Three former Dallas mayors oppose charter amendments that would bolster the city’s police department and empower citizens.
Mike Rawlings, Tom Leppert, and Ron Kirk wrote an op-ed published on Tuesday in The Dallas Morning News detailing their positions on proposed charter amendments. Among these positions was opposition to three citizen-driven amendments organized by the nonprofit Dallas HERO, which will be put to voters on the November ballot.
One of the amendments would require the City to hire roughly 1,000 police officers, increase police pay to competitive levels, and bolster the police and fire pension system. Another would tie financial incentives for the city manager position to an annual resident survey. The last proposal would allow citizens to sue City leaders who fail to abide by the Dallas City Charter, the Dallas City Code, and state law.
Ground Game Texas, a separate local group, also rallied signatures for a charter amendment to be put on the ballot. The proposition, if approved by voters, would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
The three former mayors wrote in opposition to all four citizen-led proposals.
“We do not support any of these amendments, both for legal and policy reasons,” they wrote. “We further believe these voter-led amendments do not reflect the way Dallas should operate or make policy for its citizens.”
“One proposition would loosen Dallas’ enforcement of marijuana violations, in contravention of state law,” they continued. “Others would undermine the City’s budgetary management of its police force and unduly interfere with the City Council’s oversight of city management.”
Pete Marocco, the executive director of Dallas HERO, said he was neither surprised nor concerned about this opposition.
“The prior mayors’ wholesale rejection, without any substantive discourse, of all citizen-led amendments smacks of elitism,” he told The Dallas Express. “These mayors were anti-police. They are a major reason we’re now losing more officers than we’re recruiting nearly every year.”
“If these mayors did their job to maintain a minimum police force, we wouldn’t be in this situation that now requires 169,000 citizens to create a floor for law enforcement and accountability,” he continued.
A prior City analysis conducted several years ago determined that a jurisdiction the size of Dallas needs roughly 4,000 officers to properly maintain public safety. The Dallas Police Department currently has only around 3,000 in the field.
Louis Darrouzet, CEO of the Metroplex Civic & Business Association, said citizen-driven petitions are not ideal but necessary to address City leaders’ failures.
“I agree with the other mayors that this is not the best way to get it done,” he told DX. “I’m sure every person who signed those ballot measures would’ve fixed those things to begin with, but they’re not [fixed]. And it’s not for a lack of complaining or bringing it to their attention. They just seem to not care or have their agenda.”
“This is the bed they made,” he continued. “They don’t like to be told what to do, even though they technically work for the people. And so the citizens take some of their authority away. Then their ego starts to rear its ugly head.”
Joseph Porter of the local activist group Keep Dallas Safe also expressed disappointment with the former mayors’ stance on the Dallas HERO propositions.
“It’s no wonder that the legacy politicians that helped run Dallas into the ground are upset that citizens are finally standing up against the scourge that is the radical anti-police establishment,” he said to DX. “Keep Dallas Safe supports the HERO initiative because it steps up where City leaders have failed. Dallas government will receive real accountability should these amendments pass.”