Proposition A    Employment Retirement Fund

Issue: City Retirement Fund has an estimated $1.4 Billion long term shortfall. Note that city employees are not eligible for social security benefits.

Purpose of Proposition:

1. give increased authority over ERF to City Council
2. contributions to the fund come from a combination of payroll deductions and city funds. The combined total of contributions is capped at 36% of the total pay. This cap would be eliminated. Employees ERF deduction would be increased slightly.

Arguments in favor

1. Since employees of the city do not participate in the social security system, their benefits must be carefully managed. City Council should have more oversight.
2. A fear that the retirement plan is insufficient will result in good quality exiting and potential employees might go elsewhere for work.

Arguments against:

1. Cost to city budget is unclear over time.
2. More oversight by the City Council could result in decisions based on politics rather than good fiscal policy

Proposition B     Adding a preamble to the City Charter

Issue: Current charter has no preamble (most cities do not have a preamble). The language of proposed preamble … “affirm the values of the city as an equitable democracy, comprised of representatives that act to make our city fair, equitable, just and safe for all those who reside within it.”

Arguments in favor

1. Sounds good, with no fiscal or legal consequence.”

Arguments Against:

1. No legal force established.
2. Unnecessary

Proposition C Increasing Salaries for Mayor and City Council

Issue: Pay for Mayor and City Council has remained the same since 2014 at $80,000 and $60,000 respectively. Should it be increased to $110,000 and $90,000 respectively?

Arguments in Favor:

1. Inflation since 2014 has reduced the actual take home pay by 33%
2. Lower pay means the best and brightest potential leaders will opt out of government service
3. Typically, the people who run for these offices are either business owners (who may devote more time to their business interests than the city interest), independently wealthy (who might not understand the needs of middle class or poor residents), or retired (who may not be up to date on fast moving societal and cultural change).
4. The time required to fulfill the needs of the people per district is a full-time job.

Arguments Against:

1. Public servants should not be in it for the money.
2. It is not a full-time job.
3. Too costly.

Proposition D    Change City elections from May to November to coincide with the federal elections

Issue: Dallas holds its municipal and school elections in May, when voter turnout is low. Houston and Austin hold their municipal and school elections in November, and experience much higher voter turnout as a result.

Arguments in favor:

1. Greater voter turnout is likely
2. Combining these elections would save a great deal of money.

Arguments against:

1. Would require approval by the state legislature
2. Runoffs would occur in December

Proposition E     Term Limits for Mayor and City Council

Issue: Dallas has soft term limits, which means a city councilperson is limited to four consecutive two-year terms and the mayor to two consecutive four-year terms. But a term limited member can then sit out one cycle and start all over again.

Arguments in favor:

1. Helps prevent concentration of power in a few hands
2. Creates more opportunities for new persons to participate in government, with fresh ideas.
3. Eliminates name recognition advantages accumulated over eight years.

Arguments against:

1. Forces experienced members from ever running again for the office after term limit.
2. Voters should have the right to choose a person they want for the office.

Proposition F     Staffing for City Secretary and City Auditor

Issue: These two offices are entitled to ‘assistants,’ whereas all other departments are entitled to ‘employees.’ This is a technical change to conform to the composition as all other department workers being classified as employees and not assistants.

Argument in favor:

1. Makes the title of workers in these two offices that of employee, as workers in all other city departments are classified.

Arguments Against:

None

Proposition G    Redistricting Commission eligibility

Issue: The redistricting commission is responsible for drawing council district lines. Drawing district lines has the possible effect of benefitting candidates by drawing lines to include voters that favor particular political ideologies (gerrymandering). Although city councilpersons are technically non-partisan, district laws can favor some candidates over others. This proposition would disqualify redistricting commission members who are spouses and family members of a current council member, as well as campaign staff for any federal, state or local candidate within the last five years, registered lobbyists, or any person or spouse who has a contract with the city.

Arguments in favor:

1. Persons who may have a conflict of interest are ineligible to serve on this commission.
2. Provides fairness for all candidates.

Arguments against:

1. Could disqualify an otherwise knowledgeable person with experience in redistricting.

Proposition H    Eligibility to Serve on certain city commissions

Issue: Eligibility to serve on redistricting, civil service board, city planning and park and recreation commissions currently requires the person to be qualified and registered to vote. This requirement will be eliminated.

Arguments in favor:

1. Legal immigrants who are not yet citizens, but work and pay taxes in Dallas have certain expertise that would be useful to these commissions, and a demonstration of their interest in public service with no pay.

