City Hall Roundup: White Rock Lake Beef and Police Pay Concerns
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Everyone at Dallas City Hall is back at work and not a moment too soon, as budget season heats up and city leaders look to craft a tax and spending plan for the coming fiscal year.
That’s not to say that there aren’t other newsworthy developments out of City Hall, but let’s face it, the budget is probably going to be the alpha and the omega until October.
In any case, here’s a budget story and a bit of a personality/personnel shakeup on the Dallas Park & Recreation Board.
Drama in District 9
A bitter beef between two rowing nonprofits based at White Rock Lake has resulted in friction between Council Member Paula Blackmon and her Dallas Park & Recreation board appointee Maria Hasbany, the latter of whom announced she was resigning at the end of September.
Robert Wilonsky at The Dallas Morning News reached out to all the parties involved and found that Dallas United Crew (DUC) was again trying to establish operations in the city-owned Filter Building and boathouse. White Rock Rowing (WRR), which offices there per a contract with the city, has resisted sharing the space for a number of practical and historic reasons.
Apparently, Blackmon has taken it upon herself to investigate the situation, ostensibly in support of DUC’s push to merge with WRR, with the former claiming their current accommodations are at capacity. The District 9 council member, purportedly skeptical of WRR’s operations despite a recent audit confirming contract compliance, began directly requesting financial and operational records from all the water activity nonprofits at the lake, sidelining Hasbany in the process.
“Unfortunately, my councilperson has taken an adversarial, untenable position regarding the Park Department and has repeatedly refused to collaborate with me as their appointee,” Hasbany wrote in an email to multiple area stakeholders. “It has deteriorated to the point that makes it impossible to work together effectively going forward.”
Hasbany went on to claim when speaking with Advocate Lakewood/East Dallas that Blackmon was essentially running with the ball but “couldn’t really articulate what the end goal was and then, as part of that, just completely took me out of the process.”
For her part, Blackmon has raised the question of operational efficiencies at White Rock Lake.
“I think I’ve outlined what I’m wanting — a baseline understanding of what is happening there because the next step of this is to … hire a consultant to look at are we maximizing our facilities for our community and is there a better way to do it,” she told Advocate.
Blackmon has appointed former plan commissioner Michael Jung to replace Hasbany when she leaves next month. The council member has also expressed that the buck stops with her when it comes to White Rock Lake and she has personally taken the project on.
“This is my project. It is mine. At the end of the day, if something goes wrong out there, it’s me who gets the emails. It’s me who gets the story written,” she told Wilonsky.
Mendelsohn Says Proposed Police Starting Pay Isn’t Enough
City Manager Kimberly Tolbert’s proposed budget for FY 2025-2026 includes a big boost for police in the form of increased starting pay, more in contributions to the police and firefighter pension system, and funding for a new police academy at UNT Dallas.
Per the city charter following the passage of the controversial HERO amendment Proposition U, Dallas has to maintain a starting salary (including non-pension benefits) for police that’s among the top five highest for a city within Collin, Dallas, Denton, Rockwall, and Tarrant Counties. Tolbert’s budget includes a “Five-County Region-Adjusted Starting Salary” of $81,232.
However, Council Member Cara Mendelsohn (District 12) is arguing that $81,232 is an outdated figure that isn’t competitive enough and doesn’t comply with Proposition U. In a memo, she claimed 20 police departments in the North Texas area currently have higher starting salaries, noting that the survey that informed Tolbert’s proposed salary was conducted early this year.
She proposed that a new survey limited to “within the Metroplex” be conducted as soon as possible.
“The narrower scope will allow for more precise and relevant data, ensuring that any budget amendments directly align with current market conditions and competitive pressures,” Mendelsohn wrote.
More money for police will necessarily mean less money for other city services or programs. Cuts and departmental consolidation in the interest of efficiency are already cooked into Tolbert’s proposed balanced budget, following a projected $36.5 million shortfall earlier in the summer.
