Dallas Neighborhood Leaders Urge Enforcement of Board, Commission Term Limits

A group of more than 80 neighborhood leaders is calling out what they say is a violation of the city charter: appointees who serve on boards and commissions past their terms’ expiration date.

City code mandates that board and commission appointees are limited to serving no more than four consecutive two-year terms. 

The example often referenced when the conversation turns to appointees who have overstayed their welcome is City Plan Commission Chair Tony Shidid, who has served in his current position since 2013 and was most recently reappointed to a two-year term by District 5 Councilmember Jaime Resendez in 2019. Although Shidid is not mentioned by name in a letter to City Council members demanding the immediate resignation of appointees serving on expired terms, several signatories have expressed interest in Shidid’s exit.

Resendez hasn’t commented publicly other than to tell NBC 5 via text message, “I will defer to the city attorneys for any legal conclusions or guidance moving forward regarding the letter.” Word on the street is that there appears to be an interpretation of the city code that this particular mandate does not apply to the City Plan Commission, but we haven’t found anyone in an official capacity to confirm. 

I asked Shidid about his many years of service a few months ago and he declined to comment on the record. I suspect he’ll resign if deemed necessary, but there isn’t exactly a line snaking around Marilla Street of qualified community leaders vying to chair the City Plan Commission. Most people don’t wake up thinking about impervious surfaces and residential proximity slopes, nor do they have the time or the willingness to spend countless hours in all-day meetings twice a month and study cases and attend town halls in their spare time. 

Civil appellate attorney Mike Northrup of Cowles Thompson, who lives in the Belmont Addition of Lower Greenville in City Council District 14, said he was asked to serve on the CPC years ago and declined because “it’s a huge time commitment and I wasn’t at a place in my life when I was willing to do it,” he said. 

“Maybe one day I would do it, but I’m not there yet,” he added. 

Mike Northrup and the Dallas Neighborhood Coalition

Northrup circulated the petition referencing appointee term limits. His neighborhood is in a conservation district and isn’t currently under any threat of teardowns, gentrification, or incompatible development. So why does he care who chairs the CPC? I asked him. 

“The Neighborhood Coalition of Dallas has certainly seen the impacts of board and commission members who have overstayed their terms,” he said. “The one that is most prominent is Tony Shidid. He is in a very powerful place as the chair of the CPC because he appoints all the members of the subcommittees and has the power to influence the direction of those just by virtue of his appointments.” 

The CPC is a quasi-judicial board that makes recommendations to the City Council. 

Many didn’t like the way the CPC handled the update of the City’s ForwardDallas 2.0 comprehensive land use plan and controversial zoning cases like Pepper Square, which is still under review and could be considered again by the plan commission as early as this Thursday. The CPC chair also sets agendas and determines what issues — such as last week’s parking reform — warrant a special workshop. 

Northrup said it’s likely there are appointees who have sat past their term limits on smaller, less influential boards such as the Municipal Library Board or Senior Affairs Commission.

CandysDirt.com filed a Freedom of Information Act request Tuesday seeking a list of appointees who had exceeded the four-two-year term cap. We did not receive a response by deadline. The document below was provided Jan. 27 in response to our request.

Will the Dallas Neighborhood Coalition Sue the City? 

In the Neighborhood Coalition letter to Dallas City Council members, Northrup pointed out that voters approved in November a charter amendment (Proposition S) that “gives standing to Dallas citizens to bring suit to enforce state laws, the city charter, and city ordinances where those laws are not being followed by the City.”

“My thinking on it all along had been that the council would do the right thing,” Northrup told CandysDirt.com. “I think some of them have said, ‘We need to sit up and take notice,’ but I don’t think any of them have figured out what they need to take notice of.”

The public also approved, via Proposition E, term limits for council members requiring that once a council member has served four consecutive two-year terms they can’t come back and run for the same seat again, ever. 

Even if a lawsuit isn’t filed over the board appointee term limits, it will likely become a campaign issue ahead of the May council elections, Northrup said. In his letter, the attorney insisted that “all holdovers serving in excess of the time allowed by the City’s Charter and ordinances, be asked to resign immediately, or barring such resignation, be removed immediately.”

“Every day that these individuals serve without authority to do so undermines the public confidence in the work product of the boards and commissions in question, and it puts that same work product at risk for invalidation,” Northrup said. “This call for compliance is not a result of the performance of any of the volunteers serving the City or about their motives. Rather, this is about the City and City leaders following the law. If ordinary citizens are to have faith in their elected officials and trust in their City government, our elected and appointed officials must recognize that their failure to abide by the City’s own Charter and ordinances is a fundamental breach of the public trust. Our City, including its elected and appointed leaders, must not be above the law.”