The Texas Supreme Court has ruled three charter amendments passed by the Dallas City Council cannot show up on the November 5 ballot. The amendments drafted by elected officials go directly against a set of amendments placed on the ballot by a voter petition, certified by the city in July.
Texas Supreme Court Justice Brett Busby wrote in an opinion the propositions “contradict each other, and the ballot language as a whole will confuse and mislead voters.”
“Because the citizen-initiated propositions must appear on the ballot and the parties have agreed to the ballot language for those propositions, we conclude the proper remedy is to direct the city council not to include its duplicative propositions on the ballot,” Busby wrote in the opinion.
The group behind the amendments, Dallas HERO, successfully gained enough signatures to get the propositions on the ballot. The proposals, if passed, could dictate how many officers the city needs on its police force, tie the city manager’s performance to a resident survey and mandate excess revenue be used for public safety needs.
“This type of relief is rarely awarded. Something like this is granted for exceedingly egregious violations of the law by the government,” Pete Marocco, executive director of Dallas HERO Initiative, said in a Wednesday press release.
“The Supreme Court of Texas agreed with Dallas HERO that the Dallas City Council violated the law and should not have added its counterproposals to the ballot.”
In a seperate email sent to KERA, Marocco said the council members involved in the amendments — including District 7 Council Member Adam Bazaldua, District 6 Council Member Omar Narvaez and District 13 Council Member Gay Donnell Willis — should be investigated by the city's inspector general.
Marocco called the move a "shameful violation of [the] law."
"It was a public meeting, with a public vote," District 9 Council Member Paula Blackmon told KERA. "I would be happy to hear what he thinks we violated that warrants an investigation by the inspector general."
Members of the council have previously called the proposals “draconian” and have voiced concerns that the propositions could cost the city of Dallas tens of millions of dollars in funding, cause drastic cuts to city services — and make it harder to retain police officers.
“Overall, you would be looking at drastic, very extreme, cuts that we would have to make across the board,” Kimberly Tolbert, interim city manager, said in August. “And that’s not just day-to-day, but that’s a drastic cut in every single service we provide at the city.”
At an August council meeting to finalize the charter amendments, council members added the three propositions that contradict Dallas HERO’s proposals.
Proposition 11, if passed, would enshrine in the charter the council’s right to “the final determinations regarding appropriations of city funds,” and city employee wages.
A Dallas HERO initiative could tie city executive’s compensation to a survey filled out by residents.
Proposition 13 would add a charter section saying, “that nothing in the city charter is intended to waive the city’s governmental immunity from suit, liability, or damages.”
The measure is in response to the Dallas HERO initiative that would "grant citizen residents the power to go to court to force government officials to follow the law, including the Dallas City Charter and the Dallas City Code," according to the group.
Proposition 14 would clarify that the city council has the “final decision-making authority regarding the appointment, removal, and compensation of the city manager.
That proposition was in response to Dallas HERO’s initiative to tie the city manager’s performance to the resident survey.
Along with Marocco, Stefani Carter serves as Dallas HERO’s “honorary chair.” Carter sits on the Braemar Hotels and Resorts board of directors.
Cathy Cortina Arvizu filed the original lawsuit against most of the city council — except Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and District 12 Council Member Cara Mendelsohn.
Arvizu is a paralegal at the asset management firm, Ashford Inc, according to LinkedIn. Ashford is run by Monty Bennett, who also serves as the publisher for the Dallas Express.
Bennett is also the founder and chairman of Braemar Hotels and Resorts — the same company’s board that Carter sits on. Bennett has also donated funds to at least one Texas Supreme Court Justice earlier this year. He also contributed significant funds to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's campaign — most recently, a $100,000 donation in June 2023.
Paxton filed the amicus letter to bring the Supreme Court into the Dallas HERO lawsuit.
The city is facing the start of massive payments to the public safety pension system — which has been severely underfunded since 2017 — and a new budget to finalize at the end of September.
"You already saw with this budget, what the impact was," Blackmon said. "I had to go find $400,000 to keep a library open, right, that's where we are."
Blackmon told KERA the amendments would place more burden on the city's already strained budget.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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