City Council member Cara Mendelsohn asks a question to city staff during a Dallas City Council meeting on Wednesday, April 22, 2026, at Dallas City Hall.
Elías Valverde II/The Dallas Morning News
Dallas’ public safety boosters are at odds over a $443 million bond election to fund police and fire projects.
One campaign is backed by council member Cara Mendelsohn and Save Dallas City Hall advocates, who are urging voters to reject the bond in order to save the I.M. Pei-designed building.
Another effort, which is endorsed by the city’s police and fire associations and a majority of the City Council, says City Hall and the bond are separate issues.
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Early voting starts Monday.
The bond package will fund a new police academy; a tactical police training complex; a consolidated evidence room and crime lab; a new downtown fire station; and move 911 operations out of City Hall.
Repaying the bond debt would cost more than $629 million over two decades amid debate about the city’s finances and whether enough was done to secure public confidence in bond proposals.
Mendelsohn’s “Bust the Bond” campaign says the program is actually a veiled attempt to move city operations out of City Hall. The group has posted “Bust the Bond” signs throughout the city and has pledged to give any excess money donated to the cause to the Save City Hall organization.
“This is a ‘move out of City Hall’ bond dressed up like public safety,” Mendelsohn said in a post advocating for voters to reject the package. She is listed as treasurer of the campaign.
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Mendelsohn said she would support a bond just for the police academy next year in May.
But Dallas’ largest police and firefighter associations say the funding could modernize several buildings that have gone years without repairs and maintenance.
“When someone calls 911, every second counts. Modern facilities, as in the proposed New Station 4, reliable emergency communications, and properly equipped firefighters and paramedics are essential to saving lives,” Dallas Fire Fighters Association President Chris Peterson said in an endorsement of the bond.
The bond two years ago
The November bond package comes two years after Dallas voters approved the city’s request to take a $1.25 billion loan to do critical repairs to city-owned facilities, parks and streets. It included money for the Dallas Zoo’s new safari trail, refurbishing Kalita Humphreys Theater and street maintenance projects.
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Part of the bond put $50 million into a new policy academy at the University of North Texas at Dallas. The current police academy was meant to be a temporary solution when the city began renting the space in 1990.
City officials estimated the project would cost $140 million and promised the bulk of the funding would come from private donors.
But the plans didn’t include a gun range and an outdoor emergency vehicle course — elements police officials say are essential for training.
City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert has said the plans were made under the previous administration and said it’s unclear how they came up with those figures.
New projects added
The new bond proposal includes $82 million to fill the funding hole at the UNT Dallas-based academy. It also includes $149 million for a new training complex and gun range at the Dallas Executive Airport.
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The bond proposal also includes:
$150 million for a one-stop shop for evidence storage and a crime lab. The current property is over capacity and officials say consolidating the space would make things more efficient. The new crime lab alone is estimated at $88 million.
$40 million for a new emergency center outside of City Hall.
$22 million for a downtown fire station to replace the Akard Street facility built in 1953. Large fire trucks spilled out of Fire Station No. 4 on Akard Street with cars regularly shifting into incoming traffic to drive around the trucks before the roads were closed for construction.
In August, council member Laura Cadena said she was surprised when she saw the city was considering Vilbig, a 71-acre city-owned auto pound, for the new crime lab and property room.
She flagged that this would move the property room from an industrial area to a residential area requiring community buy-in, security and traffic assessments. None of that has happened.
She said she was under the impression that the West Dallas real estate was going to be put up for sale and that she had only found out about Vilbig’s possible inclusion because another council member told her they “didn’t want it in their district.”
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Tolbert said that city staff will come back with options once they’ve identified more places.
Council debates messaging
A majority of the City Council wanted to push out a consolidated package because they said it sent a better message about the city’s support for public safety.
“We all know the horrible conditions our police recruits currently train in,” West said in August as council members discussed why going back to the taxpayers was necessary.
Others wanted to separate all the items, arguing it would be far more transparent if voters weighed in on each project, such as Fire Station 4 and the 911 emergency center, individually.
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Julie Partain, the city’s bond counsel, said that governments generally avoid making specific promises in bonds because things can change over time and the city could risk trapping itself in a project it can’t do.
But Mendelsohn argued the City Council had a reputation of being “favorable” and that it would buy anything that’s recommended to it and put it to voters.
“You know what that means? It means we’re a bunch of dummies,” Mendelsohn said.
Staff writer Chase Rogers contributed to this report.