Is Dallas Dying?
The former chairman of the Greater Dallas Crime Commission hopes it’s not too late

Charles
Terrell

I truly hope Dallas is not dying. It is the city I have lived in by choice and loved since I was 18 years old — a long time ago. It is the city where I met my beautiful wife, went to college, and raised our kids. I have dedicated much of my life to working for the betterment of our city. But now I have genuine fears for its future.

Symptoms of its possible future demise surround us. We are now rated first in crime among major U.S. cities. Our school system is so distressed that we are experiencing black flight as well as white. With an Anglo enrollment of only 6 percent, it is falling off the radar screens of people who could help.

Economic growth is stymied by the fact that our great city leaders of the past made a tragic mistake when they allowed our northern borders for growth in the tax base to be sealed off by Plano, Richardson, and Irving. There is nowhere to grow except the south, and that simply will not occur unless we dramatically address public safety.

We have allowed two of our three significant sports franchises to leave or flee the city. We are attempting to remain a competitive force in convention business while selling a city that is dull and dangerous.

We concern ourselves with bridges over the Trinity and unrealistic parks where no one will dare to go because of the absence of public safety.

The Leadership Vacuum

We lack leadership. The city manager system of government has failed us, but we have just rejected a change to a strong-mayor system, due to some success in attacking our mayor, and our council members wanting no part in a change that would reduce their individual powers.

Despite the fact that their continued service is linked only to their districts, our city council members must look beyond and work together for the entire city’s future. Individually, they are decent, honest, and dedicated leaders. But collectively, they have been less than effective.

Our city council and our mayor must come together as a team and all of our citizens must insist that the council honor their commitment to bring their “Strong Mayor” plan to the voters in November.

Our county leadership is worse. It has regressed to a “good old boy” standard that would make past “good old boys” proud. Judge Margaret Keliher and John Wiley Price are doing their best to overcome the stench of secret meetings or corruption or stupidity as displayed by the disaster in the jail software management system and the jail healthcare nightmare. Maurine Dickey is intelligent and honest; hopefully, she will join with them. But the farce continues.

We must have a leadership revolution if we are to save this wonderful city. City rot is like gangrene. Once you smell it, it is too late.

We are at a critical juncture. Nothing remains the same. You either go forward or regress.

Why Things Soured

A little history here. In the good old days in Dallas, people in business were expected to take leadership roles in city and county affairs as were our strong Dallas-owned banks. And they did. And the city prospered. But those banks are gone, and homegrown business leaders have been replaced by rotating CEOs who have no historic ties to our city and whose futures depend on their companies’ bottom lines only.

The strong system that built Dallas is in ruins. The once powerful Dallas Citizens Council is a shadow of its former self.

The Truth About Public Safety

If we are to survive and prosper as a city, we must face the truth and take it upon ourselves to fight back.

Look at public safety as just one example. Our Dallas Police Department needs equipment not in our city budget to adequately equip our officers. This includes replacement of old police cars, police cars that are operational, big guns to match the firepower of the bad guys, cages for police cars, cell phones for our officers, and Tasers.

An effort is now being launched to raise money to buy that equipment. Hopefully, the funding will flow from our major charitable foundations, businesses, and wealthy individuals or families.

Dallas is 750 officers short on police presence. A task force in 1988 established that we need three officers per 1,000 population.

In fact, the city council passed an ordinance requiring three officers per 1,000 population. Since we are not now and have never been at that level, the councils have violated their own ordinance for 17 years.

We have only 2.4. New York ranks best in crime among U.S. major cities, and their rate is 4.8 officers per 1,000 population. That is “police presence.” Police presence prevents crime — which is far more desirable than dealing with crime after the fact.

The only way we will achieve the number of officers needed to protect our citizens in Dallas is a dedicated tax increase (public safety only) to fund them. If it takes a public referendum to achieve this, we must demand that our city council initiate it. And it will pass by 80 percent to 20 percent, because our citizens want to be safe.

It will get financial support from our neighbors in the Park Cities, because it will be far less expensive to help us fight crime than to build moats and drawbridges at their borders.

Code Enforcement

Very closely tied to public safety is code enforcement. This often involves drug houses. Code enforcement personnel are apprehensive about drug dealers. We should consider putting code enforcement under the Dallas Police Department and recruiting more Dallas Police Reserves to be trained to work the more hazardous areas of code enforcement.

And then — with our crime rates falling — people and investors will invest in South Dallas and Southwest Dallas, and our tax base will grow. We can’t do anything about our northern borders, so we must achieve new financial visibility downtown, uptown, south, and southwest.

If we fail to meet our challenges, we risk becoming the Detroit or Newark of the South.

A Call to Arms

The great mayor of Fort Worth, Mike Moncrief, is a dear friend of mine. And he is justifiably proud of his city’s accomplishments and potential. But I am sick and tired of having nothing to say about Dallas in reply. Just as Amon Carter knew in his heart, but would never admit, Fort Worth will never be Dallas, unless Dallas allows it to do so.

Therefore, this is a call to arms. Leaders must come forward in Dallas — young, old, present, and past. We must unite to dedicate ourselves to accepting the challenges at hand and dealing with them.

We must unite to save our wonderful city, and we must be willing to dedicate ourselves to doing so.

It is our future to choose. Save it or lose it. Dallas doesn’t have to die.

Charles T. Terrell is a former Dallas city councilman, former chairman of the Greater Dallas Crime Commission, former chairman of the Texas Criminal Justice Task Force, and former chairman of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Crime.