The city of Dallas could pay just $1 to lease land from the University of North Texas System for a new police training facility. And according to the contract, it’s a 40-year lease — with options for decades more.
The contract also says the city will use another $20 million in state grants and $70 million “from public/private partnership funds” to complete the project. If the city can’t come up with the partnership funds, the contract states it has until May 2026 to figure out how to pay for that part of the project.
The deal comes after Dallas voters approved $50 million in bond funds to build the facility, during the May election. Activists voiced concerns over building the training facility in an area of the city with a dark history of community and police tension.
One “Stop Cop City” organizer told WFAA earlier this year, that community members are worried the planned facility could disproportionately impact southern Dallas — and that there should be more investment in solutions to crime, other than hiring and training more officers.
Before the bond was passed earlier this year, two Dallas pastors with strong ties to southern Dallas, voiced their support for the package. That included the millions for the DPD training facility.
“The training facility is very much needed because…we lose a lot of police [officers] to the suburb and to other areas,” Rev. Jerry Christian, the senior pastor at Kirkwood Temple CME, said at the late-April press conference. “This training facility is a way of keeping our police.”
The city council approved the architectural contract for the facility in mid-August. At that meeting, one resident showed up to oppose the approval.
“This $140 million-dollar regional police compound would be located in a predominately Black and Brown community in Oak Cliff,” Britney English, a District 3 resident, said during the meeting. “The amount of police presence will drastically increase from this facility.”
English said the location could lead to a “higher rate of surveillance, profiling and arrests of Black and Brown people.”
Earlier this year, college campuses across the country became the epicenter of chaos and heightened police tactics against pro-Palestinian activists and students. English said building the training facility near a campus could cause students to rethink engaging in a decades-old tradition.
“Locating this facility on UNT Dallas’ campus will undoubtedly intimidate students and faculty from using their First Amendment right to protest in the future,” English said.
The contract with the UNT System comes just days after city officials learned Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia would be resigning his position — and moving to Austin to become an assistant city manager.
The department has been facing recruitment and retention issues and a grossly underfunded police and fire pension system. In November, Dallas voters will also decide on three charter amendments that would significantly impact the police department.
Those amendments, placed on the ballot with a voter-petition from a group called Dallas HERO, 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.
The contract is slated for approval during Wednesday’s city council meeting.
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