Home > City Hall Blog

Dallas won’t have to pay HUD anything as city and feds settle affordable-housing discrimination allegations

1600 Pacific, otherwise known as the old LTV Tower, otherwise known as the building that brought the city to HUD's attention (again) (David Woo/Staff photographer)

Just months ago it appeared Dallas City Hall might have to pay millions of dollars to resolve affordable-housing discrimination allegations brought by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But according to an agreement between the city and the feds signed Wednesday and released late this evening, Dallas will not owe anyone anything — not HUD and not the developers who initially claimed the city acted illegally when it refused to subsidize their proposed redevelopment of a downtown Dallas high-rise.

“Under this agreement, the City admits no wrongdoing, pays no money to HUD, and gives no relief or money to 1600 Pacific Building, L.P,” says a statement from the city.

For now, at least, all the city will have to do is continue to develop its so-called Housing Plus plan, a direct result of HUD’s investigation, and host what it’s calling a “regional housing symposium.” City manager A.C. Gonzalez and city attorney Warren Ernst will also present the city council with “a recommendation to expand the non-discrimination ordinance to include a prohibition of discrimination based on source of income.” And the city will have to present semi-regular reports to HUD showing that it’s not engaged in the kind of behavior of which it was initially accused.

Those accusations were initially slung at 1500 Marilla by developers Craig MacKenzie and Curtis Lockey, who in 2007 had hoped to redevelop 1600 Pacific downtown. The city’s Office of Economic Development refused, insisting that that it wasn’t a good deal: The pair wanted $102 million in government subsidies for a building that would wind up being worth about $37 million. In 2010 the two filed a complaint with HUD alleging that Karl Zavitkovsky, head of the city’s Office of Economic Development, told them “Downtown Dallas is not the right place for low-income housing” and “Low-income housing is not part of the vision for Downtown Dallas.”

HUD’s regional office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity opened an investigation, and Nov. 22 of last year sent the city a 29-page Letter of Findings of Non-Compliance to the city, which said there was sufficient evidence that showed “there was a pattern of negative reactions to projects that would provide affordable housing in the northern sector of Dallas and that those decisions were inconsistent with the goals required by HUD program obligations.” The city responded six weeks later with its own 59-page missive disputing every one of HUD’s findings.

The city and HUD are still arguing over some of those. But according to the agreement, which is posted below, HUD acknowledges that “at least some of its findings are incorrect,” and rather than drag this out, it’s willing to settle with the city and be done with it.

“In order to expedite just resolution of the matter and to avoid further administrative procedures or litigation over the remaining matters, the parties have agreed to enter into this Agreement,” says the document signed by Gonzalez, Ernst and Bryan Greene, HUD’s general deputy assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “The parties agree that all issues, findings, concerns, and questions in the Letter are fully and finally resolved and superseded by this Agreement.”

Lockey and MacKenzie, whose whistle-blower lawsuit was most recently dismissed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in August, will also take nothing.

“I appreciate the immediate attention Secretary [Julián] Castro gave to this matter and the leadership he showed to make housing for all a priority in the City of Dallas,” said Mayor Mike Rawlings in a prepared statement. He is not available to comment further, as he’s on a plane bound for England.

“This agreement allows us as a city to move forward in partnership with HUD to continue to serve the needs of our community,” Gonzalez says in the same release. “We were able to show HUD the inaccuracies in their initial report and feel confident in our ability to work together.”

We will have much more in coming days. Until then the agreement is below. Continue reading →

In Preston Hollow, Mark Cuban’s growing property holdings have some neighbors worried

Mark Cuban laughs at a news conference with Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle. (Vernon Bryant/Staff Photographer)

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has never shied from controversy – and that now extends to his old neighborhood.

Though he’s earned a reputation over the years as a city benefactor – donating money to fight graffiti and saving the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade one year – some neighbors blame him for increasing community tensions of late near his former Preston Hollow digs.

