A Dallas voter is suing members of the city council over a slate of charter propositions that could set police hiring mandates, allocate excess revenue to pay for public safety and tie city official performance to a community survey.
Cathy Cortina Arvizu, who filed the suit against almost the entire city council, alleges the city tampered with the ballot language initially submitted by the group who started the voter-led petitions.
“This case is about deliberate and intentional governmental interference with the election process by manipulating ballot language which disproportionately affects members of protected classes,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit goes on to accuse council members of expressing “outrage that citizens would exercise their rights to direct popular participation in lawmaking” during an early August meeting.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and District 12 Council Member Cara Mendelsohn were the only two elected officials left off the lawsuit. Both Johnson and Mendelsohn have championed more resources for public safety — including more officers and increased funding.
KERA reached out to both Johnson and Mendelsohn for comment about why their names were left off the lawsuit.
“I assume it is because I didn’t vote to support those amendments,” Mendelsohn said in a text.
KERA has not received comment from Johnson’s office on the issue. KERA also reached out to District 9 Council Member Paula Blackmon, who is named in the lawsuit. Blackmon said in a text she doesn’t “comment on legal actions.”
The lawsuit includes multiple exhibits and cites comments made by council members during two August meetings where the initiatives were discussed.
Carolyn King Arnold, who represents District 4, is quoted in the suit as saying, “If it was left up to me, no one from the outside of this city limits would be able to come here, speak to us, and tell us how to run the business of the City of Dallas.”
Multiple council members commented on the speakers who showed up in early August to voice support for the amendments. Some of those speakers listed addresses outside the city of Dallas, according to the registered speakers list — including the executive director of the group who brought the petitions forward.
The lawsuit also alleges that “several members of the city council have conducted secret meetings in an effort to unlawfully alter the language.” The attaches exhibit is a letter sent from the executive director of Dallas HERO, the group behind the voter petitions.
Pete Marocco, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, leads Dallas HERO — and signed off on the letter alleging council member misconduct. The organization says it is a “citizen-led coalition to help reform city hall.”
According to press releases from the group, Stefani Carter is Dallas HERO’s “honorary chair.” Carter sits on the Braemar Hotels and Resorts board of directors.
Arvizu is a paralegal at the asset management firm, Ashford Inc, according to LinkedIn. Ashford is run by Monty Bennet, who also serves as the publisher for the Dallas Express.
Bennet is also the founder and chairman of Braemar Hotels and Resorts — the same company’s board that Carter sits on.
The charter amendments, if passed by Dallas voters in November, would create an obligation for the city to hire hundreds more police officers.
During an early August meeting, Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said there are consequences to the hiring mandates.
“When it comes to hiring 900 officers in one fell swoop, that does come with several administrative challenges for us in one year,” Garcia said. “Recruiting is one part of this, but just as important…is retention.”
Garcia said that even if the department meets its current hiring goal of 250 new officers, with at least 190 officers leaving the department annual, reaching 4,000 officer total would take about 15 years. Garcia emphasized the need for a “slow growth” of the police department.
“When you look at that, to me, the 250 that we talk about is something feasible…but more than that becomes issues with the staffing that we have,” Garcia said. “We’d be robbing Peter to pay Paul with regards to training.”
Kimberly Tolbert, who servers as the interim city manager, told council members that the amendments could result in massive cuts to other city services to fund the obligations.
“Overall, you would be looking at drastic, very extreme, cuts that we would have to make across the board,” Tolbert said. “And that’s not just day-to-day, but that’s a drastic cut in every single service we provide at the city.”
That could include cuts to code compliance enforcement, animal services, the city’s parks and recreation system — and street improvements.
During a mid-August council meeting, Art Martinez de Vara, Dallas HERO’s attorney, told the council he had prepared remarks about the ballot language — but said he had been working with the City Attorney’s Office during the day to fix that.
“Its my understanding that that would be proposed, we recommend that you please adopt that language,” de Vara said during the meeting.
Despite the council’s backlash to the amendment — and the budgetary concerns voiced by other city officials — there wasn’t a choice whether the items made it on the ballot. Now, Dallas voters will have the final say come November.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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