Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax almost got fired last year. He bounced back and council members who had originally called for his ouster kept him around and even offered a 3 percent increase to his $410,919 salary. As daltxrealestate.com reported in August 2022, the vote was not unanimous. Mayor Eric Johnson and council members Paula Blackmon (District 9), Adam McGough (District 10), Gay Donnell Willis (District 11), and Cara Mendelsohn (District 12) voted against the city manager’s salary hike.
It appears once again there’s no love lost between the City’s top staff member and Mayor Johnson.
Johnson wasn’t present at the Dec. 6 City Council briefing at which Dallas elected officials heard from Community Bond Task Force chairman Arun Agarwal on the panel’s recommendations for how to divvy up $1.1 billion in bond funds next year. Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins presided over the meeting.
At its close, after also hearing from more than 100 residents about their preferences on how the money is spent, Broadnax suggested reconvening in January to again review bond projects while using staff recommendations as a baseline. That means the work of a 90-member task force over an eight-month time frame would essentially go out the window.
Broadnax said a lot during the 10-hour meeting and ultimately acknowledged that he and his staff take direction from the City Council.
“We got a new area of concern and desire, and that is housing at a much larger level,” Broadnax said. “That has to come from somewhere if we’re going to do it. The baseline for streets as we would recommend is $500 million at a minimum. Everything else is where that number got moved back from to put more money into housing.
Broadnax went on to tell the council they could do straw polling or take individual meetings with city staff to express their desires.
“Your task will not get any easier,” the city manager said. “Your desires and hopes and dreams will probably be crushed, but we’ve got to get to a number — and you can’t tell me all year, and my team, that you care about streets and alleys and then we don’t fund them at least at the level consistent with what staff is telling you professionally … Again, it doesn’t matter to me. We’ll start with any number. We’ll start with [the CBTF] number, but it’s not going to be the same if you want to get all the hopes, dreams, and wishes that y’all talked about today met.”
Johnson filed a memorandum Friday reminding Broadnax who’s in charge.
“I was very surprised that at the end of the meeting, you pronounced that the Dallas City Council would disregard the task force’s recommendation and move forward instead with city staff’s recommendation as a starting point for future discussions,” Johnson wrote in the memo. “As a reminder, this is absolutely not the decision of the city manager or city staff. While we always appreciate staff input, this is a policy decision that belongs first to the Dallas City Council and then ultimately to the people of Dallas, who must approve spending more than $1 billion — their hard-earned taxpayer dollars — on investments in our city.”
Johnson further reminded the city manager that the task force was created by the elected council members, and its work was driven by the residents.
“Therefore … please ensure that future briefings and voting items on the 2024 bond program utilize the Community Bond Task Force recommendations as a starting point,” Johnson wrote. “Any staff recommendations included in the briefing must be explained in detail as compared to the original CBTF recommendations.”
