You know, an hour from now and we'll call to order the special call
meeting at ten oh three. So we are now, uh, in the
special call meeting, and I'll turn it over to our city manager, um,
to lead us through our briefing agenda for today. Madam city manager. Thank
you, mr. Be and good morning to the city council. The first item on the agenda for the special call meeting
is a presentation on the financial analysis and funding considerations
for priority of our public safety facilities, potential relocation of
9 1 1 and our emergency operation center potential repair plans
for city hall and potential relocation. All of these items
have previously been briefed and discussed with the city council, either an open session
or executive session, and we were asked to return to discuss financial
considerations in a much more deeper perspective and be able to bring
that back to you. I do wanna take an opportunity to
make some additional comments.
since 1978, when dallas city hall opened, the city has historically underinvested
and underfunded maintenance repairs and modern updates in this building.
we understand why the focus has always been
on making sure that the priorities of our residents, whether public safety,
parks, libraries, and streets were important, and these
priorities, united councils to pass budgets and fund fund programs
that supported those priorities. Now, 48
years later, in 2026, you face a huge
decision because of those priorities.
and so I wanna give you a quick reminder of the process.
in may and june of 20 25, 6 months after I was appointed
as the interim city manager, I brought to this council a
briefing, documenting the urgent need to reinvest in our
public facilities, including city hall. In
august of 2025, mayor johnson directed the council finance
committee to examine city hall's conditions and began exploring
financially responsible options. In october, 2025,
staff engaged outside experts who came and reported on deferred
maintenance needs and structural repairs, roof, hvac, electrical
and plumbing, and we provided to this city council and estimate between
152,000,340 5 million
in november of 2025. This council directed the
city manager to evaluate the possibility of how we could look at
key other city departments and where they operated, and whether lease
and or buying or building office space was the essential.
in december of 2025, I engaged the dallas
economic development corporation and a team of more than 80 professional experts
who spent hundreds of hours inside this building. They inspected
systems and structures so that we could move from, from the
evidence that we were told did not have facts and bring the data
to the city council. In february of 2026,
those findings were presented first to the finance committee and
later to the full city council. The analysis concluded
that restoration and repairs to the building, just to bring it up to code,
was an estimated three hundred and twenty nine twenty 9 million,
and that did not include code or a da repairs.
the council asked for more information. March 4th, 2026.
I then engaged a set of new consultants to come and validate the work,
refine the scope, and recommend as council requested a
10 year phased repair plan. Even with shorter plans in
the addition of construction efficiencies, those consultants have now
reported that projected costs are between 532 million
and 614 million over the next decade.
so today's information is to help you have that deeper
understanding of the financials and how you consider this important
decision. But it is not because staff has not provided this city
council with the information that you have requested.
we understand that these decisions affect our residents, our taxpayers, public safety,
economic development, and so much more. And we understand that these
decisions are hard and how we plan today for the city
for the future. And at this time, I'll turn it over to our chief financial
officer, jack ireland, to deliver today's briefing. Thank you.
good morning, mayor and members of the city council, and thank you ms. Tolbert.
so, beginning the presentation as ms. Tolbert mentioned, uh, on slide
two, we will talk through public safety facility needs, which has been
a question, uh, discuss potential relocation of 9 1 1
emergency operation center, uh, potential relocation
of city hall potential repair program for city hall, and bringing
this information to you at the request of the city council to bring
the financial information to you at one time. So in slide three,
as we started working on this, we knew it was important to be mindful of
many things, mindful of our taxpayers, mindful of any impact on public
safety, on core city services, how we deliver and implement
the 2024 bond program, what opportunities we have for economic
development and growth of our tax base, impact on our debt
and future debt capacity, as well as our impact on our current
and future annual operating budgets. And so if we turn to slide four,
thinking about our current and, uh, upcoming annual
budgets, just wanted to pull a slide that we shared with you on may the sixth
that talked about some of the challenges that we face from a financial perspective
for our annual budget. As you know, uh, we have limitations
on our property tax revenue because of state cap, and the state
is also considering expanding that cap. Uh, we
have sales tax that this year we've seen some contraction and some,
uh, less revenue than we had anticipated. We anticipate that
that will continue. As you know, we continue to work on meet and confer agreements to
ensure, uh, with our police and fire uniform employees that we have competitive,
uh, salaries. Uh, our pension contributions, which we've spoken about
and which we'll speak about, uh, as part of this presentation, those costs,
uh, will grow as we, uh, implement the funding plan that
this council and the board approved. We have, we know that we have a goal of
hiring more police officers. We have to stay competitive with our
non-uniform salaries. We've seen this year a rising cost in our employee
health benefits. Uh, we are here partly because of deferred,
uh, facility maintenance. And even after this facility is addressed,
there is deferred maintenance in all of our other hundreds of buildings that the
city operates. Uh, we do anticipate elimination of
reduction in federal funds, and then there's a lot of uncertainty about the
economic condition, uh, whether it's inflation, tariffs, supply chain, and other types
of factors. So we realize and know and shared with you on
march, may the sixth, the challenges that we'll be facing. I'm sorry,
jack. I need to, um, for us to stand at ease for a
few minutes because we have, we're having broadcast issues and we need to make sure the broadcast
okay, the feed is back up. So if you could just pause there and we will we'll,
uh, stand at ease for let's say two
minutes. I'm told from our technical folks two minutes,
so just hold tight.
yeah, we have to switch the broadcast over from one meeting to
the next. So it's just a technical issue, so we just need to hold tight for just a
minute. Well, thanks for your patience.
this webinar is being transcribed and summarized.
okay. I am told that the broadcast is back up. Um, so go ahead, jack. Thank you.
yeah, thank you sir. So, continuing on slide five. Uh, after
we look at things on slide four that, uh, we're challenged with, we
just laid out on may the sixth, some of the ways that we'll be addressing the budget. I'm
not gonna read through all of those, but these are items that we presented on may 6th.
that will be our approach as we go through development of, uh, the
budget. So I wanted to shift gears, and
it may seem outta place, but it is relevant, very relevant, uh, starting
on page, uh, seven to talk about pension obligation bonds, because
part of this conversation is about our ability to issue debt.
and so one of the factors regarding the issuance of debt
is we have held about $500 million of capacity
in our debt service model for potential pension obligation
bonds. So we wanted to talk about that
and the impact that it could have on the other parts of this presentation.
so, just as a reminder, on page seven, we have two employee retirement funds,
uh, the dallas police and fire, as well as the non-uniform system.
the texas pension review board has oversight of those. Uh, the city council
has approved plans for both of the two systems that meet the state's
requirement to be fully funded within 30 years. However, the,
uh, contributions to dallas police and fire pension system do become pretty significant
in the future. So moving to page eight, we had, uh,
considered pension obligation bonds, which are taxable bonds
that some state and local governments have issued as part of an overall
strategy to fund the unfunded pension liability. And the unfunded
pension liability in dallas police and fire is approaching $4 billion.
now, we have a plan to pay that over 30 years. However,
if we wanted to, uh, advance that and pay some of that
down through pension obligation bond, that provides an opportunity.
however, the use of pension obligation bonds rest on the assumption that
the bond proceeds when you invest those, that they will have a
higher yield than the cost of borrowing.
it is all about the timing in the market that you are borrowing the pension
obligation bonds at a lower rate than the pension system
is able to invest and earn more money. We
have used pension obligation bonds in the past. We issued about $500 million
for the employee retirement fund, the civilian non-uniform fund back in
2005. So the city has used that previously as a tool.
so this was something that was in our conversation on may the sixth,
and it was asked that we take this to a joint committee of finance and
the pension ad hoc committee. That meeting was held on may the 21st.
the joint committee did review the materials and ask that it come back
to the full city council for consideration. That's why it's
included in this presentation and relevant for debt modeling. So
on page nine, just a little snapshot of dallas police and fire pension system,
you can see the funding ratio and the years to be fully funded in the past.
and especially on the chart on the left, you'll see that we are now under
the 30 year funding requirement. That is a projection because of the
new funding agreement that we have in place.
so moving to slide 10, we did list out a couple of advantages
and a couple of cautions related to pension obligation bonds.
primarily, uh, at the advantage is again, capturing that
positive arbitrage. If the investment returns exceed
the cost of borrowing. And for dallas, what that means is that we would be
able to reduce our contribution from the general fund over
to the dallas police and fire pension system, and we would be paying for
those bonds through our debt service fund. So it gives some
relief to the general fund. Now, there are cautions, the
gfoa or government finance officer association, they do not
recommend use of pob, uh, primarily because of the risk associated
with, uh, will the investment returns really exceed the cost.
that is a risk. It's something that you need to be mindful of. Uh,
also they cite that issuing pension obligation bonds takes away from your
ability to do other capital projects. That's why we're having the conversation because
it is a factor in your debt model. Uh, pabs tend
to be complex, uh, in the way they're, uh, typically amortized
over time and rating agencies may not view them as,
uh, credit positive. However, uh, irving has maintained their
aaa bond rating, and they did issue pension obligation bonds within the last,
uh, five years. So, moving to slide 11, a
little more information about the dallas police and fire pension system, their history
of return on investment. So as we think about whether we should borrow money
or not, how much will the, uh, pension system be able to
earn once they get the cash? And so we've just shown some,
uh, background, some of their history back to 2006. Since
2006, they've had 11 years where they have been better than
their assumed rate of return, which is 6.5%, and they've
had nine years where they've earned less than that. The goal is that they need to average
at that 6.5 over time. Uh, their most recent
five year, uh, average has been 5.07 or 10
year averages, 3.12. And that's compared
to a current market. The market condition really is an ideal
for issuing pension obligation bonds. Uh, right now in the market, it would cost
probably 6% or more to borrow. And the pension system,
uh, at least on a five and 10 year basis, has not achieved that
rate of return. However, in the middle of the page, you'll see that the last three years
in 25, they actually earned 15%, nearly 10%
in 24, and nearly 14% in 23. So as
all of us have investments, and those go up and down, and you see that in your own statements,
the pension system similarly, uh, is, um, following
the market. And you will see, uh, the years that they do well and other years
they do not perform as well. Moving to slide 12 and
13, what I wanted to show is we ask our, uh, actuary the city's actuaries,
deloitte, and we ask them to model some scenarios. And so slide
12 provides one scenario showing what savings
we would have in the general fund if we issued pension
obligation bonds, and we could reduce our contribution from the, can we stop just one second, jack and
get the presentation back up. It looks like a tech looks like
this. A screensaver is up.
yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm looking at a hard copy, but I just noticed, I think the presentation
is not displaying anymore.
I can't.
okay. We can go ahead, jack. Thank you. So continuing
on slide 12, uh, just a scenario showing that we would potentially
have savings in the general fund. And based upon,
um, the pension system being able to invest and earn 6.5%
interest, it would be a save a net savings to the city, uh, depending
upon what rate of return they get. On slide 13, uh, deloitte modeled
a scenario where this pension system does not earn as much.
uh, it still saves the general fund, but there is a net
cost if the pension system has losses detail on both the
scenarios are in the appendix. So sorry, just to, uh,
those slides I'll summarize on slide 14 and move on to the more
important points of the conversation. Uh, the joint funding agreement that
the city has with, uh, d-p-f-p-s, uh, was approved
in december. The funding agreement satisfies the requirements, and as
long as we continue to make our contributions, the the plan works.
however, if you want an opportunity to potentially reduce the cost
in the general fund, uh, transfer some of that cost to
the debt service fund, pension obligation bonds as a way of doing that,
however, it comes with risk being able to earn more
than what we're paying on the debt. So I'll move on to the public
safety facility needs, and that will show why pension obligation
bonds matter. So on slide 16, as
we talk about public safety facility needs and, uh, needs inventory was used
to develop the 24, uh, bond program, and there was $727 million
worth of public safety needs that were included in that needs inventory.
the voters authorized 90 million for public safety. The projects
included the police academy, fire station 43 replacement, fire station
11 renovation, and various police and fire locations for
different types of renovations and repairs for the $90 million.
so now, uh, several years later, what,
uh, priority projects do we have that could be addressed through
a bond program that do need additional funding? There have been numerous, uh,
conversations about the law enforcement training center at unt dallas
having a shortfall. We've had a conversation about expanding
that program to include a new public safety training complex. We've
recently had conversations about 9 1 1, an emergency operations center
that are located in this building and would be better suited to be relocated.
we also have issues with the current police property room,
uh, crime scene facility, and evidentiary vehicle storage that we want
to talk about in then fire station number four replacement. So I'll go into each of
those on the next couple of slides as we talk about the priority public safety
program. So on slide 17, uh, this is
information that's been updated for the, uh, two facilities.
the, uh, law enforcement training center on the left, the public safety
training complex on the right, $227 million for one and $170 million.
on the second on page 18, uh, we did update,
uh, the next steps, uh, for each of those projects with the
law enforcement training center. Uh, the, the
most updated cost is $227 million in total.
a guaranteed maximum price agreement is currently being evaluated
and should be brought before the council in august for approval. And
then there would be additional gmps later for the public safety training
complex. Uh, depending upon the direction about funding, we would
know how to proceed with that facility or not.
so on slide 19, just a summary of the funding for
the law enforcement training center, uh, at unt
campus. Uh, you'll see that we have the $50 million from the 24
bond program. We have the state grant that you're aware of. There's work being done
towards the private funds that are being, uh, raised for the project. And
there's an $82 million, uh, shortfall on the project
on slide, uh, 20 similar, uh, this was not
a project that was anticipated at the time of the 24 bond program. It has
been something that has been discussed and developed since then to go ahead
and do that secondary, uh, facility. The public safety training
complex, uh, potential sources of funds are outlined here,
aviation department, uh, some enabling costs. And so this assumption,
uh, is that it would be located at the executive airport
and aviation would contribute some of the cost associated with the
project. There's sponsorship opportunities for a total of $170 million,
uh, with 1 49 of that being unfunded, uh, and something
that could be considered for a bond program. So the 9 1 1
emergency operations center, again, that's located here at, uh, 1500 marilla
in the basement, is not ideally situated and could be,
uh, improved by being located at another site. Uh,
we believe after much research on this, that use of an
existing city facility may be the most appropriate path forward.
if so, the cost associated to relocate is about $40 million.
on slide 22, uh, we have talked less about these. However, we did
include this in the, uh, either the april or the may
briefing, uh, that we did to council. Um, but the property room that's
located down at 1725 baylor is, uh,
undersized. It does not meet the current needs, and it has, uh,
some significant improvement in repair issues. And then
the evidentiary vehicle storage is located at 1955
veil big or the former auto pound, uh, several years ago now,
we started an effort to outsource the auto pound, but we
are still, uh, maintaining those evidentiary
vehicles on that site, which is standing in the way of being able to develop
that site or sell that site. So, um, that is an opportunity.
uh, there. Um, on slide 23, the bond office
worked with the police department on the needs for this, uh, joint
facility. Uh, specifically they were asking for 31 acres,
two buildings, enough space for 2,800, uh, vehicle
storage sites, et cetera. And so on. Slide 24,
just looking at the cost of those, uh, and this is preliminary
steel, but if we use the il bigg property and move the other operations
and keep that property, or at least keep part of that property, uh, the
cost for, uh, the joint facility, uh, with the property
room, crime room and evidentiary storage would
be about $150 million. If we look at using another site,
and we have to do a lot of site work, including, uh, the pavement for
the 2,800, uh, parking, et cetera, it, it does drive the
cost up on slide 25, another
facility that we believe is a, uh, priority is fire station number four.
it's back here behind the building just to the south of city hall at eight
16 south akron street. Uh, based on the implementation of the
convention center master plan and the anticipated development of the 31 acres
that become available, replacement of this fire station, uh, therefore
would be a priority before spring of 29 at a cost of about $20 million.
so on slide 26, you'll see a summary of the
priority public safety facility needs law enforcement training center
at 82 million to fill that gap. Public safety training
complex that was not considered, uh, when we did the 24 bond program, almost
150 relocating 9 1 1 and eeoc out
of city hall, uh, 40 million, uh, a joint facility
for property room and evidentiary vehicles 150 and fire station
four at 20 for a total of $441 million for
priority public safety needs. So
typically we pay for capital infrastructure through bond programs.
so on slide 27, just grabbed a slide that we talked about, uh,
in may about our bond program. Typically, we use the
bond program for all of our capital improvements, whether it's streets, floods, storm,
uh, our public safety. Uh, property tax is the revenue source that's
pledged to use, uh, for payment of the principle and interest. Uh,
we go through our debt capacity analysis looking at our existing debt,
uh, debt that's already been approved by the voters, but not yet issued. What is our current
and projected property values? What is our tax rate? Are we going to change the
tax rate or keep it the same? What other, uh, capital
or debt needs do we have? And, and what's the economic condition and the
cost to borrow? So on slide 28, I just wanted
to drop this in to remind everyone of the, uh, 2024 bond
program, the fiscal year, or fy 25 column that says year
one, we have issued those bonds. That 250 has been issued the fy
26 year two, those bonds have been issued. We're currently,
uh, planning, unless things change based upon direction from council,
uh, to issue $250 million for the third year, fourth year and fifth
year. So $750 million over the next three years
to complete the 24 bond program. However, moving to the next
slide, uh, this has expanded on from our may the,
uh, sixth conversation. Um, and this is
in the middle. Green is the may 6th, uh, conversation where we
had the remaining, uh, $750 million in
the 24 bonds. We had 500 million for pension obligation bonds.
we had 250 million at that time that we were thinking was the number just
associated with the police academy components.
uh, and then we had a future 2029 bond program. If you go
over to the right, uh, starting at column k through
o, you'll see how that has been updated.
so in the update the pension obligation bonds to
mitigate the risk of when you borrow, uh, spread that out over multiple
years, rather than entering the market at one time and spread that over
three tranches similar in the public safety, instead
of it being 250, it's been increased by 191 million
to get the, to the $441 million. What the
impact of those changes are, it slowed down the
24 bond program a little bit more. It still requires four years
instead of the three, and then it did reduce the 29 bond program
by about a hundred million dollars. So if we go forward
with a pension obligation bond using this issuance schedule,
and we insert $441 million of public safety,
this would be the preliminary schedule of how those bonds would be issued
on the next slide. Said the same thing in words rather than a table. But
the table on the previous slide, again, it adds 191 million
to the two 50 that we talked about in may for $441 million
for public safety. It changes the pension obligation bonds
from a one year issuance, one tranche to three tranches.
uh, it continued the $750 million for 24
bond program, but it spread over four years and the reduction of a hundred
million dollars in the 29 bond program. So
a scenario would allow, if the council chose to call an
election for november 3rd, has to be called by august the 12th
for $500 million worth of pension obligation bonds, and $441 million
worth of, uh, public safety bonds for the priority
projects that we just talked through. So, shifting away from those public
safety needs and to potential repair plans for city hall.
on slide 32, just as a reminder, the march 4th action
that was, uh, directing the city manager to bring back some
phased, uh, repair programs. Uh, the city manager,
uh, chose to engage outside industry experts to conduct
that work. Uh, bringing in grisham smith and wm two company,
cbre, of course, has been working with us through the process. We've had a couple of
briefings may 20th on phase one and june 3rd on phase two,
and you'll see some of those same slides from june 3rd on the next,
uh, four or five slides. So on slide 33 from grisham
smith's june 3rd presentation, they provided a draw schedule, uh,
for a 6.4 year scenario that costs 4 530
$1 million and a 10 year scenario for $556 million.
so their bottom line is on page 34, again, the dollar amounts listed there.
wm two company looking at the same information. Uh, they proposed two
different scenarios. One was a five year implementation for 591 million,
and then on slide 36, a 10 year scenario, uh, for
611 million. So again, there, there two
scenarios are shown on slide 37, 5 91 to six 10.
so on slide 38, this is a summary from, uh, the presentation
on june 3rd, and it lays out the four scenarios that
you received on june 3rd and compared those to the edc
information that you had, uh, received previously. And so these
are just laid out showing the top row being the corrective
repairs, the repairs necessary to, uh, just, I believe the term
is a warm lit shell. Uh, but then there's additional cost for
interiors, uh, furniture fixture and equipment technology,
and those type of costs that would get added to for a total capital
that's kind of shaded in a little bit of a pinkish color, I guess
across about the middle of the page, if we borrow funds to do it, there is
interest cost associated with this. If we do not borrow funds, then there's
not interest cost associated with it. Uh, the scenarios that
were provided did indicate that we would need some swing space because
parts of the building would need to be, uh, left during parts of
the renovation. So swing costs are listed as well as 20 year
operating costs. So this is the cost for utilities, custodial
security, and this is a 20 year cost. And so a lot of times when people hear the
number, hold, hold on one second. Sorry. Of a billion dollars. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt. I know you were, you were flowing
there, but I think we have another technical issue. I just wanna make sure
it looks like we got a screensaver up again.
is it me, ? Okay. Just, um,
we'll stand at ease for just another couple minutes until we get a,
an update from the tech folks about how long it'll take to get this fixed. Hold
on.
yes, we're online and ready to go, mayor.
all right. Uh, jack, we're back up and running, so you can go. Great. Thank you.
continue, please. So, I was about to say on the bottom of slide 34
that, um, a lot of the conversation is about billion dollar plus
project, but remember that includes the corrective repairs,
the additional capital cost for modernization, as well as the
cost of borrowing the funds, as well as swing space, as well
as 20 years of operating costs. All of that together is what is
in that bottom row or the total. So for the next couple
of slides, uh, the column that has the, the red box
around it, the grisham smith option two is the option that I
pulled forward, not because it's a recommended option, but because it's, the cost
was kind of in the middle. And so I took that and we worked, uh,
to spread that cost out over the 10 year implementation based upon
the timing of their project. So on slide 39,
you'll see instead of, uh, you'll see it in years across
the column. So year one, the total cost, 113 million bottom
line, uh, year two, $173 million, bottom line,
et cetera. And you can see that going across for a total of 1.5,
uh, billion dollars. Again, in the middle of the page is the capital
cost associated with the repair. The road directly below that
interest is if you choose to issue debt to make those repairs,
or if not, and you do it with cash, then it's 769.8,
which is in the far right column with the red box around it. So that gets you
the corrective repairs as well as the modernization, uh, over this
10 year period for $769.8 million.
so moving on to the, the next slide on slide 40,
if the council, uh, wanted to, uh, issue debt to
pay for the $769 million, it
does have the interest. The interest cost is about $456 million
over the 20 year period. I did not assume that we borrowed it
all at once, but rather that we borrowed it in six tranches that
kind of matched the 10 year implementation schedule. Uh, the tranches
are listed there on the right of how much we would need to borrow in each
year to follow the schedule that gresham smith laid out
on slide 41. If we did that, what would the impact be?
so the same as changes you make in pension obligation bonds affects debt capacity.
what does issuing $769 million of
debt to do the 10 year repair program, what impact does that have?
well, again, I factored in the public safety, which we talked about.
