Voters across Dallas County have been casting their ballots over the past week to determine a variety of governmental reforms, including multiple amendments that would change the City charter.
Among these potential reforms are three amendments brought forth by the local organization Dallas HERO, which, if passed, would create significant change within the local City government.
Dallas HERO is a nonprofit organization that helped bring forth these amendments, which are “focused on improving public safety and measures to hold our city leaders and city government accountable.”
Propositions S, T, and U were nicknamed the Dallas “HERO” amendments because the nonprofit collected roughly 169,000 City resident signatures to get them on the ballot, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Propositions S and U were passed by City voters, while Proposition T was the lone HERO amendment that voters rejected.
After the results became known, Dallas HERO took to social media, posting on X that “Most people don’t like the direction of our major cities.”
The passing of the two amendments appeared to highlight these feelings.
“It again proves Safety and Accountability are non-partisan issues,” added the nonprofit in the post.
Although some media organizations have claimed that these amendments were only passed due to uneducated voters, many people did their research and understood the benefits of implementing these reforms.
“I always do my homework,” Cipriana Guardado told The Dallas Morning News. “We need more police and we need the accountability for our city leaders.”
Candace Evans, founder and publisher of Candy’sDirt, took to X, posting her opinion about editorials written against Propositions S, T, and U, saying, “This morning I’m thinking of all the hysterical anti STU editorials written at @TexasTribune @DMagazine & across the local media landscape warning of the catastrophic three charter amendments STU… calling them stupid for short. That means these pubs called more than half of the city stupid, I guess, for voting for them.”
Proposition S grants Dallas citizens “standing to bring a lawsuit against the City, entitles them to seek declaratory and injunctive relief, and waives the City’s governmental immunity from suit and liability claims.”
Dallas voters passed Proposition S, with 197,523 (55.04%) voting in favor of the change and 161,329 (44.96%) voting against it.
Proposition U amends the charter to “require the City to spend no less than 50% of the annual revenue that exceeds the previous year’s annual revenue to fund the Dallas Police and Fire Pension and increasing starting salaries for Dallas police officers and require the City to have at least 4,000 officers.”
Proposition U resulted in the closest race of the three HERO amendments, with 183,450 (50.52%) voters casting their ballots in favor of the amendment and 179,658 (49.48%) voting against it.
The Dallas Police and Fire Pension has been making headlines recently due to concerns about the level of funding; however, as reported by The Dallas Express, the Dallas City Council approved a plan to fund the pension despite opposition from the Dallas Police Association.
Proposition T would have amended the Dallas City charter to create a yearly survey of “at least 1,400 Dallas residents” and tie the City Manager’s pay to the results of this survey. This amendment failed, however, with 198,769 (55.27%) voters casting their ballots against the change and 160,858 (44.73%) voting in favor of the amendment.
While some favored this change, former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert explained why he was against Proposition T during a forum hosted by The Dallas Express.
“Under this scenario, I can tell you if I was mayor, I would no longer trust the City manager. Because that City manager is all of a sudden, instead of taking dollars that should go to repair your street or improve sanitation, they’ll put in marketing programs to push the survey results,” Leppert said.
The HERO amendments also may serve as a blueprint for safety-conscious citizens to enact government changes in cities where crime and homelessness have impacted businesses and the quality of life of residents.
As the dust settles on the HERO accountability amendments, Dallas city officials, including five council members and at least four staffers, had already planned to travel to Tokyo to study Japan’s high-speed rail system, a trip expected to cost around $50,000, funded partly through hotel occupancy taxes, WFAA reported.
The trip’s purpose is to gather insights on rail infrastructure to inform future plans for a proposed Dallas-Houston high-speed rail.
Delegates will meet with Japanese rail officials, government leaders, and American diplomats, focusing on economic development around stations.