Several cities have submitted letters <\/a>to the DART board outlining city-specific goals and calling for changes to the agency\u2019s funding structure and governance. The proposals serve as the basis for negotiations to call off elections by March 24, the last day to legally do so. Farmers Branch and Irving\u2019s publicly available letters were included in a presentation made available to Council members ahead of the meeting.<\/p>\nAfter close to two hours of at times tense discussion on what the city would like to see in the document, termed a \u201cletter of demands\u201d by Council member Dan Liscio in the meeting, an uneasy consensus was reached on Addison\u2019s goals for funding reform, levels of service and DART governance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Council decided to request the return of some of the city\u2019s 1-cent sales tax contribution in the form of a general mobility program. Similar to proposals from Plano and Farmers Branch, the GMP would initially return 25% of Addison\u2019s sales tax dollars to the city, increasing to 50% by 2031.<\/p>\n
As in other discontented member cities, Addison\u2019s return on investment under DART has come under scrutiny from officials in recent months, with agency data from an Ernst and Young study showing that the city contributed $16.7 million in sales tax to DART in 2023. That year, $9 million worth of services were provided to Addison.<\/p>\n
However, under a general mobility program, cities would be required to direct freed-up revenue toward transportation-related projects and likely have to provide DART with annual expenditure reports. Council members like Howard Freed and Randy Smith said they wouldn\u2019t support that model as a long-term solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey couldn\u2019t come back with any percentage to me that I would be happy with on financing, because they would have to dictate that,\u201d Smith said in the meeting. \u201cAnd at this point, I don\u2019t know why we are concentrating on us writing a letter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only the state legislature can permanently reduce DART\u2019s sales tax contributions without stipulations on how the funds are spent. Council member Darren Gardner called the GMP a \u201cstopgap\u201d until cities can effect more fundamental changes in Austin.<\/p>\n
The group decided to call for bus, rail and federally required paratransit services to continue being provided by DART, with GMP funds used to fund circulator routes and point-to-point service. Alternate service models, including microtransit, will be discussed at a future meeting.<\/p>\n
City Manager David Gaines said it was unrealistic for bus, rail and paratransit service levels to remain unchanged with an up to 50% reduction in sales tax contribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going to do 50% with the same service level,\u201d Gaines said in the meeting.<\/p>\n
Mayor Bruce Artsfen, who cast one of the two votes against calling the May election, said some demands were contradictory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we kind of have conflicting goals here. We want to save a little and get all this money back. We want them to do everything,\u201d Artsfen said. \u201cWant everything to be cleaner and safer. Which\u2026 100% I\u2019m on board for that, but we can\u2019t reduce service and reduce the scope of what they\u2019re offering and provide better service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Changes to DART\u2019s governance structure were also called for. Council members echoed demands from cities like Irving for a \u201cone city, one vote\u201d board structure, in which each member city would have its interests represented by at least one board member. Votes would be weighted by population. Addison, Richardson, Highland Park and University Park are currently represented on the DART board by one board member.<\/p>\n
The Dallas City Council\u2019s transportation and infrastructure committee recently gave the city manager leeway to negotiate the city\u2019s number of seats on a potentially expanded 20-member board. Committee members, however, remained adamant that the city retain decision-making power on the board. Dallas representatives currently hold or share eight of the DART board\u2019s 15 seats.<\/p>\n
At the meeting, Addison Council members said they were opposed to that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s unreasonable for Dallas to have a 50% weighted vote,\u201d Mayor Pro Tem Marlin Wilson said at the meeting. \u201cI think that\u2019s crazy. I think 40%, with the size of Dallas and the money and so forth, is reasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transparency, safety and cleanliness were also highlighted as topics for the letter in the meeting.<\/p>\n
The council will next meet on Feb. 10 to discuss further steps and contingency plans if voters choose to withdraw from DART. City managers like Gaines will continue negotiations in the meantime.<\/p>\n
With six cities proposing six solutions to six sets of localized issues, he told Council members the response likely won\u2019t be as nuanced.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they [DART] have a solution at all, it will be a one-size-fits-all solution,\u201d Gaines said. \u201cThey\u2019re not going to have different ILAs [inter-local agreements] with different cities, understandably.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DART has recently made many cuts to services and routes. Gordon Shattles\/DART The Addison City Council voted to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-152294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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