I have now spent close to six years on the Dallas City Council representing District 10, but this coming year is going to be by far the most difficult.
On Monday, March 18, the council heard a briefing on a possible city charter review. I am writing this on March 12, so I don’t know yet what the will of the council will be. But I do know why a charter revision is being considered.
Some in the city of Dallas feel that the current council manager form of government needs to be changed. As most of you know, we currently have a professional manager hired by the city council who runs the city and the council sets policy.
If the council feels that the manager is not doing a good job they can fire the manager and hire someone else.
Some feel that we need a strong mayoral form of government, in which the power of hiring and firing is in the hands of the mayor and, in essence, the mayor runs the city.
The city council is going to be asked to set up a Charter Review Commission to make recommendations to the council of what kind of changes they propose and then the council would set an election date for the citizens to decide if they want to change their form of government.
The second item on the agenda for March 18 is the police- and fire-pay petition. Because negotiations between the mayor and representatives of these groups failed, the city council will probably set an election date on May 4.
The interested parties are demanding a 17-percent pay boost that would require an additional $60 million per year to be added to the budget, necessitating a 10-cent hike in the tax rate if all other things were to remain equal.
The mayor tried to negotiate a 5-percent boost per year for three consecutive years. I feel the council would commit to that if the referendum fails May 4. I will be supporting mayor Miller’s proposal.
Also on the 18th we will have heard an update on the requests from additional city departments for the 2002 bond issue.
The current tally of requests comes to $443.6 million, with no money identified for economic development, flood protection and erosion, or parks and recreation (rumored to be in the $60 to $100 million range).
We can only handle $255 million without a tax rate increase. But, with an approximate 4.25 cent increase, we could handle $500 million.
I favor no increase, but I get the feeling that this council is in the mood for a bigger bond issue given the responses from the public at recent bond town-hall meetings. With the 10 cents for pay and 4.25 cents for bond, that is a 20-percent increase for city taxes. Oh, what a long year!