I factored in the three year trache, three tranches of pension obligation
bonds. It would require slowing down the 24
bond program even more. Instead of just slowing it from three to four years, it
would actually spread it out to six years because it puts some of the city hall
repairs ahead. It's just a timing. What do you do? First, I
followed the gresham smith, uh, implementation schedule. So that
would result in some slowdown, further slowdown of the 24 bond program.
and then it would delay implementation of a future bond program
instead of it being a 1.2 or $1.1 billion program,
because you use all the capacity for $770 million
for city hall, it drops your other bond propositions down
to just $330 million. So, uh, again, it's about
the same amount. 769 for city hall, 330
for other propositions is the $1.1 billion. That
could be for a future bond proposition. But if you carve
out part of that for city hall, it, it limits what other capacity
you have in this scenario. In addition to the 500 million,
uh, pension obligation bonds, the 441 million, uh,
priority public safety facilities, if you added another $769.8 million
for a general obligation program, uh, for city hall repairs,
it would take, uh, the election up to $1.7 billion.
so moving to slide 42, thinking about not doing
it with debt because that is a lot of debt, uh, but
doing it with cash instead, uh, what is the impact of
that? Um, so
yeah, sorry about that. Uh, so to fund the corrective repairs of
the $769.8 million, uh, based
upon their 10 year schedule, uh, it does add significant
impact or pressure on the annual operating budget. Uh,
and so $152.4 million is the peak
year of that. And so the next couple of slides talk
about $152.4 million. This is not a recommendation.
it's, we wouldn't do all of these things. It's just a math exercise of what
$152.4 million equals. And so
moving on to slide, uh, 44, uh,
you see what that would be. So $152.4 million
if you were to, again, a math exercise, uh, increase
the property tax rate to generate that, that's about 7 cents, uh,
because each 1 cent is $22.1 million.
uh, I know we've worked really hard to get the tax rate down, uh, but this would
increase it back, uh, exceeding the three, uh, 0.5,
uh, percent cap that the, uh, vote the state has
in place would probably be triggered. And we would require an election,
uh, to even do that, uh, to raise the tax rate that much.
um, 6.90 cents on the median valued
home in the city is an increase of $212,
uh, in a tax bill. Slide 45. If instead
of looking at a tax rate increase, which is our primary revenue, if we decreased
operating expenses, uh, to achieve $152 million savings
for that peak year, what does that mean? Well, a held harmless
police and fire, uh, and that left $751 million
in other departments, uh, that would take a 20% cut to all of the other departments.
uh, or if we just started eliminating departments, uh, eliminating
all of the administrative, uh, departments of budget controller, civil service,
data analytics, hr communications, government affairs and purchasing,
that gets you $45 million to eliminate everything. And nobody gets
paid and nobody gets hired and bills don't get paid, and all kinds of things don't happen.
similar, if you eliminate, uh, mayor city council and all the appointed offices,
that's $50 million. So eliminating all that together doesn't get
you close. Uh, slide 46. Another way of looking at it
is, uh, what are our core services versus what are our quality of life
services? So, uh, picking on, uh, three of our favorites, park and recreation
library and, uh, arts and culture, um, it would take an 86%
cut of those if you're just cutting those departments. Uh, again, this is
a math exercise. What, what does, what do things add up to to get to
$152 million if you wanted to just eliminate employees,
that's about 2200 employees out of the general fund, or about,
uh, four out of every 10 general fund civilian employees,
not police, not fire, but civilian employees. Um,
and cutting four out of every 10 employees means you cut
services because it's the employees that provide the services. So,
to do this, it's a combination of all this, whether it is some,
uh, revenue increase, some expense reduction,
some debt, uh, together provides you different, uh, strategies
to approach it. Um, it's, it's a, you know,
a cafeteria of opportunities on which you select and what you put
together to do that type of plan. And so, moving now from repairing
city hall to relocating city hall, and I asked my friend peter jensen,
who I think is close by to come walk through, uh, three slides,
uh, talking about their engagement as they looked at the market
for, uh, city hall relocation.
good morning, mr. Mayor, council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak
to you again today. Uh, the city tasks, cbre
with exploring the market, um, and finding indicative results,
um, for potential relocation scenarios. So I'm gonna walk you through some of our
market findings today. These are expounding upon some earlier slides as our
data has progressively increased in quality, uh, over the
past six months. Um, first of all, the
relocation costs that that will be presented in executive session and, um,
are a holistic review of all applicable costs and
our directional findings, that there's material savings opportunity that ought to be
explored further. And that's in all scenarios, all six
of the benchmark scenarios that have been presented to city council and the public
to date. The methodology includes all of the opportunity costs,
consolidation of owned assets where appropriate lease eliminations and terminations
where appropriate, looking at the city's portfolio, the building conditions
of relocation, candidates necessary upgrades and appropriate reserves
for 20 years. Uh, that's important because we are no longer
forecasting, um, and, and carrying forth models that,
uh, have zero reserves going into the city's assets. So
in these city hall scenarios, we're carrying appropriate reserves every year so that
you're not in these types of situations again. But the most important
thing is that it's an apples to apples comparison, and that's what we were tasked to do.
um, I want to also correct a prevailing narrative that the
city is committed to leasing in perpetuity. We were tasked with exploring
the market for all acquisition scenarios, joint ventures, lease
to own leasing is of course one of those viable scenarios,
um, and one that deserves exploration. That's what we've done. But there is no commitment
and no policy direction being given to us to only consider
lease scenarios. But, um, as a steward of the public trust and
a fiduciary, of course, exploring those is a noble, uh, effort.
but the market has not limited the city to only leasehold interest
for our work to advance. There needs to be given a directive to go
and, and negotiate. Um, negotiations always can be terminated, but,
um, the indicative findings are that there are compelling opportunities and solutions
available, um, but other activities need to occur to bring forth final
numbers. Lastly, I just wanna
point out there, there's been a lot of activity in downtown, um, both good and
bad, um, depending on your perspective and your position in the market. Um,
but from a, um, vacancy standpoint, from a,
uh, let's, uh, buy low sell high, so to speak, um,
like mr. Buffet advises, uh, this is an excellent time for the
city to be in the market, and that has been proven over and over in our exploration
work. Uh, if you just look at the cost of new construction and
the assessed values of various buildings in downtown, um,
you can see that a lot of them are assessed at probably 10 to 15%
of new construction costs. Um, and I think that's a very interesting, uh, way
to look at this next slide, please.
uh, again, just a little bit of backdrop on the comparative analysis with the market. Uh, we've
collected some real time data. We have real time data on cost inputs. We've
applied the same per square foot cost to all of the scenarios. There's been no cherry picking of data,
um, parking garages, whether new construction or leasing
spaces for a short term or long term. Those have all been evaluated. We're carrying
some, um, estimates for city council chambers. Obviously, a
public facing space is very important. Uh, we're carrying a very high number at a
thousand dollars per foot for a city council chambers to be replicated somewhere.
uh, also where appropriate lease revenue, uh,
if you were to acquire a building, uh, via purchase, and there's contractual lease revenue
from third party tenants, that's being factored into the model as well, which would potentially
bring the city's basis down considerably in those assets. But just
so that we're not, um, you know, accused of, of, of, um,
uh, goal seeking, so to speak. Um, we are only modeling
contractual revenue. We're not simulating revenue into the future
that could be appropriate, uh, if there were, uh, eventually other tenants
that, that decided to locate with the city, but for now, it's safest
and most conservative to model only contractual revenue. So that's what's in the model.
and then lastly, uh, the 20 year occupancy model. We are factoring in
property taxes impact both positive negative and then the operating expenses
for the various assets. Um, you know, you can't own buildings and operate
them for free, nor can you borrow money at 0% interest. And so, um, in the
holistic 20 year occupancy model, we feel these are very important figures to
include in the, uh, comprehensive model. And then I mentioned
this earlier, but there are city leases where you are a lessee right now
that are coming up for expiration. For example, uh, department of water utilities
that expires in 2028. Um, just continuing at the current pace of spend
and eliminating that would be, uh, about a $25 million savings over the
next 20 years. So those things are being factored into the model as well. Next slide, please.
in terms of a, a qualitative evaluation, um, a lot of clients
ask us to, to help them think through this, um, from a number of vantage
points. Um, the city has a number of things to consider
here. One is an owner, um, two is as an employer, three is
an service provider, four is a fiduciary. And then fifth is called an
agent, an economic development agent. And you all are making decisions every day with these different
vantage points. So, um, we have tried to provide
a model and an evaluation model for various
relocation possibilities with these lenses in mind. Um, I
think the most important ones here that really haven't gotten a lot of of discussion
are the city's role as an employer and as a service provider. Um, the direction
in terms of policy and and feedback from staff and council
has been to ensure that the service provision is at
least equal to the current city hall, if not better. And that
the role, your role as an employer is sensitive to your relationship with employees,
uh, where we can provide higher quality employment environment
for the city's, uh, uh, staff. So all these vantage points,
uh, create a holistic review of all relocation candidates.
um, and that is what we, um, have been charged and tasked to do.
I'll stop there. Thank you, peter. And so on slide 51, just
a couple of more slides from me. Um, the potential relocation of city hall
does provide several opportunities. As peter mentioned, uh,
material savings over the 20 year period, uh, does strengthen our
fi uh, fiscal stewardship. Uh, there's opportunities related to enhancing
resident experience and accessibility, advancing operational
consolidation and efficiency. Improving, uh, employee morale and
engagement allows us for, uh, to continue improvements in optimizing
our space as well as activating some of our city assets to support
economic, uh, development. So in summary, on nope,
one more. Um, on slide 52, uh, looking
at, um, funding strategy related to a potential, uh, city
hall relocation, um, the numbers, uh, peter will share in,
uh, more detail in executive session. Unfortunately, not able
to do that in open session yet. Um, as we've
talked about, our primary funding sources, uh, for things continue to be either
cash or debt. But in conversations with cbre, uh,
I believe that the financial transaction will provide us multiple, uh, financing
options. Again, whether it's a lease to own or a purchase deferral
of upfront cost, uh, other opportunities, those are things that would come out
through the pre-development phase. Again, the consolidation of city
operations from multiple locations, again, as peter mentioned, uh,
does allow us to terminate some leases and have savings in those areas
that could, uh, result in savings that could be redirected towards
city hall. Uh, we have the opportunity to divest of some of our real
estate, some, whether it's oak cliff municipal center eventually, or central
service center on canton street. Eventually there is opportunity, uh,
for us to, uh, look at our real estate in a different way.
also, uh, was mentioned the excess space that may be available in
a relocation that would allow us to rent and have a new revenue stream,
uh, as well as potential opportunity to co-locate with another government
entity that, uh, I believe is currently looking for additional space.
we also will have the opportunity to share costs, uh, with, uh, departments
that, uh, do come into the building, whether it's, uh, water utilities,
uh, who's currently in the building. Uh, they have some operations that
could be moved into the city hall building inspection could be moved in. And
some of those enterprise funds, uh, regardless of what we do, could be used
for, uh, additional funding sources as well as historic tax
credits and potential tax increment financing, uh, district funds or other
economic incentives that may be available, uh, with a relocation that
may not be available here. But I believe all of that, uh, in a little more
detail will be discussed in executive session, but primarily we'll come out through the
pre-development phase if we move forward in that direction. So on slide
54, uh, last two slides, just in summary of the whole
document. Uh, back to pension obligation bonds a viable option
that could help produce general fund contribution, shifting some
of that cost to the debt service fund, but again, the risk is associated
with the cost of borrowing versus the interest earned.
uh, if counsel chose to move forward with that, uh, it could potentially
be on a november ballot. Uh, we would recommend waiting
to actually issue the tranches of debt until the market conditions were
uh, improved. Uh, the next two bullets are about public safety.
again, priority, public safety facilities, law enforcement, training center,
public safety training complex, the property room and evidentiary
vehicle storage and fire station four as well as 9 1 1 and
emergency operations center, uh, could potentially be a bond,
uh, proposition for $441 million if you choose to
move forward in that way. Uh, looking at the 10 year phased
repair program, uh, use of debt has consequences,
uh, especially for future bond programs, uh, by
using the debt capacity for $769 million,
uh, for this building, it limits your ability for other capital improvements.
and then cash, just trying to pay for it all out of the general fund
has some, uh, consequences on, uh, service delivery. Uh,
but relocation, uh, to an alternative site, uh, does provide
material, uh, savings, uh, based on the current market conditions. Again,
that would be determined through pre-development. So on slide 55 for
next steps, um, potentially we will be able to get some direction
from council today regarding a november 3rd election. Uh,
for whatever you may choose to include, the date to call that election would
be august the 12th. Uh, after, uh, I
think executive session and questions and answers, then I think there is one
item that, uh, will potentially be voted on today regarding
a potential phased, uh, repair strategy. And then lastly,
we will be back in august on august the fifth, uh, for additional briefing on august 12th
for additional action items. Uh, mayor, that's the conclusion
of the presentation.
okay. It is 11:00 am on june 10th, 2026,
and the special call meeting of the city council will now go into close session under sections
5 51 0.071 and 5 51 0.072
of the texas oak meetings act on the following matters described on today's agenda.
item numbers five and six. So we will go into
special, uh, we will go into a executive session, and then we will,
uh, come back, um, in an hour, we'll call it noon,
okay? Okay.
special call to city council meetings completed. Its closed session under sections 5 51
0.071 and 5 51 0.072
of the texas open meetings act. And at 2:35 pm
on june 10th, 2026, we've returned to open session.
it's still 2:35 pm and now the special call
meeting will stand at recess until after agenda items
number 24 and 25 of the regular meeting
are completed. And now we need to take a, a moment
to allow the meetings to switch over as a technical issue. We have to actually
close one webex meeting and open another for the public to be able to see it.
so we'll stand at ease for just a minute until the meeting switches over,
and then we will move forward.
okay. It is now 3:22 pm and the special call meeting
of the city council's. Now call to order. And we're going to go,
uh, have the discussion now on the briefing item a that we
heard before. So I'm now going to turn it over, um,
back to the city manager's office to continue our, um, discussion on
briefing item a and it'll be our normal 5 3 1 rules
for asking questions. Nothing different, so
thank you mr. Mayor. We are actually, uh, ready to begin the, uh, the q and a for
the presentation that was delivered. Thank you, sir. Okay. Members, go ahead and use your
machines and chime in
assuming the machines work. I don't see anybody yet.
oh, boy. Chairwoman stewart, you recognize for five minutes, um, for the public,
we are on briefing item a.
okay, so this is a presentation. Few hours back. As I recall,
um, , we were, we were reviewing, um,
uh, goodness, our commitments to public safety and other bond projects.
and so jack, if I think you had two scenarios, one where
we postponed bond projects for three years and another where they got
postponed for six in each case actually,
um, what's the consequence of delaying a project if, for example,
I'm supposed to put some pickleball courts in and they're not gonna, um, happen
instead of happening maybe three years from now, they're not gonna happen either six or
nine years from now. Um, what, what's the consequence of that? I
think I know, but I'm gonna ask you to help me understand. Okay. Thank
you. Uh, jack harland, chief financial officer, uh, for the city.
and so just to put it back in a little perspective, the different
scenarios talked about were if we move forward with a $441 million
public safety facilities, uh, proposition, it would have
an impact and result in us delaying the 2024 bond program from
three remaining years to four remaining years. Then
we talked about another situation where in addition to the $441 million
in public safety projects, we may also choose to do
$769.8 million worth of, uh,
city hall repairs. And that scenario, it did require that
the 24 bond program got stretched from three years remaining
to six years remaining. In those situations, um,
obviously it delays the, the project, uh, that the community has
asked for, that the commu the community voted for in november of 24.
uh, there's the risk of cost escalation as you're
delaying time, there's inflation that would factor in. And then would
we be able to deliver all the projects or would it reach a situation where everything
is so much more expensive that we are not able to deliver every single
project? And that's my concern. Um, we will have
to make some hard choices. It seems to me, I don't think if, if all of the bond
projects go up in cost, and yet we're, we're still looking
at the same number of bond dollars to cover those projects,
then something's got to give. And so some projects will get
postponed to the next bond program or just go to never, never land. Uh,
potentially they could go into a future bond program, potentially they could be canceled.
um, potentially there could be other funding sources identified that would
supplement them, but it, it would create an issue of, uh,
we only have authorization for $750 million remaining
from the 24 bond program. And so the longer you wait,
the more inflation, the harder that becomes. Right? And so, say
for example, you were gonna put in a rec center, but all of a sudden you have significantly less
money for it, perhaps you'd have to do put in, build a rec center
that doesn't have a gym. There may be those types of trade-offs that would
be discussed, right? So
this has an impact on our residents, is my point. And these decisions have
a huge impact on our residents and what their expectations are, what
their neighborhoods need, what they're waiting for, because they've been told they're
on the schedule. So, um, I, I just think we have to,
um, always think, keep our residents in mind. And in this
particular case, under this particular scenario, I don't know that they fare
particularly well. Thank you, mr. Mayor.
chairman ridley, you recognize for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Mayor.
so jack, in reference to the
portion of the presentation about the pension obligation bonds,
when the city prepared its 30 year amortization
schedule to satisfy the prb and
the, uh, and the context of the settlement with the pension, uh,
board, um, what was the source of revenue
that you contemplated to fund that 30 year plan?
so the, the, um, I'll get to the answer, but the final
solution was an increase in general fund contributions
from the city would, uh, satisfy the requirement. Uh,
we did have the conversation about pension obligation bonds. We
did have a conversation about, uh, um,
divesting of different, uh, city assets that might, could generate revenue
that could be used to pay down the unfunded liability.
those are the two primary other things that were discussed other than increasing
the city's general fund contributions. Well, and I, I agree with
you, but the primary focus was, and what I believe
his counsel voted on was general fund
increased contributions to meet our obligations under
that 30 year amortization plan. Yes, sir. That was the final decision.
yes, sir. Absolutely. And has anything changed in the city's financial
condition that makes that no longer feasible? N no, sir. Uh,
we still, and I believe I said earlier today, as long as we meet
those, uh, commitments and contributions we will fully fund in 30 years
as expected, uh, the, uh, idea
of pension obligation bonds could potentially provide relief
to the general fund. But it is not a mandate, it's not required to meet the obligations
as long as we make those payments from the general fund. Well, and my concern about
the pension obligation bonds, as you point out in your presentation,
is that we need the pension board's
rate of return to increase above what our cost of funds would be
on a bond program. And right now we would
be underwater. And so it doesn't make sense to entertain
that option at this time. Is that correct? So
the, the last three years, the pension fund returns have been,
uh, they've done very well, uh, 15% and 25,
9%, and 24, nearly 14% and 23.
uh, so I don't think we would be underwater the last three years. But when
you're looking at a longer term, which we presented in the presentation,
their five year return is 5%, their 10 year return is
3%. So when you think about it in the longer terms, that is a true statement.
well, and we have to think about it in the longer terms because we're talking about a 20 year
bond, aren't we? Yes, sir. Alright, on slide 21,
about the 9 1 1 and emergency operations center, you, um,
estimate $40 million to relocate those programs because they're not ideally
situated to be at city hall, what does that
mean? So I'll take a stab unless
kevin come on out. Um, so, uh, they're currently
in the downtown, um, uh, obviously in city hall.
