The State Fair of Texas starts next week, and security preparations are well underway. But it's what will happen outside fair grounds that has at least one city leader concerned, calling the number of Dallas police officers pulled from their divisions to help out at the fair "significant."
Dallas City Councilman Scott Griggs said all council members were briefed in executive session recently about the number of on-duty police officers who will work the fair, and he saud he's very concerned, especially with an already strapped force.
Th councilman said he was asked not to reveal that number of on-duty officers but called it a "large amount" that will be pulled from each of the seven patrol divisions and end up working the fair and not in their communities.
This comes about a month after Dallas Police Department leaders briefed the public safety board and said the majority of officers at the fair would be working on an overtime basis and that manpower on the streets would not be affected. But Griggs said that is not so and not by a long shot.
He said the public should be as concerned as he is.
"The one number the city of Dallas does not want you to know is how many officers are assigned to the state fair, because you would probably faint about how many officers get pulled from patrol all over the city and how many officers end up working the State Fair of Texas for 24 days, pulled from our neighborhoods," he said.
Neither the city of Dallas nor the Dallas Police Department would release any information about the number of on-duty officers assigned to work at the fair. As for those working overtime, fair officials told NBC 5 they would be spending about $1 million for those officers.
