Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson is at odds with City Manager T.C. Broadnax over next year’s $1.1 billion bond program and whether the City should proceed using recommended allocations from staff or a council-appointed task force.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, two sets of proposed bond allocations were presented to the Dallas City Council last Wednesday — one recommendation came from City staff and another from the Community Bond Task Force (CBTF).
At the end of the briefing, Broadnax said he would proceed using staff recommendations as the basis for determining how the money from the 2024 bond program will be allocated.
“Our assumption will be when we walk away, the work we’ll do will be based on the staff’s levels of recommendations unless I hear differently, as it relates to how we’ll move forward with any adjustments and use that as the baseline,” he said.
However, Mayor Johnson is contending that the council should rather use the CBTF recommendations as its starting point, arguing that the task force’s recommendations were determined with extensive public input.
“In early 2023, Dallas City Council members appointed a total of 90 volunteers, representing communities across our city, to the [CBTF] and five related subcommittees. These City Council appointees spent eight months reviewing data, debating priorities, and gathering public input — in both English and Spanish — from thousands of Dallas residents,” the mayor wrote to Broadnax in a memo obtained by The Dallas Express.
“This deliberative process resulted in the group’s consensus on funding levels and projects they recommended for inclusion in the planned $1.1 billion 2024 Bond Program,” Johnson wrote.
The mayor further noted that the staff recommendations presented to the council on Wednesday “include substantial cuts to arts, libraries, parks, economic development, and flood control from what was proposed by the representatives for the people of Dallas.”
City staff have recommended the following allocations for the bond program:
- Streets and transportation — $532 million
- Parks and recreation — $225 million
- Public safety facilities — $88 million
- Housing — $70 million
- Flood protection and storm drainage — $50 million
- Cultural arts facilities — $49 million
- City facilities — $44 million
- Economic development — $30 million
- Libraries — $11 million
The recommendations from CBTF, presented by task force chair Arun Agarwal, are as follows:
- Streets and transportation — $375 million
- Parks and recreation — $350 million
- Public safety facilities — $88 million
- Flood control and storm drainage — $75 million
- Economic development — $73 million
- Cultural arts facilities — $59 million
- Libraries — $28 million
- City facilities — $26 million
- Housing — $25 million
Mayor Johnson was not present for Wednesday’s briefing, which he said in the memo was “due to a medical reason.” However, he said he did watch the meeting as he was “keenly interested in the discussion.”
“I was very surprised that at the end of the meeting, you pronounced that the Dallas City Council would disregard the task force’s recommendation and move forward instead with city staff’s recommendation as a starting point for future discussions,” he wrote.
“As a reminder, this is absolutely not the decision of the city manager or city staff,” Johnson continued. “While we always appreciate staff input, this is a policy decision that belongs first to the Dallas City Council and then ultimately to the people of Dallas, who must approve spending more than $1 billion — their hard-earned taxpayer dollars — on investments in our city.”
Johnson also noted that while Broadnax initially proposed the creation of the task force, its appointees were appointed by the elected members of the Dallas City Council.
“To throw out the [CBTF]’s work at this point would be a grave mistake, and it would be incredibly disrespectful to the volunteers who gave their time and to the members of the public who took part in this process,” he said. “Therefore … please ensure that future briefings and voting items on the 2024 Bond Program utilize the [CBTF] recommendations as a starting point.”
Agarwal mentioned Broadnax’s remarks during a meeting of the Dallas Park and Recreation Board, of which he is currently president.
“It was a dishonor to 90 volunteers who gave their time, and it seems like it was planned by staff like that because they did not even want to give me a briefing,” said Agarwal. “They just wanted to have a briefing where I sit next to them and listened to what they proposed, and I refused to do that.”
Broadnax also attempted to prevent Agarwal from presenting the CBTF recommendations to the council, as reported by D Magazine.
The Dallas City Council will continue to refine the $1.1 billion bond program over the next few months before putting the proposal before Dallas voters. It has not yet been determined whether the bond election will be held in May or November of next year.