Tag: Dallas HERO

Cop Shop

We’re down to the wire on deciding who the next Chief of Police here in Dallas will be. There are three external candidates and two internal candidates, including the interim chief, in the middle of the meet-and-greet part of the proceedings. It’s not clear which of the internal candidates has an advantage; Interim Chief Igo has his fans on City Council (and apparently a slogan: “I go with Igo”) but he’s also been under fire from Attorney General Ken Paxton for comments that suggested he wouldn’t slavishly follow the Trump administration’s lead in harassing (possibly) undocumented folks.

For all that the applicants seem enthused about the job, it comes with downsides. Prop U still requires the city to hire about an additional 1000 officers, where the current plan for the next year calls for hiring only 300 more. So there’s a lawsuit coming from the Dallas HERO folks, as mentioned in a KERA article below. At the same time, the city has been struggling with planning a new police academy and whether or not it should be tied to the University of North Texas Dallas campus. The city’s current facilities need replacement even without considering hiring and training an additional 1000 officers. And continuing arguments about the location have jeopardized state funding, though the city and the state now seem to be on the same page.

So wish whoever gets the job good luck, because they’re going to need it.

Sources:

Prop U: the rubber hits the road

We’re starting to see the fallout of the passage of Prop U in the November election last year. Currently there are about 3,000 police officers in Dallas. The formula for police vs population in Prop U means we need about another 900. That’s a lot of new cops in a time when it’s hard to hire, even with the additional money DPD will get from the required distribution of city monies under Prop U.

DPD says it can add about 300 officers this year, plus more space for its academy. City Council originally wanted to recommend 250 new officers, but after some debate has settled on asking for 325. You’ll note that that’s adding ten percent of the existing force, which is a lot. DPD’s culture needs to change, but uncontrolled change isn’t ideal either.

That said, if DPD doesn’t bring on new officers quickly, some resident, probably someone connected to Monty Bennett and Dallas HERO, is going to sue the city. The loser of that lawsuit is going to be the citizens and taxpayers of Dallas. Meanwhile, the DMN’s editorial board thinks that since the people passed Prop U, the city needs to get creative and get more new officers in the door by any means necessary, especially financial incentives. That money will have to come from somewhere. One source the city has identified is the Office of Community Care, which provides social services to Dallas residents. It’s going to lose about $5 million to DPD. Monty Bennett is getting exactly what he paid for.

Sources:

Sources/Resources: The Dallas Express

Up to now I’ve been talking about news sources I read or at least wouldn’t turn up my nose at when they turn up on Google. Today I’m going to talk about one that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole other than to check out the two-minute hate from our billionaire would-be overlords. That’s the Dallas Express, the pink slime subsidiary of Monty Bennett, a local hotel magnate with political aspirations and money to burn.

The Express is built on the good name of a Black newspaper that covered Dallas from 1892 to 1970. The current operation was founded four years ago. The history is covered pretty nicely in this Texas Observer article by Steven Monacelli from 2023. There’s also quite a bit more about Bennett and the Observer in this profile of Bennett detailing his involvement in the Dallas HERO astroturf group that was behind Props S, T, and U on the Dallas charter amendment ballot last November. (Bennett lives in Highland Park, of course, so he’s not even in the city of Dallas.) The gist of the 2024 article is that Bennett uses paid protestors to get at his enemies, then reports on the protests and complains that no other press outlet is covering them. Regular readers will also notice that Pete Marocco is mentioned in the 2024 article in connection with Dallas HERO, where he was parked for some of the time between his last stint at USAID and his current job destroying it.

The point here is that the Dallas Express, despite claiming to be a nonprofit and an objective news source, is anything but. It’s a vanity project of Monty Bennett and nothing you read there should be taken seriously other than as a signpost to what Bennett and his cronies want.

HERO yesterday, trouble everywhere tomorrow.

I’m sure you’ve heard about Pete Marocco, the new head of USAID, aka the guy in charge of closing USAID down. Dallas folks may remember him as the face of the HERO amendments (Props S, T, and U in the recent elections) and a close friend of hotel billionaire and Dallas Express owner Monty Bennett. You may also know him from other greatest hits like his previous stint at USAID, which he ended up taking leave from after only three months, and also his presence in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. I guess Marocco had to have somewhere to go to wait out the J6 prosecutions. Too bad for us all he and all of his friends are out, and in his case, in government.