OUR VOICES: Message from the Dallas Mayor

By Mayor Eric Johnson

Five years ago, I was preparing to become the leader of this great city after serving Dallas in the Texas Legislature for nearly a decade.

It’s amazing to think about everything that has transpired since then, and how far Dallas has come in that time.

There have, of course, been plenty of trials and tribulations. During the 2019 campaign season, violent crime began to rise in Dallas. Within days of the election, a construction crane collapsed on an apartment building, and a gunman targeted a federal courthouse. About four months later, an EF-3 tornado ripped through North Dallas. A few months after that, the world changed when a global pandemic hit. And during the last few years, Dallas has been confronted with historic ice storms and devastating power outages caused by statewide grid failures, civil unrest, loud calls to defund the police, extraordinary weather and flooding, and so much more.

Plans had to change. The old ways of doing things had to be reassessed. New ideas had to be tested. Change had to come.

But through all these challenging times, the noise – so much noise – and the politicking, this Administration kept working and maintaining a laser focus on creating a safer, stronger, and more vibrant city.

As a result, Dallas has become the city that America yearns for. People and businesses are moving here. Crime rates and tax rates are falling. This city’s economy is booming, and Dallas’s international reputation is growing.

So much has happened over five years that it might not be easy to recall what has been done. But now is as good of a time as any to recap much of it. Here’s a look back as we move forward:

Keeping Dallas Safe

• Presided over the only top 10 city in the United States to achieve two-straight years of year-over-year reductions in every major violent crime category 2021 and 2022.
• Achieved a third-straight year of overall violent crime reduction in 2023. 
• Demanded — and received — an evidence-based violent crime reduction plan from the Dallas Police Department. Criminologists from UT-San Antonio said it contributed to a 12% reduction in violent crime where it has been implemented.
• Reinvigorated and reshaped the city’s Domestic Violence Task Force, which partnered with the Dallas Police Department and helped spark the Domestic Violence Reduction Plan.
• Created the Task Force on Safe Communities, which made four community-based recommendations for reducing violent crime: Improving lighting in high-crime areas, remediating concentrated areas of blight in neighborhoods, expanding social and emotional learning curriculum in public schools, and deploying violence interrupters to help stop conflicts before they escalate.
• Won support for funding these programs in the budget and saw crime decrease as a result.
• Led the effort to budget the hiring of 250 more police officers per year to grow the police department after years of shrinking.
• Fought efforts to reduce police overtime, including through a successful budget amendment that prevented a $10 million cut in 2021.
• Led the successful public push for the hiring of an experienced major city police chief.
• Pushed for public forums to allow residents to assess the leading police chief candidates.
• Won support for market-based salary increases for police officers and firefighters.
• Proposed and won support for additional funding for fire station repairs.
• Proposed and won support for providing mental health leave days to firefighters after tragic suicides.
• Pushed forward a plan to provide data for opioid overdose mapping in collaboration with Dallas County.
• Created a study group and ad hoc committee to address the financial security of the city’s public safety pensions.
• Partnered with Dallas ISD to create a new educational pathway program for law enforcement. 
• Supported the civilianization of administrative police department jobs to help put uniformed officers back on the streets.
• Raised private funds to support and fund a blight remediation program in South Dallas.
• Launched the Summer of Safety campaign to promote youth initiatives to keep Dallas kids safe during the summer. As a result, violent crime fell in the summer months.
• Successfully advocated for $20 million in funding for a new Dallas law enforcement training facility, in partnership with the University of North Texas at Dallas, though state funds.
• Created an advisory council on Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking.

