Officials in Dallas appeared to throw cold water on a proposed charter amendment that would make the city manager position more accountable to residents.
One of three charter amendment propositions stemming from a petition campaign organized by the nonprofit Dallas Hero would tie city manager bonus “performance compensation” to the results of an annual community survey that polls residents on the degree to which they believe crime, homelessness, litter, aggressive solicitation/panhandling, and infrastructure/streets are issues in the City.
Performance compensation would be separate from base salary; however, “If on two or fewer issues no more than 30% of all responses are ‘Moderate Problem’ or ‘Major Problem,’ then the City Manager will be terminated within 30 days by the City Council and shall be ineligible for reappointment as City Manager for a period of ten years.”
Based on the survey results, the awarding of performance compensation and exposure to potential termination kicks in when the “City Manager has been on the job for at least 18 months as of January 1 of the current year.”
In a statement to The Dallas Express, Dallas HERO’s executive director, Peter Marocco, said the charter amendment “holds the city manager accountable,” noting that the metrics in the survey correspond with “the five most important issues to residents.”
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the City of Dallas has contracted Baker Tilly to conduct a candidate headhunt for the city manager position, which was vacated earlier this year by T.C. Broadnax. During Broadnax’s seven-year tenure as city manager, there have been substantial increases in crime and tax collection, high levels of homelessness, periodic debacles and inefficiencies in permitting, and high-profile blunders involving sensitive City data.
Despite Broadnax’s track record, interim City Manager Kim Tolbert and multiple members of the Dallas City Council claimed during a council meeting on Wednesday that the charter amendment would discourage quality candidates from seeking the position.
Tolbert said she thought the amendment would be “detrimental,” speculating that the survey results could be manipulated.
“A survey is different from a poll, and you could really activate a PR campaign. And it’s pretty clear that if you don’t reach that threshold, you will be terminated,” she said. “And so I would think if I was looking for a job, I wouldn’t come here. And so I would think the talent pool would shrink. And that’s just my thoughts because we want to hire the best.”
In defending the proposition, Marocco called Tolbert a “typical bureaucrat,” claiming that she was being “tee’d up and protected for the position and does not want to be held to a standard of results.
Council Members Carolyn King Arnold (District 4), Gay Donnell Willis (District 13), and Paul Ridley (District 14) also voiced their skepticism over the wisdom of the proposed measure.
“I wonder how many candidates would be interested in this job if they knew that they were going to have a gun to their head based upon an anonymous city survey, that they might be terminated at the drop of a hat,” Ridley said.
Arnold seemed to criticize the notion that a resident survey was a reasonable way to evaluate a city manager’s performance, calling it “dangerous.”
“These are folks on the outside. They don’t even work here on a day to day. I’m like, what do you know about that city manager? … So now, if [I was] a qualified, bona fide, certified professional city manager with credentials, I wouldn’t come to Dallas, Texas. Based on what I’m looking at … I’m not going to uproot my family to come here to be subjected to this.”
In response to Arnold and Ridley’s comments, Marocco said to DX, “A city manager for a $4.65 billion budget should be held to a transparent standard of measurement and results. I can think of nothing worse than a professional lazy bureaucrat peddling failed status quo deterioration and hook-ups to give new revenue to their buddies.”
For her part, Willis appeared to take issue with the metrics the proposed community survey would cover.
“A group is predetermining the City’s priorities when it comes to a city manager. … I mean, what kind of culture do you create at City Hall for 15,000 employees, where they want to show up to work every day for our residents with a good attitude? How do you retain your key leadership? That’s something a city manager does that does not show up on a survey. You know, how are you working in crisis response? How do you proactively communicate with a city council? How do you design a budget? The list is endless, and it just doesn’t show up on a survey.”
Willis’ remarks prompted Marocco to tell DX:
“It’s impossible to take [her] seriously when she fakes reading a half-page amendment but just makes up half-wit soundbites. The priority issues found by residents in the survey are crime, infrastructure, homelessness, aggressive panhandling, and litter. If Willis paid any attention to residents or the proposal’s language, she’d know they told her this. The amendment is practical accountability.”
The Dallas City Council will be convening again on Wednesday, August 14, to discuss and act on four proposed charter amendment propositions stemming from citizen-led petitions. Dallas HERO organized three of the four.