City Council Candidates In Their Words

Good evening, friend,

Forty-nine people are vying for 13 seats on the Dallas City Council in a May 3 election that will deliver at least four fresh faces to City Hall.

Council members Tennell Atkins, Carolyn King Arnold, and Omar Narvaez are term-limited and cannot run again. Council member Jaynie Schultz opted not to seek another term.

Only City Council member Paul E. Ridley, whose District 14 includes part of Downtown, is running unopposed. Every other incumbent drew at least one challenger.

This year, I posed the following four questions to every one of the candidates:

1. Why do you want to be a member of the Dallas City Council, and why are you the best person for the job?

2. What is the single greatest challenge for your district and how will you address it?

3. What do you see as the greatest opportunities to grow our city’s tax base?

4. What is your political party affiliation and what role will that play in your job as a council member?

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be posting complete and unedited candidate responses by district on the meetingsofinterest.com website in a little series we’re calling “Candidates of Interest.”

Tonight, we kick it off with the District 1 race, which features incumbent Chad West and challengers Jason Vanhof and Katrina Whatley vying for the North Oak Cliff seat.

📖 Table of Contents

• 📰 Highlights From Last Week's Meetings

• 📝 Memos of Interest

• 🤝 Meetings of Interest: March 3 - 7

  • Monday, March 3

    • Parks, Trails, and the Environment Committee

    • Landmark Commission

    • Economic Development Committee

  • Tuesday, March 4

    • Workforce, Education, and Equity Committee

    • Special Called City Plan Commission

  • Wednesday, March 5

    • Special Called Transportation and Infrastructure Committee

    • Dallas City Council Briefing

  • Thursday, March 6

    • DFW Airport Board

    • City Plan Commission

    • Park & Recreation Board

📰 Highlights From Last Week’s Meetings of Interest

• Dallas City Council members on Wednesday:

  • Approved Item 18, an allocation of more than $17 million primarily for water and wastewater main improvements, with a portion for bike lanes, along Riverfront Boulevard from Cadiz Street to Justice Center Way. This portion of the money mostly comes from 2006 voter-approved bond funds on a joint city-county project that started in 2008 and now has an estimated total price tag of $123 million.

  • Approved an amended version of Item 60 as a resolution to increase the Dallas police hiring goal from 250 to 300 officers for this fiscal year. That number follows the recommendation of interim Police Chief Michael T. Igo, KERA News reports.

  • Approved Item 61, rejection of bids and cancellation of procurement for a construction manager on the planned new Dallas police regional training academy at UNT Dallas. A new Request for Proposals will be issued with a revised scope (more on that below).

  • Approved a five-year renewal of a Specific Use Permit (SUP) for continued operations of the most controversial McDonald’s drive-thru in Dallas (Zoning Case Z3) at 1000 Commerce Street in Downtown. City Plan Commissioners last year recommended a new two-year SUP over objections from some urbanists who argue that a drive-thru is not appropriate for the urban core. Read more from the Dallas Business Journal.

• A ballot drawing held on Monday morning determined the order of candidate names for the 14 districts on May 2025 City Council election ballots. Check them out here.

• Identical Texas House and Senate bills would substantially defund Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) to the tune of more than $230 million next year, The Dallas Morning News reports from a special agency board meeting on Friday. That would mean about 125,000 people losing access to bus and rail services in the region and about 900 employees losing their jobs, DART officials said.

📝 Memos of Interest

• Dallas parks officials say 25,000 fish were killed in a creek adjacent to White Rock Creek “due to low dissolved oxygen levels caused by blockages in the channel that restricted water flow,” according to this memo. The memo also includes updates on White Rock Lake dredging plans and a Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) study of Grand Avenue from the “3G intersection” to Interstate 30.

• Here’s the complete City Manager memo packet for Friday, February 28, 2025.

🤝 Meetings of Interest: March 3 - 7

Monday, March 3

City Council Parks, Trails, and the Environment Committee, 9 a.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• Parks officials will provide updates on citywide efforts to boost security in our parks, including in Downtown. Read the briefing.

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

• This agenda includes a public hearing to consider initiation of the historic designation process for the I.M. Pei-designed Dallas City Hall (1500 Marilla Street). A designation would mean that Landmark Commission members would have to approve any future substantive exterior changes or demolition. City Council members will get the final say on designation. Read more about why one commissioner believes now is the time to designate Dallas City Hall a landmark.

City Council Economic Development Committee, 1 p.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• How do we design a better Dallas? The City’s Urban Design Peer Review process aims to answer that question by helping guide the design of projects across the city, according to this briefing. Projects in certain areas of the city that include applications for development incentives are among those that are generally required to go through the review process.

Tuesday, March 4

City Council Workforce, Education, and Equity Committee, 9 a.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• Learn more about the City’s external communications strategy in this briefing, “Reaching Our Diverse Communities.”

Special Called City Plan Commission, 9 a.m., 6ES Briefing Room, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• City Plan Commissioners will continue deliberations on proposed changes to off-street parking requirements. At a meeting last month, “commissioners passed amendments that pulled back on staff recommendations to completely remove blanket parking requirements and allow developers control over how much parking they build,” The Dallas Morning News reported at the time.

Wednesday, March 5

Special Called City Council Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, 8:30 a.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• Committee members will consider a resolution of support for “the full funding of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) system at the current one percent sales tax level.” The move comes after state legislators filed bills that, if passed, could substantially defund the agency at the behest of some suburban cities that have questioned the value of DART.

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

• City Council members will be briefed on revised plans that no longer include a long-promised regional police training academy on the University of North Texas at Dallas (UNT Dallas) campus. It is a stunning development in a years-long public and private effort to put the $140 million academy on the southern Dallas site. Committed funding includes $50 million in 2024 bond funds that voters approved just last May with the understanding that it would go toward the UNT Dallas project. Read more from The Dallas Morning News.

• Also on the agenda is a quarterly update on implementation of the $1.25 billion bond program approved by voters last year.

Thursday, March 6

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

• The cost for a construction manager contract for the airport’s ongoing Terminal C redo is likely to increase by about $15 million to a total price tag of nearly $123 million, if approved by the board this week. The contract is with Suffolk-3i, a joint venture.

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

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

• Park Board members will be briefed on the White Rock Lake Park Master Plan, which will come back for formal board approval later this year. It includes proposed enhancements for points of interest throughout the park. *I am a Park Board member representing District 10 (Lake Highlands).

🗣️ 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.