Meetings of Interest: Sunday Spending Scaries 😱🤑

Good evening:

For those of us with kids in grade school, tonight may bring a crippling case of “Sunday scaries.”

You may be fresh off a final summer vacation. You are living partially out of suitcases strewn about the house. You are digging out from under hundreds (thousands?) of unread emails about work, gymnastics practices, the rapidly approaching first day of school.

It is all causing enough anxiety to consider trying that magical sleepy mushroom hot cocoa that keeps sliding into your Instagram feed.

It could be much worse.

You could be Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert.

Tolbert spent most of her summer penciling out a fiscal 2025-26 budget that must wipe out a $36.5 million shortfall, meet the requirements of a voter-approved City Charter amendment requiring Dallas to hire hundreds of well-paid cops, and prepare for next summer’s FIFA 2026 World Cup festivities.

Tonight is her last sleep before she kicks off 1×1s with each of her 15 bosses to preview her proposed budget ahead of a public release on Friday and a City Council workshop the following Tuesday. That’s according to a timeline Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland sent to City Council members in late July.

What follows will be weeks of budget town halls, City Council debates about proposed amendments, and plenty of organized advocacy from various interest groups most impacted by the spending plan.

The City Council is expected to take final votes on the budget on September 17. The new fiscal year starts October 1.

By then, hopefully, we’ll all be able to sleep a little easier.

📖 Table of Contents

• 📰 Highlights From Last Month's Meetings

• 📝 Memos of Interest

• 🤝 Meetings of Interest: August 4 - 8

  • Monday, August 4

    • Dallas Landmark Commission

  • Tuesday, August 5

    • Ad Hoc Committee on Legislative Affairs

  • Wednesday, August 6

    • Dallas City Council Briefing

  • Thursday, August 7

    • DFW Airport Board

    • Dallas City Plan Commission

    • Dallas Park & Recreation Board

    • Regional Transportation Council (RTC)

📰 Highlights From Last Month’s Meetings of Interest

• Members of a Dallas advisory design panel have some concerns about a much-needed redo plan for one of Downtown’s iconic high-rises, Comerica Bank Tower, The Dallas Morning News reports. Not to be outdone, News architecture critic Mark Lamster—author of a biography on the building’s architect titled “The Man in the Glass House”—threw a fistful of stones at a key piece of the plan, which would replace a landscaped plaza and banking hall on Ervay Street. “It would be a wasteful travesty to lose this space, especially for a parking garage,” Lamster writes. What should come of what he calls a “three-dimensional realization of 1980s Reaganomics?” Perhaps “some kind of mall or food court,” Lamster suggests… Sure, as there could not be a better tribute to the 1980s.

• Hundreds of Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) riders and supporters voiced fierce opposition to proposed historic agency cuts at a public hearing in early July, The Dallas Morning News reports.

📝 Memos of Interest

• The total certified property value for Dallas increased by over $11 billion, or 5.3%, as compared to last year, City officials report in this memo, which includes the above chart.

• Dallas police officers continue to struggle to meet goals for response times to 911 calls, according to the latest department data. Read more about this years-long struggle in this NBC 5 investigative series.

• Dallas sales tax collections through the eighth month of the fiscal year are $3 million below budget, according to this memo.

• Mayor Eric Johnson has reappointed Council Member Cara Mendelsohn as chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Legislative Affairs for the new City Council term, according to this memo. The mayor has not yet appointed any other committees.

• Here’s the complete City Manager memo packets for Friday, July 25, and Friday, August 1.

🤝 Meetings of Interest: August 4 - 8

Monday, August 4

Dallas Landmark Commission, 9:30 a.m. Briefing, 1 p.m. Public Hearing, 6ES Briefing Room, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• This agenda includes discussion of proposed changes and improvements as part of a $103 million West End mixed-use development (discussion agenda items 1 and 2). City Council members last year awarded the West End Lofts project a $49 million City subsidy.

Tuesday, August 5

Dallas City Council Ad Hoc Committee on Legislative Affairs, 1 p.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• “Favorable” Dallas legislation passed during the recent state legislative session includes the ability to move municipal elections to November of odd-numbered years, as well as bills related to housing finance, artificial intelligence regulation, and opioid programs, according to this briefing.

• Dallas could be in line to tap into a proposed $625 million Homeland Security grant appropriation for 2026 FIFA World Cup host cities, according to this presentation. There’s also plenty of not so good news from Washington, D.C., including potential Dallas impacts from some of President Donald Trump’s executive orders related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, immigration, and, most recently, homelessness.

• Committee members will also discuss proposed contracts for four state legislative consultants and two federal consultant teams. The City Council is expected to vote on the contracts later this month.

Wednesday, August 6

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

• City Council members are taking a closer look at a staff proposal to update or repeal what they call “outdated,” “unenforceable,” or “duplicative” ordinances. Dedicated MOI readers may recall my May report (“Omnibusted”) on this effort, after a few council members questioned some of the proposals. Read more here, and try not to be distracted by the strategically placed cute doggie pics.

• In June, I told you about a proposal to quash a nearly 40-year-old section of City Code that neighborhood advocates occasionally use to slow down controversial planning and zoning cases (“Zoned Out”). City Council members were expected to vote on that plan a few days later, but instead asked for a full City Council briefing first. Here it is.

• A vote is also scheduled to approve a fiscal 2025-26 budget for nearly $30 million in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant funds. Details on the planned expenditures can be found here.

Thursday, August 7

Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Board, 8:30 a.m. 2400 Aviation Drive, Board Room - DFW Airport HQ Building, DFW Airport, TX 75261

• Board members are expected to vote on the airport’s proposed $1.4 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1. The board-approved budget must be forwarded to airport owner cities, including Dallas, by August 15 for final approvals by September 30.

• Also on this agenda is a vote on a Preliminary Official Statement (POS) for the sale of up to $3 billion in bonds for capital programs including the long-awaited new Terminal F, which broke ground last year.

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

• Commissioners will be briefed on bills passed during the regular state legislative session related to municipal zoning regulations. The briefing is not publicly posted, but the bills in question are HB24, HB4506, SB15, SB840. You can them up here.

Dallas Park & Recreation Board, 10 a.m., 6FN Conference Room, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• This board (on which I serve) will be briefed on the proposed department budget for next fiscal year and the latest on the management transition at Fair Park.

Regional Transportation Council (RTC), 1 p.m., Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas, 3rd Floor, Junior Ballroom, 500 West Las Colinas Boulevard, Irving, TX 75039

• RTC members will discuss whether to send a letter to members of Congress advocating against proposed high-speed rail funding cuts.

• A recap of transportation actions from the 89th Texas Legislature is also on this agenda.

🗣️ Quote of Interest

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