The brash billionaire has patched together a half dozen properties at the busy corner of Northwest Highway and Preston Road. And recently, he’s stoked fears that he might turn the single-family lots into something denser by clearing trees, fences and a home.

Cuban, in an email, said he’s in “no rush to do anything beyond cleaning the property and opening it up for any one to see.” While he didn’t deny that he’s trying to “generate interest,” he added that he’s “exploring all options but no decisions have been made.”

But some local residents, such as former Mayor Laura Miller, complain that the property clearing is now exposing homes to traffic, noise and potential intruders. And long-term, they worry about what kind of development might come to their quiet, well-heeled neighborhood.

“It’s a beautiful area that a lot of people didn’t even know about,” said Meredith Houston, a neighbor who lives next door to Cuban’s properties.

Development near Preston Center – the commercial area near the intersection – has been under scrutiny in recent months.

Two high-profile residential projects – which would’ve featured high-rise or mid-rise structures – fizzled under neighborhood pressure. And the battles raised the broader question about the future of the ever-popular – yet in many ways, outmoded – area.

City Council member Jennifer Staubach Gates decided to team with the North Central Texas Council of Governments to conduct a land-use study. It would mark the first in-depth look in 25 years at the area’s zoning, traffic and other characteristics.

The first community meeting on the study was held last week at a church near Preston Center. And during the question-and-answer session, there was one name that came up more than any other: Mark Cuban.

“What can we do to stop him?” one woman asked.

(null)

City’s appeal makes it likely Sam’s Club near Cityplace will be built long before lawsuit is resolved

The fight over this -- the Sam's Club development in the East Village, not the rendering -- will last long after it's actually built. (Courtesy Trammell Crow Company)

Three months ago a Dallas judge opted not to stop Trammell Crow Company from building a Sam’s Club in the shadow of Cityplace over some residents’ objections, but that was hardly the end of the legal battle over construction of the megastore in the so-called East Village at N. Central Expressway and Carroll Avenue. Look no further than the flurry of filings in recent weeks as Dallas City Hall continues to try to get the case thrown out before it ever goes to trial.

The city of Dallas has been trying to get Judge Phyllis Lister Brown to toss the case by claiming that the East Village Association, which sprang up in an attempt to quash the development, had no legal standing to file for a temporary injunction. City attorneys have also filed several motions to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.

But on October 14, Brown ruled in favor of the East Village Association. The association, she wrote, “has standing,” and she dismissed the city’s motion. Days later, the East Village Association’s attorney, Anthony Ricciardelli, said in an email to The Dallas Morning News that he and his clients were looking forward to the trial date early next year.

On Friday, Dallas City Attorney Warren Ernst took the case to the next level by filing a notice of accelerated appeal in the Fifth Court of Appeals. Long story short: Everything else gets set to the side while the appeals court considers the filing. Writes Senior Assistant City Attorney Chris Caso, “This appeal stays all other proceedings in the trial court pending resolution of the appeal because the plea was filed and requested for hearing not later than the 180th day after the date the Defendants filed their original answer.”

A summary judgment hearing had been scheduled for January 5, but that will likely be pushed off the docket: Ricciardelli says he’s not expecting a ruling from the Fifth Circuit until some time in 2015. But now, he says, “everything is frozen during the appeal.”

Well, not everything: Trammell Crow Company is doing asbestos remediation and demolition prep on the former Xerox site, and expects to have the site cleared around February, at which point it will turn over the property to Walmart so it can begin building the Sam’s Club. And even if the city loses at the Fifth Circuit, it could always appeal up to the Supreme Court of Texas. By the time the city’s appeal works its way through the system, it’s likely the Sam’s Club and the rest of the East Village development will be open for business.

“The city wants our suit thrown out on technicalities,” says an undaunted Ricciardelli. “We just want a hearing on the merits of this dispute.”

Dallas city auditor — again — questions handling of South Dallas/Fair Park trust fund

Evening sun sets over Dallas City Hall Friday, January 24, 2014. (G.J. McCarthy/The Dallas Morning News)

A city-run trust fund designed to encourage business growth in South Dallas received another rebuke on Friday from the Dallas city auditor.

