DALLAS — Charts lined with a variety of community issues and peppered with red, green and yellow stickers lined the hallway walls on the seventh floor of the Dallas Public Library on Monday. The charts were part of a strategic planning exercise, as City Council members worked to determine priorities for 2019 and 2020.
The City of Dallas’ newly elected mayor Eric Johnson and the city's new council called a special meeting in order to rate and determine which initiatives they believe Dallas should focus on in the coming year.
"I think what emerged from this, clearly, is that public safety is something that is important to everyone," Johnson said.
The group was considering and prioritizing a variety of issues that were previously discussed during a retreat with the previous council back in February.
With seven newly elected Council members who have only officially been in City Hall one week, the fresh perspective is allowing them a chance to re-focus.
"We are on pace, actually, to hit our hiring goals for this year. For the police department," Johnson said.
The red, green, and yellow dots were placed next to issues based on individual interest. Most of the council members determined public safety to be a top concern. With crime rates in Dallas increasing, several of the city leaders pointed out that just hiring officers is not enough.
"The retention issue is immediate,” Johnson said. “We can't afford to lose officers at the rate we've been losing them. So, that's something we're going to have to remain vigilant and focused on."
Some other high-priority initiatives included education and workforce development.
Newly elected councilman Chad West expressed some of his concerns with the exercise to his colleagues.
"I wasn't super happy to not see any mobility, transportation priorities for '19 or '20," West said. "I think thoughtful transportation considerations can affect everything from affordable housing development to workforce improvements to food deserts."
Completing streets and equity initiatives across the city were also big priorities.
Council member Cara Mendelsohn made it a point to bring up adding homelessness initiatives to the city’s list of priorities.
"So, we've got homelessness on the list now, and now we'll get it into committee and we'll talk about the things that really matter, because we do have a homeless crisis," Mendelsohn said.
Moving forward, the city manager and staff will assign some of the issues to council committees for deeper discussion.