By: Tennell Atkins
The year before I joined the Dallas City Council in 2007, the FBI named Dallas the most dangerous major city in America.
That embarrassing designation pushed our city leaders to take action. Over the next two decades, our city consistently invested in public safety personnel and technology, which helped make our neighborhoods safer, helped draw businesses to our city, and brought investment into parts of southern Dallas once thought to be untouchable.
But we have not invested enough in the basic public safety infrastructure that helps our first responders do their jobs on our behalf.
That can change this November. At the end of their ballots this year, Dallas voters have the opportunity to make a historic investment in keeping our communities and neighborhoods safe.
The $443 million City of Dallas public safety bond proposition is about investing in the basics and making our city safer and stronger. This public safety bond funds replacements for old, outdated buildings with modern facilities worthy of our police and firefighters.
These investments are long overdue.
For example, Dallas Fire Station No. 4 is now 73 years old. It was built when Dwight Eisenhower was President, a young Martin Luther King Jr. married Coretta Scott, and the Dallas Fire Department had yet to hire a single Black firefighter. This bond funds a new building suited for modern fire trucks, so crews can respond to residents and businesses faster.
When the city’s crime lab and property room opened, Dallas was a city of 430,000 people, “I Love Lucy” was the No. 1 show on television, and no one on earth knew what DNA looked like. This bond funds a modern crime lab and evidence room will replace a 74-year-old facility, so evidence is properly preserved all the way through trial and cold cases can be solved.
And when the Dallas Police Department “temporarily” relocated its police training facility to a Red Bird-area warehouse in 1990, Emmitt Smith was a rookie for the Dallas Cowboys, the Berlin Wall had just fallen, and the World Wide Web wasn’t publicly available. This bond funds new, modern police academy and in-service centers – both will be built in southern Dallas – that will provide world-class training that prepares our police officers to serve Dallas communities.
This bond proposition also allows the city to move the 911 and Emergency Operations Center out of the City Hall basement into a new facility that will ensure responders can keep working through crises such as floods, ice storms and grid failures.
These projects provide for greater safety, well-trained police officers, better emergency response, and economic development and jobs. And while I’ve heard concerns from my neighbors about taxes, I want to be clear: there will be no new taxes as a result of this public safety bond. Your ballot is required by state law to say “this is a tax increase” at the top. But our City Councils worked hard to manage the city’s debt responsibly and as a result, this bond will not raise the tax rate. I’m also proud of the fact that Dallas is on track to lower the tax in 2027 for the 11th-consecutive year.
Thanking our officers and firefighters with words while asking them to keep working in buildings that are decades past their prime is unacceptable. We cannot ask first responders to wait another minute to get the facilities they need and deserve.
Early voting runs Oct. 19–30, Election Day is Nov. 3, and Public Safety Bond Proposition is at the very end of the ballot. Let’s continue to invest in making our city safer and stronger by voting FOR City of Dallas Proposition A, the public safety bonds.Tennell Atkins represented District 8 on the Dallas City Council from 2007-2015 and from 2017-2025.