I think there's some situations where it's difficult to get to city hall under
certain, uh, emergency types of situations. Uh,
it being in the, in this building, uh, may add some added risk
to it. Um, and so I think looking outside, even
though it's immediately outside the central business district, uh, provides
value. Kevin, I'll let you, sir. Yes, good afternoon. Kevin oden,
director of emergency management and crisis response. Everything that, uh, cfo
ireland said is correct. And then I would add, um,
generally speaking, our peer cities do not co-locate those, uh,
activities within their, their central hub of government. Um, because
of the risk of concentration of services in one place, uh,
that increases the, uh, the risk we have of, of losing operations
or space. To give you a, a concrete example, during
the, um, the cheerleading incident last summer, uh, we were not
able to access city hall, uh, in any reasonable amount of time.
we had to actually relocate, um, to do coordination of that event
because of the traffic in and around downtown. Um, and so
we believe that moving these critical functions outside of,
uh, where the center of government is in addition to, uh, the traffic and,
and, um, uh, potential risks that downtown faces
expedites our ability to provide emergency operations and
emergency nine one one, uh, call taking to our residents. So have there
been any other instances of access interruption to the emergency
operation center in the last 10 years besides the cheerleader incident?
yes, I remember, uh, the july 7th ambush personally getting
into downtown was, uh, next to impossible.
um, anytime we've had, uh, issues accessing due to
snow and ice, um, conditions here in the downtown area has
created, um, issue, uh, its potential with the,
um, everything going on around fifa, being concentrated
in and around this building, um, that if there are, uh,
any sort of lockdowns or other things that go on, we could have a difficult
time getting to, uh, our site here and we may have to operate out of other
locations. So how many snow and ice storms have we seen in the last 10
years that have been exclusively located in downtown?
no, they're more geographically located, but I would say that our ability to
get immediate to where we're operating here, um,
is curtailed in some of those incidents. I've had to have staff I
based in and around this area, uh, 24 hours a day,
just so that we could operate out of this building during those snow and ice
incidents. Well, and don't most of the relevant department heads, aren't they already
in city hall when an emergency may arise?
where are they coming from? Well, if, I mean, if you're
having an emergency in eight to five, yes,
you may have many here, but we also have departments that are not based
here at city hall, such as, uh, code or transportation
or police headquarters, um, across the way. And then certainly,
uh, most of the big events, incidents I've worked over my career have not been,
uh, within normal business hours. And then so you're trying to, uh, get people
into, uh, downtown, which, if there is an incident that is affecting
mobility downtown, that ability to get persons into this building to operate
on an expeditious basis, is it it's very difficult and
very complex. Well, it just seems that if that is
gonna cost us $40 million for the off chance
that it may happen once or twice in 10 years, that's a
really low capital investment priority.
with regard to the public safety facilities, jack,
there's a reference to the,
um, current evidentiary storage
facility at the v bigg pound,
and that that is currently on 71
acre site and it's proposed to relocate it because
it's not large enough apparently to a 31 acre
site. How does that make sense? Thank you for that
question. Um, the issue is not that the si the current size is not
large enough. Uh, the current location was the
site of the auto pound, and about three years
ago, or four years ago, the city went through a process of outsourcing
the auto pound mm-hmm . And with the intent of
vacating that property at vil big and then being able to sell
that property for development. And then we realized, okay, there's
still the evidentiary vehicles that are there even after we outsourced
the auto pound. So the question is, do we keep them there
and do we move the property room over there with them or
do we move them both to another site and then we would be able to,
uh, divest of the vil big property, the total 71 acres,
but the site that's needed for the evidentiary vehicles is not
the entire 71 acres. It's just a portion. And, uh,
their scope would be that they need 31 acres for the,
that locate for that, uh, function as well as the
function of the property room. So how many vehicle storage spaces
are available at the vil vbi site? Now, this is martin
riojas, deputy director for the dallas police department. The, uh, vbi site currently
has 2,800, uh, vehicle spaces,
and we have currently 2200 vehicles
at the site. So it's oversized for your current needs. It's, it, it
has, right now we do have about 1300 vehicles that are at
vendor properties. Uh, those are, those are vehicles that are not
held for evidentiary evidence that are towed but not evidence. And so those are sent
to the vendor lots mm-hmm . That's about 1300. And so with
us having that vendor that has freed up space at, at the auto pound, so
we have about 2,800 spaces available, and we have about 2200
cars right now at the site. So jack, why does it
make sense to free up the vil big property to sell it,
but then we have to buy a new property to transfer the evidentiary
lot to the opportunity to
consolidate with the, uh, property room and
the crime scene unit, uh, provided some consolidation and
collaboration opportunities, I believe, for the police department as those groups,
uh, worked together, uh, and wouldn't have to be going from
location to location. So having them together on one joint site
was the, uh, the goal, it was a goal that was asked for
in the 2024 bond program. It did not make it to the final,
uh, proposition, but it has been something that has been asked
for. Um, it could be co-located at vil big,
it could be lo co-located somewhere else, I think needs some
additional time to explore, uh, different opportunities,
uh, determine whether it is in the city's best interest to divest
of that, uh, 71 acres, uh, at the, basically
the corner of interstate 30 in hampton road. So page 24 indicates
that the cost of co-locating at the bil big property would be 150 million
and co-locating in an alternate site unidentified would be
232 million. Am I reading that correctly?
yes, sir. So what would cost 150 million if
we leave the evidentiary lot where it is and just move
the property room there? Yes, sir.
so in that scenario, uh, it does add a new
building for the, that's part of the evidentiary vehicle unit
at v big. It would vacate the
property room that is on baylor street over east of downtown
and bring it over. That's the bulk of the $150 million
is that, that unit and replacing the property room
that is passed cap capacity, uh, to,
uh, $114 million for that facility is the biggest piece of
the $150 million. And has anyone looked into
the alternative of renting space for the property room
and crime scene operation?
I'm gonna let, uh, deb, thank you.
um, council member for the question. No, we have not looked at leasing property
for the, for the property room given, um, the alternatives that are available.
and has anyone quantified the need to consolidate to
co-locate these operations in terms of saved
manpower, increased efficiency, any other metrics
other than simply dpd wants it?
I believe that, um, that was the reason for this consolidation is to
consolidate the crime lab as well as the evidentiary, um,
property room, um, to provide those efficiencies. And, um,
I just also wanna note that these were needs that were
identified in the longer term needs inventory previously that were
not funded in the, um, 2024 bond program. Well, it doesn't really answer
my question, my answer, my question is, are there any metrics that
demonstrate how much efficiency we're losing or how much we would gain
through co-locating? I understand that the dpd wants
it. I, but I'd like to get at why and really
how seriously we need to spend $150 million on
this. So this is martin
riojas. Um, the, the issue is that we do have a lot
of staff members that are crime scene that are
going back and forth between the property room and the auto
pound. And also the desire was to have
all physical evidence, anything physical in the same, in
the same area, in the same location, and then kind of, and consolidating some
of the management of, of those areas. Now that, in terms of having,
um, anything more, anything more detailed, I, we,
we can work to get that. I don't have that right now in terms of like a metric that I
can give you that would result in, into right this
minute. But the idea is that we would have the management of
physical evidence together and, and all the housing of physical evidence together so that,
so that there was one management over all physical evidence for the department.
well, we have many needs in this city, as I'm sure you'll concede and we have limited
resources. And so I think it's important that we get at just
what the justification is for this co-location expense. And finally,
why do we need to replace fire station number four? There's no mention of
the need to expend $20 million to replace it in
this presentation. So thank you. And I want to answer part
of your last question, and then I will on fire station four as well. Uh,
one of the biggest drivers about the property room crime scene
and evidentiary vehicles is the fact that the property room
at baylor street is out of capacity.
they are stacked on top of stacked on top of stack. They're at the ceiling. There
is no, uh, not sufficient room, uh, at the property room
for, for other evidence to be brought in. And it's, it's getting to
a critical point. I want to thank martin. You've told me that within a couple of years
we will be out of capacity at that location. So if we
have to do something to address the capacity issue at the
property room, then the question was asked, is there an opportunity to
improve efficiencies at the same time? And that led us to look at
other options that then pulled in the evidentiary, uh, vehicle
storage. So that was part of the driver regarding fire station
number four, with the ex implementation of the convention
center master plan and the anticipated development on the 31 acres
that will become available, uh, it was determined that fire station 20,
I'm sorry, fire station four for $20 million, uh,
would be, uh, a priority for replacement. And the chief has come forward.
so I'll let you speak further.
uh, good afternoon everyone. Uh, fire chief justin ball. Yeah,
it, we figured with the convention center it'd be a priority, but
it's, we have a list of stations that are up
there to be replaced 'cause of age condition, and that's
right there at, at the top. So, um,
it's, I mean, it's one of the stations will be replacing
before some of the other ones because of its age
and condition and it's, it's downtown and
we need more, more apparatus base in a, in a newer station
because, um, rather than add
more stations, we need more apparatus downtown because it's so
busy. So there's a lot of reasons why that station
needs to be replaced. Is there any alternative to simply add on to the station
to accommodate more apparatus add?
could you say that again? Is it possible to add on to the existing station
to accommodate more apparatus? No, we've, we've looked at
all that. It, it's, uh, again, we
have a list of stations and I can provide that list. Uh, but that's
at the top. Thank you mayor.
mr. Roth, you're recognized for five minutes. Uh, thank you. Um,
jack, just a, just some understanding questions for me on,
on, uh, is, is a public safety
bond, is that different from a general obligation bond
or it's just designated differently? It, it would be a general obligation
bond, it would be a proposition. So in a typical
bond program, we may have 10 different propositions. In this case, we
would potentially only have one proposition for public safety,
but it would be a general obligation election, general obligation bonds
financed over 20 years paid from our property tax debt service rate.
so the, so the fact that you've broken it out is just really sort of to help us
classify what, what might be a suitable for designation in that category
of, of potential borrowings? Yes, sir. As we were having conversations
about, uh, the need for the, uh, two components
of the police academy, we started having conversations about
what the, the highest priority needs were from a public safety perspective.
and these other projects got it added in as potentially the highest
type of public safety projects facility needs that we currently have.
um, and following up in council, uh, members, uh,
stuart's question is, uh, if, if a project
is not available or is not suitable or, or we
can't do a project that, uh, was designated under the bond program,
do we have the, the opportunity to move those funds into
another, to another project? Or is, or is the bond financing
absolutely, uh, specifically, uh, deal
specific and, and, and property specific or, or, or item
specific? So generally the, uh, bond proposition
has some flexibility, um, but you cannot move between
proposition. So if you had voters approve a library proposition
and a fire station proposition, you can't switch money between
those two. But, but if it, but if it was a real estate, if it was a building proposition
or a if or a moving having to do with, with a
facility or something, we could do it that. So if the proposition was a library proposition
and it was determined and one was the high priority at the time the
bond program was passed, if you decide another one is a higher priority,
it could be switched out, but not across propositions, but within
the language of that elected proposition. And once, once
a bond is, once you, we go to the public, get approval for bond,
uh, issue bond, uh, approval, uh, is there
a, uh, uh, once it's authorized, is there some, is there a deadline
on when you have to actually issue the bonds or actually go to market
to, to execute on, on, on authorizing
the actual bonds themselves after the election? Right.
there used to be, and I probably have said 10 years before, but bond counsel
has recently corrected me. As long as we can demonstrate to the attorney
general that it is still part of our plan, then the authorization
no longer expires at 10 years. We just have to continue to communicate with
the ags office that it is part of our financing plan. But
as we were talking about pension obligation bonds, if we got authorization
now, or at some point, I would not recommend that we
issue the pension obligation bonds. Now we wait until the market conditions are
right to do that. It's costing too much to borrow that right now. But those
rates will come down. They, they go up, but they'll come back eventually. And that, that
was gonna be my, my point is that once we get the authorization,
then we can manage the market requirements and actually be
more strategic in when we would actually issue the bonds and, uh,
the, or commit to the issuance of the bonds physically. Yes, sir. The
other question is are, are these bonds, can they be pre refinanced,
uh, or can they be prepaid typically, or are you, are we sort
of committed to not committed to a 20 year? We're committed to 20 years, but
can we pay 'em off early? Can we refinance over the 20
year period? Uh, most of our bonds are callable after 10 years. They're
callable after 10 years. Okay. Yes, typically. So, uh, e each structuring
deal can be different, but that's our typical, our standard. So it gives us some flexibility that
if we do want to go to the public to authorize a certain
amount of bond, uh, uh, potential, we
do have flexibility in, in seeing strategically
the market, figuring out what we want to do, even going ahead and exercising
it and then being able to column it at a certain period of time. Yeah. Yes,
sir. Um, is there also, uh, the, the opportunity
to, um, uh, basically
you, you, you can, you're not precluded from doing it except by your bond
credit, your ratings and stuff from doing future bond programs,
as long as you can justify the financial capacity of the city to,
to carry it. Is that correct? Yes, sir. So, um, before we
issue the bonds, obviously we have, uh, bond writings done, um,
for each issuance, um, not necessarily when the bonds are authorized,
but with each tranche that we we issue there is that, and those tranches
can be, be periodically, um, issued
for actually public payment. That's what you did in the, in the, uh,
in your scheduling over the period of years so that you don't,
even though we're, we've committed to it, there's interest maybe accruing, but we
don't actually have to lend the, you know, borrow the money physically
and, and use it until we, we really need it. Y
yes, with the exception that there is no interest accruing from the time that it's authorized,
any interest only accrues from when you actually issue. Oh, so that's great too. So we have
the flexibility in not having to actually issue the bond immediately.
yes, sir. Um, my question with regard to the, uh, 9 1 1,
uh, and emergency operations center, uh, is the $40 million that
was projected, is that, uh, was that a
relocation cost? Was there, is there additional costs, uh,
associated with that, with that potential relocation?
if, if we're considering that? I'll allow peter to answer
question related to that. Uh,
cbre and, and some other consultants developed that number. Um, and
it's a holistic number based on the program and the performance
specs, um, that gets you to a modern, um,
uh, design criteria and get you to, um, what
the industry best practices are. So, uh, I made a very good example here is the
dallas county eoc that opened today. There was a ribbon cutting there. Um,
we worked on that project and many of those numbers are highly applicable,
um, to a variety of scenarios, um, that, um, that the
city has contemplated and is contemplating. Uh, so we feel the numbers pretty tight
'cause it's based on very recent comps. Um, and, and so
relative to the public safety training complex and the, um,
and, uh, we could, we could also, uh, go ahead and get them
authorized by the public, but if we decide not to, uh, execute
the full amount that we need or we don't need as much because we've done other
fundraising opportunities, we'd have the flexibility jack of moving that money
around within that category of public safety potentially,
uh, potentially. But on the law enforcement training, uh, center,
um, I think we're ready to go on that. Um, we're at a point where
there's been significant fundraising and we're still about 82 million
short on that. And so, so that, that would be a one. And I was thinking about the public safety
training complex. That could be something that, that we would be authorizing in
a future. Potentially. We can borrow the money. I mean, we can authorize the bonds,
but we don't necessarily have to spend it right away. That is correct. Okay. Thank you
ms. Blair, you recognize for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Mayor, and
thank you, um, mr. Ireland for this presentation.
and peter, for all your assistance in getting all the information we need done.
um, with the bonds, how often do
we normally go for a new bond package?
I would say the typical is about every, um, five years
we have been, uh, getting authorization, uh, four to five years. There
have been some years that we've done very small, just maybe three propositions.
and, uh, so it's kind of varied, but typically five. And
the current, I apologize, the current 2024 bond program was designed
to be implemented over five years. We've, we've started two,
we've got three remaining. Then in 2029, we would anticipate the next
bond program at, at this particular point. So
this would be, uh, an if we do a 2026, that would be
an off cycle, correct? Yes ma'am. That would be an off cycle. How
much was the last, the 2024 bond? What's the total amount of the 2024
bond package? Uh, 1.25 billion.
and now we're, if we do 1 20 26, how much are we
projecting we would need just for, just for the,
this cycle and what would it be for? So for the, uh,
public safety facility proposition, if we chose to do that,
um, if we can pull up slide number 26, uh, as
a summary of the $441 million that we would include in that,
um, law enforcement training center at unt 82 million.
the public safety training complex we've been talking about red
bird, or I'm sorry, executive airport, 149 million,
the relocation of 9 1 1 and eoc 40 million,
the property room and evidentiary, uh, vehicle storage 150
and fire station four would be 20. So $441 million.
if we did, um, based on, uh, this presentation.
and then if we also chose to do a pension obligation
bond, which would be a separate proposition, uh,
we are suggesting up to 500 million for that. So then that
would be 941,000,941. Mm-hmm . On
top of the one point whatever billion we already, so we are looking closer to a
$2 billion package over two year o over within
the five years. From 24 through 29? Yes, correct. Okay.
um, so what's the impact on the
payers for all these bond packages? Do they need to pay higher property
taxes or in, in order to
pay back these loans? 'cause a bond is actually a loan, isn't it? Yes ma'am,
it is. Um, so the bond gets us cash upfront to make the capital
improvement. We pay it back over 20 years with, uh, principal
and interest. Um, all of our modeling at this point
assumes no change to the property tax rate. And so,
uh, we have a tax rate that's split between general fund and debt service, and
our modeling does not anticipate a change in the tax rate.
a property owner's actual tax bill will of course be based upon their
value and the tax rate. So as values go up, we know that
the tax bill goes up, but that's a factor of the value, not the rate.
so in order to pay this, these, this,
these bonds or loans back, we do need
to figure out how to get 'em done, correct? Uh, yes
ma'am. But, uh, as we do it, I've been sensitive to think that
the council is not interested in a tax rate increase. So I keep try to keep
the capacity within that level. But
would it not be fair to say that eventually you can't keep
borrowing yourself out of a, a hulk? Is that not correct?
I'm not the, you know, I'm not the financial wizard that some of my, my, my colleagues
are, but basic, when I do my bills
at the end of the month, I can't borrow more money to, to pay off another
loan. I, I eventually, I gotta pay live within my means, correct?
yes ma'am. And we would be living within our means. We would not be asking
to borrow more than we have the capacity to
pay back. And so what's important to know is because
we've been borrowing money so many years every year,
because we always have bond programs going, we're always repairing
streets, we're always building a library or a fire station. So every year
after we'd financed for 20 years, some old debt rolls off
a new, a new debt, new debt is layered on. So as we pay off one bond
from, um, 2016, 2006, then
we add in something in 2026 and something rolls off from 2007,
we add in something from 27. So let me ask another
question. Um, well, let me say this.
district eight, my district is one of the largest districts in the, the city. We have
almost a hundred thousand residents in district eight. We
are really the, one of the most diverse districts there are. We have five rec
center, 27 parks, two trails, over 500 horses,
one equine vet center, and a new rodeo. That's
diverse, correct? Yes ma'am. And we have one of the least
amount of infrastructure there is. I have a development
that could put in 400 new units,
but I don't have enough sewer line, my sewer line can't
get those develop, get that development out there. So how do
I get this paid for and do all the stuff we need to do?
so you're asking me a little bit outside of my area, and I probably would want to call on
economic development to help figure that deal out, uh, or, uh, dallas
water utility to help with the, the fact of the sewer expansion.
so, uh, but I'm, no, the question is, and let me, let me rephrase
the question. These are my needs. These are the things that I need, I need,
right now, we don't have the budget
to take care of these things. Do we, ma do we sit, uh, miss, uh,
miss bert? Do we have the, the, the money right now in the, the,
in the coffers to pay for all these things that infrastructure
streets and, and, and, and still do the repairs
on city hall? Thank you so much for the question on councilwoman blair. And I've, I've
stated publicly, um, previously that from an expense
standpoint and from a revenue standpoint, and I know that in the slide deck that
you have before you, it talks about the things that we would have to do to either increase,
um, revenues or we would have to find a way to decrease our, expend our
expenses. So we need to interrupt you for just a moment.
um, it's four o'clock. I wanted to take, uh, a 10 minute
recess. We can all, uh, have a little bit of a break. So those of
you who need to, oh, come on man. Take care of some business, can take care of some business,
but we'll reconvene in 10 minutes.
okay,
4 39. And we have resumed
with the, uh, briefing. So, um, um, city
manager, I think we're, we're, we're at I think 53
seconds, madam secretary with, uh, ms. Blair had the floor
is when we left, where we left off 53. If you could set the clock back to approximately
53 or
pretty close, if you can get close, that's the close you can get. And ms. Blair,
you have the floor. Okay, so, um,
how, okay, how, oh, it's been a minute. So let
me, let me re let me correct something. In district a,
we have, uh, major area of, uh, property
that has been a recently annexed one of the last places
of property that had been recently annexed, which means we are in
a large need of infrastructure. So how will our bond
pa bond programs and the, the, uh,
need to either renovate, remodel and
bring the city up to the city, building up to
standards? Uh, ha what will happen to the, the district, my
district and their needs? Thank you so much for the question.
uh, councilwoman, uh, blair, one of the things that we talked about, if you go back to
how we laid out slides 44 and 45,
we've had a lot of comments that have been made in the prior weeks regarding,
uh, the need to fund repairs out of, for cash using cash.
and we know that our current general fund has
existing budget pressures and there are budget pressures going forward, whether we're talking
about pension, which mr. Ireland has given you a complete rundown of
where we are currently with our pension plan. Uh, whether you're talking about the increase
in our police officers pay, um, employee health insurance, all
those things or things that they just don't go away. So we would still have to
continue to fund those. Um, I would say that those are priorities for
the city. So then the other option is to use the city's credit card,
which is issue in debt. Mr. Ireland has laid out that if you were to
do that, your future bond program, which we planned
for that to be around 2029, you would actually limit
the amount of money that you would then have for that bond program. And I believe the number
was around 300 million would be the amount
that you would have available to then do any other future programs beginning
with that year. So it is definitely a, um,
a, an option, but it also comes with the
impact of what then you cannot continue or how
you have to push out the bond program that we are currently in the middle of, which is 2024,
and then the impact that you would have on the upcoming bond program, which is currently
planned for 2029. So I can't tell you which exactly
propositions then the city council would want to support with that
number, that $300 million number. We know that currently our
needs as it relate to infrastructure, we still don't have
adequate funding even in the existing bond program to bring all of our
infrastructure needs, um, across the city up to the scalable levels that
we're looking for. So it is a decision, it's a
hard one, um, but it definitely does come with, um, um, the limitations
that you would have for being able to continue to address some of those
priority needs that we've heard from our residents, which is how the
existing bond program was uh, developed. So thank you for the question
and just to say I have the most septic tanks
in the city of dallas, which is just ahead of being in the back in
a outhouse. Thank you. Alright, thank you very much. Seeing
no one else in the queue, we'll move on to our speakers now. Madam secretary. Thank you.