The South Dallas/Fair Park Trust Fund, which provides financial support to businesses and community groups, “has not consistently managed grants and loans,” the audit said. “Similar issues have been previously reported in prior audit reports,” it said.

The report by City Auditor Craig Kinton — which is to be released to the public Monday — also challenged what exactly the trust fund is accomplishing.

The fund doesn’t have “outcome measures,” the report said. That means there’s no way to know if the fund facilitates “new or sustained economic and community growth” or if continued support of the “same grant recipients is achieving the desired results,” it said.

The city “cannot readily assess the impact of the Trust Fund’s grants and loans or determine whether other initiatives would better assist the South Dallas Fair Park community,” the report said.

In a formal response to the audit, city officials agreed to implement the auditor’s recommendations, even as they quibbled with some of the findings. But in interviews, city officials offered a more robust defense of the fund and its work.

Karl Zavitkovsky, director of the city’s economic development office, said it was a “question of magnitude and context.”

“There was certainly some sloppiness or inattention to some detail, administratively,” he said. “But there are no real improprieties.”

The trust fund, which receives revenue from the city’s general fund and from Fair Park events, has long been a key, if contentious, part of South Dallas development. It has distributed millions of dollars to boost the beleaguered neighborhood around Fair Park.

A recent example of the trust fund’s work was in February, when it approved a $100,000 loan to help with the re-development of Two Podners Bar-B-Que. The money helped fill a financing gap in the $1.8 million public-private partnership across from Fair Park.

City Council member Carolyn Davis, who represents South Dallas, said the “grants have done a wonderful job.” She said the trust fund was critical in that neighborhood, as the money is “given to help business owners either create or reach their potential.”

Davis said she had not read the audit. But she said the city auditor’s report sounded “unfair.”

“Our city auditor is here to work with the trust fund, not against the trust fund,” she said.

Management problems have marked the fund since its creation in the late 1980s.

Many of the criticisms in the audit – which echoed prior reports – focused on basic bookkeeping. The audit focused on the period covering fiscal years 2011 and 2012, when the fund authorized 47 grants totaling $820,500 and two loans totaling $90,000.

The report pointed out that some applications were approved without proper documentation. The trust fund, for instance, didn’t obtain proof of insurance for two commercial loan applications approved in 2012.

The audit noted that some grant procedures weren’t completely met. Trust fund officials, for instance, didn’t verify the current nonprofit status of some grant recipients whose submitted information was outdated.

And the report charged that the trust fund’s grant policies and checklists “are not updated and consistently followed.”

City officials agreed to correct those sorts of errors – immediately, in many cases. But city staffers highlighted recent work to revamp the trust fund’s guidelines and procedures. And they said that the fund’s integrity was intact.

“There were no losses of funds at all,” said Lee McKinney, an assistant director in the city’s economic development office. “No grants were funded improperly.”

The audit’s broader complaint over outcomes is more complicated.

The trust fund does have so-called “performance measures.” Those indicators look at how many applications are processed, how many are approved, how much money is being given out and how many jobs are created per grant or loan.

The report, however, said that the fund needs to be more focused on accomplishments. City officials agreed with that assessment and agreed to work in that direction. But they said that might be a challenge, given the variety of grants and loans being provided.

To read the audit, please see after the jump.

Continue reading →

Survey says Dallas residents think the streets and schools here are ‘poor,’ but the shopping’s excellent! (Again.)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year — when the Dallas City Council gets to pore over the 2014 City of Dallas Community Survey Findings. Alas, this year’s survey looks more or less like last year’s, which said: People like living in Dallas, they like working in Dallas, they like raising their kids in Dallas, they just don’t like driving in Dallas or sending their kids to schools in Dallas.

