Here Are The 7 Most Sensational Dallas City Hall Stories of 2024
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The past year brought us two big elections: a $1.25 billion bond issue in May and 17 charter amendments in November. We saw residents storm City Hall over zoning cases, erroneously issued building permits, and a conservation district proposal. A city manager left Marilla Street and several high-ranking officials followed him to Austin.
But nothing grabbed the attention of local real estate professionals, elected officials, and Dallas residents like the ForwardDallas comprehensive land use plan update.
Here are the seven most sensational Dallas City Hall stories of 2024.
ForwardDallas
CandysDirt.com has 27 pages of archived stories on ForwardDallas. Not 27 stories, mind you, 27 pages of stories, dating back to 2021. That’s roughly 135 stories. We did deep dives and covered workshops and committee meetings. We talked to people who hated the plan and people who loved it. We talked to the committee members and city planners who crafted it and the elected officials who made sweeping changes and ultimately adopted it.
My favorite story of the year on ForwardDallas takes a look at the Comprehensive Land Use Plan Committee (CLUP), a group of volunteer residents who spent a gazillion hours preparing the document for the City Plan Commission, which spent an additional gazillion hours debating it and tweaking it some more.
ForwardDallas 2.0 was adopted on Sept. 25 in an 11-4 vote. Mayor Eric Johnson and council members Cara Mendelsohn, Jesse Moreno, and Carolyn King Arnold voted against it.
(Editor’s note: This story also featured an instant classic of a headline — “Resident Volunteers Wrote the ForwardDallas Housing Component, and No One Gives a CLUP“)
HERO Amendments
When the nonprofit Dallas HERO proposed a trio of charter amendments, fear set in that the propositions would create dangerous precedents and be detrimental to taxpayers and city employees. The “HERO amendments,” or Propositions S, T, and U, were opposed publicly by Mayor Eric Johnson and all 14 City Council members. Two of the three passed, sending a strong message to City Hall that voters want accountability, transparency, and safer neighborhoods.
Proposition S, approved with 55.02% of the vote, requires the city to waive its governmental immunity and allows residents to sue the city if they felt it was not following the charter, ordinances, or state law. That means, opponents have said, that an individual sanitation worker can now be sued for not picking up trash on time.
Proposition T, which called for the city manager’s pay and employment to be tied to a residential satisfaction survey, was voted down with 55.21% of the vote.
Proposition U, one of the most heavily debated amendments, was approved by a slim margin of 50.52% of the vote or 3,217 votes.
According to the proposition language, Dallas will be required to earmark at least half “of annual revenue that exceeds the total annual revenue of the previous year” for the police and fire pension system. Last year, Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said an inability to recruit and retain patrol officers — due in part to a $3 billion unfunded liability in the police pension fund — has resulted in more than 500 officer vacancies at DPD.
Any remaining funds should be used to increase the starting salaries for new police officers, the amendment language says. The current starting salary for Dallas Police is $70,300 depending on skill level and experience.
Some supporters of Prop U have said that Dallas may spend five years building its charter-mandated police force of 4,000, citing the full language of the proposition which was not available to voters at the ballot. Others interpret the expectation for hires to be made right away, and when the City fails to do it they’ll be sued (see Prop S).
Lakewood Conservation District
After years of fighting among neighbors who wanted to protect their property rights and others who wanted to protect Lakewood’s architecturally significant Clifford Hutsell-designed homes, a conservation district was unanimously approved by the City Plan Commission on Nov. 21.
The boundaries were changed to appease some of the naysayers, but it would be inaccurate to say everyone involved is happy. In a text message to CandysDirt.com days after the CPC vote, former Lakewood resident Julie Broberg said the conservation district does not have majority support from City Council and leaves “some very angry folks trapped in the CD.”
“Making matters worse, the map sacrifices opposed homeowners on the north side of the 7200 block of Lakewood so that it can include the 7300 block,” Broberg said.
Summer Loveland, who has championed the conservation district expansion, has said she’s pleased with the compromise and grateful for the efforts of District 9 Plan Commissioner Neal Sleeper, who carved out areas that did not want to be included.
The Lakewood Conservation District is set to go before the Dallas City Council in early 2025.
