Is Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s 100-day plan an audition for Dallas city manager?

Tolbert, who has been Dallas’ interim city manager since May, hasn’t said whether she plans to apply for the permanent role. Several City Council members hope she does.

By Everton Bailey Jr. and Devyani Chhetri

10:00 AM on Jul 17, 2024

Two months in as Dallas’ interim city manager, Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s sense of urgency may signal she’s no placeholder.

Tolbert secured Dallas’ police chief for three more years. She hired and promoted about a dozen city executives, from public safety to communications. She announced plans to combine multiple departments, including merging offices that oversee zoning and permitting, to combat the city’s troubled permitting process.

Big challenges remain. City officials need to pay down a $3 billion police and fire pension system shortfall, address a $38 million city budget hole and tackle homelessness.

“I understand the unique challenges we face as public servants and the unique challenges our organization faces when it comes to meeting the needs of a growing city,” Tolbert said in a memo to city employees on May 2, the day before she officially began as interim city manager. “But I also know what we can achieve.”

The city manager is the most powerful non-elected official in Dallas City Hall, overseeing the day-to-day work of around 15,000 staffers — whether it’s paving the road, fixing a sewer line or wooing a sports team.

Tolbert, 55, earns $367,683 as interim city manager and has worked for Dallas for nearly two decades across two separate stints as a city employee. She hasn’t said whether she plans to seek the job permanently. She declined a request for an interview from The Dallas Morning News and didn’t directly answer a separate request for comment on whether she will apply for the position.

“Interim Dallas City Manager Kimberly Tolbert is focused on today,” city spokesman Rick Ericson said in a statement on behalf of Tolbert. He added she is concentrating “on addressing pressing city issues including the preparation of the FY 24/25 budget.”

Her moves have drawn praise from a majority of the 15-member City Council that will appoint Dallas’ next city manager. The News contacted every council member through texts and phone calls. Eight council members told The News they believe Tolbert is a strong candidate for the job, though few said they feel comfortable giving her the role without knowing the full field of contenders.

“I do think that we owe it to ourselves and to the residents to go through the interview process,” council member Jaynie Schultz said. “We’ve engaged a company. We ought to let them do their job, and we need to do our due diligence.”

Six council members did not respond to requests for comment. Council member Cara Mendelsohn said it was too early to assess Tolbert’s work as interim city manager.

It could be months before a permanent city manager is hired. Chicago-based firm Baker Tilly is leading a national search for candidates to succeed T.C. Broadnax who resigned after seven years to take the same position in Austin.

Clashes with Mayor Eric Johnson were cited by council members as a key reason a majority of the group suggested Broadnax resign. The mayor led a failed effort to fire Broadnax two years ago and publicly opposed the former city manager receiving the close to half a million dollars in severance Dallas was contractually obligated to pay.

Johnson hasn’t publicly expressed his thoughts on Tolbert’s leadership. His office, including Communications Director Noah DeGarmo and Chief of Staff Alheli Garza, didn’t respond to two emails, three phone calls and two text requests seeking comment from the mayor on Tolbert’s first two months on the job.

A long-term challenge for whoever is appointed city manager will be the City Council.

The group has a void in leadership and consensus building, Schultz said. The city manager’s role as an appointee of the council “is to help us fully understand the implications of not getting our act together,” the councilwoman added.

“Until we find a way — as 15 people — to work in lock step toward a shared vision, it’s going to be extremely challenging for anyone to be able to lead the city,” Schultz said. “And that burden is on us.”

Council member Carolyn King Arnold believes Dallas doesn’t have to look far for its next city manager.

“You want someone who knows Dallas, knows the expectations of all of our communities and has the ability to meet them — and that’s her,” said Arnold, who declared herself “Team Tolbert.”

“I believe we don’t have time to bring somebody in and teach them everything from what the city charter says to the difference between South and southern Dallas. She’s A1 from day one,” she said.

Dallas Interim City Manager Kim Bizor Tolbert speaks to Dallas Police Association President Jaime Castro during a Dallas City Council meeting in February 2024.(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

The 100-day plan

Much of Dallas’ success rides on permits, several council members say.

Residential and commercial permits allow for growth as a conduit for property taxes that pay for police, fire, libraries, parks and streets, council member Chad West explains. It’s the gateway to construction jobs and new housing.

“The permitting department can be your biggest success or biggest failure,” West said he told Tolbert.

Permitting delays have been a source of agony for city officials for the past three years.

At the height, residential and commercial permits sometimes took months to get approved as the city struggled with tracking applications and was hampered by malfunctioning computer software, staffing shortages and other obstacles.

Fixing the city’s permitting is a priority for every council member, and it’s one Tolbert zeroed in on in her 100-day playbook aimed at building trust, transparency and a stronger workforce.

The most notable reorganization Tolbert tackled was combining the development services department that oversees permitting with the planning and urban design office to create a one-stop shop for zoning and construction needs and speed up the process.

Tolbert is more than halfway through a series of goals she wants to accomplish over her first 100 days in the interim role. The plan focuses on six areas: the annual budget, Dallas’ two pension systems, homelessness, community engagement, recruitment and retention, and city permitting.