We’ll take a longer look-see at the survey following Wednesday’s council briefing. But the whole thing’s below — and, look, if you’ve lived here longer than a week you know how this thing’s going to play out: The 1,523 people who had 20 minutes to fill out the seven-page survey can’t stand the Dallas Independent School District (39 percent of those survey ranked it as poor, despite probably not having kids in the DISD), they’re pretty sure the city does a lousy job of enforcing its code and maintaining its infrastructure (regarding the latter, that 39-percent poor ratings feels extraordinarily generous), but overall they’d rather work and live and raise their kids here than most other places because, well, our tap water tastes good? No, wait: It’s because of all the “shopping opportunities,” clearly.

“Residents generally have a positive perception of the City,” says the survey, as always conducted on the city’s dime by a Kansas-based market-research firm. Other so-called major findings: “While there are some differences for specific services, overall satisfaction with City services is about the same in most areas of the City.” And: “The City of Dallas is setting the standard for service delivery compared to other large cities.” Also: “The City continues to maintain high overall satisfaction ratings even though the results for most other large U.S. cities have decreased.”

Dig in. Then let’s see what the council has to say on the subject Wednesday. Continue reading →

Starting Tuesday, all visitors to Dallas City Hall will have to go through security screenings

Evening sun sets over Dallas City Hall Friday, January 24, 2014. (G.J. McCarthy/The Dallas Morning News)

Starting Tuesday, all visitors to Dallas City Hall will have to go through metal detectors and bag scanners.

Workers have wrapped up a months-long project to upgrade security at the distinctive building at 1500 Marilla Street. So after years of being able to enter City Hall unfettered through any number of doors, visitors will now be ushered through two secure entrances.

One public entrance will be on the building’s north side, in front of the building’s plaza. The other will be on the building’s eastern side, in front of Ervay Street.

“These measures are intended to enhance the safety of our employees, citizens and elected officials, while continuing to provide public access,” City Manager A.C. Gonzalez said in a news release.

Those who have “scheduled” visits will still be able to park in City Hall’s underground parking garage. But they will now have to go through a security screening at the building’s “green” entrance on underground level L1.

City employees will now have to use their employee badges to swipe card readers on other entrances on levels L1 and L2.

To date, metal detectors at City Hall have been used only on the sixth floor. And that’s only when there have been City Council meetings or council committee meetings.

The City Council in December approved spending $345,000 to construct the new security vestibules on the building’s ground floor. The city had previously spent $1.6 million over the past several years to improve security at the 35-year-old building.

Anticipating the complaints that are sure to come about the extra hassle, Council member Sandy Greyson in December raised concerns about the enhancements.

“It’s a big inconvenience to our citizens to make them walk all the way around the building in order to get to this,” she said.

Update: Mayor Rawlings, Judge Jenkins to join Nina Pham and her dog Bentley at Saturday morning’s reunion

Bentley!

Update at 12:22 p.m. October 31: Dallas City Hall now says Nina Pham and Bentley will be reunited Saturday morning at 9 a.m. — and they will be joined by Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. Says the heads-up from the city, Pham “will be seeing Bentley for the first time since he was placed in isolation and will be taking him home.”

There will be a press conference during which Pham will speak to the local media for the first time since returning home from the National Institutes of Health.

We have also asked the city how much it cost to care for Bentley since he was placed in isolation. Says city spokesperson Sana Syed via email, “Since the isolation period is still not over, we are in the process of determining how much this effort cost. The cost of Bentley’s care has been a collaborative effort through the City of Dallas, Texas Animal Health Commission, Texas A&M, TDSHS, Dallas County and community support.” We likely won’t know how much it cost until mid-November.

Original item posted at 6:06 p.m. October 30: It’s official: Bentley is Ebola-free. And according to city of Dallas spokesperson Sana Syed, he will be reunted with his owner — Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas nurse Nina Pham — on Saturday.

As expected, the year-old King Charles Spaniel’s stool and urine were tested for Ebola one final time before the end of his 21-day quarantine at the former Naval Air Station. And all three samples came back negative today. This is the second time his tests came back negative.

