{"id":235904,"date":"2026-04-05T10:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T10:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/235904\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T10:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T10:17:07","slug":"dallas-council-member-defends-city-manager-after-uproar-over-the-future-of-its-iconic-city-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/235904\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Council Member defends City Manager after uproar over the future of its iconic City Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dallas Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Gay Donnell Willis<\/a> defended City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert after an uproar this past week over the city’s landmark City Hall building designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Willis said, “Our city manager is our chief executive officer.”<\/p>\n

Willis said she expects City Manager Kim Tolbert to be having conversations with community and business leaders, especially the Dallas Mavericks, whose lease at the American Airlines Center expires in 2031.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On March 27th, Mavericks’ CEO Rick Welts sparked the controversy during a conversation with the Greater Dallas Planning Council. He told the audience, “Over a year ago, City Manager Tolbert came to us and said look, I got to move out of City Hall. I can’t afford to operate what we do in that building going forward for the taxpayers. I said, ok, that doesn’t have anything to do with us. But at some point in time, you’ll tell us what’s available.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Willis said, “Knowing that City Hall had deferred maintenance and that this would be an item coming before the city council more than likely over the course of the next year, that I don’t think it’s unreasonable for her to bring that up in a conversation.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other council members, though, including Adam Bazaldua<\/a>, expressed outrage. “Our city manager took it upon herself to bring city hall’s real estate on the market by having that conversation, and that conversation was had prior to any council action,” said Bazaldua.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The conversation between Tolbert and Welts took place in March of last year or earlier.<\/p>\n

In a statement to CBS News Texas, Tolbert said in May and June of last year, she briefed council members on the “urgent need to fund repairs to city facilities, including Dallas City Hall.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

In August, the mayor sent council members a memo to start the process of reviewing options for City Hall.<\/p>\n

Days after the controversy, the Mavericks’ CEO went before reporters to clarify his statements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In a very long conversation with the city manager,” said Welts, “we were discussing a variety of potential sites for a future Mavericks arena, and in that conversation, she told me it could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate city hall and it could be the city would have to consider moving out of city hall.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Council Member Chad West<\/a> is chairman of the council’s Committee on Finance, which is overseeing the process of studying the costs of fixing City Hall or selling the land and the potential for the private sector developing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview with CBS News Texas, West acknowledged he too was caught off guard. “I think it’s a distraction,” said West.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The issue that surprised me was the city manager publicly going out and starting to talk about other uses. So whether that’s an arena or something else, the general discussion happening before we had made the determination as a council on whether we are going to stay in the building and renovate it or move out.”<\/p>\n

The cost estimates to repair City Hall are $329 million, and to modernize it for use during the next 20 years is $1 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview last week, Mayor Eric Johnson told CBS News Texas that he stood by the city’s process.<\/p>\n

“The process has been the definition of transparent,” said Johnson. “It’s just not true that this process hasn’t been transparent. Every single thing that has happened has been compelled by council action.”<\/p>\n

“It’s unfortunate how everything sort of came about with that, and I’m not happy with any of it,” said West. “But, at the end of the day, I do agree with the mayor.” \u00a0<\/p>\n

Bazaldua said he and some council members want another third party to come in and provide cost estimates to fix City Hall. “I am not doing this because I have nostalgia for a building,” said Bazaldua. “I am not opposed to leaving City Hall because it is actually needed. I’m opposed because it’s not needed, because we are lying to the public for what has brought us here. If this is truly about the Dallas Mavericks, then this conversation should have been brought up about the Dallas Mavericks.”<\/p>\n

For her part, the city manager declined CBS News Texas’ request for an on-camera interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Early March, the city council voted 9 to 6, directing the city manager to collect more information about the costs of moving City Hall and selling the land and comparing them to fixing up the building. The council also wants to find out about the potential for private development at the site.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking from her office at City Hall, Willis said, “This corner of downtown 50 years ago is not what it’s going to be in three years when a $3 billion convention center that I’m looking out my window at right now will be open and become very vibrant, bringing people to Dallas from around the country and around the world. It’s going to reshape the kinds of businesses that you see down here, the dining, the entertainment, the cultural experiences, and the housing.”<\/p>\n

Council Members Willis and West, along with Mayor Johnson, were among the nine who voted to obtain more information. West criticized the six who voted against it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The vote by the six against it was, I think, a fiscally irresponsible vote,” said West.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Welts, the Mavericks CEO, the vote was a positive step. “We have the ability now to talk to the city about the potential framework of a deal, and that’s something that we hadn’t been able to talk to the city about before,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He indicated the team prefers to be in downtown Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Mavs are also considering the former site for the Valley View Mall along LBJ Freeway near Preston Road in Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Mavericks say they need to make a decision about where their new arena will be by July.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Gay Donnell Willis defended City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert after an uproar this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,2415,27,292],"class_list":{"0":"post-235904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news","11":"tag-eye-on-politics","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-texas-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235904","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=235904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}