City Council Shirks Prop. U Police Hiring, Staffing Mandate, Sides With DPD

The Dallas Police Department is entangled in politics — that much is clear from whichever side of the aisle you sit on. 
A City Council vote Wednesday revealed that a majority of council members are uncomfortable with the demands of Proposition U, a city charter amendment passed by voters in November that mandates the police force grow by 900 officers. 

Council member Cara Mendelsohn started the month by introducing a motion to the Public Safety Committee, which she chairs, that would increase the department’s hiring goal for the current fiscal year from 275 officers to 400. By the time the committee was done chewing over the motion, Mendelsohn was in the minority and a goal of 325 officers was approved. That motion also included the requirement of a 350 officer hiring goal for the next fiscal year, and a 400 officer goal in fiscal year 2027.

On Wednesday, the City Council did away with the latter part of that motion, completely wiping the goal tally for future fiscal years clean and lessening the current year’s goal to 300 officers. Mendelsohn and Public Safety Committee member Jesse Moreno were the only two council members to oppose lowering the requirement from the committee’s recommendation.

Council member Adam Bazaldua introduced the approved motion and spoke against Mendelsohn’s lofty hiring goals. He also apologized to the police department for being made into “political pawns;” because a hiring goal resolution does not move dollars around or carry consequences if unmet, Bazaldua accused the motion of being “performative happenstance in election season.”

“We have not heard from anyone in law enforcement in our city that has requested for this number to go higher than what our chief has said is most feasible,” Bazaldua said. “I think it would be a slap in the face to the department for any one of us to say we know better than them.”

A majority of the council voiced support for Interim Police Chief Michael Igo, who warned that increasing recruitment classes too dramatically would result in officers being pulled off patrol to assist with training. Igo’s testimony during Wednesday’s meeting was a more emphatic stance against a heftier hiring mandate than the one he offered the Public Safety Committee earlier this month.

In January, Igo told NBC 5 that a hiring goal of 400 officers would be attainable for the current fiscal year. Addressing the entire council now, though, Igo asked the horseshoe to give the police department “more time” to increase hiring rather than a fiscal year deadline that expires Sept. 30.

Mendelsohn argued that the council’s decision to lessen the hiring mandate flies in the face of what Dallas residents have asked for.

“We had the voter Proposition U in November calling for nearly 900 additional officers,” Mendelsohn said Wednesday. “It passed even with intense media coverage and a million dollar campaign against it … the people still said we want more police officers. The results should be a wake up call to all of us.”

Damien LeVeck, the recently named executive director of the Dallas HERO organization that spearheaded the Proposition U charter amendment in the last election, also addressed the council. Encouraging the representatives to “get creative” about police staffing, LeVeck offered some fatherly advice to the horseshoe.

“I’ve got three little kids and they often tell me they can’t do something, and I tell them you can do hard things,” LeVeck said. “I believe that this council and this city can do this hard thing.”

LeVeck’s group also helped pass Proposition S, which opens the city up to citizen lawsuits if ordinances such as Prop. U go unenforced.

You might be thinking to yourself there’s a key player missing from this story. The council’s final vote ended 12-2, where was vote No. 15?

That vote, dear reader, belongs to Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, who was absent from today’s meetings. Is public safety one of the four alliterative priorities the mayor has hammered on about for years now? Yes. Would it have been nice to know where Johnson stood in this division between Prop. U and the police department? Yes again.

Did a D Magazine reader happen to see our mayor jetting off to the Big Apple this morning? That’s three yeses! What do we win?