Coalition of current, former leaders warn against 3 Dallas charter amendments

Four former Dallas mayors stood together in opposition to three charter amendments on the November ballot.

The amendments are a part of eighteen amendments Dallas voters will decide on November 5.

The former mayors were joined Wednesday by thirteen current members of the Dallas City Council and several former city council members along with elected officials at both the county and state level.

The coalition started the first formal opposition to a Dallas charter amendment by launching “Vote No Dallas” to urge voters to reject charter amendments labeled “S, T and U” on the ballot.

Laura Miller, who served as Dallas mayor from 2002 to 2007 called the response “unified” of leaders responding to “a crisis in our city.”

“I have never seen anything that is a bigger threat to the safety and security of our city than these three charter amendments,” Miller said.

Supporters of the charter amendments, Dallas Hero, said the opponents of the ballot initiatives lack a “solution, a proposal or plan.”

Pete Marocco, executive director of Dallas Hero, told NBC 5 that 170,000 signatures collected from Dallas residents should speak louder than the establishment of Dallas leadership.

“Dallas voters are fed up and now will have a choice to make a strong, clear declaration of war on crime and City Hall mismanagement, and we are confident they will do so at the voting booth,” Marocco said in a statement.

One charter amendment would require 50% of future revenue to be set aside for the Dallas Police and Fire Pension, along with hiring 900 additional police officers to bring the city to 4,000 officers.

Former Dallas Police Chief David Brown says everyone wants more police but the proposed amendment takes away city control and flexibility on how to allocate financial resources if a specified additional amount has to go to public safety.

“This mandates budgets set aside for police whether they fill those vacancies or not,” Brown said.

DPD has approximately 3,070 officers, according to figures presented to the city council in September.

Interim Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert allocated funding to hire 250 additional officers in the recently passed 2025 fiscal year budget, which took effect October 1.

A second amendment would tie city performance compensation for the city manager to the results of a community survey of at least 1,400 residents. The charter amendment would also allow the city manager to be fired based on the survey.

Former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings described the amendments to NBC 5 as “chocolate-covered rat poison.”

“Some of the intent may be OK but the way it's worded is really going to hurt this city and hurt taxpayers,” Rawlings said. “So, .01% of the city of Dallas will decide if somebody (city manager) stays or goes? This is crazy.”

A third amendment would allow citizens to sue elected officials if they believed they weren’t following city ordinances or state law, waiving governmental immunity for lawsuits.

Rawlings said Dallas would become the only city in the country with similar stipulations in its charter to reduce the power of representatives elected by the people.

“No city has ever tried to govern from referendums,” Rawlings said. “You govern from representative government.”

Ron Kirk, who served as Dallas Mayor from 1995 to 2002, said if approved, each charter amendment would cause considerable damage to how the city operates.

"This is rolling a hand grenade into city hall and destroying it," Kirk said.