Good evening:
There is an awful lot happening — and not happening — at City Hall lately. So, you’d be forgiven if you missed the news that Dallas is considering asking voters for permission this November to issue $941 million in bonds to fund public safety facilities and stabilize the Dallas Police & Fire Pension System (DPFPS).
Ordinarily, large bond programs are considered for the ballot only after at least several months of public deliberations and citizen input. The $1.25 billion 2024 bond program was in the works for nearly two years. That process included a 15-member Community Bond Task Force (on which I served) and five 15-member subcommittees, composed of Dallas residents appointed by City Council members, to study the City’s needs and deliver recommendations on bond propositions to the City Council. The $1.05 billion 2017 bond followed a similar process and timeline.
This bond is different.
For one thing, it would be solely focused on police and fire, with $500 million allocated to pension obligation bonds and the remaining $441 million for public safety facilities. Those other bond programs I noted included propositions on public safety, streets, parks, libraries, arts, economic development, housing, homelessness, flood protection, city facilities, and information technology.
What’s driving this bond is a set of real public safety challenges.
First, the police and fire pension has a long history of financial challenges, tied to years of risky real estate investments during a period when the fund was overseen primarily by police officers, firefighters, and politicians. The hole deepened with a 2016 run on the bank, as police officers and firefighters rapidly withdrew hundreds of millions of dollars in unusual lump sums.
Today, the fund is governed by a majority of mayoral appointees with financial expertise. Digging out of the historic hole left by prior leadership, it now has an unfunded liability of $3.73 billion and a 30-year plan to fund it. The bond strategy, as City officials outlined it, would shift some of the funding obligations away from the General Fund, where it could otherwise be spent on streets, parks, libraries, housing, economic development, and other core services, as well as potentially on tax relief.
But the strategy comes with real risks.
Pension obligation bonds are a complicated bet. The gamble is that by granting the $500 million up front, the fund can earn more from investment returns than the interest rate on the bonds would cost us over the bonds’ term.
Under one scenario presented by City Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland, the assumed asset returns for all future years through 2054 is 6.5%. In that scenario, the City could save hundreds of millions of dollars.
A less optimistic scenario, which mirrors the pensions fund’s performance from 2008 to 2015, could mean increased costs of up to $420 million.
The current cost of borrowing pension obligation bonds (POBs) is 6.17%. Ireland noted in a briefing earlier this month that even if voters approve the bonds in November, the City can wait to issue the bonds until interest rates are lower.
City staff noted some pros and cons of issuing pension obligation bonds in a recent briefing to City Council members.
The other driver of this proposal is a massive funding shortfall for a planned law enforcement training center at the University of North Texas at Dallas and a separate public safety training complex likely to be built at Dallas Executive Airport, though that location is not final. A combined $231 million of the $441 million facilities bond would go toward those two projects. The rest of the funds would be put toward the relocation of 911 and the City’s Emergency Operations Center from City Hall; the consolidation of the Dallas police property room, crime scene, and evidentiary vehicle storage into one joint facility; and the replacement of a Downtown fire station.
The first detailed briefing to the full City Council on the $941 million plan came just this month. It was part of a larger discussion that included potential long-term funding strategies to repair City Hall, which council members later voted against.
Now, City Council members will be asked to vote this Wednesday on whether to direct the city manager to prepare for a final August 12 City Council vote to call the November election. For most City voters who also live within Dallas County boundaries, the bond propositions could be sharing space with up to two Dallas County measures to increase taxes for child care and homelessness response, making the move even more of a gamble.
📖 Table of Contents
🗞️ Highlights From Last Week: Meetings, Memos, and Media of Interest
Amazon’s Zoox robotaxis are expected to hit Dallas streets for testing by the end of this month, with a test fleet of up to 12 vehicles, according to this memo. The vehicles will initially have a “safety operator” inside. Zoox is already operating in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Austin, and Miami.
In a special-called meeting, Dallas City Council members voted to dispatch the city manager to negotiate and enter into pre-acquisition agreements for potential relocation sites for City Hall and, separately, 911 and emergency operations. The City Hall voting item states that the relocation options are “in the Dallas Central Business District,” which typically refers to the area within the major highway loop. The vote on both items was 9-5, with Council Members Paul Ridley, Laura Cadena, Cara Mendelsohn, Paula Blackmon, and Bill Roth voting against. Council Member Adam Bazaldua was absent for the votes.
A regular briefing meeting was scheduled to follow the special-called meeting, but the council lost quorum, meaning they did not have enough members present to deliberate on the budget or hear the results of an annual citizen survey. The Dallas Observer reports on where (⚽️) at least some of the council members are believed to have been.
The next day, Thursday, a Committee on Government Efficiency meeting was also canceled because four of the seven committee members did not show up. Read more on that from The Dallas Morning News.
The City’s animal shelter is a chronic money pit, according to this memo, due to failing HVAC systems. The City invested more than $1 million over the past three years, another $2.6 million in major maintenance in the current fiscal year, and plans to invest another $2.5 million in the next fiscal year, subject to City Council approval.
