Election Day is one week away, and Dallas voters are set to consider three key charter amendments aimed at bolstering law enforcement and citizens’ rights.
The amendments, spearheaded by the nonprofit organization Dallas HERO, would allow residents to sue city officials, make the city manager’s salary performance-based, and increase pay for law enforcement.
Dallas HERO met the threshold to include the proposals on the ballot by the June deadline, raking in over 169,000 signatures—well above the requirement of at least 20,000 signatures for each.
On Tuesday evening, The Dallas Express held an event to discuss the propositions.
Dallas HERO’s first amendment, Proposition S, would allow “any resident of Dallas” to “bring an action against the City of Dallas to require the City to comply with any of the provisions” of city or state law.
“What we wanted to do was to … empower residents to make sure the attainability of the city by affording them the ability to quickly and inexpensively go to court, and, if the city is in violation, to get injunctive relief,” stated Attorney Art Martinez de Vara.
Martinez de Vara, the primary author and legal counsel for the HERO amendments, also said there would be a “60-day notice” to the city before a case is filed.
However, former Mayor Tom Leppert warned that the proposition could lead to more frivolous lawsuits against the city and remove sovereign immunity for the police department.
“Now, this is what the audience needs to understand. Decisions will be made by the courts in Dallas County,” stated Leppert. “My guess is nobody in this room is going to vote for the judges. They’re going to be deciding most of all the city municipal decisions that are going to be made because that’s where everything’s going to get thrown.”
Leppert instead said he believes the solution is to vote out people in the city that citizens oppose.
Proposition T ties compensation for the city manager to performance as reviewed by citizens through a community survey. A minimum of 1,400 surveys should be returned, with at least 100 from every city council district.
The city manager has the opportunity to receive potential “performance compensation” of up to 100 percent of their annual base salary for the preceding fiscal year.
According to Martinez de Vara, the city can increase the minimum number of surveys required to be returned.
Proposition U would necessitate that if the total revenue of the city exceeds the total actual annual revenue of the prior fiscal year, then no less than 50 percent will be used to fund the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System.
One of the amendment’s main objectives is to increase the total number of full-time sworn police officers to at least 4,000. Currently, the department comprises 3,640 sworn officers and 556 civilians.
In terms of salary negotiations, the proposition “essentially this just requires the city have a better opening offer for contracts with the Police Association, the Fire Association,” explained Martinez de Vara.
Leppert claimed that “the pension issue is not a real issue” and criticized other aspects of the proposition.
“It’s not going to impact either your recruitment or your turnover of officers going forward. So, let’s put that lock to the side,” said Leppert. “In terms of the defunding of the police. Nobody’s more against that than I am.”
Dallas HERO Executive Director Pete Marocco shot back during his presentation.
“All I hear from Tom Leppert is his ego,” said Marocco, adding, “I don’t hear anybody saying what they would do.”
The Dallas City Council had initially tried to stifle the citizen-led amendments earlier this year by proposing their own set of changes, including giving the city council total authority over the budget, granting legal immunity to officials, and controlling the city manager’s salary.
However, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in September that the citizen-led propositions must appear on the ballot and the city council’s “duplicative propositions” should not be included.
Marocco asked lawmakers before a hearing with the Texas Senate’s Committee on State Affairs to prevent city governments from trying to undermine citizens.
“In Dallas, City Council members attempted to undermine the will of 170,000 voters who signed a petition without a single word of advocacy,” Marocco testified on October 15, requesting that the committee “take bold, decisive steps quickly” to prevent similar situations.
After the event, Marocco told Texas Scorecard that he was optimistic about the amendments passing on November 5 but it would still be an uphill battle.
‘I’m confident that S, T, U give the people precisely the solution they’re looking for, but we’re still David vs. Goliath. We need everyone to show up and vote yes for S, T, and U, the last three propositions on the ballot. We will be fighting for every last vote,” said Marocco.
“Anyone in Dallas can see there’s no popular support for pumping more control and abuse of tax dollars back into a city council that doesn’t prioritize public safety,” he added.
