As of early May, Kimberly Bizor Tolbert has spent 100 days as the official Dallas city manager.
Technically, Tolbert served as interim city manager for more than half a year before being appointed to the position permanently by a 13-2 Dallas City Council vote on Jan. 22. She made history as the first Black woman to have that role.
In February 2024, former City Manager T.C. Broadnax announced that he would resign. Broadnax reportedly had a tense relationship with Mayor Eric Johnson and some members of the council, and he endured controversies, like when the City unintentionally deleted Dallas Police Department files containing evidence and investigations. He is now the Austin city manager.
We reached out to Tolbert’s staff for an interview, but we were unable to book an appointment with her by the press deadline. So, the following list of her major activities since being appointed was sourced from the web.
Public safety
In her first 100 days, Tolbert finalized two big hires — Daniel Comeaux as the new police chief and Justin Ball as the new Dallas Fire-Rescue chief. While Ball was promoted from within his department, Tolbert took a different approach to the police chief by hiring Comeaux, the former Drug Enforcement Administration’s Houston Field Division special agent in charge.
Tolbert is also reportedly working with developers on a police academy project that would include a training center and a public safety complex. Respectively, these facilities would have classrooms, reality-based training, a criminal justice center, an auditorium, an indoor multi-purpose training space, indoor and outdoor firearms training, a tactical village, and an emergency vehicle obstacle course.
The updated plan was presented to the Dallas City Council in April and drew some concern over the cost, which was about $150 million in March but wasn’t updated in April.
Real estate & permitting
In April, Tolbert decided to halt all city real estate purchases after the previous administration bought a $14 million office building with multiple fire code violations a few years ago. The issues with the building were discovered after some staffers moved into it. In her report, Tolbert said the building is no longer needed for permitting because of the new online land management system, and the space on North Stemmons Freeway will be sold. She is also working toward a comprehensive citywide real estate master plan.
That new online system is DallasNow, which was launched in May. DallasNow moves some functions of planning and development online, like submitting applications, plan reviews and issuing permits.
