District 11 Homeowner Initiates Recall for Council Member Jaynie Schultz Over Preston and Belt Line Redevelopment
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From Staff Reports
A Far North Dallas community meeting about a Preston and Belt Line redevelopment project turned acrimonious for Dallas City Council Member Jaynie Schultz last week, who found herself at the center of a contentious debate with District 11 homeowners. She is now facing a recall threat by a vocal homeowner and content creator, who expressed concern about the proposed changes and has taken to social media to gain support.
The issue centers on the redevelopment of Pepper Square, an aging retail shopping center located at the southeast corner of Preston and Belt Line in Far North Dallas. Residents fear the rezoning from retail to mixed-use — with apartments and condos planned — is too dense and will bring more traffic to an already congested area, they say.
Citizen Complaint
Damien LeVeck, who lives in Northwood Hills with his wife Natalie and their three young children, filmed and posted the community meeting sponsored by Schultz on his newly created YouTube channel, @RecallJaynieSchultz.
LeVeck said the March 5 community meeting offered little opportunity for residents to express their opinions about the proposed redevelopment, which currently houses a Trader Joe’s and Hobby Lobby.
“I was shocked, ” he said. “Who is she representing, the developer or the voters who elected her? Her attitude was so condescending and elitist. She honestly didn’t want to hear from anyone in her district. That’s not representation. We have no choice but to recall Jaynie Schultz.”
Development Still in Early Stages
Schultz said the redevelopment is still in the proposed stages.
“The meeting, while very challenging, was equally informative,” Schultz replied to CandysDirt.com Wednesday while on council break. “As I shared in the meeting, I am still in negotiation with the developer.”
The developer is Henry S. Miller, represented by Masterplan.
Schultz said she did not have any comment on the recall at this time.
Recalls have not been successful in Dallas. A recent attempt to recall Mayor Eric Johnson over his switching political parties ended about a week ago when the petitioner could not collect 15 percent of all eligible voters in the district in the most recent election, or 105,595 signatures. They collected roughly 13,000.
To recall Schultz, LeVeck will need about 7,200 signatures.
Disclosure: CandysDirt.com Publisher Candy Evans is a resident of District 11 and ran against Schultz for Dallas City Council in 2021 and 2023.
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Does this redevelopment project include the entire Pepper Square area or just the southern portion where Trader Joe’s and hobby lobby are? I worked at the Tom Thumb years ago before it moved across Preston. Does anyone remember the beautiful old country home that used to be across Alexis Dr. from hobby lobby? Loved that house!
It’s all of Pepper square but excluding the hobby lobby and Trader Joe’s.
It was an ugly scene with California transplant LeVeck trying to shout down everyone including residents. Please leave that style of politics on the left coast.
I’m sorry if I missed this in the article. How do I support the recall? The open disdain that this woman has for her constituents and the conflict of interest at play makes her unfit to continue in her role. We live in Northwood Hills. I believe Pepper Square could benefit from some investment, but as others have said, I’d like to see it go the way of Hillcrest Village with retail built around a green space and playground, maybe a small performance space — something that would be an asset to the existing taxpaying community.
The website is under development (it will be quite sophisticated) or you can always email me. I was not at the meeting but watched the video and could not believe the elitist attitude from Kleninman and Schultz. That’s not how a public servant treats the folks paying their salaries.
What website for what do you mean?
RecallJaynieSchultz.com
From what I saw, anyone who dared to ask a question was shut off. No wonder people got angry.
I was at the meeting, sitting two rows behind LeVeck. I never saw him “shout down” any residents. I saw him trying to speak up for those around him who were completely frustrated by the Councilwoman’s refusal to take any questions from the audience or listen to anything she deemed an “opinion” and not a “fact.”
These NIMBYs were treated with the exact level of respect they showed their elected official. Some of you must expect council members to coddle you, no matter how nasty you are or how loud you yell at them. I can’t understand why you expect this, unless you have an overwhelmingly sense of entitlement and are incredibly narcissistic.
This shows exactly why these projects should go through without “community input”: because the people who show up are overwhelmingly the tiny minority against it, even if they’re completely wrong about everything they’re concerned about.
We need housing. We need more stores and retail. Yet we don’t enough because of community meetings like this where people who are nearly dead do everything they can to block housing for the next generation. They are the reason a starter house in this area of Dallas goes for >$325k now, more than 3x what it was in 2010. That doesn’t benefit anyone but themselves, but of course the people who would live in those apartments and shop in those stores don’t get to show up because they’re not yet a member of the district.
We already had a community meeting to decide if this should be built or not. It’s called an election. If you don’t like the result, do something about it in the next election instead of crying and shouting and stomping your feet like a grown baby at meetings that your representative attends.