Growing the Economy

• Added nearly $18 billion in new development during the first term, despite the pandemic and other disasters.
• Landed major corporate relocations, expansions, and retentions of AECOM, CBRE, Goldman Sachs, Kroger, Neiman Marcus, Frontier Communications, Cacique Foods, Galderma, and other businesses.
• Led the effort to create a new comprehensive economic development policy, which included steps meant to spur innovation.
• Led the push to create a new Economic Development Corporation (EDC) aimed at driving growth across the city and especially in southern Dallas.
• Appointed inaugural board members for the EDC along with the city manager.
• Helped lead a successful campaign to fund the revitalization of Fair Park and downtown Dallas through the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center redevelopment. 67% of Dallas voters approved of this plan in a November 2022 ballot initiative.
• Made a deal with the city manager to improve permitting, leading to an elimination of a longstanding backlog, after creating a working group to demand reforms.
• Advocated for Dallas to become the home to a new federal ARPA-H facility, which will bring hundreds of millions of dollars to Dallas and turn the city into a biotech hub.
• Won an official “Music City” designation from the State of Texas for the City of Dallas.
• Approved major plans for new developments in southern Dallas and downtown Dallas.
• Named a Workforce Development Czar to form a new workforce entity and create partnerships with higher education institutions and corporations to upskill workers.
• Created a business franchising initiative to increase franchise business ownership in Dallas.
• Dallas led the nation’s economic recovery after the pandemic, according to Moody’s Analytics. In fact, in 2022, job growth in the Dallas region outpaced 46 states.
• Opened a Trade Office of France in the newly designated International District to increase foreign direct investment in Dallas.
• Opened a dialogue about future trade offices with other nations, including the United Republic of Tanzania and the United Kingdom.
• Created the International Advisory Council — a team of seven former U.S. Ambassadors who live in Dallas — to advise on international efforts.
• Successfully advocated for easing regulations on food trucks and trailers.
• Supported outdoor dining options to increase the city’s urban vibrancy.
• Made international trips to Mexico, Germany, France, Qatar, and the World Economic Forum in Davos to increase international attention on Dallas and help increase tourism and trade.
• Made the first official Dallas visit to Sister City of Dijon, France.
• Restructured the city’s contract with VisitDallas to provide increased city oversight and increase funding for the arts community.
• Provided discretionary bond funding for the restoration of the historic Longhorn Ballroom.
• Supported tax-rate reductions every year and voted against two budgets in large part for failing to provide more tax relief to residents and businesses.
• Successfully pushed for the largest tax-rate reduction in modern Dallas history — 2.75 cents per $100 valuation reduction in one year. The previous high in a 40-year period was a 2.13-cent reduction in a single year.
• Dallas now has its lowest tax rate since 2007, and the tax rate (73.57 cents per $100 valuation) is now 4.1 cents lower than it was in 2018.
• Fought back a city manager-proposed increase in the tax rate in the 2019 budget.
• During the last five years, oversaw increases in the senior homestead exemption to $139,400 from $90,000, helping residents over 65 stay in their homes. This is a 55% increase.
• Continues to publicly advocate for more governmental efficiency and property tax relief for residents.

Building Urban Oases

• Served as a major public champion for Dallas parks, helping improve the city’s standing in national parks system rankings and gaining Dallas the reputation as a national model for developing green spaces.
• Dallas jumped 10 spots in the National Park Score ranking among cities.
• Requested inventory of city-owned land to turn into parks or affordable housing from the city manager.
• Created the greening initiative and seeded it with discretionary funding to ensure every Dallas resident can live within 10 minutes of a park or trail.
• Already, the Greening Czar has identified five new neighborhood parks to build on previously unused city-owned land.
• Oversaw the opening of four new downtown Dallas parks, as well as beautiful new neighborhood parks in southern Dallas such as South Oak Cliff Renaissance Park and the Judge Charles R. Rose Community Park.
• Christened the new Vaughan Brothers art piece in Kiest Park with Jimmie Vaughan and Gary Clark Jr.
• Oversaw the expansion of the city’s trail system and advocated for funding from governmental partners for Five-Mile Creek Greenbelt.
• Facilitated the largest donation of parkland in the City of Dallas in decades with Parkdale Lake gift from Oncor.
• Proposed the selling of carbon credits in the Trinity Forest to fund the park.
• Helped lead a successful campaign to fund the revitalization of Fair Park.
• Boosted plans for a more realistic vision for Harold Simmons Park that will help move the project forward.
• Successfully advocated for funding for the new Southern Gateway Park and broke ground on its construction. 