we're done. We're done.
thank you, mr. Mayor. The speakers that are registered
today are signed up to speak on agenda item three, therefore I will read
the item into the record. Agenda item three is authorized one a
phase city hall repair strategy for 1500 marilla
street as presented on june 3rd, 2026, and
to the city manager to implement the selected phase city hall repair
strategy for 1500 marilla street in accordance with a proposed city
hall repair program. You do have several
individuals who have signed up to speak on this item. You speaker will be given one minute
speakers, you will have an opportunity to address the city council. Your
time will be presented on the monitor at the podium in the
center section here, and the podium is now to my left and your right,
I will call speakers in groups, the first group, when I call your name, I will ask that
you come forward and have a seat in the first three rows of this intersection
and virtual speakers. When I call your name, I will ask that you
please have your audio and video, uh, ready for
before you speak. Kevin walker, melissa lara,
robert walters, trey black, amanda moreno
lake, jim lake, michael trini,
michael alon, ana saeed,
luke, jo hill, adam cross, haw vahe,
jake milner, arthur santa maria, nanu
hon, jose avila, jennifer scripps,
frank miha, miha, amy
tharp, asmar reyes, canti
shesh and mark nunley. Kevin walker is virtual.
mr. Walker? Yes. Yes, you may begin.
thank you. Good afternoon, mayor and council members. Uh, my name is kelvin walker
and I serve as the ceo of the dallas citizens council. Uh, for over 90 years,
the dallas citizens council has brought together business
leaders to advanced missionary
initiatives, which have led significant progress for dallas for our infrastructure, healthcare, education,
and safety and economic development. The members of the citizens council proudly serve in the moments of
most for dallas. I'm here today to ask for the, because today's
decision comes down to one simple question, what is the best outcome for dallas?
this is a decision that we need to make that's not about the next budget site
decision about the next 50 years. I encourage you to move from
analysis to action, from evaluation to execution, and vote
to move forward toward with
for reimagining our area, the downtown area, to create a vibrant future for us in the
next generation. So I would encourage you to vote no on item three. Thank you for your time
and have thank you melissa lara.
good afternoon mayor, council members and city manager. My name is melissa lara,
co-founder of pico, a business born in oakland in 2016. Before
becoming an entrepreneur, I was a flight attendant for emirates based outta dubai for several years.
there at witness, a city wants to overlook for beginning in a desert, transform itself into
a global destination because leaders had the courage to think bigger.
dallas has that same potential. As a business owner, I have seen firsthand
what vision can do. Bishop parks became one of dallas' most visited destinations
because people like amanda lake and jim lake saw opportunity when
others saw risk. I've also seen the opposite or deep el
store went from our top performing location to one that we can no longer keep open
crime increase and visitors stop coming. A hard reminder than when we stop investing
in tour. City decline follows, this is about more than a building.
it's about economic development, creating jobs, attracting tourism,
growth and preservation can coexist that your time progress does not erase
our history. Thank you. They say yes to downtown vote no. And agenda item number
three. Thank you robert walters.
thank you. Good afternoon, counsel. Uh, my name is rob walters.
um, throughout most of my adult life, I've
sought ways to contribute to our betterment in the city.
uh, whether through service on the police and fire pension board,
uh, chairing the dallas citizens council, founding and leading, uh, clyde
warren park and other ways, including most recently, uh, are safe
in the city initiative. I've studied the issue
before you long and hard.
I appreciate the trade-offs, but there are no consequence
free decisions. And in my judgment, the
cost of rehabilitating this building, the cost of fewer
parks, police, or potholes filled is simply
far, far too great. I urge you to vote
against the city hall repair strategy, but even more
fundamentally, that's your time. Thank you.
thank you. Trey black.
trey black is not present. Amanda moreno lake.
good afternoon mayor, council members and city manager. My name is amanda moreno
lake. I'm a business owner and a resident of district one. As this
stage, you have heard all the arguments, are you going to do what's best for
the future of dallas? The numbers don't lie. Multiple
estimates, experts, and studies all point to the same direction.
continuing to pour taxpayers dollars into an aging facility
is not the best long-term investment. I know what
opportunities when I see them, I know what they look like. Look
at the facts and make decisions based on what's right for our city. Today
is an opportunity to choose growth over stagnation, opportunity
over maintenance and the future. Over the past vote note against agenda
item number three, gracia. And I hope you all have a blessed evening
and thank you for what you do. Thank you, jim lake.
good afternoon. My name is jim lake and I live in district one. I was born and raised
in north dallas and I've spent my entire career developing and repurposing neighborhoods
in north oak cliff and the dallas design district. Today I brought a few photos
with me. Uh, they were up there just a second ago. You have 'em in front of you.
um, one is a, uh, the, the, the top two photos of showing
the city hall site. Um, and there's from, from
1976 comparing with 2026, 50 years
later, it's the same site. 50 years later, nothing has changed with
still a zero tax base. Then you compare the photo with what was
a power plant in a rail yard in 1999 into what is now victory park.
in 2026, it went from 16 million in
tax value to 2.5 billion. And we've done this before. We know what to do. This
is a one time chance for us to have a bold vision and create a
destination that will blend culture and cultures that can and will
be the heartbeat of our city. That's your time. Thank you. Thank you.
mike. Michael trigon. Trigon.
thank you. Uh, my name's michael trigon. I'm the president of headington
companies. Uh, we've done and been doing business making
acquisitions and building various operations throughout
the city downtown, specifically including the jewel hotel, both phases
of the commissary 45 10 drake stone, which is the former
davis building, the eyeball, uh, all of stone street
and hampton social, which used to be iron cactus. I bring all
this up because we start with the premise. If we can find old stock
or stock that dates back that has unique elements
and not a a glass box, we try to save it. We've
won two preservation dallas awards and I think it's two, it
could be three, but nevertheless, we always try and save the building.
we've been in the same situation on a smaller scale that city hall is in.
it's an insidious place to be. It is always under budgeted
in terms of how much it will cost and ultimately, that's your time. Thank you. Thank
you michael alon,
mike avalon, 60 seconds. Here we go. Before I start, thank you for your service.
um, I wonder voice make my voice down on city hall.
I speak specifically as it relates to projects such as the bank of america
plaza, the redevelopment of the area around it. I support the redevelopment of the
current dallas city hall site as a transformative economic development
opportunity for downtown dallas. I believe dallas has an opportunity to create
lasting economic value, strengthen connectivity within downtown and surrounding
neighborhoods, and be catalytic to investment in the area for the other
underperforming undervalued assets. I believe redevelopment
this area will deliver meaningful generational benefits for all of our city.
while I recognize and respect the differing views surrounding this issue, my
position is grounding the long term economic vitality and competitiveness of dallas.
in my opinion, investing 500 to 650 million in
deferred maintenance in our existing city hall is regrettably, regrettably,
not approving. That's your time use of our city. Thank you. Thank you.
luke joko.
good afternoon, mayor johnson and council members. I'm here in support of
relocating dallas city hall and creating the opportunity for a catalytic project
that can help shape the future of downtown dallas. I simply want
to be a voice for my generation 'cause we'll be the ones living with
the outcome of this decision for the next 30 to 40 years. I grew up in
arlington and was a suburban kid who always wanted to come to dallas because
of the culture of the neighborhoods, the restaurants, the people, and the energy.
I drive to the original snuffers on lower greenville and through downtown because
it felt authentic. It felt interesting. I knew one day I wanted to live
here. Today I do live here. I work here, I invest here and I send
my kids to school here. And one thing I've learned is what makes cities special
isn't what happens inside the buildings. It's what happens between them. If I'm
gonna speak for my generation, I support relocating city hall
'cause I'm in favor of growth. I'm in favor of creating interesting places. That's your time where
people wanna live and work and play. Thank you. Thank you. Adam cross.
hello, my name is adam kraus. I'm a dallas native and downtown
business owner. Downtown dallas is dying and the losses of at and
t fifth third bank, neiman marcus, fox four news, the dallas mavericks
and dallas stars is only the beginning. It will continue to
compound and kill the small business owners who will not survive what comes next. Dallas
is about to lead the country in downtown office vacancy. And while there is 15,000
people who live in downtown today, there are zero new apartments, zero
new offices, and zero hotels under construction. While the rest of this region
thrives, the private market has already redlined downtown. Thank you mayor
johnson for having the courage to put this to a vote and say no more. Because
the vocal few are hammering the final nails into this coffin, wanting hundreds
of millions of taxpayer dollars spent on this decaying mausoleum
and handing the rest of the community the bill. This is the generational moment that
requires courage and conviction for a new people, uh, begging for a vibrant
downtown worth living in and worth believing in. Vote no on agenda item three. Thank
you. Thank you kean. Vashi.
alright, so I have been in, uh, working and
we own a property in, uh, downtown dallas. And it is a hotel that
is just right next door to city hall. Uh, been there for about
two years now and I thought after my first year, uh, the conversations I
would've be having with guests would be more so about, uh, places to see and
stuff to visit. But the biggest question I always get is, hey, is it safe
to walk outside? Is that walk that I'm talking about is right across this city
hall land, uh, right adjacent. The only place my guests
need to go is right down young street and they don't feel safe traveling
that walk. So I think, you know, with the $3 billion convention center that
we're putting together, that walk is not gonna get any
friendlier if we don't do anything with this area over here. So I believe that, um,
and I ask you guys to vote, uh, vote no and, um, relocate city hall. Thank
you. Thank you
jake milner.
jake milner is not present.
author santa maria
mayor and council members. Thank you. The consequences of a
declining downtown are not confined to just downtown
southern dallas is directly affected when big corporations close their
downtown offices and facilities. And when major investment is
redirected elsewhere, we've seen this pattern before.
major opportunities move north, north, and north. While
southern dallas is told to sit down and be patient, you now
have an opportunity to break that pattern. Southern dallas has the most to
lose if downtown continues to weaken and the most to gain if you choose
to act boldly. Today, some of us are focused on growing and
investing in southern dallas, and the wrong move here could pull that rug out from
under us. I urge you to vote known to repairing this
building so we can pursue the kind of investment that can benefit downtown and
southern dallas together. Thank you. Thank you sauna saeed.
good afternoon, mayor and council. I serve as president of the farmer's market stakeholders
association and I'm a downtown dallas resident. I'm here to urge you to
vote no on item three. There is no great city that reaches its
full potential without a strong downtown mayor, thank you for taking
on an issue that too many have avoided for years. And to the council members who
see the opportunity to reimagine and reinvest in our urban core.
thank you. Please fight for downtown. Listen, the businesses,
residents and stakeholders who want to stay here but are exhausted from years of delay
division and inaction, we have a chance to turn the page and
create the kind of downtown that attracts investment, talent, residents, and opportunity
for generations to come. It's go time, be bold, act quickly,
and lead downtown dallas should be the heart of this region, not a
footnote to its suburbs. Thank you. Thank you. Nanu
ong.
it's not present. Jose avila.
good afternoon. I want to express my gratitude to mayor johnson,
city manager tolbert and the council members who were ready to vote yes
on dallas's future. And we're prepared to put our communities
over this building. Thank you. Do not be discouraged.
we have your back. Hold the line. Let's see this through. Together
now to the residents of dallas. Pay attention to what happened yesterday.
three council members who don't even bother to show up or at
least left. Uh, three council members sued the city
in the name of transparency or proper process. A judge granted their
tro, it blocked the relocation vote, it blocked the redevelopment vote, but
it did not conveniently. Block item three, the vote to spend your
money to repair this building. That one upcoming serves the agenda
of those three people who filed the suit, which is at best a remarkable
coincidence. That's your time. I urge you to vote no on item three. And thank you for being
here. Thank you. Jennifer scripps.
good afternoon, mayor city council. My name is jennifer scripps. It's my
honor to serve as the president and ceo of downtown dallas, inc.
for nearly 70 years, ddi has helped lead downtown through periods of transition.
and I think we can all agree after the last couple of weeks we are at a period of
transition. This week you received further confirmation that any responsible
repair and renovations for this building would take years and cost taxpayers
at minimum hundreds of millions of dollars last week. Also, ddi
met with a hundred residents, stakeholders and visionaries to plan the future of
downtown. I urge you not to spend hundreds of million dollars to repair
and try to modernize this facility, but instead to put it
into the needs of our community and work with us as we plan downtown, as
a multi-purpose seven day a week active and vibrant urban core
that we can all be proud of. Thank you so much. Thank you,
frank opolis.
good evening, mayor johnson, manager tolbert city council members, particularly
those who are present today. I'm frank opolis corn properties,
and I've been coming to this place since 1978 when mayor falso was mayor.
and I've been very privileged and blessed of doing projects in the city and in
the southern sector that have transformed neighborhoods and areas. I'm very particular
in this particular area. I've also had fortunate to remodel and repurpose old
buildings, old balls around the country at the same time.
my family has been involved in, in the businesses of downtown since 1976.
we fed people here and I've seen this area transform to
nothing and particularly in the area of downtown there, tax based economic development.
and today it's a watson time opportunity to free up 50
acres next to the convention center, to they create a new major
to create a campus that no other major city has in the united states. 50 acres
in quarter city. The city hall's. Impressive. That's your time on a, on a
pulse card. Vote no on proposition three today, please.
thank you. Stop the insanity. Amy tharp. Amy thorpe.
uh, good afternoon council members and mayor,
I just wanna say, say I'm sorry, I'm, I'm sorry
you're not allowed to speak at this time.
amy tharp. My name is amy tharp and I serve as the
chief operating officer at downtown dallas inc. Downtown dallas is
at a pivotal moment today more than 16,000 residents called
downtown home. And through our big moves planning efforts that
jennifer just referred to, we are working to double and even triple that population
in the years ahead. That growth matters. A thriving residential
downtown creates long-term tax value for the city, supports
businesses and strengthens dallas's economic competitiveness.
we have a responsibility to ensure that major public investments
support that momentum rather than limit it. This is
a generational decision at a time when downtown's growth presents such significant
opportunity. We believe there's a path, one that creates greater
value for taxpayers, supports continued residential growth and positions
downtown and dallas for long-term success. We respectfully urge you
to reject a costly repair strategy and pursue that path instead.
thank you. Thank you. Uh, smar reyes.
good afternoon everyone. Thank you. Uh, citizens of dallas. I just
wanna say you'll make it quick and short and simple. We already lost
a lot here. I'm sorry. Mr. Reyes, your video needs to be displayed.
okay. So you are in favor. Um, I'm in
favor of this city. Um,
good afternoon. Can you, are you guys everybody to hear me? Yes, you may continue. Okay.
um, I mean, good afternoon everyone from dallas. We already lost a lot here in this beautiful
city of dallas. We lost the mavericks, we lost the stars
and I don't wanna lose anything else. Um, we need
to redevelop this building because of the maintenance costs.
um, I just wanna say how, um, by
us, by us keeping this building right here, we're
in keep an historic building, but we're in least dallas in the history books
as one of the cities that once was and didn't
continue to be. Dallas has great potential. We're in the heart of the
dfw area and if we shall continue to be, then we
need to reinvest in, uh, infrastructure
and I support, uh, moving this item forward. Thank you.
thank you. Canti resh
canti ssh,
uh, best wins or respected mayor, uh, council members, city manager
and the staff. My name is conti ti and uh, I am a business owner
at district eight and I stand in support of moving this item
forward. Our city hall has served dallas with honor and distinction
and its place in our history is secure. But every generation
is entrusted with a responsibility greater than preserving
the past alone. And years from now, future generations
will not ask whether we protected a building. They will ask whether
we had the vision to strengthen our city, the courage to embrace opportunity
and the wisdom to leave dallas better than we found it. And
today, the dallas we cherish was built by the visionary leaders
who dared to think beyond their own time. I respectfully
asked you to do the same and thank you very much.
thank you mark nunley.
thank you, uh, mayor, members of the council. My name is mark nunley.
I am a cpa. I've spent my 50 year career reading financial
statements, stress testing, projections, and cutting through numbers to find the truth inside
them. The numbers on the city hall decision are the clearest I've
ever seen. Here are the numbers, the fully loaded cost to stay, 1.49
to 1.6 billion. The cost to relocate using the most expensive
scenario, 482 million as a cpa. I can tell
you what that means. Over $1 billion in savings
to the taxpayers. We cannot afford to do anything else. I
did not come here to push a predetermined outcome. I came here because I looked at the numbers
and the numbers are unambiguous. Please vote no on item three.
thank you. I will now call the next group. When I call your name,
please come forward and have a seat on the first three rows in this intersection.
kirk presley, jim schutz, janie
schultz, matthew bach, andrew cola, karen
muncy, jamie jolly, rudy kami, michael
wiseberg, sarah crane, stephanie dka,
jessica stewart liny, john eichman,
issa terranova, melissa martinez,
mary francis young has canceled. Matthew mabel and
mike davis. And I will ask if you're virtual to have your video
and audio ready. Kirk presley.
good evening, mayor and council. My name is kirk presley and my wife and I live at 46 0 3
west university boulevard in district six. I'm here to speak in opposition
to agenda item three. In 2017, boston began repairing
its city hall in a 30 year phase repair plan. It is also a brutalist
style building of almost exactly the same size and age as our city hall.
at the time, they thought it would only cost 225,000,008
years later. Just the parts they have priced so far, which is only the first decade
of work, will cost them over $440 million
with financing costs. They're on pace to spend over a billion dollars on the building.
we cannot afford to make the same mistake. Thank you
for voting no on agenda item three. Thank you
jim schutz.
jim schutz is not present. Honorable janie schultz.
janie schultz is not present. Matthew bach.
matthew bach is not present. Andrew sla.
andrew sla is not present. Karen muncie.
karen muncie is not present. Jamie jolly
can I have afternoon mayor and council. I'm jamie jolly, president and ceo of the real
estate council and I appreciate the opportunity to address you this evening. Trek
does not support moving forward with a plan to renovate our current city hall.
instead, we support the redevelopment of the current city hall site as a once in
a lifetime opportunity to unlock one of dallas's most strategically
located properties. The current city hall site sits at the heart
of an area of downtown dallas that has faced challenges for decades and has never
reached its full potential. Redeveloping this site presents a generational
opportunity to connect the southern edge of the downtown core
to the ultimately to southern dallas. This kind of catalytic
investment can bring the city together and create a more vibrant, walkable,
and economically competitive city center. We've closely monitored the public
briefings, we've reviewed the comprehensive facility assessments and data-driven cost
estimates provided by experts and considered the broader conversation.
we respect that there are different views on this issue, but we hope that you will vote against
item three. Thank you. Thank you rudy kami.
good afternoon everyone. Rudy kami, the council district 14.
I am still not a finance or real estate person. So let's hear from someone
who is, it kind of sucks to be a tenant in a lot of cases. Triple net. Triple
net, is that what you said? Triple net used in a lot of commercial real estate deals, but
if the roof leaks cost is passed along to the tenant, if something breaks a pipe, breaks
a cost is passed along to the tenant repairs and maintenance, a cost is passed along to the
tenant. If a piper's cost is passed along to the tenant, if a window breaks cost
is passed along to the tenant, somebody shoots it out, cost is passed along to the tenant
flooding, a lot of times that cost is passed along to the tenant. Real estate taxes go
up $500 in the year. The tenant's gotta absorb. That kind of sucks to
be a tenant in a lot of cases. Um, but if you've got the right building, they're willing to pay it.
shame on you. You wouldn't do this with your house, but you'll do it with ours. Thank you.
michael wiseberg.
I'm a native dallas side retired from a long career promoting cities and
areas for corporate relocation, including the old american
airlines when they moved here from new york. About 80% of my work was outta
state. I'm a student of cities. The idea that it's somehow more prudent
to scrape an iconic I am pay landmark than it is
to refurbish it as an insult to our taxpayers. The forced timetable
is reckless and suspicious in itself. A string of losing
football seasons or sports team relocation or normal parts
of a big city's ebb and flow recklessness in large matters is
not. I hope and I trust that our city council will not do
anything that would make dallas a laughing stock in the highest circles
of other american cities and perpetuate the stereotype of
a city run by bankers and developers for their private good. We
are better than that, but we must show it. Thank you. Thank
you, sarah crane.
hello? My name is sarah crane and I'm the executive director of preservation dallas.
and I'd just like to remind everybody that we actually are making this decision today
in light of no additional information when it comes to the cost of
abandoning this building. Um, I'd also like to say that this building is neither
an albatross nor a magic bullet for downtown. Saying
yes to downtown redevelopment should not mean having to say no to repairing this
building. I mean, this is dallas. We have the old right next to the new across the
city. It's actually what makes our city so rich and our community so
unique. Dallasite deserve to to have it all a vibrant downtown and
this dallas city hall. But this process to renew downtown will take time.
a thoughtful, comprehensive business strategy and investment, city of dallas investment.
and it starts right here because you can say yes to investing in downtown. And
you can start by saying yes to repairing this dallas city hall. Thank you.
thank you stephanie dka.
