Tuesday’s “blue tsunami” also drowned most major ballot propositions across North Texas.
Voters said no to millions of dollars in debt and taxes for initiatives that historically win broad support. They included police, fire, and educational facilities, homelessness response, even a new arena and entertainment district for the Dallas Stars in Plano.
For Dallas, the results mean officials must go back to the drawing board on how to close at least an $82 million public funding hole for the under-development Dallas police academy at the University of North Texas at Dallas. It also means we still have no guaranteed public funding mechanism to keep driving down homelessness across Dallas County, a top concern for many.
The Texan, a conservative-leaning publication, notes the trend of voters rejecting perceived cost increases extended well beyond Dallas to the greater Houston area and Central Texas, where numerous bonds and tax rate increases were also voted down.
“Even given what’s happened at the state level as far as the elections go, I think that these were good signs that people are upset about their property taxes, and they’re willing to reject these large bond propositions,” economist Vance Ginn told The Texan.
Locally, other headwinds were also at play.
The City’s Proposition A was a $443 million bond package with more than half the dollars allocated for two badly needed new Dallas police academy facilities. But that package also included $40 million to move 911 and emergency operations out of the City Hall basement, most likely to a City-owned building next to DPD’s Jack Evans Police Headquarters. That part of the proposal drew fierce opposition from the same forces rallying against a potential relocation from City Hall. They said the measure amounted to a blank check and the first step toward other city departments vacating the I.M. Pei-designed seat of government at 1500 Marilla Street.
Dallas County Proposition A would have increased property taxes for homeowners by 2.4 cents per $100 valuation. It would have meant about a $5-per-month increase for owners of median-valued homes, generating an estimated $100 million in the first year alone for emergency services, mental health and addiction treatment, job connections and housing and intensive support.
While no organized opposition campaign ran on the county measure, long-serving Dallas County Commissioners John Wiley Price and Elba Garcia both voted against calling the election and campaigned against it. And regardless of the value proposition, it was still a tax increase at a moment when people across the country are hurting from rising costs. (The GoldHam Group works for organizations that supported and funded both campaigns.)
Perhaps even more surprising for Dallasites still licking our wounds over the anticipated loss of the Dallas Stars to Plano, voters in that city rejected a package of taxes to fund a planned arena and entertainment district at the site of The Shops at Willow Bend that would open by 2031.
“In their fury to blame Republicans up and down the ballot for an unaffordable economy, Texas Democrats may have accomplished something Republicans tried to do for decades: getting Democrats to scrutinize local expenditures and local debt with a more critical eye,” said Ross Hunt of Dallas-based Hunt Research, a consultancy that runs survey research and data analytics for campaigns.
Plano and Stars team officials say the results will not deter their plans, but Dallas Morning News columnist Tim Cowlishaw is revitalizing hope that the team “will find a way to stay where it belongs.”
So where does that leave Dallas? With a major funding hole for a new police academy, a countywide homelessness system still without a dedicated way to pay for it, and a City Council that spent the next morning already rewriting its wish list for a very different state government in Austin.
The lesson isn’t that voters stopped caring about police, homelessness or hockey. It’s that “trust us” stopped being enough to sway voters, particularly for the City’s measure.
For more on this and other hot topics, join me over on the new Meetings of Interest Community Page. I’ll be posting updates, videos, GIFs, and more throughout the week. It’s like a Facebook page, but (hopefully) without all the personal attacks and misinformation.
📖 Table of Contents
🗞️ ICYMI: Highlights From Last Week
State Senator Nathan Johnson of Dallas is the first Democrat elected Texas attorney general since 1994. Johnson defeated Republican Mayes Middleton with promises “to focus on the obligations of the state’s largest law firm, like consumer protection, anti-corruption and child support enforcement,” writes The Texas Tribune. Johnson’s win also means the jockeying has already begun for a special election to replace him when he vacates the Senate seat he has held since 2019, The Dallas Morning News reports.
In the wake of Tuesday’s stunning election results, council members want a rewrite of their state and federal legislative wish lists. Staff described the new state leadership as an “entirely new regime.” Read more from The Dallas Morning News.
Since 2023, 41% of violent crimes committed in Deep Ellum occurred between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, according to this analysis from nonprofit Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL). The review comes in the wake of Halloween weekend shootings that killed four people and injured 15, according to reports. Published today by CPAL Founder & CEO Alan Cohen, it also documents where violence happens in the entertainment district and how Deep Ellum hasn’t shared the citywide decline in violent crime.
Posted Nov. 5 at DallasZoningReform.com, City staff called this first version of a zoning overhaul a “conversation draft.” Months of deliberations and edits are expected to follow.
🔢 Number of Interest
88,597
Number of Dallas County voters who cast a ballot but skipped the County’s Proposition A, which lost by 26,310 votes.
🤝 Meetings of Interest: November 9 - 13, 2026
Monday, November 9
🚔 City Council Public Safety Committee, 1 p.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.
Briefing: Bridge to Treatment Update
Dallas Fire-Rescue officials will present on the Bridge to Treatment initiative, which links overdose patients directly to treatment providers including Parkland, Metrocare, Homeward Bound and Nexus, instead of releasing them with no follow-up. Next steps include paramedics starting buprenorphine, an addiction medication, in the field.
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Violent crime across the city is down 9% so far this year, with robberies down 17%, including a 33% drop in business robberies, according to this latest Dallas Police Department (DPD) update. A separate update on the City Action Strike Team (CAST) explains how City departments use CPAL data to target high-crime areas for interventions, including “crime prevention assessments, blight and encampment removal, securing vacant and open structures, convenience store license registration checks, lighting assessments, public right-of-way cleanups, traffic sign and street repairs, graffiti and litter removal, vegetation maintenance, and fence repairs and installation.”
