The specter of a potential Las Vegas Sands casino looms large over Irving politics and is shaping up to play a major role in the City Council races.
This is maximally felt in Sergio Porres’ bid for City Council District 2, where he is campaigning to replace Brad LaMorgese, one of the deciding votes against the recent gaming rezoning measure.
Porres spoke to The Dallas Express and described his vision this way: “I want Irving to be a Mecca of family values and culture.”
“This race is important because it’s the opportunity for the citizens of Irving to get the representation that they’ve been missing for a decade or two,” added Porres.
The lack of representation stems from what Porres sees as corporate and special interest capture of the Irving City Council. He described the recent battle of over rezoning for gaming and a possible Las Vegas Sands Casino in Irving as “the latest example in a long history in which the council has served as the rubber stamp for developers, that the Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce is eager to support, because they see a short-term economic benefit.”
More than just opposing casinos, Porres said that he would have supported City Councilman Luis Canosa’s motion to add casino gaming to a prohibited use list.
Porres believes that if the city does not prohibit casino gaming, the state may take control of the issue by pursuing the project.
“The reason it’s so important that we put this item on the prohibited use list for that rezoning is that if the state legislature takes this up in the near future, which is uncertain, they tend to include preemptive language in their laws,” he explained.
Ultimately, Canosa’s motion failed for lack of a second.
“I think Councilmember John Bloch had the best solution, which was we need to go back to square one and take up this rezoning request from the very beginning and know exactly what the City Council is going to vote on,” said Porres.
Porres was partly referencing the shifting position of Sands representatives, such as Andrew Abboud, who explicitly stated that Sands was only pursuing a destination resort, but that a gaming rezoning was desirable for the company.
Casinos were not the only interests Porres saw as threatening the integrity of Irving’s pro-family culture.
He recalled being told that only 38% of the housing units in Irving are owner-occupied. He commended the present council for more aggressively negotiating with developers in recent years on apartment developments. Porres said many of the developers “don’t care about the residents. They don’t particularly care about the state of the apartment complexes that they operate and are just interested in squeezing as much money as they can from the tenants.”
Building on this thought, Porres described the apartment owners as taking advantage of both the tenants and city resources. The candidate said the tenants get behind on rent while code violations skyrocket, and “the majority of our 911 service calls come from apartments.”
Turning to transportation, Porres expanded his vision.
“DART is a highway for vagrancy to come in from Dallas and we see the effects of this all over the place… [South Irving] is most affected. So I would like to see we either need to increase security on DART or renegotiate entirely our involvement in it.”
Porres said he was confident the people of Irving are not getting $100 million worth of benefits from the transportation program. He added, “Some of our adjacent cities have moved to a subsidized rideshare program, which would provide much better service to the people that actually need DART to conduct their normal business.”
Porres’ vision also encompasses art.
“I want to see our arts program become something of a magnet… The Irving Arts Center is often unused,” Porres said, before noting that Irving needs somewhere for talented young people like members of the MacArthur High School Band to go after graduation.
The stakes could be high in Porres’ race.
The setback suffered by the Las Vegas Sands, which ultimately saw the casino developer request the rezoning measure be withdrawn on March 20, had many elements. At every public hearing, there was almost unanimous public opposition to the casinos.
The University of Dallas lodged a legal objection to the rezoning that would have raised the number of votes required to pass a rezoning measure in the city council. The council appeared to have five votes lined up against the Casino project.
However, the state law that gave the university the ability to object could change after this legislative session, and the city council’s membership will shift, although it is unclear in which direction.
Porres’ opponent is David Pfaff, board member emeritus of the Irving Schools Foundation and former chairman of the Irving Chamber of Commerce.
“I’m running for Irving City Council Place 2 to move our city forward!” Pfaff’s campaign website states.
Pfaff’s website addresses issues almost entirely different from those in DX‘s interview of Porres.
Rather than casinos, apartments, and DART, Pfaff highlights continuing the Road to the Future program “to maintain and improve our streets” and “fully support[ing] police, fire, and EMS to ensure quick response times and safe neighborhoods.”
Three of the eight bullets in his platform concern business. One says that Pfaff wants to “attract significant business investments to create jobs, boost our economy, and keep taxes lower.” At the same time, another adds that he wants “innovative development opportunities” for Irving.