I am pe once said, architecture is the very mirror of life. Mayor
johnson, you called this building obsolete. A reflection of your disdain
for what? It represents the will of the people. Resilient, unyielding,
concrete pay design, city hall to withstand the test of time,
the test of people like you who view sentimentality as a weakness when
in fact it's our greatest strength. The capacity to connect
to counter false narratives intended to divide. Before this, many didn't
know who im pay was and what this building truly meant, but your miscalculation
taught us what a treasure we have to protect here. Do the right thing, restore
the people's house to its full glory. Otherwise, future generations will remember what
they were robbed of, how we fought to keep it. And you'll be the one
cemented in history as obsolete.
thank you, jessica stewart lin.
good evening everyone. Um, the numbers issued for
repairs by the consultant to date, consultants to date are rough
planning numbers. Even their own documents say that these are numbers that are
in a rough order of magnitude. They are not meant to make these
types of decisions. I'm here to ask you to vote
yes to the repairs, yes to downtown, but also yes to
the process. To me, this building is a model of our democracy.
and the democracy piece and the building piece
are both being threatened in this process.
um, the building teaches us that the heart
of our city is our government center. This
is the center of a vibrant downtown. You cannot remove
the heart and have this ai generated, um,
vibrancy. It doesn't exist without the heart. That's your time. This is the center.
thank you. Thank you, john eichman.
john eichman is not present.
risa terranova.
theresa terranova is not present. Melissa martinez.
melissa martinez is not online. It's not present.
mary francis young is counsel. Matthew mabel. Matthew
mabel is not present. Mike davis,
mike davis. Uh, good evening, uh, mayor. Present members
of the city council. I'm here to rally you.
I'm here to also remind you though that as we look towards
redevelopment of this downtown environment,
it must include strong opportunities
for the hospitality restaurant and nightlife uses
that will make downtown vibrant. I'm in support
of using city hall as a down payment
on the future. I'm representative of my generation of millennials
and I grew up with my mom around my, with my mom while she was working here for over
35 years. So I know all about city hall. I I've been and
played down in l three, so I know it very well. This needs to be
a down payment on the future. We deserve it.
vote that's your time against those repairs. Thank you. Thank you.
I will now call the next group of speakers. When I call your name, please come forward and have a seat
in the first three rows of this intersection. Mark grace,
joanna hampton, abigail clawson, bell betson,
dolores leve, soroka, debbie orka soli,
pj moton, mckayla watkins, kristen atwell,
alicia tis has canceled, will let forsyth li, kate
parrish, sean buckley, ruben land
ed zara, benjamin boyer, george aranda,
marcel quimbee, jose pena has canceled. Sidney walker,
yvonne walker, jed ulrich,
andrew bieri, and arianna smith.
mark grace may
begin. This is a good time to breathe.
you know, uh, um, this is kind of a, we we're,
uh, acting out a psychodrama here, the citizenry. One
minute, one minute, one minute. Uh, and we're rushing
to make our points. Uh, I want to give my gratitude to everybody who's
endured this long day to have their say as citizens.
and I just want to add to my colleagues, especially
sarah crane's remarks. Uh, the numbers are not
as solid as people want them to be. This building
is a legacy and can be a legacy. It doesn't have to be a
false dichotomy between our future and this building.
as a matter of fact, sometimes constraints are what,
uh, help us to move towards creativity. So I'd
encourage you, I would challenge you. That's your time to move
forward in leadership and vote yes for this, uh, proposal.
thank you. Thank you joanna hampton.
good afternoon, honorable mayor, members of the city council, joanna hampton, 5 4 0 8
swiss avenue. The current debate is a patch for the
multiple issues that are facing downtown, and it does not provide a
cohesive solution for downtown or our full city.
this is a 200 to 400 year building. It's reflecting the quality of
the investment by our city. And I note this not to set the building
in amber, but to recognize the robust and lasting
framework provided to this city and its citizens for our city government.
I asked this council, what is the compelling reason for this site
in this building? I haven't heard a vision provided to us or
to you that would pro on the proposed relocation.
well, I believe city, cal city hall can and should be a part of our
revitalized and vibrant downtown. We must
start the work to create a shared vision that supports long
term solutions your time. Thank you. Thank you. Abigail clawson.
hello. Dallas city hall has become a kind of civic, civic scapegoat.
this building has been blamed for problems it did not create, and its destruction
cannot resolve. It is not why people are leaving downtown. It is
not why corporations relocate. It is not the cause of homelessness,
public distrust, or government dysfunction. Unless this council addresses
those actual challenges, those problems will remain regardless of what
happens to this building. My kids have attended five and
soon six different disd schools in our eight years here. Most
of these schools are decades older than city hall and somehow
thousands of children learn in them every day. If our schools can be maintained
and used for generations, why should the standard for city hall be different?
a building that is younger than I am dallas taxpayers paid
for this building, they deserve better than to watch it be discarded for the latest shiny
idea. It is simple. You have been elected to do good things and to
avoid doing bad things, vote yes on agenda number
three. Thank you. Thank you, bill betson,
howdy. It's an honor to be here and I want you to vote yes.
and the reason I want you to vote yes is I raised four kids in the
home I bought 51 years ago in south oak cliff, and I've
got nine grandkids and six great grandkids. And we need
this building to give an example of stability.
now, south oak cliff in 2016, we voted
to put $52 million to rebuild that school that
was old and torn up in a mess. We did it. The kids moved
into the school in 20 and in 21, they were the
first disd school to get a texas
state football five a championship in 50
some odd years. And then they did it again in 22, and
they did it again in 25. And in 25,
they also got the highest school effective that your
time indices score of all 37 high schools in
the city. Academic performance. That's your time in a fixed
school. Thank you dolores. Leve soroka,
I mean it. We're not gonna do the outburst thing. Okay, we're gonna start asking people
to leave
dolores levy soroka. I'm in district two.
the question is whether dallas will responsibly address the
needs of city hall or abandon a public asset that
taxpayers already own. No one has
really presented this council or the public with a complete
accounting of what it will cost to leave city hall. Therefore, the only
way you should vote today is yes or don't vote at all.
a phase repair strategy is the responsible fiscal conservative,
taxpayer focused solution. We paid for dallas city hall.
the responsible thing is to take care of it, not to walk
away from it. Thank you, debbie
orozco solis,
the deliberate garden, and the west warren heights neighborhood association. Let my dr.
pat stevens. I am here to tell you we do not
want city hall to leave. We want you to fix it. We need transparency
in all civic affairs when it involves a place that we call home and
is fully paid for that we own. We voted for each of you
to be a democracy for us. This design at city hall was structured
to last over 200 years. It was completed in 1978.
it decided to come to city hall and feel you have no voice because you
do not have a million dollars in the bank. I live in a
house that was built in 1924, requires constant maintenance and has undergone
three major res renovations. I pray you have good
principles and do not ent and do not be enticed by wealthy developers
because this is what I see today. Give us a voice, let us
speak, give us a what we need, give us more information, have meetings
with us. That's your time. And ignore, please don't ignore
us anymore. Thank you pj moton.
good afternoon. Uh, here joining you virtually, um, vote against
item three. This is bigger than a building. Relocating dallas city hall is
about whether dallas is willing to build for the future, not keep pouring money
into the past. See, the employees deserve a modern, clean, safe, and
innovative work environment. These people are the ones who serve us
our residents every day. And they should be expected. They should not be expected to do 21st
century work in a facility that no longer meets the needs of the 21st
century city dallas residents deserve better too. We deserve a
civic home that is accessible, welcoming, inspiring and worthy
of the city we are becoming. This past week we hit, uh, we faced
a, a number of major blows, including the dallas stars and the dallas mavericks.
both institutions were making bold decisions about their future. And dallas city hall must
do the same. A new city hall can be a more than a office building. It can be a
symbol of pride, progress, service, and possibility. I urge you to move
forward, forward with voting against item three. Thank you,
mikayla watkins.
good afternoon, mikayla watkins of district two. It is imperative to be understood
that our dedication and desire to save city hall is not merely sentimental in nature.
we, your constituents deserve full transparency rather than concepts of a plan
with no comparative data provided. How can one guarantee that demolition would be
less costly than preservation? We have heard little to no factual data regarding a
new or temporary location or the potential financial responsibilities that could accompany,
accompany, said relocation with numerous large scale projects pending,
including the bond supported improvements to the convention center and the $5 billion
replacement and relocation of ert. I find it necessary that you consider the
logistical nightmare of the concurrent pursuits of these projects, coupled with the pre-existing
construction and congestion of the affected areas. It is also important that we
do not overlook our unhoused brothers and sisters whose voices cannot be heard
in forums such as these with many of their shelters and resources existing in the area
which is planned to be redeveloped. We must be mindful of how these actions will displace them
and how we plan to continue your time providing this. Your thank you so much for your time. Thank
you. Kristen atwell.
hello, uh, my name is kristen atwell and I've lived in dallas for exactly 40
years. This is my first time to speak before city council. Um, I
own a marketing firm that turned 35 years this year. And, uh,
in 1999 we worked on this big vision downtown
dallas to 2005. Took five years and
visioned it out back when we used to print things on paper. Um,
and it took a really long time to work on. It was, it had in-house housing,
office renewal, hospitality development, transportation, entertainment,
parks and rec. We branded the pegasus project. We re-lit the horse
on top of the magnolia building. Uh, we marketed the 1954
republic tower. We watched the mercantile redevelop next to
our office. That was two blocks from here for 15 years. Um,
I'm gonna cut this as short as I can, but we are in support of
downtown vitality. The last time I was here, that's your time. There
were green shirts and they did not know why they were here. Thank you.
that was very interesting. Thank you. Alicia. Canceled
honorable tta forsyth lil it's is not
present. Kate parrish.
good evening. Kate parrish from district two. I'd like to echo a sentiment
of one of my colleagues back from march if city hall can't be saved, what does that mean
for the rest of us? Dallas likes to disinvest in most of
our public assets. Don't let city hall be another one of those. This is
our house. We pay for it. We continue to pay for it, and we're happy to pay for
it because it is an icon of looking forward. This is the
testament of dallas's future ever facing forward. Don't
tear it down. Continue to invest in it, please. Thank you. Thank you.
sean buckley. Sean buckley
is not present. Ruben landa,
honorable mayor, city manager, city council or council members. My
name is ruben landa. I live in victory park in district two, and I am the president
of the great dallas plan council. I recognize the historical importance of this building and
understand why some of you want to preserve it, but the council has a fiduciary responsibility
to spend public funds wisely and by any measure, the cost to
renovate and repair this building is simply too high and does not make physical sense.
saving this building will not save downtown. Your focus should be
on how to strengthen downtown today and position for the future. This
council voted 14 to one to approve the k bailey hutchinson master plan
voters didn't approve funding by 70 to 30% margin. That
plan is what you should be focused on, implementation of that plan, fully
full implementation of that plan. I ask this body to rise
above politics. Stop attacking those with different views and lead
with vision. But most importantly, stop wasting time. Dallas
needs leadership and it needs it. Now we need visionaries that are looking at the that's your
time and what's best for the city as a whole. Thank you. Thank you. It's
zara.
hello, ed zara, district of 14. It's better to own than rent
keep city hall taxpayer owed, owned and paid for no
rent. Save 148 million, no broker commission. Save
8.6 million no property taxes. Save 79 million
city hall is purpose built for 9 1 1 3 1 1. It's
a civic landmark preserved taxpayers will then pay
property tax. If you leave city hall, there's a $60 million demolition
cost. There's a quality of life cost of 20,000 truckloads
of debris being put on our streets. All lease
options that you're looking at have the same end of
service life concerns as city hall.
don't put your taxpayers on the hook for $157 million
in rent every 10 years into eternity. Thank
you. Thank you. Benjamin boyer.
thank you. Uh, before dallas commits billions of taxpayer dollars
to a new municipal complex, the city should first determine whether the
assumptions underpinning such an investment remain valid. In the 21st
century, advances in technology have enabled private sector to successfully
decentralize many administrative, financial, legal,
and customer service functions, um, have moved, uh,
to work from home and have improved and maintain productivity.
dallas has an opportunity to lead nationally by modernize, modernizing service
delivery and demonstrating responsible stewardship of public resources
in in increasingly digital age. Thank you.
thank you. George anda
george anda is not present. Marcel quimbee.
um, good afternoon, mayor and councilmen council
members. My name is marcel quimbee and I live in district 14. I'm
stunned at today's occurrence. And
as my first question is, what happened to the comparison of all the
options? The city has not provided anybody
with numbers for the other options as
promised, how can a city make any decision in a silo without understanding
the pros and cons and financial impact of all the options?
I just, it, it boggles my mind and I cannot understand that. You
know, and I urge city council to vote yes
to, to repair city hall or if you wanna take some more time
to, you know, address these issues and bring the numbers that
were promised, just put it on hold and we'll come back and talk about it when
we can have a realistic discus discussion with all of
the that's your time with all of the information needed to actually
make that your time discussion. That's your thank you. Jose pena is
canceled. Sidney walker
greetings. Sidney walker district seven. I just have a few questions
for you guys to ponder. So why was the commercial
class a office, the standard for the renovation estimate?
was the lease space option that was included in the report class
c or was it class a? 'cause there is a big price difference between those
two. Isn't class a the most expensive
to renovate to? So why would a government agency renovate office
space to class a? That's
not wise. So councilman west spoke last
night during his meeting. Um,
he would vote to stay if we have money to pay for the fixes.
do y'all have the money to pay to move? Where is that coming
from? What services and programs
and buildings and community sitters? Are you gonna close? That's
your time to move. Thank you. Thank you. Yvonne walker.
thank you. Yvonne. Walker's not present. Chad ulrich.
hello, chad ulrich, district one and I'm with the democratic socialist
america north texas chapter. These days we have a scam economy. Everything from ai that
isn't returning to on investment to presidential crypto. Just earlier this year, the city of
plano was adamant to leave dart to cut off their constituents from the region as well as the region from
plano to likely pay first half, a hundred million dollars arena. So a sports franchise,
cut up infrastructure and become a local landlord of the businesses at a time when 1600
pennsylvania avenue has a giant crater in it. Without congressional approval and a possibly permanent
octagon in front of it, I employed you to keep this building at 1500 marilla street. This
will not solve your budget or the downtown problem, but it will be a step in the right
direction. The time is now for us as a city to define what we are. Times
change in corporations and sports teams go running for the next handout they
can find under the cover story of a rundown downtown. The time is now to
get creative with our city hall in a space around it, make it an anchor and form of our
city with housing built, nearby housing or a grocery store downtown will do more to
bring businesses than some genocidal owned basketball team. What will
happen to that? That's your time will be the most sterile corporate owned thank you entertainment. Thank, thank you.
yes to yes. Uh, yes to three. Thank you. Andrew
zui is not online, it's not present.
ariana smith. Good afternoon, mayor
and city council members. My name is ariana smith and I'm a downtown homeowner.
I'm opposed to repairing city hall on the dime of taxpayers and urge you
all to vote no to item three. Downtown dallas should be the
economic and cultural heart of our city. Instead, it has become increasingly
defined by vacant storefronts, underutilized land, and growing concerns
about crime. For too long, downtown has fallen short of its potential.
you all have an opportunity to change that by, by, by voting no to item
three and support a redevelopment of the land in and around city hall.
redeveloping this property will attract investment, great jobs and bring new
residents, businesses and energy to downtown. This is more than
a redevelopment project. It is an opportunity to revitalize
downtown dallas as a thriving destination to live, work, visit, and
invest with your leadership downtown can once again become the heart
goal for them. Thank you. Thank you.
I'll now call the next group of speakers. When I call your name, please come forward and
have a seat on the first three rows of this intersection. And also
that ask that virtual speakers, please have your video and audio ready.
iani ume. Sean jensen. Betty neil,
venton jones, sam williams, ronnie mees,
jim anderson, claudia fowler, joe
tave, yolanda williams, charles williams
ii david voss, mary lou, paris, sean todd,
kevin pfeiffer and erica cole. Ani je
ani je is not present. Sean jensen.
sean jensen. Okay. Sean jensen
is not present. Betty neil.
betty neil.
betty neil. Hi. Thank you for having me today.
uh, to the mayor and to the council. For 46 years, I've been a dallas resident
and I respect our city's history and the importance of preserving iconic
buildings when it makes financial sense. But good stewardship is not
about preserving a building at any cost. It's about making responsible
decisions with taxpayer dollars. The
reality is dallas city hall is an aging facility designed for a whole different
era. 600 million is only repairing deferred maintenance,
not renovating. The result would be the same old stained carpet, the
same outdated restrooms. The stone aged furniture spending hundreds
of millions would force difficult choices about real priorities, including
animal service, street maintenance, parks, recreation centers, libraries,
and other service we residents rely on daily. We also have to think
about the future of downtown dallas, redeveloping the city hall site to
generate new private investment, expand the tax base, create jobs, and bring
new energy to our urban core. That's your time. Dallas compete.
thank you. Thank you. Benton jones is not present.
sam williams. Hello.
sam williams, district nine. Not a part of citizens council or the regional chamber.
and in support of keeping the building, I only have a short time. Uh, I've got financial
concerns based on current understanding and don't feel like we have enough data. There's
blank and unknown figures in the original agenda around relocation, lack of
research around renting estimates and tear down costs. If we were to leave,
why are we listening to business interests here, but not to their disinterest from lack
of private investment in the police facility? Maybe we should be a bit more selective
with assigning them credibility. Not to mention the convention center already delaying
investments across the city. Economic analysis, including the st. Louis federal reserve,
consistently supports the conclusion. Investment in large stadiums does not
significantly approve financial outcomes of the area. Is a hotel really
what we want at the center of our city? A casino? This does not mean
we must keep a current status quo. When the city solicited designs to reimagine the area.
we received hundreds of designs and ideas. Some of the most exciting of said designs
came time from student organizations. That's your time. Thank you. Thank you. Ronnie
meus.
good afternoon, mayor. Uh, ronnie meus, west dallas, texas. You know that already.
um, district six. Um, this has just, it's
it's been horrible. This whole process has been non-transparent. Uh,
you having meetings yesterday for the first time over this issue?
um, dallas has a problem with identity. A lot of these people
here that are, are, are for the change. Uh, wouldn't sell
their homes to come and live downtown. You know, downtown should be a vibrant, and
I think we all agree on that. It should be vibrant. Should be someplace you want to go?
where wrigley field built 1914. I feel sorry for the people that don't
understand or, or just refuse to understand that what history's about. You know, when
you see a something that's like that, you know, it is just, I,
I, I don't, I can't grasp it, but, uh, it's an identity process.
you know, you only have where kennedy got shot or either
state fair, one of those two. That's what you used to come to dallas for. And you wanna make it vibrant
for everybody to come to dallas. That's your time. Thank you. Thank you.
jim anderson. Jim
anderson is not present. Claudia fowler.
claudia fowler is not present. Joe
tve,
mayor council joe tve, district three council members.
I am a long lifelong dallas resident and former disc history teacher.
I value and appreciate historic buildings. As a former city council
candidate, I also understand our responsibility to taxpayers
and the importance of sound fiscal stewardship. Spending hundreds of
millions of dollars to repair a city hall at any cost is not good.
governor cu essential, uh, city services to preserve an outdated
building will not solve the underlying problem. Dallas needs the city hall that meets
the needs of mor of a modern city, not a facility designed for a different
area. Relocate city hall, unlock redevelopment opportunities and put valuable down,
uh, downtown property back on the tax roads. Use that redevelopment to
generate new, uh, revenue. Strengthen downtown, create economic growth.
most importantly, invest those resources and neighborhoods that need them most particularly
southern dallas or those, uh, areas south of the mason. D that's your time. That's your
thank you. Thank you. Yolanda williams.
yolanda williams.
okay. Sorry. I've been waiting all day for this, but hello everyone. I gotta
make this quick and short. It's insulting for the, the three or
the four, the five to try to say there's not enough data. You know, that was the
second consultant. The numbers were there, first number was low, then they
were high. So now that you're not receiving the information that you want, you
use taxpayer dollars to, uh, file a lawsuit.
oh, hold on one second. I don't know what happened. I'm sorry. You used
taxpayer dollars to file a lawsuit. Please. I'm asking you, council member
rescind this. I'm sorry. District five, please vote against item number three.
just like they filed a lawsuit today. We are gonna file a lawsuit to
get this vote done. We're not gonna keep waiting. Y'all are gonna be in recess in july.
then you're gonna try to wait till august. So we're asking you all to please
vote against item three. It is just a waste of time. And to
keep insulting the consultants with all the expertise. Now,
y'all said y'all don't have enough data. What more do you want? That's your time.
so much data, so many people speaking out. That's your time. Oh, no. Thank you. Thank you.
charles williams. Ii charles williams
ii. It's not present. David voss.
my name is david voss. I live at 6 5 4 6 oral drive, dallas, texas
council district number two. I'm here in support of the most financially
responsible and environmentally viable option for this dallas city hall
at save it and fix it. However, approving agenda item number three is
not a good answer. The plan you're voting on today is not a
repair plan. It's a construction project that's too extensive
and too expensive. The new proposed city hall
repair program, the contingency allowances alone
are $91 million. That's a
project that doesn't know what it's doing. The proposed numbers are not realistic.
however, the vote today is to vote yes and then
deliver a better plan. This building's not broken. The
way it's being used and managed is broken and the way it's being presented
is very broken. Save city hall. Thank you.
mary lou paris.
mary lou paris is not present. Sean todd.
sean todd is not online, not in the audience. Not present. Kevin pfeiffer.
thank you, mayor. Starting with something inspirational. Change
will not come if you wait for some other person or some other time. We are
the ones that have been, we have been waiting for. We are the change we seek. Nobody
is going to give you anything that you have not earned. I'm skipping weight forward.
my understanding. There's roughly four $52 million of arfa funds available
to repair city hall. Appendix beam funds are still
available. These are unencumbered funds until the end of this fiscal year.
no more deferred spending spent, uh, sent to individual
district. No more delayed project allowances. Everyone on this council
was at one point inspired to do their civic duty and you in
turn inspired fellow citizens to go to the voting booth and vote you into office.
those are your constituents. They own this building
and the surrounding property. Do the right thing. Vote to save city hall.
vote yes on item three. Thank you erica
cole.
my name's erica cole. I, um, am really
surprised at what you're doing. I came with my mother when I was a
little girl to city hall. I've been doing every year. I've been coming to city
hall. I've never had one minute to speak. And I think that
I was told to get here at nine o'clock this morning. I've been here for like eight
or nine hours. And I don't think it's fair to us to
speak up. You work for us and I, you know, you
don't, you don't. You won't tell us where we're moving, how we're moving.
you won't tell us. You don't tell us what we need to know
and how much it's gonna cost. It may be more
expensive to do so we don't even know anything. We don't
know what's gonna happen to nine 11. What, why can't you tell
us what you know and how you know it and
treat us like with respect? One minute is not
enough for anybody that, that's your time. And after waiting for nine
hours, that's your time. I think we're pretty unhappy. Thank
you. I will now call the next group of speakers.
when I call your name, please come forward and have a seat on the first three rows
of this intersection and virtual speakers. Please have your audio
and video ready. James depetris. Christopher
kates, jlo cummings,
rosie kurtz, catherine thomas, adam
gaddis has canceled. Mary cook, michael mo,
ann harrington, james hill, sylvia
lagos, mckayla kins, anthony jones,
diana hayes, aubrey morris, andre
tr way, caraway. Diane birdwell.
jeanette bridges, isaiah alvarez,
meredith jones, donna denson, brett ship,
patty walker and naomi green.
james depetris.
hi, my name is jim dris. I've been in native of dallas all my life.
