DALLAS — During the City Council inauguration ceremony Wednesday at the Meyerson Symphony Center, Mayor Eric Johnson addressed myriad challenges and opportunities for the city as it emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
A video of the speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbs4JnwtEco&t=2139s The following is the full text of his prepared remarks. Please note, the mayor occasionally deviated from the speech as written.
First of all, I want to say congratulations to all of you on your election. It’s wonderful to be with you all today for this occasion.
What’s remarkable about today’s ceremony is that it’s actually rather unremarkable. Every two years, we gather, we put the election season behind us, and we talk about our vision for the next two years. And we get to be together.
But we haven’t had a lot of “together” these past 15 months. Yes, during the pandemic, we talked about how we were all in this together. And that was true.
While we were isolated, we shared common experiences, faced common challenges. Some of us juggled our kids’ schooling and working from home. Some of us worried about our businesses’ bottom lines. Some of us saw our loved ones and neighbors get furloughed or laid off. Too many others, such as Perla Sanchez-Perez, who you just heard from, lost loved ones.
The pandemic brought to the fore some longstanding issues in our city while putting distance between the people of Dallas and the government that is supposed to serve them. And when the world stopped moving, we had to run twice as fast — and without much direction from our federal leaders.
The last year was lonely. It was demanding. It tested us in new ways that we never could have imagined during our inauguration only two years ago.
Yet, through the crucible of the COVID-19 pandemic, you remained dedicated to public service. Even those of you joining our council — Jesse Moreno, Paul Ridley, Jaynie Schultz, Gay Willis — already have a distinguished record of volunteer service to our city, serving on our plan commission, our park board, our 2017 bond committee, and many others.
I think it’s the case that all of us on this stage were drawn to public service by the chance to make our city better. The people of Dallas have placed their trust in us to do so. And after a year like this one, they are counting on us to get the job done.
For the past year, the people of our city have been battered, but they have not been beaten. They have been shaken, but not shattered. They have been slowed, but they are undeterred.
Today, we stand with them at the dawn of a new Dallas. And as we see our city in this new light, we have the opportunity to show the world who we are as we emerge from this pandemic. To show them the mettle and the grit and the grace that have defined this city. We are Dallas, Texas. We refuse to stay down, and our determination and ingenuity can and will carry us to new heights.
There is no time to waste. There is no time for the acrimony that defines state and national politics. There is no time for frivolous things.
We have too much work to do. And on a personal level, I can tell you the stakes are higher for me now. Not because I’m going anywhere. I’m not. Or even because the first half of my term is over. It’s because I am now raising three young children in this city. Three children who I would do anything for, who I want to see grow up and be anything they want to be.
I want Dallas to succeed, and while we have so much going for us, the challenges before us are clear, and they are existential.
During the next two years, we must get back to basics and build for the future. You’ve likely heard me talk about these issues as my agenda. But it’s more than just my agenda. It’s our agenda. It’s the agenda of the people of Dallas. I invited some of those people to join us here today. They’re people who need our help — who understand the stakes of what we’re trying to accomplish together.
A few months ago, Brad Lusk started noticing that bulk trash pick up was lagging behind schedule. But in May, the service never seemed to come. His old fans and furniture boxes were drenched in rain. He and his neighbors kept adding to the piles as days went by. Elderly neighbors had to walk into the street because sidewalks all around them were covered in brush and garbage.
Brad said their quiet Far North Dallas neighborhood began to look like a war zone. He told my office that while he can handle slowdowns from time to time, he’s noticed that “the money keeps coming out of our bank account, going to the city, but the trash remains here.”
Chris Aslam, who also joined us today, has struggled to open a new restaurant in Oak Cliff. A few months after he won his rezoning case, he’s still trying to win his permits from the city, locked in a never-ending back-and-forth runaround. And he is no novice at this. He’s the president of the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association. He told my office that it’s become a running joke among developers in his field that Dallas has gotten as bad as California.
But it’s not a comedy; it’s a tragedy. These are jobs that haven’t been created. Sales tax and property tax revenue that isn’t generated for city services. Money that isn’t moving through our city as our neighboring suburbs are aggressively wooing businesses big and small.