Pham, of course, was released from the National Institutes of Health in Maryland one week ago. But she hasn’t seen her dog since returning to Dallas on October 24: Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said over the weekend that while he was “lobbying for her and the dog,” he wanted to make sure letting Bentley see his owner wouldn’t disrupt his routine while in quarantine. As Jenkins told The Dallas Morning News, Bentley’s been suffering from separation anxiety ever since rescue workers in Hazmat outfits pulled the dog out of Pham’s Marquita Avenue duplex on October 13.

Pham was told earlier this afternoon that Bentley’s Ebola-free. When she was released last week, she said she really only wanted to do one thing with her newfound freedom: see her dog.

That will happen Saturday morning. Syed says Pham will collect Bentley, meet with those who’ve cared for the dog for the last three weeks, then talk to the media. Says Syed, “Nina said it’s clear how much the public cares about the dog and about seeing a happy ending.”

Dallas considers ‘tunnelling’ Mockingbird in front of Love Field as traffic increases at city-owned airport

You may have noticed traffic in front of Dallas Love Field is getting bad. It's going to get worse. (Lara Solt/Staff photographer)

As our Steve Brown notes this morning, the modernized Dallas Love Field and the modified Wright Amendment are about to land major changes up and down Mockingbird Lane in front of the city-owned airport. There’s just one problem: City officials are concerned that traffic on Mockingbird is about to become untenable, thanks to a very likely and potentially very significant uptick in vehicular traffic to Love Field, which has but the single entrance off Cedar Springs Road and Mockingbird.

For that reason, city officials are seriously looking at taking two Mockingbird lanes below grade in front of the airport. They compare the proposed road redo to the “burying” of Spring Valley Road at N. Central Expressway as seen below. They’re also very quick to point out this is nothing like the long-ago-killed proposal to plant a toll road beneath Mockingbird from N. Central Expressway to State Highway 183, which Park Cities residents killed in 2000 before it ever had the chance to take a deep breath.

“The main lanes would go underneath, and folks going to the airport would stay at grade,” says Keith Manoy, the assistant public works director who oversees most of the city’s transportation projects. “It wouldn’t be a tunnel, but it could be cut and covered. For now, what I feel safe in saying is we’re looking at a grade separation.”

Many questions remain to be answered, chief among them: How long would it run, how much would it cost, and who would pay for it?

The Spring Valley "tunnel" below N. Central Expressway is the likely role model for what Dallas officials are looking at in front of Mockingbird. (Google Maps)

Would it go from, oh, Lemmon Avenue-Airdrome Drive to Denton Drive? Or would it run just “several hundred feet” in front of the airport, as Manoy suggests? Right now, it’s hard to say: The city’s so early in the process, says Manoy, “it’s hard to say how long it would need to be.” As for the cost, again, it’s early yet. But if and when the city decides to build the thing, Manoy says, it would likely come from a future bond program. There’s also been talk of Love Field kicking in to cover some of the costs.

But the city’s aviation director, Mark Duebner, seems dubious about the airport footing some of the bill. After all, he says, the roadwork would be just outside the airport’s boundaries, which means “it would be difficult for us to justify expending airport funds off-airport.” But just a moment later he adds this: “We’re looking into participating, because it does impact our customers. We’re just not there yet.”

And, after all, Love Field’s growing customer base is the cause for the likely Mockingbird makeover (or make-under, as the case may be). Continue reading →

AUDIO: In radio ad, Rawlings compares proposition to raise Dallas City Council pay to U.S. Civil Rights Act

A campaign postcard supporting Proposition 8, a Dallas charter amendment that would increase City Council pay. (Tom Benning/The Dallas Morning news)

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings has been the public face of a campaign to encourage voters to approve a raise for City Council members to $60,000 from $37,500 and for the mayor to $80,000 from $60,000, as we reported in today’s paper.

Rawlings — who wouldn’t benefit from the increase, if it’s approved and if he wins re-election — hasn’t shied away from stressing the the vote’s importance. Pitching that it will encourage more qualified and more diverse candidates, he called it one of the most important ballot measures in the last decade.