The City Attorney’s Office and DPD’s Nuisance Abatement Unit will explain how the city goes after crime-plagued properties. Five qualifying crimes in a year can get a property labeled a “Habitual Criminal Property,” with a sign on the door, monthly fees and inspections. In court, it can escalate to fines up to $10,000, jail time, a court-appointed receiver running the property, a one-year closure, change in ownership, or demolition.
This one-page memo on Halloween night in Deep Ellum says extra officers were on duty, along with off-duty officers hired by area businesses. Officers responded “within seconds” of the shootings, officials say. At least one suspect was arrested in recent days in connection with one of three shootings that left four people dead and 15 injured, according to reports.
DPD has 3,427 officers against a goal of 4,000 and beat its hiring target for the fiscal year that ended September 30. But applicants processed from Oct. 1 - 27 dropped 64% from last year (82 vs. 230), and this memo partly blames the switch to the Workday HR system, which “presented some challenges.” The department calls it “a slow start.”
The future of the under-development police academy at the University of North Texas at Dallas may also come up for discussion, though this memo says nothing about how officials plan to fill an $82 million public funding hole that voters declined to fill last week via the City’s Proposition A. The project also needs at least $38 million more in private funding, according to recent updates.
Tuesday, November 10
🗣️ Dallas City Council Meeting, 9 a.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.
Item 2: Council members are asked to accept $200,000 in asset forfeiture money from the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office to buy vehicles for RIGHT Care. That program sends a police officer, a paramedic and a Parkland behavioral health clinician to mental health calls.
Item 7: A New Markets Tax Credit deal of up to $11 million for the Cartamundi trading card plant expansion on Highland Place Drive in southern Dallas. The company prints for Pokémon, Wizards of the Coast and others. Staff told Economic Development Committee members last week it’s about a $60 million project that would keep 120 jobs and add 130, averaging $29.44 an hour. Read more.
Item 10: A code update would make property owners responsible for plants and trees blocking alleys, streets and sidewalks all the way to the curb and to the middle of the alley, with fines up to $2,000. It closes a loophole where growth that never crossed the property line didn’t count, even when it blocked a trash truck. It’s too bad this one doesn’t need voter approval.
Item 34: The City could spend up to $250,000 to have Dallas County Elections verify signatures on multiple city petitions, including a recall and proposed charter amendments, all filed in October. The agenda doesn’t say who’s being recalled or what the amendments would do, but signatures are being gathered to recall two council members and to pass charter amendments to block a move from City Hall and, separately, to strengthen mayoral powers.
Item 35: Council members are asked to approve the City Auditor’s FY 2027 plan: 18,000 hours covering airline fee collection, Park & Rec contract oversight, software licenses, vehicle auctions, municipal court staffing and an audit of DPD’s Flock camera program.
Z9: The Preston Royal redevelopment returns after its October 14 delay. The developer wants to rezone 7.27 acres at the southwest corner of Preston Road and Royal Lane, a site damaged in the 2019 tornado, for apartments, a hotel, offices and retail. Buildings could reach 240 feet if the developer sets aside some apartments as affordable. City planners and the Plan Commission (10-4) support it. Many neighbors don’t: 263 of the property owners who answered the city’s mailed notices are opposed and eight are in favor.
🚨 Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Board Special Committee on Safety and Security, 3:30 p.m., Conference Room C - 1st Floor, DART HQ, 1401 Pacific Ave., Dallas, TX 75202
Briefing: Proposed Revisions to the Code of Conduct
DART will walk through the first rewrite of its rider code of conduct since 2007. New rules would bar riding without a “bona fide travel destination,” staying on past the end of the line, lying across seats, bringing shopping carts on board, wearing clothing that does not adequately cover “both the breasts and genitalia” and boarding with hygiene that creates a health hazard. Vaping and cannabis join the smoking ban. If the board approves it December 8, the rules take effect January 2 with a grace period through January 31. Brad Oldham’s Traveling Man sculpture has been recruited as the mascot for a code of conduct campaign.
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🚌 Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Committee-of-the-Whole (4:30 p.m.) and Board of Directors (6 p.m.), Board Room, DART HQ, 1401 Pacific Ave., Dallas, TX 75202
DART Police will report during the Committee-of-the-Whole that 737 serious offenses occurred from July through September, up about 1% from the same quarter last year, according to this briefing. Drug offenses make up 440 of them, though, and without those, serious offenses fell 8%. Officers removed 15,737 people from trains, buses and platforms during the quarter for fare or code of conduct violations. Of the 489 people its crisis response team contacted, 71% were living unsheltered.
🗣️ Quote of Interest
This is not a time to be conservative. This is a time to be aggressive in trying to promote the agenda that we, as a city, want to have.
A note to readers: Meetings of Interest is an independent newsletter curated and authored by The GoldHam Group Managing Partner Scott Goldstein and edited by GoldHam Managing Partners Sam Goldstein and Vana Hammond. The content, perspectives, or commentary presented herein reflect the views of the author alone and do not necessarily represent the views, policies, or positions of any other organization, institution, or individual, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Any affiliations are for identification purposes only and do not imply endorsement.
Thanks for reading.
Have a great week.
Best,
Scott Goldstein
Managing Partner
The GoldHam Group
Sam Goldstein, Scott Goldstein, and Vana Hammond are co-founders of The GoldHam Group, a southern Dallas-based boutique communications, events, and public affairs firm.
