The Dallas Morning News
By Jason Beeferman
12:55 PM on Aug 21, 2023

Mayor Eric Johnson has decided which City Council members will serve on each of Dallas’s 14  committees.

The assignments will play a major role in shaping city policy and deciding which council members will have influence -- and which won’t – for the next two years.

Within each committee, council members will discuss and draft legislation and shape current city policy.

The group rosters are typically announced about a week after the runoff election, which took place on June 10 this year. Johnson’s office has not said why it took so long to make the announcements. Naming council members to committees is one of the few powers the mayor has in the Dallas form of government.

“We must continue to work tirelessly to address our city’s needs and lead Dallas further down the path toward becoming the safest major city in the United States with the best park system in Texas and the lowest tax rate in the North Texas region,” Johnson said in a memo announcing the committee placements. “The important work required to achieve these ambitious goals will be done primarily through our City Council committees.”

This year’s committee assignment announcements are a bit different than last year’s. For starters, the mayor has announced a brand new committee – the Ad Hoc Committee on Pensions. The group will be responsible for steering “the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System on a path to solvency.” The two pension systems currently have about $3 billion in unfunded liabilities. The employees’ retirement fund has about $1 billion in unfunded liabilities.

Each committee includes one council member who serves as “chair” and is responsible for leading the committee. The chair appointments often determine which council members have outsized influence over city issues.

Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins (District 8) and Cara Mendelsohn (District 12) will each serve as the chair on three separate committees, more than any other council member.

“Honored the Mayor appointed me to chair the public safety committee, one of the most important and high profile, and appreciate his trust in me with his prior announcement of appointment to Chair the Ad hoc on Legislative Affairs,” Mendelsohn told The Dallas Morning News. “I am glad to continue leading the work as Chair of the Ad hoc on General Investigating and Ethics, where we have brought forward significant ethics reform and investigated thoroughly the IT data loss of police files.”

Some were not selected to head any committee. Carolyn King Arnold (District 4), Paula Blackmon (District 9), Jaime Resendez (District 5) and Gay Donnell Willis (District 13) won’t serve as chair on any of the city committees. Resendez and Blackmon both held chair positions during their previous tenures.

In another change, the city’s Environment and Sustainability Committee will now be called the Parks, Trails and the Environment Committee.

The Parks, Trails and the Environment Committee will be responsible for leading Dallas “further down the path toward becoming the major city with the best park system in Texas,” Johnson’s memo said.

Johnson said the group’s goals will include transforming vacant city lots into green spaces, maximizing the number of Dallas residents who live within a 10-minute walk of a park and ensuring the Harold Simmons Park project is operating up to speed.

In that committee, Blackmon has been replaced as chair by Kathy Stewart, who was just elected in May.

Mayor Johnson also appointed himself as a member on two committees. One appointment is on the Ad Hoc Committee on General Investigating and Ethics and the other is a demotion within the Ad Hoc Committee on Professional Sports Recruitment and Retention.

Johnson created the sports committee and appointed himself chair last year after saying Dallas should do more to attract and retain sports teams and tweeting his dismay about the metroplex having only one NFL team.

The mayor did not announce the date for the committees’ first meetings in his memo.

Staff writer Everton Bailey Jr. contributed to this report.