Improving Dallas Infrastructure

• Supported fully funding the 5-year infrastructure management plan to maintain Dallas streets.
• Supported fully funding the Sidewalk Master Plan to improve sidewalks in Dallas.
• Supported the Vision Zero infrastructure plan to reduce traffic fatalities in Dallas.
• Advocated for regional funding for major infrastructure needs, such as replacement traffic signals.
• Advocated for increased street funding by cutting bureaucracy at City Hall.
• Awaiting completion of the Mill Creek Tunnel project, which is scheduled to open in 2025. The tunnel will provide 100-year flood protection for more than 2,200 commercial and residential properties in flood-prone areas of the city.
• Advocated for approval and support of high-speed rail service between Dallas and Houston, the state’s biggest economic giants.
• Developed a strong working relationship with Oncor Electric Delivery to help with city initiatives and improve electrical infrastructure.
• Supported funding for better, safer bicycle infrastructure.

Responding to Crises

• Responded to multiple disasters, including civil unrest, an EF-3 tornado — the costliest in Texas history, and an historic ice storm and statewide power outages.
• Raised money for storm relief and distributed $500,000 to local nonprofits after the ice storm and power outages.
• Advocated for a federal disaster declaration for the power outages, which the city received.
• Took decisive early action in the pandemic to declare a state of disaster, which allowed the city to take extraordinary measures in response to the disaster. Allowed takeout and delivery options to ensure restaurants could continue to operate.
• Appointed a COVID-19 Health and Healthcare Access Czar to help guide the city’s response to the pandemic.
• Oversaw the creation of public drive-through testing centers during the early days of the pandemic.
• Appointed a team to lead the city’s economic response and recovery. This team helped facilitate business coaching, PPE distribution, and other efforts.
• Created Dallas City Council committees to respond to COVID-19 issues. The committee created a rental assistance program and a small business grant and loan fund that helped keep the local economy moving.
• Worked with community partners to keep the public informed about the pandemic and provide full transparency of response and recovery efforts.
• Raised and distributed $275,000 in donations from the Disaster Relief Fund to nonprofits helping with pandemic recovery efforts.
• Coordinated the donations and distribution of PPE to small businesses and co-created the Milk Initiative with Borden Dairy and faith partners across the city — including TD Jakes and the Potter’s House Church — to help distribute milk and food to families in need.
• Partnered with Dallas County to open and operate the Fair Park vaccination megasite. Also requested and won state approval for hosting additional vaccination megaclinic at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center downtown, at Methodist Dallas Medical Center in Oak Cliff, and at the Potter’s House in South Dallas. These sites allowed the city to gain the confidence to increase economic activity and fully recover from the pandemic.
• Partnered with community organizations to host vaccination clinics in Dallas neighborhoods, helping provide access to hundreds more people.

Fighting Corruption 

• Created an Ad Hoc City Council committee on General Investigating and Ethics.
• Named an ethics reform czar to overhaul the city’s ethics code.
• As promised in the 2019 campaign, proposed and unanimously passed a historic ethics reform package through the City Council.
• Through these reforms, the City Attorney established an Office of the Inspector General to investigate and prosecute potential ethics violations. This office was the centerpiece of the reforms that simplified and modernized the ethics code.
• Successfully called for full funding of the Inspector General’s budget requests in the budget, despite some opposition by City Councilmembers.

