Three Dallas city charter amendments, buried at the very end of next week's ballot could drastically affect the city’s police department — and change how local government operates. If passed, those amendments could force the city to hire hundreds more police officers and dictate where some excess revenue is spent, tie the city manager’s compensation to a community survey — and allow residents to sue the city for violating the charter while forcing the city to waive its governmental immunity, the Texas Tribune reports. Advocates say the propositions would place the power of accountability back in Dallas residents’ hands — while also increasing police staffing. “Propositions S, T and U are a suite of ballot propositions … that came together because of Dallas citizens’ refusal to accept a lot of the bad headlines that we were seeing,” said Pete Marocco of Dallas HERO, the group responsible for the amendments. The group calls itself a “bipartisan ... organization that seeks to introduce citizen-powered amendments to the Dallas City Charter.” Questions have been raised about the group’s donors, how it gained its petition signatures — and who might be behind the organization.
The measure’s critics warn the propositions are coming from a rogue group from outside of Dallas and could be dangerous to city finances, and to its residents. The union that represents thousands of Dallas police officers has publicly opposed the amendments, calling them “contrived by a small group of people who do not live in Dallas, with no open dialogue.” Propositions S, T and U have gained so much attention, that a “who’s who” of current and former Dallas politicians, business leaders and city leaders launched a campaign to oppose them. That includes at least four former Dallas mayors and current Mayor Eric Johnson, the entire Dallas City Council plus many other former council members, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and state Sen. Royce West. It's also opposed by members of the Dallas Citizens Council — a group of city business leaders that has, for decades, used its influence on city politics.
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