I lived downtown. I worked downtown. My kids went to school downtown. Um,
I chaired dallas city center association in 1990s. Um, the
jewel hotel building sold for $500,000 that year,
and that's how bad it was. There was no retail open after five o'clock. After
six o'clock. Um, we've come a very, very long way. We've
all worked very hard. I've helped raise over a hundred million dollars in tax
credits and tiff grants treaty buildings, including the magnolia,
the jewel, not the jewel, the statler ltv tower and the
national. Um, three of these went bankrupt in the process.
cost way more money, cost a lot more money
to redo old buildings than it does to build a new one. Um, these numbers
are, are lots of numbers are here, but they're probably gonna be less than they will really
cost. City hall could get into the bank america tower for four. That's
your time. A building, like $400 million. Anyway, steve bartlett and that's
your time. Lee jackson are both in support of this as well. One is all both. Mayor, thank
you. Thank you. Christopher cates.
christopher kates is not present. Jlo calmings.
jlo calmings is not present. Rosie
kurtz. Rosie kurtz is
not present. Catherine thomas.
catherine thomas is not present. Adam gaddis is canceled.
mary cook. Mary cook
is not present. Michael mo.
michael mo is not present. Ann harrington.
good evening council. My name is anne harrington and I'm proud to call
dallas home. I'm here today because dallas city hall belongs to the people.
it is where important decisions are made about our neighborhoods, our families, and our future.
before any plans are made to move, sell, or replace city hall, the people
of dallas deserve to know exactly what is happening and how it,
how it will affect our city and our tax and
our taxes. Our youth city, city hall is more
than just a building. It is, it is a part of dallas history. For many years,
it's, it has been a place where people come to have their voices heard.
I believe our city leaders should listen to the community before making big decisions.
we need to protect what belongs to the people because it's free.
today I ask our leaders to slow down, listen to the residents, and do
what's best for dallas. Let's say city hall. Let's protect
our history and let's keep the people's voice at the center of every decision. Thank
you. Thank you. James hill.
james hill. It's not online, not present.
sylvia lagos. Sylvia lagos is not online
and not in the audience not present.
mckayla kins. Mckayla
wakens is not present. Anthony jones.
anthony jones is not present. Diana hayes.
diana hayes is not present. Aubrey morris.
aubrey morris is not present. Andre
ue caraway. Andre trwe
caraway is not present. Diane birdwell. Yep.
is what? Sorry. You all, you walk when you're 65.
before I forget, I'm diane birdwell. I vote for item three. It's the best we've
got. Whenever somebody's rushing me, I know they're crooked and we know the
vote's already in. But, uh, for south dallas, for the astroturf green
shirts, um, let me tell you something. Cotton bowl never, uh, despite
the being developed, never helped. South dallas reunion arena was built and torn down, never helped. South
dallas. American airlines arena was built, never helped south dallas. Now they're going abandon it.
uh, deep elm comes and goes. Elm street theater district of my childhood
is not being used the way it should be. West end came and went.
if the omni hotel hasn't spurred much more development, the astro
tife, uh, turf green shirts are too young to know that whoever paid for
their shirts doesn't care anything about south dallas. Let's stop with that. Lie
right now. And they would invest in south dallas. They would live
in south dallas. They would work in south dallas. It's
a lie. But y'all have been bought off and we know it. And maybe I'll
just run for city council and we'll have some fun. That's your time. Thank you
janet bridges.
okay, y'all, this is about physical
responsibility of each and every one of you. You are responsible
to the taxpayers for making sure that, um,
it's, you're making the right decision with taxpayer dollars. I just wanna put that
out there. That is your job. Um,
so the public needs to have an apples to apples comparison
between every alternative that's being considered.
um, so here's some questions and I'm going to submit these, um, also,
um, for a public information request. But here's some questions for you. Sorry.
um, what is the, what is the projected
30 year cost of renovation? What is the projected
30 year cost of leaving? What is the projected
30 year cost of budgeting? I mean, of buying another
building? What is the projected 30 year cost of cons? That's
your time of, uh, of, um, that's your time. Okay.
constructing a new city hall, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The public needs
answers thank you. Period. Thank you. As they
alvarez.
good afternoon, mayor and council. I'm one of the younger people in this room today,
and that concerns me because many of the people who will live with this decision for the next 30
or 40 years aren't here. Over the last few weeks we've heard detailed
presentations about the cost of repairing city hall. We've seen estimates ranging
today. We just saw it from roughly 532 million to over 600 million
in repairs and more than 1.5 billion in long-term occupancy costs.
but when it comes to relocation, we're still talking about possibilities. It's not
as detailed. It's about potential savings, potential redevelopment, potential
economic growth. So my question is simple. If this is truly a
generational decision, why are we comparing a detailed repair plan against
a concept? What is the land acquisition cost? What properties would be affected? What
is a 30 year cost? And a lot of private developers are trying to rush this process. But
you know, when we consider an investment of this size, we need those answers before
we move forward on this plan. So what is the rush task that your time serve?
the same. Thank you. Thank you. Meredith jones.
hello, my name is meredith jones and I'm in support of pursuing a repair plan
for the iconic im pay design, building and plaza.
leasing a city hall forever does not make financial sense for future generations.
renting from a landlord opens both our budget and governance up to outside
manipulation. We have not proven we can manage assets. So why should
we buy a new building? The root issue is that we have not taken care of our assets.
we need to fix that pattern, or we will be stuck in a cycle of these conversations forever
and we'll never truly move on. To be a city of the future, while individual
numbers presented may be accurate, the story does not seem complete with
an incomplete story. I wonder who is it serving? Why has the
cost of demolition not been presented? Why hasn't the environmental impacts of tearing
down been explored? What about the impacts of losing the plaza, which is a downtown
park? Each public meeting has proven that more residents want to save
city hall, serve the people and save our house. Thank you.
donna denson.
good afternoon, mayor and city council members, I ask you to vote yes
on agenda item three. I urge you to reconsider any decision
to abandon city hall before a full and transparent evaluation
of the cost between repairing, not gutting, but repairing
it and moving is known. It's the taxpayers
need to know their most. The most financial
opt option, long term financial impact on taxpayers
is still unknown. It's difficult to justify abandoning a structurally sound public
asset when the full costs have not been made clear to the public each
week. Equally concerning is the speed in which this process has moved forward.
a building that belongs to the people of dallas should not be abandoned without giving
complete accounting of the cost between staying and moving. I respectfully
ask the council to slow this process, process fully disclose all costs
and alternatives and engage the public. That's your time. Thank you.
thank you. Brett ship.
brett ship is not present. Patty walker.
patty walker is not virtual. Not in the audience not present.
naomi green. Naomi green
is not present. I will now call the next group
of speakers. When I call your name, please come forward and have a seat on the first three rows
in the intersection. And I ask that virtual speakers
have their audio and video ready. Catherine garrison,
sanford, denison, gail grace,
alex scott, ronald parrish, sean peace,
harrison. Blair, christopher weiss, margot posey, peter young,
tommy hamilton, peter may, anthony jones, jr.
and harold holland. Catherine garrison.
yes. Careful.
I've had a love affair with this city for as long as I can remember.
save dallas city hall. I attended a town hall meeting last night
in my district. My councilperson said that we don't have all of the numbers
regarding the cost to repair the land value, the cost to
build a new building or retrofit an existing building,
demolition costs, moving costs, scope of time involved and where and
how the debris would go. This worries me greatly
if my counsel person doesn't know. I assume that no one
sitting at this horseshoe knows either.
how do your cons do your constituents? How
are they able to disseminate the information on such short notice
and without time to review and let you the horse, you know, their thoughts
without hard numbers? This seemed rushed. Transparency
matters and we aren't seeing it today. The city
cfo stated that the cost of a tax increase would be, that's your time. $212
annually. That's 58 cents. That's your time a day.
thank you. San sanford, denison. It's
not online, not in the audience not present.
gail grace? Yes. Hello. I'm here. Can you hear me?
y yes, you may continue. Alright, thank you. And, um, good afternoon
and thank you for allowing me to speak, uh, today. I'm gail
grace and I'm a resident of district one. I'm here today because I'm against the efforts
to abandon our historic and architecturally significant city hall.
I understand that you've inherited this quagmire, but here we are, the
result of years of purposeful neglect at the building. This building
and the campus on which it stands is tied directly to the history of dallas
since late 1960s. Dallas city hall on the campus in which
it sits isn't keeping businesses from thriving. That
property isn't keeping the shady elements in the neighborhood. It isn't
keeping properties vacant in its area. A lack of
planning and follow through that has played dallas since I moved here over 30
years ago. Uh, is the
problem. What other properties are next? Daley plaza,
pioneer park cemetery. Alex scott. I'm talking. Pardon?
I'm sorry. Your time is up. Oh, okay. Thank
you. Thank you alex. Scott. Hey,
y'all. 64 72 trimble drive. Alex, scott, I'm your neighbor in
district nine. So I'm gonna come here with some solutions. We've talked about how we can't afford things,
right? So I worked for gartner for eight years, the world's leading research and
advisory organization that helps c-suite executives achieve their mission critical priorities. And we have
strategic contracting. Y'all have accounts with gartner.
you can do strategic contracting with gartner. Every single software contract that you have
here, you should be running that through gartner's strategic contracting. You can save
multiple millions of dollars. Do you know why? I know because I've done that with my clients.
I saved a 50 million human services organization, $5 million
on their workday contract. You don't think that we have bloated budgets
here? We are getting screwed out the ass. And it's
about time that our city manager steps up and actually does some strategic contracting because
pepsi now has control of, uh, of
fair park and more specifically the cotton bowl. And we did not
renegotiate that contract. I came up here last year and talked to y all about that s**t.
I'm sick and tired of this. Nope. That language is unacceptable
to use in the city council chamber. Okay? Yeah. Thank you. Thank
you. Roland parish, well in parish
is not present. Sean, peace.
I stand before you today, not just as the president of the dallas police association, but
someone who has spent my life living in the city and serving this city.
over the last few weeks, dallas has been forced to make some uncomfortable
conversations. Every headline has sparked the same question. How
did we lose our grip? For too long, dallas has been
slow to act. We have allowed studies to replace decisions.
we have allowed debate to replace execution. We
have made promises that have taken years to fulfill, if fulfilled at
all. I signed up to speak on item one because
you have the opportunity to support and build out
the complete project of the dallas police academy on the unt campus
and include the public safety training complex. We are
the ninth largest city in america, one of the most recognized
cities in the world. Host city for the fifa world cup. But we're
training our people. That's your time in a 30 5-year-old facility
build these academies. Thank you. Thank you.
harrison. Blair?
okay. Can y'all see me? Can y'all hear me? Yes, we can see you and hear you. You may
continue. Okay. Thank you. I'm harrison blair. I wanna just
say, uh, first and foremost, uh, please vote against this item.
please don't spend our hard earned tax dollars on this particular project.
there are hundreds and hundreds of things that the budget actually needs for the city of dallas.
and I can guarantee you that young families like mine who are, uh, raising their
family in dallas, don't want to be stuck with a 600 thou, uh, $600 million,
uh, or plus bill to fix one asset. And there's so many infrastructure
projects in the southern sector, um, including the one that the gentleman before me just talked
about with the police, uh, in the training facility. There's so much we can do.
let's not waste that money. And in fact, I've already got my hard hat, uh, hardhat here.
I don't know if you can see what it says, but it says save downtown. Thank you.
thank you. Christopher weiss.
good afternoon, mayor, city manager and council members. I'm christopher weiss, 1419
griffin street southeast district two resident and business owner in the
cbd. We are at the point in this discussion where because of a forced
timeline and widely divergent economic data, people have lost trust in the process.
this can be fixed. Defer the vote on three and complete
the evaluation of all options. Schedule and hold a public bond referendum
on the vote. Put this to the people over the year. Dallas has had several
bond referendums, including approval of this building, american airline center and convention
center and others. I wanna ask the people in the crowd here who here is not
for economic revitalization in the city. Anyone raising their hand? They're not for economic revitalization.
who here doesn't want the mavericks or the stars to stay? I think
we're all on the same side. It doesn't matter if you're wearing green or blue. We
want to see revitalization. Don't do this at city council. Do it as a referent and vote. Move
it forward. Thank you. Thank you. Margo
posey. Margo posey is not
present. Peter young.
um, hi. I come here to speak in support of repairing and maintaining
city hall. Uh, I'm a resident of highland park. I have spent so much of my time over the last six months
knocking on doors and lock walking to keep, to talk to my neighbors in favor
of keeping dart in my neighborhood. I, I mentioned this because I believe that dallas
is something that is important. I think that our region needs
to come together and work to make the metro better, uh, and make it work for everybody.
I I find it really impressive the solidarity that all the money to interest in the metro have, uh,
have shown coalescing to call for more handouts from the public coffers. Business
owners are not privileged class. You represent the dallas citizens. Stop listening
to the oligarchs and developers. They've created the current condition and are trying to sell
you the cure by knocking down a monument to our city. Stop listening.
uh, I know many of you are turned out next year, and usually politicians care about legacy.
you represent your vote, uh, voters, not business charters. Vote like it.
thank you. Tommy hamilton.
tommy hamilton is not present. Peter may,
peter may is not present. Anthony jones,
jr. Anthony jones, jr. Is not present.
harold holland. Harold holland is not online,
not in the audience, not present. I will now call the
final group of speakers. When I call your name, please come forward
and have a seat on the first three rows of this intersection and virtual
speakers. Please have your video and audio ready.
harold, laura epso.
cynthia michaels, edward stone. Michael
anette. Andrew
cia. Bot toru. My apologies.
sara gupta, sylvester hayes,
preti gupta, patricia les and
bruce richardson. Laura eon.
laura ep epso is not virtual
and not in the audience. Not present. Cynthia michaels,
I'm speaking for myself. And here at joe cliff as president, it's to sad
state of affairs that it took a court order to make city officials follow their own rules.
I beg you to read and digest david voss report that he mailed to each and
every one of you. It specifically shows using nfpa. I'm sorry to interrupt you.
we need to take a, a brief recess so that folks can have
a break to take care of business. So we'll reconvene in 15 minutes.
thank you.
alright. Recess has, uh, ended
and we're back in, in session our special call
meeting. And, uh, we were with, we had a speaker. Yes. We're
gonna start back with cynthia michaels. We'll bring cynthia. We'll
bring ms. Michaels back up. Ah, there you are
ma'am. We apologize, but it's just a that's okay. Okay. Part of the
process. So thank you. But you're welcome to continue. We're ready to start. Yes. You? Yes, you
may. Yes. Speaking for myself and heritage joe cliff as president. Sad state
of affairs that it took court order to make city officials follow their own rules. I beg you
to read and I I'm gonna ask you to stop just one second because I'm gonna ask the people in the gallery
to sit down and be quiet if they're gonna stay in here or they can step outside and keep
your conversations going, but outside and come back if you need to. But I wanna make sure we
can hear you. So go ahead ms. Michaels, you want me to start again or start work? Whit, you can
start, if you'd like to start over again. You can start over again. We'll, I'll start.
we'll do your time again. Okay. Thanks. I beg you to read and digest david
voss report that he mail each and every one of you. It specifically shows using nfpa
as to when a repair will be, will be required to upgrade to current codes. Not all
repairs will be required to do that. Therefore, cost projected to
repair city hall are false because they include bringing everything up
to the current code, which is not required. This process has been rushed from the get go.
a quote we've gotta get outta city hall was made several months ago
and no cost repairs were known at that time and all council members were not aware
that there was a push to leave city hall after november 22nd, 1963.
dallas was known as a city where president kennedy was assassinated in,
in, uh, 2026. Do we really want to be known as the city that moved out and
tore down an iconic impa historic building in a city that does not own
city hall. Please vote yes for item three. Thank
you, edward stone.
edward stone is not present. Michael
anette.
michael anette, 2210 west 10th. I'm also a commercial property owner in bishop arts.
last night, I, a district one meeting. 95% wanted this building saved
95% cbre representatives blame this space for
50 years of area stagnation. Government buildings are not economic engines.
that's not their function. What's been around about as long as city hall and takes up three
times. The area is the empty convention center next door. Empty convention centers are urban
dead zones for downtowns. And that is what has happened here for years. Owners of empty
office towers want guaranteed rent and triple net in perpetuity. They want
tax dollars for their aging towers. Cbre mentioned rent to own. It's
not enough to rent these empty towers. Now. They want us to buy one regardless of how much
it costs to fix this building. In no world is it a better deal to give up an
I and pay built to last for hundreds of years for an abandoned 1980s
mediocre office tower. You will reach and surpass the amount it costs to fix this
building in no time and have nothing to show for it. Tear down this building and you'll unleash
a toxicity on this city that will linger for decades. That's your time only financially
motivated real estate vipers want this to public. Adamantly opposed. Thank you.
thank you andrew charu.
good afternoon. I'm here to urge everyone to, uh,
remind everyone to reconsider. You know, we must remain at city hall
and repair because it is the right thing to do. But I must remind everyone
that the, the numbers released recently of 500 to 600 million to
repair are artificially inflated in order to wrongfully
justify, uh, an agenda. Uh,
and we, we must not make this mistake.
we must remain at city hall. And, uh, I'm, I'm gonna read a
quote of why I'm paid the architect. I am unhappy about the fact that our society seems
to be much more inclined to build something for a short time and then tear them down.
this mentality of short lifespan does not apply to this unique building.
it is built here to last. It is not falling apart. There is no rush to vacate.
and, uh, this is not about political shenanigans. It's
not about worshiping outdated buildings from a bygone era. That's your time.
thank you, sir. Rob gupta.
hi, uh, the city hall move helps economic development
help south dallas with contagious development.
and let's face the cold hard facts. The building, the current
building was built in 1970s, the city financial experts.
they have presented clear, undeniable data showing that
this building operation in the next decade, uh, by
doing the renovation to, uh, keep it operational, will cost between
532,000,600 and 611 million in
maintenance and infrastructure overhaul. Think about that. Figure
that is over half a billion dollars just to patch up leaky roofs
replace failing hvac system and fix deteriorating concrete.
it is financially responsible to sink that kind of capital into an obsolete
building when neighborhoods are crying out for street repairs, park improvement and enhanced public
safety. Every dollar spent propping of the past is a dollar stolen from the
future of the community. That's your time. This movie is a historic economic opportunity. Thank you.
thank you. Sylvester hayes.
sylvester hayes is not present. Priti gupta.
ms. Ms. Gupta, your, um, your audio is, we can not hear you.
please unmute your audio .
ms. Gupta,
I'll come back. Yes. I I'm there. I'm sorry. Yes. Thank you.
you may continue. Yes. Relocating dallas city hall from its current marla
street location is a forward thinking path. By avoiding the
costly repairs we can protect the tax players while
unlocking downtown redevelopment opportunities, the, the debate
or whether to stay or to go is no longer just
preserving a 50-year-old building. It is about making smart, sustainable
financial choices. Today we face a harsh reality. Maintaining the
current city hall is a mess, massive financial burden. City financial
experts have our client that simply modernizing the aging infrastructure
at 1500 ola will cost upwards of half a billion dollar over the
next decade. This is hundred of millions of taxpayers dollars poured into
a building that simply no longer meets the need of modern municipal, uh,
workforce selling or reimagining the prime piece of
real estate with spark new economic growth right in the heart of the city.
um, it'll allow us to create modern, efficient, and that's time
government. That's time or workspace that truly solves the public. That's your time. Moving
city hall is a bold step. Thank you. But it is exactly the kind of leadership we needed
in 2026. Thank you.
patricia bowles. Patricia bowles.
it's not present. Bruce richardson.
bruce richardson,
the great eric johnson. Our most consequential
mayor would've had the list of
professionals who put this document together on
speed dial. I urge you to read it. I urge you to
consider it no matter what you do today, because we will continue to press
the case that professionals profoundly disagree
with the process we have been through. And
we believe there are rounding error
level possibilities for funding the rehabilitation of this
building. I urge you never to invoke
the name of eric johnson I's great
founder in any sort of
relationship to the decision you are calling today.
we did not elect you to do this. That's your time.
thank you. We did not. Thank you. There are three speakers
that I'm gonna go back to. Jim anderson.