Arguments against:

1. Being registered to vote is a minimal requirement.

Proposition I      Eases requirements to get initiatives on the ballot

Issue: Although initiatives, propositions and referendums are not permitted at the state level, they are permitted at the local level through a petition process. But that process requires a maximum of 60 days to acquire signatures of at least 10% of registered voters in the city. This would extend the period to obtain signatures from 60 to 120 days and lower the number of required signatures from 10% to 5%.

Arguments in favor:

1. The initiative process is the only non-legislative method available to get an issue on the ballot. Typical municipal elections get a turnout of about 14% of eligible voters. Obtaining signatures from 10% of all registered voters requires nearly every municipal voter to sign such a petition, and those signatures can only be obtained in a 60-day period. This makes citizen sponsored votes on issues more accessible.

Arguments against:

1. It could make it easier for well-funded special interests to obtain ballot access.
2. Increasing the time and lowering the number of votes could result in many non-substantive minor issues to clutter the ballot.

Proposition J      Removal and Replacement of City Commission members

Issue: Each council person can nominate a person for a commission or board seat. Once seated, they hold their position for the allotted time, but any member of the council can initiate a hearing of the council to remove such a person. This proposition would change this so that only the councilmember who nominated the individual can initiate a removal hearing. Said hearing can be conducted in executive session, without any public hearing.

Argument in favor:

1. A commission or board member can be removed from the position for any cause the majority of the council deems is sufficient for removal. This would require the councilperson who nominated the individual to initiate removal proceedings. This would protect a member from retaliation if a majority of the council, representing a political, racial or economic faction, from reprisal.

Argument against:

1. Any member of the council should have the right to initiate an investigation of the fitness of any board or commission member, regardless of who nominated him.
2. Such inquiry should be public, and not conducted in executive session.

Proposition K has been removed from ballot

Proposition L     Supervision of Office of Inspector General Transferred from City Attorney to City Council

Issue: There has long been an Office of Inspector General whose purpose is to review the activities of all city departments. This has been under the supervision of the City Attorney’s office. This would transfer supervision to the City Council

Arguments in favor:

1. The office should theoretically become more independent, and should minimize conflicts of interest.

Arguments against:

1. Inspector General is currently supervised by the City Attorney to ensure that departments are operated within the law. Theoretically, this should remove political bias. By moving supervision to the City Council, this could pressure the Inspector General to act in a manner approved by a majority of the Council, regardless of focusing on the legality of the operation of the particular board or commission.

Proposition M and N removed from ballot

Proposition O    Regarding Term of Office for Assistant Municipal Judges

Issue: The City Council has the authority to appoint Associate Municipal Judges. This proposition would align their terms in office to the two-year terms of the City Council. It would also allow Associate Municipal Judges to act in the capacity of attorney representing clients who may have cases pending before other Associate Municipal Judges.

Arguments in favor:

1. Each new term of the City Council would allow for appointment or renewal of Associate Municipal Judges to the new City Council. It would eliminate holdovers from the previous council term.

Arguments against:

1. It would allow sitting Associate Municipal Judges (usually practicing attorneys) to represent clients before another Associate Municipal Judge, which is currently prohibited.

Proposition P     Regarding City Employees who are discharged or demoted

Issue: City employees who are discharged or demoted have the right to a hearing before an administrative law judge but must pay half of the cost of the administrative judge’s fee. This would eliminate the payment by the employee of half the cost of the administrative law judge.

Arguments in favor:

1. The cost of appealing the discharge or demotion is expensive and could result in employees with legitimate legal issues pursuing their cases, whereas the cost to the city is minor.

Arguments against:

1. Incentivizes any terminated or demoted employee to file frivolous claims.

Proposition Q    Clarification of Technical Language to Conform to State Law

Issue: Technical issues to be corrected

1. Makes residency requirements for mayor and city council to conform to residency requirements under state law.
2. Omitting the requirement of printing official notices in a newspaper of general circulation, so long as such notices are available on an accessible online website.
3. Changing references from ‘citizen’ to ‘resident’ or ‘person.’

Arguments in favor:

1. Changes are required to make city charter conform to state law
2. Removing the necessity of publication of official business in newspaper of general circulation does not mean the city would stop printing such notices, but that it has that option.
3. Changing term of ‘citizen’ with ‘resident’ coincides with state and federal law that establishes the rights of legal residents.