And joining us virtually today is Barbara, who has lived in Dallas for nearly 40 years. Her longtime husband, who is 91, collapsed and became unconscious back in early May at their home while she was helping him get dressed for the day — a terrifying moment. She dialed 911, but she received a message that all lines were busy. She and her adult son called back several times. Finally, they received an answer after several minutes of trying. Thankfully, Dallas Fire-Rescue came quickly and provided what she described as “top-notch” service and took her husband to the hospital.
But as she told my office, “No Dallas citizen should have to call 911 and be told the lines are busy. We expect to get an answer. That’s what it’s all about. Why else would you call 911?”
Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam McGough also had a challenging experience when he called 911 recently after witnessing an assault. And all of us on this stage have taken calls and read emails and text messages from our constituents about these issues.
This is what it means to focus on the basics. The frustrations of the people of Dallas are our frustrations. Their quality of life is our quality of life. The pressures on their families, made worse by city services that aren’t working, are our paramount concern. We all live in this city, and it’s our job to make it as livable as possible.
It is imperative that we hold our city government accountable and continue to build on the work that we have started in the past two years — an outstanding collection of policies that we moved forward in the shadow of multiple crises that demanded most of our attention.
We should continue our public safety initiatives, such as RIGHT Care, to help our most vulnerable residents. We should continue to fund and implement the proven crime-prevention programs recommended by the Mayor’s Task Force on Safe Communities and championed by members of this council like Councilmember Adam Bazaldua and Chairman Casey Thomas.
We should continue our focus on fiscal responsibility by continuing to cut our tax rate. It remains the highest in the region and the highest among major cities in the state. When our residents and businesses pay their property tax bills, they are making an investment in Dallas. They expect that their money will not be frittered away.
And we must come up with viable plans to actually improve our city’s chronically underfunded infrastructure and help our growing homeless population.
We also must continue building for our future. That means continuing to fund expansions of our parks and trails. It means continuing to aggressively implement the Comprehensive Environmental and Climate Action Plan, which Chairman Omar Narvaez and the Environment & Sustainability Committee ably put together. It means preparing for the next emergency. It means coming up with smart regulations of short-term rentals.
And it means implementing the game-changing comprehensive economic development policy created by Chairman Tennell Atkins and the Economic Development Committee — a policy that includes the recommendations of the Mayor’s Task Force on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and a new economic development entity that can help us grow southern Dallas.
And speaking of southern Dallas, we must follow through on our plans to remake Fair Park and Hensley Field.
We also have much more work to do beyond that to seize new opportunities. Growing southern Dallas is about more than a real estate play. It’s about investing in the people of southern Dallas. The people who Councilmember Carolyn King Arnold talks about so passionately. Our southern Dallas communities deserve equity in city services but also need the opportunity to thrive with the help of expanded internet access and workforce training.
We must also think bigger by leveraging our city’s amazing assets to increase our international stature in an increasingly interconnected world. Dallas is already a global player, but we have the potential to attract more international trade, investment, and travel. Through the work of the Mayor’s International Advisory Council and with your support, we can get there.
Last week, I talked with Councilmember Jaynie Schultz about her desire to transform the former Valley View mall site into an international gateway for our city. I believe in her vision, and we should be doing everything we can to help her achieve it.
Because that’s what this job is about. It’s about working together to solve the common problems of our residents and businesses and to provide them with new opportunities. It’s not about what divides us.
It’s time to let go of the old political divisions anyway. We can put the past behind us and move forward together. And we must. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we risk losing the future.
And we can put old labels behind us, too. We are not Democrats or Republicans at Dallas City Hall. Labels like progressive or conservative or moderate don’t help us pick up bulk trash in a timely manner or answer the phone on the first ring when someone calls 911. Whatever differences or disagreements we have, we are all Dallas — with all of its contradictions, all of its history, and all of its untapped potential.
Together — together — we will seize this moment before us. We will demand that our city government work for all of our people. We will lay the groundwork for a brighter future, one where our children have the opportunity to leave, but never want to.
We will make our great city — the city that I know we all love so dearly — into a city that is accountable, forward-thinking, and family friendly.
Together, over these next two years, we will debate policies and plans and problems. We won’t get everything we want. Sometimes, some of us will lose or have to compromise on issues that are important to us. And that’s OK. But when it comes to the dream of making Dallas work for its residents every single day, we must never compromise.
Thank you all for your time, and congratulations again. Now, let’s get to work.
