A new push for a strong mayor? Rethinking who should run City Hall

Frustrated by a string of high-profile losses and growing suburban competition, some of Dallas’ most influential business and civic leaders are exploring a dramatic overhaul of City Hall. 

The discussions include whether to pursue a petition drive that could put a strong-mayor proposal before voters next May, though key questions remain about the scope, timing and structure of any proposal.

Dallas is one of the largest U.S. cities to use a council-manager form of government in which the mayor helps set the city’s agenda but has limited executive authority. Instead, the city manager, hired by the City Council, oversees departments, prepares the budgets and runs daily operations.

But recent setbacks, including AT&T and the Dallas Stars planning moves to the suburbs, Neiman Marcus closing its downtown flagship and uncertainty over the future of City Hall, have stirred debate over whether Dallas’ current leadership structure is working.

East Dallas council member Paula Blackmon said talk of a strong-mayor movement has been circulating among business leaders because of concerns about the City Council’s effectiveness. 

“I heard that the business community said they have a problem with the council,” she said.

Even former mayors have sounded the alarm, saying City Hall is too often distracted by internal fights when the city should be focused on growth, investment and downtown’s revival.

At the center of that debate is whether Dallas needs a stronger hand at the top or whether its current system provides the right balance of power.

Dallas mayors can dictate the tenor and direction of the City Council. They can appoint committees and preside over meetings. They represent Dallas’ interests in regional groups, such as the DFW International Airport’s board of directors. 

The city’s top elected official, the mayor, is one of 15 votes on the City Council but does not enforce or execute council-passed ordinances. That role rests with the city manager. 

Mayor Eric Johnson, whose term ends in 2027, did not respond to a request for comment. 

Former Mayor Laura Miller said Dallas’ current system gives administrators too much power and elected leaders too little. 

In a recent D Magazine column, she cited AT&T’s concerns about governance as evidence that the city’s structure needs to change.

“We need wholesale change,” she wrote.

Miller, mayor from 2002 to 2007 after serving on the City Council, said Dallas suffers from a lack of accountability and not enough focus on citywide priorities.

She said elected council members tend to represent individual districts rather than the city as a whole and that Dallas needs a strong mayor and more citywide leadership.

Meanwhile, civic advocates and others say former mayors Tom Leppert, Mike Rawlings and Ron Kirk have been discussing whether to pursue possible changes in the city’s governance.

Rawlings declined to comment, and Leppert could not be reached this week. Kirk said Tuesday that public conversations about a strong-mayor proposal were “a little bit premature” but that he and other supporters of that idea would be ready to talk about it in detail this fall. 

The issue is not new to Miller. She was mayor in 2005 when Dallas voters twice rejected proposals to strengthen the mayor’s authority.

This time, she said, the playbook must be different.

“It can’t come from City Hall, and it can’t come from the business community,” she said. “It has to come kind of organically from people who are frustrated.” 

Spark conversations in neighborhood meetings, Rotary clubs, homeowner associations churches and other community settings, she said. 

“You can’t bring out the former football players and everyone in the Citizens Council and say this is what we’re going to do. This has got to be different,” she said. 

Dallas’ current 14-1 system, with 14 single-member council districts and a citywide mayor, was imposed by a federal judge in 1991 after years of voting-rights litigation over minority representation on the City Council.

The Rev. Gerald Britt, a southern Dallas leader, pushed back on Miller in a response essay, defending the 14-1 system as an important tool for representation. He wrote that it “widened the door to participation across the whole apparatus of local government.”

“Miller believes that door has outlived its usefulness. I believe its usefulness has been ill-used — squandered, again and again, by the very government it was built to transform. That distinction is the entire argument between us,” Britt wrote. 

Blackmon, the council member, said she remains a supporter of Dallas’ current form of government, even as she acknowledged growing questions about accountability and who should be responsible when the city falls short.

The possible governance changes also could influence next year’s November mayoral election, as candidates weigh whether they could be running for a more powerful office.