Meetings of Interest: A Different Path 🕊️

Good evening:

The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week in Utah had me reflecting on the way Dallas came together in the days following the murders of five police officers in Downtown Dallas in summer 2016.

Mayor Mike Rawlings, my boss at the time, and Police Chief David Brown led with empathy and strength at a time when it felt like the country was being ripped apart. At a bipartisan memorial service days after the attack, President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush each delivered poignant messages.

“At times, it seems like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together,” Bush said at the July 12, 2016, memorial service at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. “Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates too quickly into de-humanization.”

“Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions,” the 43rd president said.

In his speech, Obama called on us to pray for “a new heart.”

“With an open heart, we can abandon the overheated rhetoric and the oversimplification that reduces whole categories of our fellow Americans not just to opponents, but to enemies,” Obama said.

Bush and Obama hit on problems that day that, unfortunately, have only gotten worse in our political discourse, including at Dallas City Hall, over nearly 10 years since.

From the Council Chambers to the depths of social media, conversations quickly devolve into personal attacks based on assumptions about other peoples’ motives. The prevalence of AI is adding another dangerous tool to be weaponized against perceived enemies.

Our nonpartisan, weak mayor form of government depends on a majority of City Council members working collaboratively to solve challenging issues. That can and should get messy sometimes. But the loud and divisive minority is often a distraction from what most Dallas residents want from City Hall.

They want their police department to be staffed enough for cops to answer 911 calls quickly. They want clean drinking water, timely trash pickup, and well-kept parks. They want smooth streets and sidewalks. They want processes that fuel rather than stall economic development.

We can disagree about how to accomplish these things. But we are doing a disservice to ourselves and our neighbors when we make everything personal, or spend our time inflaming every discussion on social media.

One current elected official who has consistently offered wise words of calm in recent days is Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. He has for years backed a bipartisan “Disagree Better” campaign to encourage discussion, debate, and disagreement — without contempt.

On Friday, he delivered a message to young Americans.

“You are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage. It feels like rage is the only option,” Cox said during a press conference announcing the arrest of the suspected shooter. “Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now, not by pretending differences don’t matter, but by embracing our differences and having those hard conversations.”

Those of us who live our lives in and around City Hall should reconsider how we judge ourselves, how we judge others, and how we can all disagree better and with an open heart.

Board of Adjustment (Panel A), 10:30 a.m. Briefing, 1 p.m. Public Hearing, Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

Dallas City Council Briefing and Budget Workshop, 9 a.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

City Plan Commission, 9 a.m. Briefing, 12:30 p.m. Public Hearing, Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

Did I miss anything? Do you have any questions? Just want to talk about meetings and memos and other fun stuff? Hit me up.