Chief David Kunkle was on Think today, talking about crime, natch. Ed Okpa called in to ask why Dallas doesn’t require that its cops live in the city. About 85 percent of Dallas cops — amazingly — don’t live in Dallas. Kunkle said it’s a state law. He can’t force his cops to live in Dallas.
Fine. Here’s my plan. The city forgives property taxes (or refunds them or whatever) to every cop who buys a house in a designated area within the city limits (designated such that they don’t all choose to live in nearly non-existent crime areas). Say we’re talking 2,550 cops on the force who don’t live here. Say an average tax savings of $4,000 entices 1,000 of those cops to relocate to Dallas. That’s $4 million in lost taxes to the city and to DISD (gotta get them on-board with this plan, too). That’s nothing. Four million dollars? My guess is that those 1,000 Dallas-dwelling cops would almost instantly make the city safer.
Leppert? Oakley? Are you listening?