City Council members will host in-person and virtual budget town hall meetings from Tuesday, August 11, through Tuesday, August 25. The exact dates for each have not yet been set, but I’ll provide the list when it is made public.
Here’s the complete city manager memo packet for Thursday, June 18, 2026.
🔢 Number of Interest
$5,667,700,052.84
Total dollar value of all City Council agenda items up for consideration this Wednesday. This is the final City Council meeting before the July recess. The body meets again on Wednesday, August 5.
🤝 Meetings of Interest: June 22 - 26, 2026
Monday, June 22
💰 Special Called Joint Meeting of the Deep Ellum and Grand Park South Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones, 2 p.m., 6DN Conference Room, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.
Nonprofit Fair Park First is seeking $3 million to put toward the planned Community Park at Fair Park. Fair Park First also recently announced a $2.5 million gift for the park from the McKesson Foundation.
Tuesday, June 23
🤑 Special Called Dallas City Council Committee on Finance, 1 p.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.
Two fiscal year 2026-27 budget briefings to the Finance Committee show the city’s legal and oversight offices heading in different directions: the City Attorney’s Office proposes trimming where it can — eliminating an IT supervisor position and cutting contractual services — even as its overall budget still rises slightly to $23.9 million. The newly independent Office of Inspector General is pitching a “Build Up Plan” that asks for $114,324 in enhancements ($169,324 with a forensic toolkit added) for staff reclassifications, training, and investigative software. Both offices are led by interim appointees.
Committee members are expected to discuss potential changes to the City’s living wage policy for general services contracts. The current policy, approved in 2015, requires an annual adjustment based on the MIT Living Wage Calculator. That means City contractors on all general services contracts issued on or after Oct. 1, 2025, must pay at least $23.06 per hour. Fresh briefing materials haven't been posted online yet, but here’s the briefing from the last committee meeting.
Committee members will discuss the City’s draft state and federal legislative agendas, including potentially opposing any legislation authorizing casino gambling. Read it here.
Wednesday, June 24
🗣️ Dallas City Council Meeting, 9 a.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.
Item 5 is acceptance of $2.8 million from an anonymous donor to support programming and services for the Dallas Public Library system.
Item 45 authorizes more than $1 million — largely federal grant funds — to hire Gresham Smith to master-plan and design the connections linking the new Halperin Park deck park over I-35E and the Dallas Zoo to the surrounding Oak Cliff neighborhoods. The work targets specific pinch points within a half-mile of the plaza, with engineering work running from next month through September 2027.
Item 58 rejects all bids for a proposed eviction advocacy pilot program for reasons outlined in this memo.
Item 87 is a closed-door discussion about the future of Thanks-Giving Square and an underground truck terminal that are subject to a 75-year contract with the City of Dallas, which City Hall stopped funding as of the current year budget. Read more about the potentially lethal blow to the Downtown park in this recent Robert Wilonsky piece. Thanks-Giving Square is a GoldHam Group client.
Item 88 is a grant of up to $18.5 million for Morgan Stanley, which plans to occupy a new Uptown high-rise, as reported by The Dallas Morning News last week. The company will occupy Fountain Place in Downtown while it awaits the new tower for about four years.
Item 90 is the consideration of a committee recommendation to raise the height of the planned new Downtown convention center to accommodate the Jefferson Viaduct, rather than re-route it. City staff is urging council members to reject the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's recommendation, noting that such a significant redesign of the convention center could cost nearly $600 million and further delay the project beyond 2030.
Item 93 would direct the city manager to prepare for an August City Council vote to call a $941 million November bond election, split between police and fire pension bonds and public safety facilities.
Z16: Winners Assembly Church is back with its request for permission to build a 25-story hotel-apartment-retail high-rise on a small lot in South Dallas. The City Plan Commission recommended denial by a 10-0 vote. There’s a Wilonsky column on this one, too.
Public Hearing 4 is a citywide code amendment that changes Chapters 51A and 52 to allow the city to revoke a business's certificate of occupancy — the document that authorizes it to operate legally — when the business operates without a required license, permit, or registration. A key clue is buried in the background: it specifically names the entertainment establishment license. This is a nightlife-enforcement lever, a way for the City to shut down entertainment venues faster. Read the draft ordinance.
Thursday, June 25
📑 Dallas City Plan Commission, Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.
Item 4 is a request to amend zoning to allow “indoor game courts” and a restaurant at the corner of Reagan and Brown streets, a project reported earlier this year by the Dallas Voice.
Item 14 is developer Leland Burk’s request for a new Planned Development District to build a multifamily-hotel-office-retail project on roughly 7.27 acres at the southwest corner of Preston Road and Royal Lane, the retail/office corner leveled by the 2019 tornado. The PD would raise heights from the current 54-foot cap to as much as 240 feet (18- and 19-story towers), with stepbacks and lot-coverage limits intended to soften the transition to the single-family homes and townhomes to the south. The Dallas Morning News reports on the latest development dividing Preston Hollow.
🗣️ Quote of Interest
Michael Morris does things not to be famous. He doesn’t want to be famous. He doesn’t like the attention. But Michael Morris works every day to focus on outcomes to solve transportation, safety, air quality and congestion problems.
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.
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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.
