Dallas HERO Executive Director Pete Marocco pleaded with the Texas Senate’s Committee on State Affairs to “take bold, decisive steps quickly” to prevent city governments, such as Dallas, from undermining the will of the people and hiding public business from public view.
“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 Tuesday.
Marocco was referring to a move by a majority of council members advancing three propositions (K, M, and N) in a bid to undercut three proposed amendments stemming from a citizen-led campaign seeking to increase accountability on the part of City officials and bolster public safety resources.
The Supreme Court of Texas ruled last month that the Dallas City Council must remove three proposed charter amendments it placed on the November ballot.
Monty Bennett, the chairman and CEO of the Ashford group of companies and the publisher of The Dallas Express, testified that “when citizens attempt to change city charter amendments, they often face significant barriers.”
“The process is costly, time-consuming and prone to manipulation by local city officials,” Bennett added. “Even when amendments reach the ballot, the language is frequently altered to mislead voters, as seen in the Dallas case. Last-minute proposed charter amendments from the Dallas City Council members were introduced without public input, violating the open meetings act.”
The bipartisan nonprofit Dallas HERO, which organized the campaign, and a Dallas resident filed a lawsuit against the City after the council members passed their poison pill amendments, which would have overridden the public safety and accountability propositions if approved by voters.
“As the Supreme Court found, these were unlawful attempts, deliberately and intentionally to mislead and confuse voters. This is no small thing to be overlooked. This is a disturbing pattern across Texas with a clear need for reform,” Marocco testified.
Anthony Wilder, chairman of the Texas Government Accountability Association, said “there is a major problem of transparency and accountability” at the local municipal level and more oversight is needed.
Bennett, Marocco and Wilder testimony before the Committee of State Affairs came as part of a larger discussion on public trust in government, and how the state can better hold local municipalities to account for being transparent to taxpayers.
“The public deserves to know what the government is working on,” Bennett testified.
He “urged this committee to take bold action to restore integrity, transparency, and local governance members.”
If approved by voters, Dallas HERO’s three charter propositions would require the City to increase police pay, require roughly 1,000 more officers to be hired, bolster the Dallas Police & Fire Pension System, tie the city manager’s bonus pay to an annual resident survey, and enable citizens to sue City officials for failing to abide by the Dallas City Charter, Dallas City Code, or state laws.
Following the hearing, Marocco told DX, “The state legislature needs to take four key steps.