Tolbert made crucial decisions right off the bat, council members said. She hired people into key roles, including the city’s first-ever chief of strategy, engagement and alignment. She promoted several department heads to executive posts, such as elevating Fire Chief Dominique Artis to the chief of public safety. She has also reorganized departments, such as merging the city’s 311 customer service center with Dallas’ communications, outreach and marketing offices to save more than $1 million in the next fiscal year.

When speculation circulated that other Texas cities may woo Dallas Police Chief Eddie García, Tolbert came up with a plan to offer García a retention bonus and had him promise to stay until 2027.

Council member Paula Blackmon credited Tolbert for being creative in leveraging what tools she could to keep the chief. Dallas’ charter doesn’t allow the city to have a contract with him.

Council member Paul Ridley said Tolbert’s action indicated she wanted to “move forward while she’s in the office as interim, and not just be a placeholder.”

A key move for recruitment and retention was updating police and fire department policy to allow on-duty workers to sport beards and show tattoos.

“Both DFR and DPD believe these changes better reflect the current cultural and societal opinions of the practice of body modification,” read Tolbert’s memo on the change, which noted the new policy would boost employee morale.

Lt. Jeff Patterson, president of the Dallas Firefighters Association, said Tolbert came through on coming up with strategies to retain officers.

“We’re not left to guess. She’s been very, very transparent so far,” he said.

Dallas Interim City Manager Kim Bizor Tolbert (facing) is congratulated by City Council members Jaynie Schultz (left) and Paula Blackmon after the council appointed Tolbert to the interim position during a City Council meeting in February 2024. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

A veteran of city affairs

Tolbert recently toured all 14 council districts to understand the needs of different communities, but she’s been in the city’s inner circle for decades.

“She knows how to get things done. She knows how to look at it from a different perspective,” Blackmon said.

Tolbert began as an assistant to the city manager in 1998, helping manage the city manager, mayor and council offices. Then she was in the city’s aviation department as an assistant director of finance and administration.

In 2008, Tolbert left for the North Texas Tollway Authority, where over nine years she worked as an assistant executive director, chief of staff, chief strategic officer and director of strategy and innovation.

Broadnax brought her back to work for the city in 2017 as his chief of staff. The two attended graduate school together at the University of North Texas.

In 2022, Broadnax promoted Tolbert to deputy city manager to oversee homeless solutions, aviation, human resources, communications and Dallas Water Utilities.

An insider as the city’s top administrator isn’t unfamiliar territory for Dallas.

Mary Suhm, the city’s second female city manager, was in the role for eight years before she resigned in 2013. She had spent more than three decades as a bureaucrat at City Hall. Her deputy, then-First Assistant City Manager A.C. Gonzalez, was appointed interim city manager before he got the job permanently.

Broadnax, hired in 2016, came in as an outsider. He was the city manager in Tacoma, Wash., before his seven-year stint in Dallas.

Stepping out of T.C. Broadnax’s shadow

For some council members, changes at City Hall come wrapped in expectations of resetting the way business is conducted, and Tolbert’s ties to Broadnax may make some reluctant to give her the job.

Council member Zarin Gracey, whose district covers parts of southwest Dallas, said the opposition could especially come from those wanting the city to move in a new direction.

“I think part of the reasons for some of these moves she’s been making is to show she’s her own person and her own leader,” the council member said, adding he hoped colleagues could get past the Broadnax connection.

Broadnax didn’t respond to a text or phone call requesting comment for this story.

When Tolbert was appointed interim city manager in February, Broadnax said he was confident she would “work in partnership with the City Council and lead our talented and dedicated staff to serve our residents.”

“I support the City Council’s decision and believe that Kimberly Bizor Tolbert is more than qualified, capable, and committed to lead Dallas through this transition,” he said in a Feb. 27 statement.

West noted that, much like her predecessor, Tolbert’s strength is in advocating for her staff, which has been evident through the promotions she has awarded. However, she’s been more quick to make changes if something isn’t working, he said.

“One strength that leaders have is defending your staff and your people, and I think that that’s something that T.C. certainly did,” West said, adding Broadnax may have waited “a bit too long to make necessary changes in departments.”

Another way Tolbert is distinguishing herself is by demonstrating how outgoing she is.

Council member Gay Donnell Willis, whose council district includes parts of Northwest Dallas, said she got “communications whiplash from the proactive nature of engagement” with Tolbert and her staff.

Broadnax was more introverted.

“It’s not bad. It’s just different,” Blackmon noted.

In February, influential Black politicians — including County Commissioner John Wiley Price — threw their weight behind Tolbert for the interim role.

Harrison Blair, a city park and recreation board member and president of the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce, said he’s seen or heard of Tolbert meeting with many organizations to listen to concerns and not make grand promises.

“I understand the city’s got to look at every option and kick every tire,” said Blair, who believes Tolbert should be appointed to the permanent job. “But when the decision comes up, we hope that they see all of what we see as a community and that they make the decision based on what we believe we need as a city and as residents.”

One recent Saturday, Tolbert spent an hour and a half driving around Blackmon’s East Dallas district, taking notes on improvements the councilwoman wanted and opportunities for partnerships.

“It was almost like when a doctor is scanning the body, and the assistant says, ‘We need to check on this and look at this,’” Blackmon said. “That’s a great way to approach a big city like Dallas – doing it in bite-sized chunks.”