas City Council approved a contract to pay HR&A Advisors $1.2 million to help with economic and historic preservation policies — services that District 12 Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn said city staff should be performing. 

HR&A Advisors already earned $1 million to draft the city’s Economic Development Policy and will stay on for another year to assist with the implementation of the economic development framework, community engagement, and a historic preservation policy. 

Mendelsohn and District 10 Councilman Adam McGough voted against the contract extension during a Feb. 8 council meeting. 

“Throughout this document, it repeats actual job functions that we have hired people to do,” Mendelsohn said. “I’m very concerned about how we’re handling our dollars and our staffing. I’m trying to understand, when we have grown the number of staff members significantly, why we are continuing to outsource so much of the responsibility for people who are in filled positions. I think this deserves greater scrutiny. It appears to be financially incompatible with the role I think I serve on this council.”

The price tag to extend the HR&A consulting contract is lower than the cost of hiring and training new staff members and continuing to fund those positions each budget year, explained City Manager T.C. Broadnax. 

“[HR&A] developed the foundational core elements of our economic development plan,” he said. “Who better to help us implement it across all our departments than the team that brought equitable economic development incentives as well as a policy to this city?”

What is “Community Engagement”?

Mendelsohn took issue with a particular note in the consultant’s scope of work (seen below), which says, in part:

“This includes working with staff and elected officials to define priority programs and budget, implementing a comprehensive ‘priority-based’ funding matrix utilizing priority-based budgeting for all projects and propositions, engaging with the community to ensure ‘need’ overrides ‘loud noises’ in planning for future projects, especially in southern Dallas, and creating a matrix of priorities and funding distribution.”

Assistant City Manager Majed Al-Ghafry said the consultant would not override the will of the people. 

“The consultant will help us present the facts to the City Council,” he said. “The whole idea is to have full engagement and present all the metrics, all the facts, all the ranking of the projects in a comprehensive manner. All constituents will be heard, but priority projects will be ranked accordingly and in line with the Racial Equity Plan.” 

Broadnax implied that the statement in Exhibit A is misleading and shouldn’t have been included in the document. 

“I don’t want that to be where we spend most of our time,” he said. “I don’t think that is factual or material to … hiring HR&A.” 

He said the goal for southern Dallas is to focus on redevelopment. 

“[HR&A} can hone in and directly work with departments that they need to, bring everybody together, and be the quarterback for implementation of things that I  don’t think we’ve got the bench strength to do, nor will we probably ever have that, given turnover,” Broadnax said. “I would recommend that we spend more time thinking about the big picture of what you asked us to accomplish. I believe that HR&A working with our team will help us get there in a more data-driven and engaged way that I don’t think we would be able to do without them.” 

McGough said he wanted to have more discussion and give clear direction on community engagement. 

“If I’m saying I’m going to support something that’s led by city management and staff that’s going to handle community engagement for me and my district — and have that be more of a guiding voice in the discussion than potentially what I’m saying or what the residents are saying — that’s a huge issue for me,” McGough said. 

Broadnax attempted to clarify, but McGough said the explanation didn’t make him feel any better. 

“We need people out selling the dream in certain departments or certain areas, where otherwise you have to germinate the support for things,” Broadnax said. “We really haven’t had an arm for that, other than council members, who I think have done that but really didn’t have anyone to ride shotgun to help sell that dream.”

Implementing Equity in Historic Preservation

The consultants also will assist in designing and implementing an equitable historic preservation program.

In response to questions from District 14 Councilman Paul Ridley, Al-Ghafry said the Historic Preservation Office currently employs just an interim director and two staff members.

“Historic Preservation has been a revolving door for us,” Al-Ghafry said. “It’s a challenge just for staff to work on the landmark commission items. We do not have a historic preservation policy. We have ordinances that are outdated and are not working. HR&A is going to help us work with all the stakeholders to ensure we have enough data to develop a historic preservation policy. That’s really key for us as a city to be aligned with [other city policies].” 

Ridley said he hoped that the contract extension would not divert the administration’s intent to “stop the hemorrhaging of personnel from the Office of Historic Preservation and find a permanent leader.”

District 13 Councilwoman Jaynie Schultz pointed out that one of the reasons the City has lost Historic Preservation personnel is “we don’t understand how historic preservation fits into the overall work of the city.”

“Those are things we cannot do internally,” she said. “It’s a much more economically sensible and responsible act to turn to the people we already know have the expertise. They did a brilliant job with the Economic Development Policy. We don’t need to be able to do everything ourselves.”