City Manager Search
We haven’t closely followed Dallas’ search for a new city manager. We’re a housing publication, after all. But you can bet we’ll be at the front of the line trying to score an interview when the top administrator is selected.
Here’s how we got to where we are today.
Former City Manager T.C. Broadnax abruptly resigned in February, probably because he was going to be fired. He reportedly took with him about half a million dollars in severance and is now Austin’s top administrator. Shortly after his departure, many others followed suit including Deputy City Manager Jon Fortune, Chief of Staff Genesis Gavino, Director of Legislative Affairs Carrie Rogers, and Police Chief Eddie Garcia.
Former Assistant City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert has served in the interim and has a stellar reputation with the public and many city employees. She trimmed fat from the city’s $5 billion budget and shuffled the organizational chart to improve efficiency.
The loudest criticism around the city manager search is that consulting firm Baker Tilly didn’t offer enough candidates for consideration and the process is being led by a mayor-appointed ad hoc committee that doesn’t include the full council. Some think Tolbert is the heir apparent and the process is rigged in her favor, which means Dallas could be missing out on someone who might be a better fit.
A meeting on the city manager search was held Dec. 23, and negotiations are expected to continue in January.
Elm Thicket
When it comes to fighting for their beloved neighborhood, the scrappy residents of Elm Thickett/Northpark don’t disappoint.
CandysDirt.com was the first to report in August that City-issued permits were doled out erroneously, based on old zoning regulations that changed more than two years ago.
Elm Thicket neighbors have trudged to Board of Adjustment hearings since September, presenting evidence that although the builders shouldn’t have been allowed to start their projects in the first place — because they didn’t have the proper zoning — they shouldn’t get to “break the law” and complete their projects just because the city messed up by issuing permits.
After receiving “red tags” to stop work, several builders have brought their projects into compliance, changing things like lot coverage, height, or roof type to meet the criteria set forth in a unanimously approved October 2022 downzoning.
The Board of Adjustment, a volunteer panel that considers variance requests, showed some grace to builder Akber Meghani on his Tyree Street duplex. Builder Danny Le, who is requesting a variance for his duplex on Victoria Avenue, will face the Board on Jan. 21.
Stemmons Freeway
Oh, what a mess occurred at 7800 N. Stemmons Freeway in 2024.
Dozens of city employees moved out of the antiquated Oak Cliff Municipal Center into 7800 N. Stemmons Freeway in December 2023. No one disputes that the Stemmons building had problems, including numerous fire code violations and upgrades in various stages of completion. Employees complained, got the attention of the Dallas City Council, and were moved back to OCMC in April.
Former Chief Building Official Andrew Espinoza, former Assistant City Manager Robert Perez, and former Assistant City Manager Majed Al-Ghafry stood before the Ad Hoc Committee on General Investigating and Ethics in May to answer why they moved employees into the building and why they left them there for months. All three men took some level of responsibility for the mess and attempted to explain that the disgruntled employees were overreacting and calling the media when there were no life safety issues at Stemmons. As noted by the “former” in their titles, all three of those city officials no longer work for the City of Dallas.
The latest plan for 7800 Stemmons Freeway is unknown. It’s been discussed in executive sessions, and it appears there’s a movement to sell the building, but they’ll still need a site to house the employees in the overcrowded Oak Cliff Municipal Center.
Pepper Square
It’s not highly unusual for residents in the upscale Dallas neighborhoods to oppose mixed-use development, particularly apartments going in near their homes. But when zoning consultants with Masterplan brought forth a plan from developer Henry S. Miller to repurpose the old, vacant Pepper Square shopping center, things got ugly.
The residents formed a coalition, Save Pepper Square, of several surrounding neighborhoods and asked for a compromise. Some of the more vocal opponents launched an effort to recall District 11 Councilmember Jaynie Schultz, who later said she would not seek re-election.
But they were able to bring the Pepper Square rezoning to a screeching halt — at least temporarily — when they testified before a judge that the developer didn’t follow the law in notifying the public about the proposed change. Save Pepper Square hired a Plano attorney and sued every single council member and City Plan Commission member. The group was granted a temporary injunction. So even though the rezoning had already been approved by the CPC, it has to go back for another hearing. That’s tentatively scheduled for Jan. 23.
