Kleberg residents seek City of Dallas improvements

The Dallas Kleberg neighborhood residents are banding together to fight for more attention from Dallas City Hall.

Kleberg is a finger of the far southeast Dallas city limits on both sides of the US 175 C.F. Hawn Freeway that was annexed into the city in 1978.

Resident Nancy Bingham is a former Dallas Independent School District Trustee who represented Kleberg.

“It’s a forgotten area because we’re so far away from the central hub of Dallas that people tend to think we’re not a part of Dallas,” Bingham said.

The area still has a country feel that some residents prefer, but also newer suburban-style subdivisions.

It is a target for illegal dumping, very close to the home of Kleberg Neighborhood Association and Crime Watch President David Carranza.

“And then we get cited because there’s junk in the street. It’s like, why? We didn’t bring that there,” Carranza said.

Parts of Kleberg are still waiting for city sanitary sewer service after being annexed many decades ago.

Many old, narrow roads need major repair and improvement. 

A former railroad right of way along Kleberg Road was to become a recreation trail like other parts of Dallas already have.

“When they bring a new nice recreation trail into the area it helps economically, it helps the tax base,” Resident Bill Freeman said.

Resident Jessica Ramirez lives in one of the very large Kleberg mobile home communities on Lawson Road that the Kleberg activists say account for 85% of the mobile homes in Dallas County.

Ramirez said thousands of mobile homes in that area don’t count as traditional ‘rooftops’ to attract the kind of stores and community investment that other areas have.

“We only have one school. There’s no parks, no libraries that are accessible to some of the kids out there,” Ramirez said.

The Kleberg activists gathered at the Kleberg Recreation Center on Edd Road, where half of the gym is closed, with no floor and big cracks in the walls.

“It’s the foundation. The ground is shifting. Once we fix the foundation, we can fix the floor,” Dallas Parks and Recreation Supervisor John King said.

King said more than $1 million for that work is set aside.

He welcomed the activists at the rec center Thursday.

"For them to come out and be vocal that’s what we encourage," King said.

But the activists said Kleberg residents have not been vocal enough in the past.

They said other big improvements planned for Kleberg roads, trails and public facilities in 2007 never happened.

They are now crusading to be included in the $1.1 billion public improvement referendum the City of Dallas plans for 2024.

“We want to make sure when bond money comes in for 2024, that money is put aside for that plan. We want to have our trail,” Carranza said.

As the rest of North Texas grows, some new development is happening in Kleberg, too.

A big new apartment complex is under construction on Beltline Road far away from any freeway.

The activists complain a traffic signal at the nearby Seagoville Road intersection has not been completed to guard safety at the location.

They said the City of Dallas is missing the opportunity to capture more of the new construction that is racing further east to Kaufman County on US 175.

“We are just blowing that tax base because we are not getting economic development money into this area to improve the infrastructure,” Bingham said.

Kleberg is the far east tip of Dallas City Council District 8.

A public meeting for input on the bond referendum was held Thursday night well west of Kleberg at the Singing Hills Recreation Center in District 8.

Another one will be held on Thursday, October 5, at the Kleberg Recreation Center, 1515 Edd Road, just north of US 175. The activists hope many of their neighbors will attend.

"We want our piece of the pie," Bingham said.

Many other Dallas city departments and neighborhoods also compete for that bond money.