I wanna talk about a, a number that we haven't talked about before. That is
actually renting land for city hall. The building interior
is about 770 square feet. We take out all the goodies. Take out the city council chambers,
the flag room, the lobby, and the great hallway left with 400,000 square feet.
join 400 square feet in downtown dallas today. According to the fox news,
you can get boring office space for 19 to $25 million
a year. That's 195, 200 50 million a year.
and if you go for 20 years, it's 400 to $500 million a year.
you scoff at fixing up the building for $500 million, a half a billion,
yet it may cost that much to move it. Then you also have the demolition cost
of a building that is not going to come down easy. You need to look at the demolition
cost, the relocation cost moving, 9 1 1 3 1 emergency
preparedness. You need to have all the numbers. Please look at the numbers. We have plenty
of time now. The masks not coming around. Thank
you. Naomi green.
hello? Can you hear me? Yes, you may continue. Thank you. Vote
against item three. Do not fund to, uh, do not
vote to fund the repairs for the building. As a community advocate
for some of the most marginalized neighborhoods in dallas, I understand the importance
of city resources and the impact that they have on people's daily lives.
feelings about a building will not create opportunities for our neighborhoods, improve
quality of life, or help communities grow. Our taxpayer dollars
deserve to be spent wisely and responsibly.
it is not fiscally, fiscally responsible to invest hundreds of millions of
dollars into an outdated aging building that will never
meet modern standards and most importantly does not
provide a quality of life and safe work environment for the employees who serve
our residents every day. I cannot stand here today and say that cutting city
services to repair the building is the right thing to do. We
must pay our communities. We must put our
emotions aside. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sylvia
lagos. It's not online.
mr. Mayor, this concludes your speakers for this item.
is there, um, chairman west for what purpose? Uh, to make
a motion you recognize for that purpose,
I move to deny this item, and because the city manager has completed
subsection one sub paragraphs, numbers 1, 2, 4,
and five of resolution number 2 6 0 4 9 9. Direct
the city manager to continue following resolution number 2 6 0 4 9 9
subparagraph three to explore options for the disposition of city
hall site and bring these options back to city council no later
than august 26th, 2026. Second, it's been moved in
second. Is there any discussion? Chairman west, you recognize for five minutes for the public, we are
on agenda item three. Motion by
chairman west. You re us for five minutes. Thank you, mayor. So this motion
pauses any, uh, move to begin the renovation process
at this point. And it does. It's intended to do exactly what
many speakers, including those who spoke today from the safe city hall
coalition, have asked for, which is to get us a full picture of the numbers,
including the lease options, um, and, and the cost
of leasing to own, um, a different building. That one of the main
things that have been asked for from my residents in my town hall and from many
of the speakers over the course of this last several months, is to have a true
side-by-side comparison. We cannot do that if we stop the process
today. A few questions for staff and I'd like to go ahead and bring up slide
38, please.
good evening. And I don't think the presentation's available to pull back up right now.
okay. Well, if we can work on that, I think it's, it's helpful. Um, so the
deck that was presented by you a few hours ago discussed the costs of renovating
city hall in a phased re repair plan between five and 10 years.
um, my first question is to, um,
on slide 38, walk me through the, the
highlighted, um, figures there I see under the gresham
smith option number two, which you used jack to,
um, really base all the other slides and, and the,
the, the, you know, what we'd have to do to pay for the phase repair. Um,
what it, what are the, the major figures here mean when I see
subcap subtotal capital of 769 million and
then I see, um, you know, subcapital plus interest
1.225 million billion. What does that mean?
good evening. John johnson, chief of real estate. So the gresham smith option
number two item that you've referenced is around $556.8 million
for corrective repairs. That includes repairs that are necessary to the building
as well as a da and code required upgrades. Um, as
I mentioned, so the a da compliance is included in that number. The interiors piece
of 107 million, that's walls, ceilings, floorings, finish
out, uh, ff and e furniture fixture and equipment desks, chairs,
storage workstations. Technology would be for network systems,
av systems, broadcast chambers, technology, and then soft costs would
be the design, construction administration, permitting, and those things that
are necessary for us to deliver the project with a flat $10 million contingency.
okay. What would generally be in the 20 year o and m budget of
$229 million? So the 20,
sorry. Uh, we use the actual number, it's around $8 million a year
that we have for this building. That's things like electricity, gas, water security,
custodial, uh, landscape pest, power washing, window washing. And so that's
an $8 million fee or an $8 million expense with a 3% escalation
over a 20 year period, which is how you get to the $229 million that's
listed for an apples to apples comparison on the slide for slide 38.
okay. This total cost figure that's in option two,
um, would be paid out over 20 years. Right. So this is where I'm gonna need
the chief financial officer's help. The amount of the
1.5 is that paid out over 20 years.
the question regarding, um, the $1.5 million
in this scenario, the scenario does assume that the $769 million
for corrective repairs and modernization, so the total
$769.8 million of capital improvements
would be financed over 20 years. The financing cost
in this scenario is $456 million. And then
in addition to paying the capital principle and interest back over 20
years, the operating cost that's in the, uh, o
and m line operation and maintenance line, 229 million is
the cost over 20 years of custodial utilities security.
so yes, the $1.5 billion total is a 20
year, uh, cost of occupancy repair.
okay. Interest on the debt and operations of the facility.
got it. So I'm gonna come back in a second to the apples to apples comparison, but I
do want to know if we did vote in support of this,
if this ended up being a yes vote for this item. When does staff foresee
beginning the renovation process? When would that kick off?
so all of the numbers that we have from aecom, from gresham smith, and
from wm two company are based in 2020 $8 because that would be the
very earliest that feasibly we could do anything for construction. However,
it's really important that the city council identify the direction
and the funding and the scope that they want to include. And we would need that upfront because we have to do
design work. We need to, uh, ensure that we procured architects and
engineers who will actually do the construction documents, come up with the phasing. We have permitting, we
need to bid out for the general contractor, allow time for the swing space
for the actual construction commissioning, and then move back in. So it would be a very complex
and very complicated situation. So it would likely take at least 28,
likely, probably a year or two past that. And I think that question is really important,
um, that we, you know, when we get the question, what's the rush? I mean,
part of what I've been told by the city manager is she needs to plan her budget. Now
that's, I assume that's still correct for this next fall, but what's the risk
to this building? Um, if we do nothing, if this council says, well,
we don't want to put the money into it to fix it, we don't wanna move to another
location, what happens if we kick it down the road another five or 10 years? You know, other
than putting council staff and the public through this yet again,
when, when my time's done. So I think that it's the cost
increase with every month with every day it costs more for stuff in the future. Uh, we expose
ourselves to additional risks. We would potentially see additional failures that would occur over
time, broken pipes, systems that fail that we have not maintained or replaced,
and they would probably become more prevalent over time.
so jack, um, you presented three options on how we're gonna pay for this, uh,
a tax rate increase, a bond election, and there were a lot of good questions
by, uh, councilor stewart and, and some others. Um, our cuts
in staff or services or, or both, um, do you see any other options
on how we would pay for city hall repairs
other than those three options? Uh, certificate
typically for these types of improvements? Uh, for the general fund,
we have two basic sources. Uh, either we, um,
use cash to pay for it or we issue debt. And the cash
scenario would involve potentially reducing
services, cutting services, or increasing property tax to accomplish
it. Um, there's really not another large enough source
of funds. We would take advantage of cost sharing with the
other, uh, occupants in this building, such as the water utility department and
others. However, the, the bulk of the cost is gonna fall on
the general fund portion of the city government. And so you either then
use cash in the general fund, or you use debt through the debt service fund.
so if we, if we end up relocating to a different
location, there's obviously gonna be costs with relocating too. It's
not gonna be free. There's gonna be, we're gonna have additional, we're gonna have other costs.
um, we of course don't know what those numbers are because we haven't
turned loose our brokers to go out and talk to and, you know, negotiate a
final deal, which is what the motion, my motion is intended to allow us to do.
um, but would relocating in your understanding
trigger one of those three funding mechanisms, do you think under
a re a relocating scenario? Um, we're still going
to need to increase the tax rate issue, bonds or cut services.
so based on the market exploration that our partners have been through
and looking at what's available, um, they have made it
clear that there are material savings to the city
by relocating from, uh, 1500 marilla. And
so that savings is, um, they've described in the
hundreds of millions of dollars, don't know an exact amount, uh, because they're
still working through, uh, with the potential properties,
what, what there might really be. Uh, and those will get refined
over time if we relocate. There are other options
for financing. You can work financing through a lease to own,
you can, uh, work with the property that would
be purchased, uh, on how that is structured. There's the opportunity,
uh, in some of the properties that are available to have excess space
that could be rented to, uh, a third party or a private tenant
that would provide an additional revenue stream. Um,
there would be the opportunity to consolidate some of our operations
from some of our leased space that we currently have from some of our
other owned space that we have, bringing those together in a
consolidated, uh, city hall and divest of those other
real estate assets. So there's a lot of other tools in the tool
chest, so to speak, uh, for relocating than I
see possible, uh, in the options to repair.
you touched on this, but in the relocating options, are there options
in there for a lease to own? So we wouldn't just be necessarily a
tenant if we went in that option? So there is
no anticipation that we would, uh, be a permanent tenant somewhere.
every option that we're looking at would be, uh, to, um,
I, if we did go with the lease, it would be a lease to own option. Our, our goal
is to own city hall, not to lease city hall. Okay.
and I, I guess I just want to really get, I, I really want to
get this answer out there for, from people at my town hall. Were concerned about
the fact that we really don't have the apples to apples comparison. We don't
have it today to be able to talk about, um, when will the public get to
see the true comparison of the cost between staying
in city hall and renovating and going out to lease in the market
lease to own. So c-b-r-e-d-I want to give
more answer or I can answer this. Okay. So, um,
if, if counsel at some point, um, gives
the, uh, our partners with cbre the authorization
to do additional work and
work with the market and fine tune the, the proposals we received,
then we would be able to bring something back. But until then
the, um, the consultants are not able to get any finer, uh,
tuned numbers than we've already received, is my understanding. And I'll ask cbre
if they have anything to add to feel free. No, I I I, I agree with
that. Uh, the, the one thing when you were asking the question about savings and lease to own options,
uh, our market exploration, uh, has determined, uh, that there are really some
unique opportunities within the central business district to not only lease lease with
a purchase option, buy outright and, and, and other, uh, uh, financing
options that that, that were mentioned earlier from that perspective. But in terms of the savings
and, and the true opportunity in particular in downtown, uh, I wanna quantify
that there are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of savings just from our
market expiration at this point. Um, and you know, that that's accomplished.
as again, jack mentioned, uh, the, the opportunity to reduce operating
expenses and capital expenses, uh, the opportunity to, uh, secure
the benefit of lease revenue presently in some of those properties. And
I that laugh. Uh, and then, uh, lastly the consolidation,
uh, of city, uh, city owned assets is, is a tremendous opportunity there. So,
so the motion, as I read it, would allow you to go out
and continue negotiating, come back with final numbers that the city could
then look at. Correct. So if I could jump in for just
a second, 'cause I wanna go back to a couple things that I think mr. Ireland and our,
uh, partner with cbre, um, they've responded to. Um, so
we currently have operating expenses here at
city hall, right? And when you take those operating
expenses, the opportunity that we don't have now to create that revenue
stream for other leases that might be a part of a location,
the consolidation of other city departments that are
currently in other buildings, city owned, and some with lease space
and the potential opportunity to colo locate within another governmental entity.
those are ways that would allow for us to have, um,
a new model for whether it's a lease to own
purchase outright that we don't have currently. What you just
read from my perspective, and I'll let the attorneys jump in,
there is an item that still remains in the march 4th resolution that
allowed for us to continue to review options
to dispose of the site. What's not before you today
is the authorization for us to go do the pre-development
work that will allow for us to bring you back more
details around the numbers to truly get you to the side by side. That
is not what's on for today. And I think what you read
into the record on the motion is the explorer options to do
the dispose of the site. And that's what I think I heard. Okay. So I'll just, I'll
lean over to the attorneys and make sure that I didn't say that incorrectly.
point of order, mr. Mayor, state your point of order chair
mayor, this motion is out of order in that in part authorizes
the city manager to pursue opportunities for the redevelopment of the
property located at 1500 marilla street, which is outside
the scope of agenda item three that we are now discussing.
and in fact is the subject of agenda item four, which we
are expressly prohibited from discussing at today's meeting by the tro
issued by the 14th district court yesterday.
thank you for making your point of order. I will let the, uh, city
attorney slash arian address that issue first before I
rule on that. Thank you, mr. Mayor. Um,
this motion, all it references is, is
item number four. Lemme make sure I have the right one. Uh, item number
one three off the original march 4th resolution.
it's already in effect, it's already what the, uh, city manager's required
to do per your resolution. It just puts a date that that information is due
to the council. It's, it lists the items that have already been accomplished
in the resolution, the march 4th resolution, including this one, which was
to bring the phase two, at least two phased, uh, repairs, back
repair, repair programs back. And now that those have all been done, it just asked to finish
the resolution, it does not do anything new. It does not add any new
activities. It merely references the previous resolution, but
that resolution is not on the agenda today. That portion of it is not on
the agenda. It, I'm, I'm ruling it that the, the
point of order is overruled for the reason that it, it doesn't actually,
it doesn't do anything other than give a date certain for when that has
to be completed. That's it. So it's
overruled.
okay. I think the city man, did you have any thoughts to complete on that? 'cause before you
were point of order out of there n no, mr. Um,
uh, chairman wesley, it was just to make sure that we are
completing an item and it would be the only remaining
item that we've not completed from the march 4th resolution. I've been asked several times
about the additional work, and we kind of did it in a logical step.
we started with, uh, making sure that we did the repair plan, which you've
had, we brought it in phases. And then this was one of the items that's
currently still on that march 4th resolution that we've not completed. And
the way I understand it is that you, you are giving me a timeframe that you want
me to return to counsel with that final step. Alright. So what is your understanding
that you will be bringing back to us by august 26th, 2026, based on
the motion that you just read? We would do the options
to look at what with potential, a way to look at the site. Mm-hmm
. It's not making the decision, it's not finalizing anything. It's
bringing you those options back and then given the council an opportunity to weigh in
on what those options might be. Okay. And when can council expect
to get, um, more refined numbers
from cbre on potential relocation options? Because that's the apples
to apples a lot of people are asking for. That is, that is not the item before you
today. And we would be seeking hopefully, future
guidance from the city council. But that is not the item that is on the agenda for today. That's
part of the reason why the tro has prevented that from happening, correct? That's exactly right. Yes, sir. Okay.
thank you. You were you finished? Yes.
okay. Chairman, ridley, you recognize for five minutes, you,
I'm opposed to the motion in that
it eliminates any repair option for city hall. The
repair options that we have received today greatly exaggerate
repair costs. Indeed, they don't address repair costs so much as
replacement costs, including upgrades
and improvements to the existing building, which exceed the scope
of what this council requested in the march 4th resolution.
as a result, they have included all kinds of costs, totaling
over $200 million for improvements in the building that
we never asked for, and therefore exaggerates
greatly the cost to repair as outlined
in the item three, uh, repair
strategy. And so because this item,
uh, falsely exaggerates the cost of the repair
costs, and we don't have a reasonable repair plan
in front of us, it is premature to consider this
item as a result. Uh, although
I am in favor of a repair strategy, unfortunately
we don't have a reasonable repair strategy at this time
in front of us. Uh, but I would offer an amendment
at this time to, uh, create
a, uh, to authorize the city manager to create
a repair plan of just critical repair needs,
not including any enhancements of the building
as the current repair plan does. Second,
I need the, uh, city attorney to sit down, but it's been moved and second, and I seconded. Yeah, it's been moved.
it's seconded. And you recognize for five minutes on
your amendment, mr. Ridley, what we need is a reasonable repair plan
that addresses both our financial capabilities and the
critical repair needs of the building. We don't have that yet. And
it's time that we focused on what this council
directed the city manager to do on march the third, which was
develop at least two repair plans for critical repairs.
that's something I'm quoting from that resolution. We don't
have that yet. And I think it's time that we
insisted that we get that from the city manager along
with a reasonable financing plan for that cost,
which I believe is substantially less than the currently
exaggerated quote repair plan.
anyone else wish to speak on for or against the amendment by chairman
ridley chairwoman mendelssohn, you recognize for five minutes on the amendment by chairman ridley.
well, actually, he said it so beautifully. I don't have a lot more to say.
the motion that I made in march that you quoted
from is exactly what we didn't get. And I think I said
that when we had that briefing. And we are
hearing briefing after briefing that's building on an incorrect
premise. And that's why all the numbers are so outrageous.
and we've never, ever had a public
input like this for any topic. There's
a reason. It's not that these are all the preservationists in our city.
it's because they know there's a problem here. There's a problem
with the contrived way this has all been rolled out
and how it's been presented. The process is not transparent.
instead, a yes no answer gets a 10 minute
circular mouthful of words that
sound really nice, but don't mean anything. We need spreadsheets
with documented costs, who, who they are. And
apparently we need to understand what the scope is because that seems
to be the key here where some folks are looking for,
for the four seasons for their city hall.
and, you know, I'm not saying that it, it should
be anything, um,
even nicer than the airport. But when I hear people talk about,
oh my gosh, the bathroom's in city hall, you know what? They're not fancy, but they're
still better than dfw. So I'm not
sure what people are expecting, but we need to have
a serviceable building. People should be able to come to work
and do their job. But some
of the things that I have heard around this horseshoe and
not around this horseshoe, are very disconcerting.
and if you wanna be in private
business and have lots of really rich amenities, you should go work
for a different company. But if you wanna work for the public, you wanna
be a public servant, whether it's elected or non-elected, come be
here. You can make a huge difference. But sometimes that difference
is actually saying something really hard and sometimes you're maybe the only one, or
maybe you're one of six, but I'm telling you that
the public knows what's going on here and it's not okay.
and we want real numbers about what is
actually needed to be done here. The first six years I was on
council, this wasn't ever briefed. Not even once. And suddenly
it's a crisis. And this entire building
is absolutely, um, paralyzed with this conversation.
and mayor, I'm sorry, the people up the tollway don't have knives out
for us. They're laughing at us and they're
laughing about exactly what's happening. They want the best for us, but we need
to get serious about the fact that 15 acres is not going to
be what is the catalyst for downtown. The issues are
obviously much more complex. Thank you, ms.
cena. You're recognized for five minutes on the amendment by chairman ridley.
as an employee, I worked here for eight years and I, um, have seen council
members vote against repairing this building. I've seen mayors not supported
as well as a council member. I have to vote to
invest in this building and invest in our employees
until we have a plan on where we're gonna go. What if something happens
in this building? We have to be financial stewards and take
care and advocate for the employees that they have safe working conditions
here. And so I would definitely support any amendment
that allows for repairs to continue and for us to continue
to explore that. Thank you. And also wishing to speak on
for or against the amendment by chairman ridley. I do.
mr. Roth, you recognize for five minutes. Thank you. Um,
uh, I'm, I'm in support of the motion. Um, I think that,
um, it's really important, uh, that, that
we have the opportunity to, um, to
create a plan for repairs. Uh, I'm concerned that,
uh, that if we do not allow for a repair plan
to be thoughtfully introduced, uh, that we will not be
able to pursue that option. Uh, as
a result, uh, I'm concerned that there are
absolutely significant challenges to any relocation
option that we're talking about. And that, uh, these are
very complex, uh, problems that are gonna be difficult to achieve.
and that, uh, potential savings that we're talking about are
not absolutely guaranteed. Therefore, I think we absolutely
need to have a, an opportunity to create
a planned, uh, thoughtful measured,
uh, action plan for working out, uh, repairs
and, and, and required renovation to the, to the
serious systems that, uh, we need, uh, in a
priority based, uh, approach. Um, I
think that, uh, if we don't do this, we're going
to be forced, uh, into, into a very, very difficult
situation without other alternatives. I think it's poor planning. I think it's
fiduciarily irresponsible, and I think it's, it's
a, a lack of, of, uh, sensitivity and respect to our citizens
if we do not explore an interim, uh,
situation, which allows us flexibility to, uh, to pursue
repairs. It, it's, doesn't require any firm amount
of money. It allows us to look at value added,
uh, repairs at a, at a strategic, on a strategic process.
uh, and I, and I think it gives us a lot of opportunities to,
to retain and maintain this building properly.
uh, and I would strongly recommend that we vote for the
amendment, and that we approve a motion that includes that amendment,
uh, which gives us more alternatives and opportunities to,
uh, to pursue a, a more concerted, thoughtful, and effective
plan. Thank you. Anyone else? I'd like to request a record
vote, please. I'm gonna have a record vote for everything for all of these items.
so, duly noted. Uh, anyone else wants speak on for against the
amendment? Mr. Basal? Do, you're recognized for five minutes.
thank you, mayor. Um, I will support this, uh, motion.
