Texan leads citizen charge to boost Dallas police, hold city accountable

A bipartisan nonprofit organization, Dallas HERO, has proposed three amendments to Dallas’ ballot targeting increased funding for police officers and accountability for city officials.

Pete Marocco, the executive director of Dallas HERO, a group seeking to amend the Dallas City Charter, told Fox News Digital that the three proposed city charter amendments, which voters will decide on in November, come as the city has come to a crossroads – with the police department lacking proper funding and a “corrupt” city council.

“We have 170,000 signatures on petitions from Dallas residents saying that these amendments are essential,” said Marocco, a Marine Corps veteran who has worked on security, intelligence and humanitarian efforts in the private sector and in the federal government. “And it has very much turned into a David versus Goliath, the people versus the establishment machine.”

The reforms would boost Dallas police staffing and pay, tie the city manager’s pay to performance and allow citizens to take legal action against city leaders for not abiding by the city code.

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The three amendments:

Proposition S

Proposition S would allow Dallas residents to sue the city and require it to comply with charter provisions, ordinances and state law. It would also waive the city’s governmental immunity from lawsuits and liabilities under the amendment.

“The reason we need this in the charter is that this gives residents of Dallas standing to hold the city accountable when it refuses to enforce the law,” Marocco said. 

“If you read the amendment, it says very clearly in there, this is just for injunctive and declaratory relief after a 60 days notice,” he said. “If the city is following the law, if the city is compliant, even after 60 days notice, they’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Proposition T

If approved, Proposition T would make use of an annual survey and either add or subtract from the city manager’s salary based on performance.

“We’re proposing to have a city manager-performance-based compensation package that says if you are not delivering results on crime, on homelessness, on litter on-streets and infrastructure and on aggressive panhandling – then you are going to be fired,” Marocco said. “And if you do very well, then you’re going to be able to get a performance-based compensation that’s up to 100% of your salary.”

Police cars sit on Main Street in Dallas following the sniper shooting during a protest on July 7, 2016. (LAURA BUCKMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Proposition U

Marocco said that Proposition U would increase funding to boost police hiring and retention. 

He said that the Dallas Police Department currently does not have the minimum number of police officers mandated by previous legislation, and the amendment would ramp up hiring for the city to have three officers per 1,000 citizens.

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The amendment would also increase police salaries, he said, noting that Dallas police officers make $12,000 less than some suburban towns outside city limits.

“There’s a very crafty way that the city council has decided to avoid directly defunding the police by simply making life intolerable to police and driving them away,” he said.

Marocco said that the need for better funding for police is paramount for public safety.

“Dallas has a $5 billion budget. The amount of money we’re talking about to adequately staff the police force is about one penny on the dollar,” he said.

Flags fly at half staff outside the Dallas police department headquarters on July 12, 2016 in Dallas. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Marocco said that the shortage of officers has created delayed response times for reported crimes and a lack of a police presence in the city.

“When you have police only responding late because they are understaffed, and you have police officers responding to a murder, a shooting or a stabbing in 15 minutes,” he said. “This is very serious.”

“We also know people who have reported property crime and never received a police response,” he said. “I have not seen a Dallas traffic police officer in a year, so people are driving more recklessly.”

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Marocco said that the problem is aggravated by the presence of human trafficking and the city’s proximity to the southern border.

“We’re seeing a surge of migrants. We’re also seeing Venezuelan gangs,” he said. “We had one recently threaten a woman and threaten to cut off her fingers and torture her in her house. It’s just horrible to see what is happening here.”

As other major U.S. cities double down on policing in response to an increase in homicides and violent crime, Dallas officials are taking a different approach. (Dylan Hollingsworth/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Dallas HERO project has faced hurdles to get Amendments S, T, and U on the ballot in November. Marocco shared that the group has faced litigation from the city council – and won – after successfully taking it to the Texas Supreme Court.

“We got on the ballot through a lot of hard work and advocacy, and then we actually had to litigate,” he said. 

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“This is about better safety. It’s about better accountability, and it’s about the enforcement of law,” he said. “When voters go to the polls and early voting starts next week, we need people to vote on the last three propositions. S-T and U.”

Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins said during a City Council meeting in August that the proposal could send the city back to “the Dark Ages,” KERA News reported.

“Overall, you would be looking at drastic, very extreme, cuts that we would have to make across the board,” Interim City Manager Kimblery Tolbert told the council, according to KERA News. “And that’s not just day-to-day, but that’s a drastic cut in every single service we provide at the city.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Dallas City Council, Dallas city manager and Dallas Police Department for comment.