Council Informally Agrees to Increase Bond Capacity to $1.25 Billion, May Election Date

Following almost three hours of discussion Friday, the Dallas City Council took an informal, nonbinding straw vote to call a May bond election with an increased capacity of $1.25 billion. 

Dozens of parks and housing advocates attended the special-called meeting and offered hours of testimony after the council vote.  

Because of the increased bond capacity — the Community Bond Task Force and city staff originally formed their recommendations based on a $1.1 billion figure — it’s back to the drawing board for many city departments, notably Park and Recreation. 

The council asked the Park and Rec Department to prepare park allocations in the following amounts: $325 million, $300 million, and $275 million. The first two allocations already exist, as recommended by the Community Bond Task Force and city staff, respectively. 

Another meeting on the 2024 bond is scheduled Jan. 31. The City Council is expected to call for a May election on Feb. 14. 

Council members Adam Bazaldua (District 7), Kathy Stewart (District 10), Chad West (District 1) and Jaynie Schultz (District 11) already submitted their proposed allocations based on the $1.25 million bond capacity by memorandum Friday morning.

View Friday’s staff presentation here and watch the full meeting here. 

Debate Over Election Timing And Bond Capacity

Jenny Nicewander, director of the Office of Bond and Construction Management, said staff would prefer a May election “because we have the momentum behind us.” 

City Manager T.C. Broadnax pointed out that a presidential election and Dallas charter election will be held in November, creating an issue of “ballot fatigue.”

“It’s more about, if we’re ready and council has delineated the projects that they would like to see done in the community, we are long overdue for any infrastructure improvements in this community,” he said. “We’d like to get going on them and continue the work and effort so there is no pause.” 

Some good discussion occurred during the lengthy Friday meeting about bond allocations for housing, homelessness, transportation, and of course, parks. 

Councilwoman Stewart, who chairs the Parks, Trails and the Environment Committee, advocated for $300 million for parks. 

“I’ve talked to almost all of you and heard what your priorities are for this bond,” Stewart said to other council members. “Parks is in your top three, almost all of you. So we need to remember that. That’s a common denominator around this horseshoe. We want our new rec center. We want our transformational project.” 

Stay tuned to CandysDirt.com as we continue to follow this story. We’ll unpack some ideas from Councilman West and District 6 Councilman Omar Narvaez in Monday’s newsletter on how they want to spend housing dollars.