Arguments against:

1. This might financially hurt newspapers that generally carry such public notices.

Proposition R     Reform marijuana enforcement by police.

Issue: Restricting Dallas Police from enforcing laws relating to possession of marijuana when the amount is 4 ounces or less, and possible disciplinary action against officers who violate the new policy

Arguments in favor:

1. A great deal of law enforcement efforts is utilized in these non-violent crimes, and the likelihood of prosecution by the District Attorney is slight. It is more of a harassment effort and is often targeted at persons of color.

Arguments against:

1. It is in contravention of current state law, and is likely to result in protracted litigation
2. It requires police officers to choose between enforcing state law at the risk of disciplinary action or enforcing city ordinances in contravention of state law.

Proposition S     Expanding the Right to Sue the City

Issue: Municipalities and other governmental agencies have a limited immunity from lawsuits brought by individuals. Waivers of this immunity usually include any type of action by the city that has resulted in tangible physical or economic loss. This proposition would waive the immunity so that any individual or organization can sue the city if they feel the city has failed to fulfill its duties under city, state or federal law, whether or not they have actually been harmed.

Arguments in favor:

1. The city should follow city and state laws (note that federal laws are not included).

Arguments against:

1. Courts will be clogged with lawsuits brought by persons who are not actually harmed, claiming that the city did not act according to city ordinance or state law. Immunity from frivolous lawsuits would effectively be circumscribed.
2. Should both propositions R and S be adopted, the city would be caught between conflicting provisions that both require enforcement of state law and require non-enforcement of state law, and anyone can bring a lawsuit against the city.

Proposition T     Annual Survey of Satisfaction with the City Manager

Issue: Dallas city government is a Council-Manager system. The Mayor and Council members are elected by the people. They establish policy. They also hire a City Manager, whose job it is to implement the policy. The city manager is not elected, but hired by the council. The reason for an unelected city manager is that he is free from political pressure, so he can act in the best interest of the city. For a hypothetical example, a wealthy individual can put pressure on his councilperson to get a pothole in the road in front of his house fixed immediately, or he will withhold an expected political donation. But the city manager implements road repairs, and decides there are roads elsewhere in the city that need repair first. Firing a city manager requires a super majority of the council.

This plan would require an annual survey of 1400 city residents on only the following issues: crime, homelessness, litter, panhandling, and infrastructure/streets. The outcome of the survey would result in retention or dismissal of the city manager.

Arguments in favor:

1. Would make city manager more responsive to the people.
2. Surveys provide valuable insight into the opinions of the people.

Arguments against:

1. There are many other issues of importance that are not contained in the limited list, including parks and recreation, libraries, sanitation, traffic, public health and zoning, to name just a few.
2. There is no explanation of how the 1400 recipients are chosen. Also, if 1400 surveys are distributed randomly, many people would not respond. Those that do respond are often the ones who are unhappy about things. This would skew the results.
3. If the City Manager is now subject to public opinion, he loses all the independence designed to free him from political pressures, effectively destroying the council-manager system in favor of the strong mayor-council system used in Houston, and rejected by the voters in Dallas when the strong mayor form of government was rejected by voters more than 15 years ago.

Proposition U    Restructuring Police Department Funding

Issue: Dallas is the 8^th largest city in the U.S. It has 3031 officers, which makes it the 9^th largest police force in America. This proposition would require a 33% increase in the size of the force, and would require a restructuring of allocations of tax dollars, favoring police funding at the expense of already underfunded parks, libraries, public health and safety, roads and traffic, to name just a few.

Arguments for:

1. It would increase pay for officers, which would help in retention. Many Dallas officers leave to join police departments that pay more.
2. It would send more funds to the police pension fund, which is currently experiencing a shortfall.

Arguments against:

1. This September, City Council approved a plan to contribute $11 Billion over 30 years to cure the shortfall.
2. Dallas already has a ratio of officers to population greater than Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth.
3. Increasing the size of the police force by 33% adds not just increased salary. The cost of additional patrol cars, equipping the new officers, training and infrastructure support for the increased size of the force must also be considered.
4. This proposition would be in force the day after passage. It would be impossible to hire more than 900 officers in one day. If Proposition S passes, the city would be open to lawsuits by any resident of the city for failing to comply with the law created just one day before.
5. This plan would mandate that 50% of new revenues would automatically go to funding the police, regardless of need, and prohibiting the Council from funding other projects, even in the event of an emergency.