But in a radio ad that’s airing on some Dallas radio stations, the mayor takes it a step further.

As we mentioned in today’s paper, Rawlings compares voting for the charter amendment — Proposition 8 — to passage of the landmark U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964. Listen to the radio advertisement above or read a transcript of the ad below:

“Hi, I’m Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. You know that 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, the law that opened the doors of opportunity to millions of Americans who were unfairly locked out. We have a chance right here in Dallas to open the doors of opportunity even further by passing Proposition 8 on the Nov. 4 election ballot.

“Prop 8 would provide a middle-class salary for future Dallas City Council members and future mayors after me. This increase is long overdue. Council members work hard, between 40 and 60 hours per week. Raising the pay to a modest level that can help support a middle-class family would allow people from a much broader and more diverse background to serve our great city.

“So let’s all do our part to open the doors of opportunity in Dallas. Go to the end of the election ballot and vote for Proposition 8. Dallas is worth it.”

High school football comes to Fair Park as this year’s ‘South Dallas Super Bowl’ moves to the Cotton Bowl

Back when the Cotton Bowl was home to Your Dallas Cowboys (File photo)

For now, at least, the Dallas Independent School District 2014 varsity football schedule shows Lincoln and James Madison high schools squaring off November 7 at Forester Field, the regular site of their annual rivalry game. Officially, though, that will change tomorrow: At 12:30 p.m. Wednesday city and DISD officials will gather on the steps of the Cotton Bowl to announce that this year’s game — the so-called “South Dallas Super Bowl” — is moving to the Cotton Bowl.

Council member Carolyn Davis, who went to Madison, publicly began pushing for the move back to the neighborhood — “the community,” as she puts it — in December, during a council committee briefing on the latest Cotton Bowl makeover that looks every penny of its $25-million price tag. Less than a year later she got what she wanted, thanks, she says, to her Park Board rep (Tiffinni Young), Park and Recreation Department Director Willis Winters, Fair Park Executive Director Daniel Huerta and DISD trustee Bernadette Nutall. Among the issues that needed resolving, she says: “making sure everything was in place, and making sure everyone was safe.” It didn’t take too long.

“We’ve been working with a number of people here at the city, and then both schools wanted to see it stay in the community,” she said Tuesday morning. “We’ve been having to go outside of the community for the South Dallas Super Bowl, but because Fair Park is in the heart of the South Dallas-Fair Park community I thought it would be fitting for that. We don’t ask Fair Park for a lot of things. That community minds its business when it comes to the park. But I thought it was right that this ‘super bowl,’ even though it’s a high school game, be at Fair Park. It’s going to be exciting. And it’s the right time to do it.”

And then some: The move to the Cotton Bowl comes just as Mayor Mike Rawlings’ Fair Park task force is suggesting turning over the park to a private nonprofit that might — might — better utilize the historic property. Bringing high school football back to the Cotton Bowl would be a significant win for Fair Park; after all, if it’s good enough for AT&T Stadium, where high school playoffs kick off the following week, it’s good enough for the most historic stadium in Dallas.

“From my understanding, the Park Department wants to look at doing more high school games there,” says Davis. “This will be the first to see if it’ll work. It used to happen at Texas Stadium, and they have them at Jerry’s stadium. It’s time for it.”

Of course, there have been high school games at the Cotton Bowl recently: As our Corbett Smith notes, the Cotton Bowl hosted two different weekends of playoff games two years ago, and is likely going to do so again in 2014, according to Mesquite ISD’s Steve Bragg. And high-schoolers played there, on and off, though the 2011 season.

Winters says the park department hopes to put as many high school games in the Cotton Bowl as possible in coming years, though that could be difficult during the three weeks when the State Fair of Texas takes over the fairgrounds.

“When I was a kid, it was exciting when you had the South Dallas Super Bowl,” says Davis. “It was fun. People were happy. The PTA was involved. These are all the things I am hoping will instill some pride in the community.”