![\"Dallas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/deep_ellum_police-5.webp\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDallas police officers patrolling in Deep Ellum at night. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDallas police officers patrolling in Deep Ellum at night. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Mike Brooks<\/p>\n
In one week, the Dallas City Council will be at the deadline to call a bond election<\/a> for this November.\u00a0<\/p>\n By the end of Aug. 12, Dallas voters should know whether or not they\u2019ll be asked to approve more than $900 million for public safety projects. The money could contribute to pension obligation bonds, funding for the new police training center <\/a>in southern Dallas, and a $40 million relocation of 911 and 311 call services out of City Hall. If approved, the package propositions would be the second city bond package Dallas voters have been asked to consider in the last two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n That last bullet point is most intriguing. Moving Dallas\u2019 emergency call centers out of City Hall is an argument that has emerged alongside the broader debate over whether City Hall is worth salvaging at all. As it stands right now, phone operators who answer emergency calls are based out of the City Hall basement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some officials argue that the office\u2019s central location has caused problems. When major events happen in the city\u2019s core on weekends, holidays or off hours, responding police traffic can prevent Dallas\u2019 emergency management team from getting to work, Dallas\u2019 Director of Emergency Management <\/a>and Crisis Response, Kevin Oden, said.<\/p>\n Sign up for the This Week\u2019s Top Stories newsletter to get the latest stories delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n THANK YOU!<\/p>\n You’re all set.<\/p>\n CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the cheerleading incident last summer, we were not able to access City Hall in any reasonable amount of time,\u201d said Oden during a June 10 council meeting, referencing the 2025 downtown cheerleading competition that was evacuated after reports were made of a shooting. \u201cWe had to actually relocate to do coordination of that event, because of the traffic in and around downtown. And so we believe that moving these critical functions outside of where the center of government is, in addition to the traffic and the potential risks that downtown faces, expedited our ability to provide emergency operations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Oden, this has been a problem nearly every time downtown has been struck by major incidents. After the July 7 ambush of police officers in 2016, \u201cgetting into downtown was next to impossible.\u201d During major ice and snow storms, Oden has to find ways to keep employees based throughout downtown \u201c24 hours a day,\u201d just to ensure that those workers can maintain access to the building.\u00a0 <\/p>\n In February, the council\u2019s Finance Committee unanimously recommended that the city manager move forward with relocating emergency operations out of City Hall \u201cas quickly as possible.\u201d (In government time, ASAP is at least a year.) Despite impassioned lobbying to preserve City Hall, <\/a>the 911 issue has avoided much of the public scrutiny that other efforts to reduce the building\u2019s workforce have received.\u00a0<\/p>\n Oden noted in June that keeping emergency services out of a city\u2019s core is generally considered a best practice. Dallas\u2019 peer cities, Austin and Houston, both have located their emergency management teams outside of their downtown hubs.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the end of July, The Dallas Morning News reported<\/a> that a city-owned tower in the Cedars is the city\u2019s preferred site for a new 911 and 311 dispatch center. City staff \u201canticipates that\u201d the former IBM building \u201cwill serve as the project site,\u201d a solicitation document obtained by The News states. Approval, however, remains in the council\u2019s hands.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Ultimately, the move would be a multi-million-dollar expense, requested right in the throes of a budget season with no money. Hence why a November bond election is on the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n CBRE, the consulting group that has largely steered the City Hall \u201cLove It or List It\u201d conversation, estimates the cost of moving 911, 311, and emergency management services to a new building at $40 million. That number would get the city \u201ca modern design criteria,\u201d and bring things up to \u201cwhat the industry best practices are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n