I believe one of the things that we have, um, got is exhaustive numbers.
I don't believe that it has gotten as technical as, uh, the, um, uh,
most critical needs as we've asked for it to be prioritized. I think this is
absolutely something that we should, um, know before taking a
vote of this magnitude. Um, I want to just highlight one of the
statements that was made from our amazing cfo. Uh,
our goal is to own city hall. Guess what we do?
so, um, let's do what we can to make right by the city hall
that we own. That is the people's house. Thank you.
and also wanna speak on for against the amendment by chairman ridley.
seeing none. Record votes are gonna be held on all of these. Thank you. Chairman mendelson.
uh, mad secretary. You can call the role. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, when
I call your name, please state yes, if you in favor? No. If you oppose
council member west. No. Council member gracie? No.
council member johnson? No. Council member resendez? No. Council
member ana? Yes. Council member basel doa. Yes.
council member blair? No. Council member blackman?
yes. Council member stewart? No. No.
sorry. Thank you. Council member roth? Yes.
council member mendelson? Yes. Council member ridley. Yes.
deputy mayor prote willis? No. Mayor prote moreno?
no. Mayor johnson? No. With six.
voting in favor. Nine. Opposed? The motion fails. Mr. Mayor, we're
back on item three as moved by mr. West. Okay. Um, mr.
bazel, for what purpose? I have a motion. What's your motion? I move to
amend the underlying motion to include, um,
the price for demolition, the environmental
impact, and the, um, disposal
plan to be added to what council member west's original motion
asks for deliverable. It's
been moved and seconded. Mr. Basil dua, you're recognized for
five minutes on your amendment. Thank you. Um, if, if you notice this was
not to change the, uh, intent of the motion, um,
it is still a motion to deny, uh, that is on the floor. Um,
but in the denial that council member west has put on the floor, he's asked for
some specific deliverables from our city manager. I think that this is
my last opportunity to try to get some numbers that we have yet
to have included in any of, uh, the numbers that have been given to us. And that is
what I believe gonna be a substantial cost, which is the demolition of this, uh,
building. So, um, if we are going to move ahead with a denial,
and this doesn't change that materially, uh, but we have also asked for more
information to make, uh, better and sound decisions on what the next steps of this
process will bring. I would like it to be exhaustive of all the information.
and this is something that we've asked for, for several months now. So, uh, I believe that by
the august 26th date that, um, council
member west put in his motion, it should be something that, that, uh, the staff
could accomplish. Thank you, mr. Mayor. Mr. Cena, you recognize for five minutes on
the amendment by mr. Basel doa, I will support the amendment. The most
sustainable building is one that's already built. We're working against
our own carbon goals and our ca plan if we do not include
this information, this is of concern to me because the materials have
historically been dumped in district six and eight, and so we need
to know what the plan is for
the demolition and environmental assessment.
how do we know if we have material cost savings when we don't know the demo and environmental
assessment costs? Crossley tower at the university of cincinnati was estimated
at $47.3 million. So how can
I be a prudent overseer of taxpayer dollars without a vision?
this decision mirrors one that happens every day in district six. Sell your
land. But where can we move? It's happening in elm thickett, north park, west dallas
design district in midway hollow. I would also say that
costs such as demo permits, site cleanup, hauling costs, landfill,
landfill costs, and dumpster rental are also left out. And we don't know what those costs
might be. Thank you. Anyone else
wanna speak on for, against the amendment by mr. Basel? Do aye.
general menzel you recognize for five minutes. Um, I would like to ask mr.
baa if he would like to amend his motion or accept, um, an
amendment to his amendment. It'll have to go through the
process. Um, okay. I move to amend
the motion to include how long demolition would take,
where the, um, material would be dumped,
the impact on the life of the landfill, assuming it goes to mamos,
and the cost implication of, of that,
um, the exact move out costs. I would
like to understand why there's new furniture
in the plans for the new building. Instead of using
the furniture we already have, I'd like a parking analysis for any new
facility that's both for 9 1 1 and office. And
I would like to understand the redundancy plan for the nine one one call center
as part of the report back.
I'm trying to get a, I'm trying to figure out if the entire motion is in order. I think parts of
it are, possibly parts of it are not, but I want to get the parliamentarians ruling on
that before we even go through the process. Let's make sure it's
in order. Mr. Mayor, I was, I admit
I didn't quite get every item. Um, most of it seemed to be in order. Some of it seemed
to be for offsite parking garages, et cetera. But this is the
motion. The addition to the motion was for the disposition of the city hall
site, not things outside of city hall.
if you'd prefer, I'm happy to take off the, um, parking analysis
and the furniture. It's not a preference, we're just trying to make sure it's, it's within bounds. So
if you, I'll let you restate the motion in the way you would like to, but it's not
to satisfy a preference, it's just to make sure it's okay. It's
proper. So the question is how long I would like to have
reported back to us with this motion. How long demolition would
take, where the material would be dumped, the impact on the life
of the landfill and the cost implications. Um, what the
move out cost would be, because if we are leaving this building,
that's fair game. And, um, of course leaving
this building also means we're leaving 9 1 1 center. So I'd like to understand
plans for that point of order. I mean,
the tro stopped the discussion about the move out costs, right? I mean, that's
the whole problem with this situation is we can't get the move out
costs. So we're now trying to add that back in to this motion
for that reason. I think it's actually not quite properly
still. Okay. Then we'll take another crack at, well, we'll take the 9 1 1 center item out, but we'll do the
how long demo will take, where it'll be dumped, the impact on the landfill.
do you believe those are all in order? Sorry.
say, say what's remaining in the motion and then I'll let the department chair sure.
how long demolition will take, where the material will be dumped,
the impact on the life of the landfill and the cost implications to the landfill.
that's, that's actually an order. So is there a second for that? Second? It's
been moved and seconded. You reckon for five minutes on your amendment to the amendment by basel, mr.
basil doa. Okay. So we're on an amendment to the amendment. We can have two pending at, at
any given time. So we're maxed out on amendments right now. We cognize for five minutes, chairwoman. Sure.
it's as simple as understanding what all the information is. If you're gonna take
down this giant building with all the concrete and steel,
it's gotta go somewhere. I don't know if you guys have visited the landfill, but if
you haven't, you should. Um, there's limited space,
limited years. It's very, very costly to,
um, close a landfill and open a new one. And by the way, you know where
the new one's planned to be, right next door. So,
um, all the folks who are advocating for southern dallas as a good
move of tearing down this building, this building will be closer to you than
you can imagine. Thank you.
mr. Ba. Do you recognized for five minutes on the amendment to the amendment?
thank you. I just to give clarification, I will support this. Uh,
but I believe it to be somewhat redundant. This is, uh, essentially I think you, you articulated
maybe clearer, but that was what I, I was intending, um,
uh, on what it was that I asked for. So I guess with more specificity,
I'm fine with supporting this. Um, because my intent was
with I said disposal plan. I would hope that we would be able to know, uh,
how we're going to accomplish, um, a demolition of this scale. Um,
and, and I believe that where we would put, uh, the,
uh, debris is, is absolutely a part of that. Um,
and so it was beyond just the cost of, uh, so I, I guess to
provide clarity, I'm fine to support this, but just for the body, that
was my intent, um, as well, uh, with the, uh, original amendment
on the floor. Thank you, mr. Mayor. Ms. Ana, you recognize for five minutes on the amendment to
the amendment. Um, I would definitely be supporting, um, in looking
at just other articles that I found online. So there's probably an estimated 10,567
trucks that may end up taking debris. Usually concrete
is either recycled or sent to the landfill. That includes the
rebar and, um, the other materials. And the majority of those,
um, recycle for concretes are located in district six and
district eight. So I feel that this is extremely important for my district,
um, especially with all of the environmental issues that we have. Thank
you, ms. Blackman, you recognize for
five minutes on the amendment to the amendment. Um, thank
you. My question is related to permitting and, uh, will that
be also included in the, uh, cost
estimate and the plan as well for permitting? For di uh, for disposition of
the concrete?
when you go through tceq, like, you know, when we dredge right? Rock lake, all that stuff has
to be basically, um, cleared from tceq
and there's uh, there's fees that go with it
and I'm just wanting clarity to know that that will be in the, the plan.
thank you for the question. Councilwoman, uh, blackman? Um, I'm not a demolition
expert, neither is anyone on my team. That would be part of what we would
be asking for, and it would be in our scope. Okay. Just wanted
to make sure that it was not overlooked. Thank you.
was that all ms. Blackman then mr. Roth, you recognized for five
minutes on the amendment to the amendment. Uh, thank you. Um, I,
I'll support, I would like to support the, the amendment. The amendment.
um, I do think it's critical that we do understand the,
the overall impact and cost associated with any kind of
a dramatic, um, uh, action that would
be taken in the event that, that this, uh, proceeds. And,
and I, I'm really distressed over the fact that, uh, we
are not, uh, considering the, the lesser impact
of a phased in, uh, potential, um,
repair and, and thoughtful, uh, preservation of this, of
this property. Uh, but, and so as a result, I am going to support,
uh, the amendment to the amendment. Thank you. Anyone else wishes to
be on for, against the amendment? To the amendment? Seeing none. Record
votes are being held on everything. So madam secretary, please call the rule. Thank
you, mr. Mayor, when I call your name, please state yes, if you in favor? No. If you oppose
council member west. No. Council member gracie?
no. Council member johnson? No. Council member resendez? Yes.
council member kaena? Yes. Council member basil doa?
yes. Council member blair. Council member blackman?
yes. Council member stewart? No. Council member
roth? Yes. Council member mendelson? Yes.
council member ridley? Yes. Deputy mayor pro tem willis?
no. Mayor prote moreno? No.
mayor johnson? No.
with seven voting in favor. Eight. Opposed? The motion fails. Mr. Mayor,
we're back on the amendment by mr. Basil dua. Chairwoman mendelsohn,
you're recognized for three minutes. I'd like to move to amend the amendment
to include, um, a reported, estimated number of
trucks that would be used to carry away the materials and the impact
on the roadway.
that that is a, that is a, what I would consider to be a dilatory motion that,
that we've just addressed through the last amendment. This very issue. So
I don't believe there was anything about the roadway in my last amendment. And, um,
it wasn't about the number of trucks, it was about the, it was about the demolition
process and the plan and the demolition. Was it not his motion, which
I don't believe we've considered yet, was about the demolition plan. Mine
was specifically how long it would take and where it would be dumped and
the, um, cost implication of the landfill. So this, this particular amendment
is different. In what way? From the one, this one is the number of trucks it would take
to carry away the material and the impact on the roadway.
okay, we'll let this one go. But what I mean by donator
is when, if we're taking the same subject matter, I'm familiar with subject, the word subject matter. Thank you. Subject matter. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm
actually the rulings aren't for you. They're for the whole body. So subject matter. Okay,
subject. That's what we're doing. We're not going to have the same amendments addressing
the same topics over and over again. So at some point
they're gonna become out of order. So you recognize for if
it's seconded for five minutes, you recognize for five minutes.
well, our residents have said on survey
after survey, their number one priority is public safety
and their streets. And when we're talking about, um, council
member ena said, 10,000 trucks. I've actually seen it with a much higher number.
but these are very big trucks full of concrete and rebar. They're
very heavy and they damage the roadway. I've seen this firsthand
with the silver line. We have streets that were in great condition, that now
we have to have a roadway plan on how we're gonna fix. So I
frequently hear that the streets are bad everywhere,
but can you imagine what they're gonna be from here down to macombs?
very bad. And I don't think that's a good idea,
but I definitely wanna know what is that impact? How many are we actually talking about?
and what is the cost to repair those roads so that our
residents aren't suffering? So I'd like to know this information.
I think it's gonna be important for a decision. So I hope that you will also want
to know this. Thank you, ms. Cade. You recognize for five minutes
on the amendment to the amendment, I will support the, um, motion, um,
in the area where some of these companies are located.
the road has not been made it onto any bonds and
they are in severe need of repair. We have parkland that is also up in that area.
so I would definitely support this. So if we do need to include this in a future bond and repair
those roads. Thank you mr.
bazel. Do, you're recognized for five minutes on the amendment to your amendment.
thank you, mayor. Um, I will, uh, second
what our city manager mentioned. And I'm, I'm also not a demolition
expert. And, um, I, I think that I've seen several,
I what I would say worst case scenarios or, or just,
um, hypotheticals of what a
demolition of this scale would look like. And I, I truly do not know what that would
look like. So I'm asking for genuine information, uh, that does
not materially change the outcome of what it is that there's
a clear majority on this council to do. Uh, for
the, the denial of council members to seek
more information that doesn't change the outcome of
what you as a council member are voting for. To me, just speaks to the
nature of the divisiveness that this issue has ensued on us.
uh, we, uh, I I'm, I, I know I'm gonna take an l
today 'cause I think it's pretty clear where there's nine
in support of doing what is going to be done. But
as we consider that, I would hope that we would have enough professionalism to give
a courtesy to each other as colleagues to get the necessary information
that we believe we need to answer questions that our constituents have come forward
with. I want to reiterate that this motion, in addition,
this amendment in addition to the motion, I mean the, uh, amendment
that I have on the floor, that this has amended both, um,
offer more information. That's all I'm asking for. And
it doesn't delay this and it doesn't give it. So I do believe that this is, uh,
uh, is a part of that horror story that I heard of what this
could be, uh, a demolition of this scale. And so I would think that it's
valuable information for us to learn. It does nothing to the ability
to, uh, continue to push this forward at the rapid pace that, uh,
my colleagues are already willing to do. But I hope that doesn't mean that we're gonna stifle
information from coming to, uh, the, the body. Thank you.
anyone else wishing to speak on for against the amendment to the amendment?
seeing none. Madam secretary, please call the roll. Thank you mr. Mayor,
when I call your name, please state yes if you're in favor. No. If you oppose council member west.
no. Council member gracie? No. Council member johnson? No.
council member resendez? No. Council member kaena? Yes. Council
member basel doa. Yes. Council member blair?
no. Council member blackman
is absent when vote taken. Council member stewart?
no. Council member roth? Yes.
council member mendelson? Yes. Council member ridley? Yes. Deputy
mayor pro tem willis? No. Mayor prote moreno?
no. Mayor johnson? No.
with five voting in favor. Nine opposed? One absent vote.
taken. The motion fails. Mr. Mayor, we're back on the amendment
by mr. Basil dua. Anyone else wishing to speak on for against the amendment?
ms. Cini recognized four, three minutes.
I just wanna thank um, council member basil dua for making the motion.
district six has dealt with environmental racism for many,
many years. The president had to declare
alleged melter a fun site.
and so environmental issues are near and dear
to me. It's something that I will fight to fight for, for
my community because we've had to endure a lot.
and so this is of great concern to me.
we have a lot of, um, industrial area in
district six because of the zoning that has been passed that was also
in part of environmental racism. And so I plead with you
to vote for this amendment for the good of
west dallas for the good of district six. Thank you
joe mendelson. Thank you. You recognized for three minutes. Thank
you. Well, I can't imagine anybody's gonna vote against this because who wouldn't
want to have more information about the demolition? Like
even if you want to, to, to knock this building down,
why wouldn't you want more information? That doesn't even make sense.
there was a point where the city council unanimously me included,
voted for a ccap 'cause we cared about the environment. This is exactly
the kind of environmental thing that I cared about. Meaning there will
be debris in the air, we're all gonna breathe it.
so this isn't like some conspiracy kind of environmental stuff
that sometimes we hear about or some meaningless
certificate program that we're promoting and paying ads for.
no, this is actually how people will breathe and
what the impact is. Why would you not wanna know more information? Why
would you not support this? It doesn't make any sense. So
when you see people who regularly say, well I have to support something
like counting the trees, I'm sorry, tree inventory
for $6.3 million. But then are voting against getting more
information about what'll happen in the very real instance of what
if this building is taken down that doesn't make sense? And
maybe it's just a message that we have the votes to do whatever we want. If that's
the message, shame on you for not getting all the information and letting the public know it.
thank you mr. Bazel. Do you recognize for three minutes on
your amendment? Thank you mayor. Um, I would also like to thank
you, um, council member. Ena, I think that you and I share a lot
of the same, um, issues that have plagued our communities for
a long time. I, uh, truly do, um, believe that
this is some very I important information for us
to gather. Again, it doesn't change what, uh, the outcome is, but
I I, I do want to know, um, to council member mendelssohn's point, you
know, one of the emails that we all received from someone who does have credentials
of being an expert in this field, um, gave a layout of what he
believed to be, um, uh, uh, the demolition of this
site. And I'm curious because we haven't gotten any information at all
on it. Um, how accurate that was. Uh, one of, of the lines
in particular stood out to me and is one of the reasons why I could feel the
emotion from my colleague in district six. And one of the reasons why environmental
impact, um, specifically on brown and black communities is something that is passionate,
uh, that I'm passionate about as well. And that line said that the
um, debris and the particulate matter that would come
from a demo of this size and scale would be the equivalent
of opening a, uh, concrete batch plant in the center of
downtown dallas. So I'm telling you right now that if this does not materially
change whether or not this building is coming down, if the wheel is already
there, I think that one thing we can agree to on both sides
of this issue, including you all in the green shirts that say yes to downtown, it's
not saying yes to downtown and not being informed on what we're going to do to impact
the businesses that are here downtown. So we would need to know
a little bit more information and I think that that scale is gonna be very helpful. So we
know how to proceed in the next phase of this process. Um, again,
I I would, I would hope that this is something, uh, that is just looked at as an information
exercise and would not be opposed out of spite or politics. Thank you mr.
mayor. Chairman johnson, you
recognize for five minutes on the amendment by mr. Basel. Doa. Thank
you mr. Mayor. I'll take 30 seconds. Um,
city manager is demolition going on for kay bailey hutchins center? Center right now?
yes. A portion of the convention center is currently, um, demolition is currently
underway. Okay. I was just asking 'cause it's downtown and I don't
remember any of my colleagues asking the same questions. Point of order. Mr. Mayor, what relevance does
that have to the amendment on the floor? We're talking about demolition,
aren't we? Yes, totally different building it. I'm
gonna overrule the point of order that, that's all I have to say. Mr. Mayor.
demolition is underway right now for kay bailey hutchinson, and I don't remember any of my colleagues
have any same questions. Thank you. Chairwoman men. Uh,
actually yeah, we're the same round. So, uh, chairwoman mendelson
you recognize for one minute. Well, I'll just add this one item that came to mind,
which is this. We've heard a whole lot of questions about asbestos
and the asbestos questions have been about the environment and
about people's health. And right now we're only asking for more
information about the environment and people's health. Thank you
ms. Kadana. You recognize for one minute this building is
different than the convention center. The material and the way it's built is
extremely different. The cost is
different. We have not torn down a building like this and
the materials will most likely end up in district six
or district eight because that's where the concrete crushing companies are.
and so I don't think that it's an apples to apples comparison
for both of these buildings. That's all. Thank you mr.
bazel dooley. You recognize for one minute on your amendment? Thank you, mayor. It's not apples
to apples. We haven't been dealing with that now for months. In fact,
uh, I think that it's very rich to hear from the same source
such horror stories of what would happen to this building from the asbestos
and the remediation and what this is going to do to all of the people in the building.
and we really care about what's happened because of the experience that we've seen
with the disd schools. But now all of a sudden we're just gonna tear the
whole building down and we're gonna expose the asbestos to the general public and we don't care about it anymore.
thank you mr. Mayor. Anyone else wants to speak on
for against the amendment by mr. Basil duo? Madam secretary, please
call the roll. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, when I call your name, please state yes if you in
favor? No. If you oppose. Council member west. No. Council member gracie?
nope. Council member johnson? No. Council member resendez? Yes.
council member ena? Yes. Council member basel doa. Yes.
council member blair? No. Council member blackman?
yes. Council member stewart? No. Council member roth?
yes. Council member mendelson? Yes. Council member ridley?
yes. Deputy mayor pro timm willis? No. Mayor pro
timm moreno? No. Mayor johnson?
no. Wow. Would seven
voting in favor? Eight. A. Opposed? The motion fails, mr. Mayor.
okay, we're back on the original motion by
chairman west. Anyone else wishing to speak on for or against the motion
by mr. West? Seeing none, madam
secretary, please call the roll. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, when I call your name, please
state yes. If you're in favor. No. If you're opposed. Council member west.
yes. Council member gracie? Yes. Council member johnson?
yes. Council member resendez? Yes. Council member kaena?
no. Council member basel doa. No. Council member
blair? Yes. Council member blackman? No. Council
member stewart? Yes. Council member roth?
no. Council member mendelson? No. Council member ridley
deputy mayor pro tem willis? Yes. Mayor
prote moreno. Yes. Mayor johnson? Yes.
with nine voting in favor. Six. Opposed? The motion passes
mr. Mayor. Okay. The time is 7:46 pm
and the special call meeting of the city council is adjourned.
it's 7:46 pm and the regular,
we need to switch over. So we'll wait to declare the time it starts,
but we have a technical switchover to go back to the regular voting
agenda meeting.