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- Meetings of Interest: Sunday, December 17, 2023
Meetings of Interest: Sunday, December 17, 2023
Meetings of Interest: Rocky 🥊
Sunday, December 17, 2023
Good evening:
We don't hear enough about the great City of Dallas employees who quietly keep our city running. One of them is Office of Emergency Management Director Rocky Vaz, who is retiring in early January. He was honored at the beginning of last week's City Council meeting for his 36 years of service.
Did His Time, Took His Chances 🐯
Rock Vaz (right), alongside then-mayor Mike Rawlings, Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax, and Deputy City Manager Jon Fortune in August 2017. The city was preparing for potentially thousands of evacuees from the Houston area following Tropical Storm Harvey. As with every emergency impacting Dallas in recent years, Rocky was running point on the operation.
As
, Rocky was a steady hand leading OEM for more than a decade, supporting mayors, city managers, and police and fire chiefs during numerous crises. He worked around the clock coordinating the City's response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the 2015 shooting at Jack Evans Police Headquarters, the 2016 murders of four Dallas police officers and a DART officer, a 2019 tornado, the Covid pandemic, numerous ice storms, hurricanes, and many other life-threatening events.
I worked with Rocky first as a
Dallas Morning News
reporter covering his work and later as then-mayor Mike Rawlings' chief of policy and communications. I always admired Rocky's calm under pressure and his ability to communicate quickly, clearly, and courteously with people at all levels of government. I asked a few other people who worked with Rocky to share their recollections. Here is what they said:
Mike Rawlings, former mayor of Dallas
:
Rocky has always been the ultimate pro. I worked through many emergencies with him. He always knew the facts and always put people first in how he helped, plus he was a real collaborator with folks inside and outside City Hall, never letting politics get in the way of keeping our city safe.
Mary Suhm, former Dallas city manager
:
Rocky Vaz has always been a smart, calm, and reliable city employee — the perfect combination for the job he has held for the majority of his professional career. He was a pleasure to work with.
Chris Heinbaugh, former chief of staff to mayor Tom Leppert
:
OEM is a critical city department that few people know about and is rarely in the headlines, in great part because Rocky Vaz is such a thoughtful and efficient leader. No matter the crisis, they just put their head down and get the job done. Dallas has been fortunate to have had him here for so long.
Rocky says he is going to turn his phone off "for a few minutes" before he gets back in the game. We should all hope he continues to stay involved in emergency planning and response in the Dallas area.
Click above to watch the City Council tribute to Rocky Vaz during the Dec. 13, 2023, meeting. Read Mayor Eric L. Johnson's special recognition for Rocky here.
⚡ Highlights From Last Week's Meetings:
-- The Charter Review Commission has extended the deadline for the public to submit potential amendments to the City's governing document to January 19, 2024. Submit proposed amendments
.
-- The Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Board of Directors signed off on the agency's fiscal 2024
.
-- The City Council last Wednesday:
Delayed until February a vote on an ordinance that would make it easier for child and adult day care facilities to open across the City without some permitting requirements, KERA News reports. Sharon Grigsby of The Dallas Morning News wrote a great piece about the proposal earlier in the week.
Approved a $3.6 million engineering design services contract with Kimley-Horn & Associates, Inc. for the long-planned McKinney Avenue/Cole Avenue Two-way Conversion Project in Uptown.
Deferred a decision on proposed hikes in building permit fees to at least January 24, 2024. This briefing has more details.
Approved an increase of $150,000 in reimbursements for Downtown's Dallas Museum of Art costs tied to professional art handling and storage after historic rainfall in August of last year flooded the museum.
Approved the City Auditor's 2024 work plan. Read it here.
Reappointed Gloria Tarpley and Vincent Hall to the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Board, and appointed former City Council member Angela Hunt to an open seat on the board.
Approved an amended version of an ordinance to create a registration process, including fees, for unattended drop boxes like those used for clothing donations. The program dictates where the boxes can be placed and how often they must be monitored, among other things.
-- Dallas City Council member Cara Mendelsohn told fellow members of the Regional Transportation Council (RTC) that Dallas wants to tunnel a proposed Downtown Dallas-to-Fort Worth high-speed rail line under the Trinity River to a below-grade Dallas station. She also questioned why Arlington should get a stop on the line. North Central Texas Council of Governments Director of Transportation Michael Morris said he has yet to receive a formal request for such a plan, but that the agency is willing to investigate the feasibility of tunneling under the Trinity River. The discussion came before the RTC approved an increase in the consultant budget for a Downtown Dallas-Fort Worth high-speed rail study. Video of the discussion can be found
. Council member Mendelsohn's remarks begin
.
-- The City must increase its annual contributions and begin "monetizing" assets to put the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System back on a path to solvency, experts told the City Council Ad Hoc Committee on Pensions on Thursday. Read a report on the meeting from
and check out the committee briefing
. The next meeting of this committee is scheduled for January 11, 2024.
Thanks to DDI's Nikia Summerlin, Urban Planning Manager, for monitoring hours of meetings every week to help compile these summaries.
📝 Memos of Interest:
-- The City Manager-recommended $60 million housing bond would assist development of six multifamily housing projects, or 1,150 total units,
. It is unclear from the memo how that money would be distributed or whether the units would be intended for the lowest-income households that need it most. According to
, Dallas has a 33,660 rental unit supply gap for households making at or below 50% Area Median Income (AMI), or $44,500 for a family of four.
-- Plans to remove and trench the highway that divides Downtown and Deep Ellum are advancing, with three city subcommittees focused on streetcar, pedestrian, and bike connectivity, capping opportunities, and more, according to
. A series of public meetings on the project will be held in the Spring.
-- Check out all the latest City Hall memos
and
.
Meetings of Interest
Monday, December 18
🤝🏽
Dallas Convention Center Hotel Development Corporation Board Meeting, 11 a.m., Omni Dallas Hotel, 555 South Lamar St., Cedars Room, 2nd Floor
-- The meeting includes an update on the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center Dallas Master Plan. The public may listen to the meeting
.
Tuesday, December 19
🏘
Special Called Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee, 9 a.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.
-- The committee will discuss a proposal to reduce the minimum lot size and allow higher density by right in single-family neighborhoods, including duplex, triplex, and fourplex developments. City Council members Chad West, Jaime Resendez, Jaynie Schultz, Paula Blackmon, and Adam Bazaldua
last month. The
on what's behind this push, which Masterplan President Dallas Cothrum
.
Did we miss anything? Do you have any questions? Just want to talk about meetings?
.
Were you forwarded this newsletter?
.
Have a great week.
Best,
Scott GoldsteinChief of External Affairs& Government Relations
Downtown Dallas, Inc.
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