Dallas

Campaign Begins to Support $1 Billion Dallas Bond Referendum

Links to details on Dallas bond projects and needs inventory

Dallas voters will soon see fliers in the mail in support of the $1.05 billion public improvement bond referendum.

Supporters have raised nearly $200,000 in private contributions to wage their campaign for the November 7th election.

Former Mayors Tom Leppert, Laura Miller and Ron Kirk are co-chairs of the Bond campaign. Current Mayor Mike Rawlings is pleased with what they are doing.

“We’ve got to remind people when the date is and why it’s so critical,” Rawlings said.

Streets and Transportation get nearly $534 million in the ten part referendum which also includes separate votes for parks, flood control, libraries, public safety and homeless assistance facilities.

Rawlings said voter approval of all ten questions is crucial to the city’s future.

“It’s going to be the key moment when we decide if we’re going to continue to grow,” said Rawlings. “We’ve got to get some basics in place. We’ve got to fix our roads, ok? We can’t continue to grow without fixing our roads.”

The referendum was delayed from May to complete solutions to a Police and Fire Pension crisis which was achieved with increased contributions from employees and the city.

“Now we understand that we’ve got the money. We can fix the pension fund and do these things,” Rawlings said.

Debt on the public improvement bonds can be repaid without a property tax increase, according to Dallas officials.

Bitter critics of the city decision to remove a statue of Robert E Lee last month have threatened to campaign against the bond referendum.

“They are in the big scheme of things, a small group of people,” Rawlings said. “If we get the voters out, I think we’re going to be in a good place.”

Rawlings said polls done by the bond campaign show strong support for the public improvement issues.

Early voting begins October 23rd for the November 7th referendum.

Here is a link to city information on the bond referendum.

Here is a link to the Dallas needs list which now totals more than $10 billion.

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