Reducing Homelessness

• Oversaw a 32% decrease in those experiencing chronic homelessness in 2023 in Dallas and Collin counties.
• There was also a 14% drop in unsheltered homelessness and a 4% overall reduction in homelessness.
• Leveraged federal funds to form a $72 million regional partnership to rapidly rehouse people facing homelessness, taking thousands of people off the streets. 
• Created new policies to improve and allow for more inclement weather sheltering, preventing deaths and severe injuries.
• Assisted with sheltering homeless residents during the pandemic through the purchase and rentals of hotels.
• Sponsored a budget amendment for funding a master leasing program to accelerate rehousing efforts.
• Created the Task Force on Homelessness Organizations, Policies, and Encampments (HOPE) to find new solutions to address homelessness.

Creating a Better Dallas

• Supported plans for the future construction of Terminal F at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, which will help the world’s second-busiest airport grow even more in the years ahead.
• Created a Youth Ticket Program in partnership with the Dallas Sports Commission. The program has provided thousands of free tickets to Dallas teenagers.
• Successfully advocated for Dallas to win bids for major sporting and entertainment events, including NCAA championships and more 2026 World Cup matches than any other North American host city.
• Dallas was named the top sports business city in the nation in 2023.
• Created the Ad Hoc Committee on Professional Sports Retention and Recruitment.
• Created Distinguished Service Awards to honor high achievements and significant contributions by Dallas residents, including Eddie Bernice Johnson, David Kunkle, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Harry Robinson, Tom Leppert, and Darwin Payne.
• Supported a resolution condemning the horrific Hamas attack on Israel.
• Wrote and unanimously passed a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and suspending the city’s relationship with Saratov, Russia and signed a Friendship City agreement with Kharkiv, Ukraine.
• Created an Anti-Hate Advisory Council to address hate-related incidents.
• Helped honor the South Oak Cliff High School championship team with citywide celebrations. Honored the team with a Key to the City.
• Supported efforts to grow and strengthen downtown Dallas, which was named the nation’s top downtown for urban living.
• Strengthened the bonds between SMU and the City of Dallas, helping promote higher education in Dallas to local and national audiences.
• Coordinated an effort to display local artists’ work at the office in City Hall.
• Won support for providing paid parental leave to city employees to help attract and retain talent in a tough labor environment.
• Led the creation of the Veterans Affairs Commission and Disabilities Commission to advise on issues facing these groups.
• Facilitated the creation of the city’s first-ever Comprehensive Environmental and Climate Action Plan (CECAP), which passed unanimously with the support of environmental advocates, residents, and businesses.
• Created the Dallas Works summer jobs program, putting hundreds of students to work during the summer each year.
• Coordinated and hosted the Administration’s annual Back to School Fair and Summer Reading program to help kids learn and grow throughout the entire year.
• Appointed community-focused leaders to Boards and Commissions, as well as the hugely important Community Bond Task Force.
• Raised the city’s profile with attention-grabbing friendly sports wagers, including one that resulted in free cookies for kids in the city’s parks programs.

• Made the charter-required annual State of the City Address a public event rather than a private chamber of commerce fundraiser.
• Regularly communicates directly with residents through these regular and extensive email updates, bringing a new level of transparency to city government.
• Attended more than 91% of Dallas City Council meetings every year in office.

Maybe you don’t agree with everything this Administration has done. It comes with the territory when you are solving problems.

But the fact is that Dallas is better off than it was five years ago. This Administration played a role in that. Truly, though, none of it would have been possible without resilient, dynamic, entrepreneurial, hard-working, and community-focused people like you.

This is because this city’s strength is not City Hall. It’s the people — the communities and neighborhoods and families and individuals — who make Dallas great. The people of Dallas make this job — even with all the noise that comes with it — so incredibly rewarding and worthwhile.

This was true in 2019, it is true now, and it will continue to be true in the years to come.

So thanks for reading, for looking back, and for all that you have done for Dallas. The future is bright.

Have a great week, and, as always, continue to take care of yourselves and others.

Until next time,