The City’s permit department may have had a mindset of "Rules for thee but not for me" when it relocated staff to 7800 N Stemmons Fwy without following protocol earlier this month.
Council Member Cara Mendelsohn (District 12) wants to know why the Development Services Department (DSD) moved staff to its new building without the required permits or final approval from the Dallas Fire Marshal.
Mendelsohn has called for a special meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on General Investigating and Ethics to look into the blunder. The meeting is set for 3 p.m. on April 25.
In recent years, DSD has been known for occasional permit delays, lengthy review times, and poor communication with stakeholders under City Manager T.C. Broadnax. While the department has made some improvements, the decision to move staff to the new northwest district permit office without the necessary approval, only to then move them back to the Oak Cliff Municipal Center (OCMC), has damaged confidence in the department’s management among some Dallas City Council members.
Council Member Jesse Moreno (District 2) recently expressed frustration, saying, “The frustrating part is, one, we’ve spent a lot of money, and we’re shuffling staff back and forth between buildings, which isn’t a good work environment. And, [two], if the city can’t obtain its own [certificate of occupancy], I can feel how frustrated our general public is when they try to do business in our city,” according to told The Dallas Morning News.
As previously reported by DX, the 7800 N Stemmons Fwy building had around 140 code violations on April 1, leading the Dallas Fire Marshal to close it until further notice.
According to Assistant City Manager Majed Al-Ghafry, the remaining improvements needed for the building include a fire suppression system, IT equipment and connectivity, elevator work, and other key tenant enhancements.
“Employees will stay in OCMC until all improvements to 7800 Stemmons are complete. There will be no partial move back. For the short term, we will work with IT, Building Services, the Bond Office, and Development Services to assess required facility updates and funding gaps for immediate needs,” said Al-Ghafry said in a memo to the Dallas City Council, per CandysDirt.com.
“We will continue to communicate this important information to all our internal and external stakeholders promptly. Our goal is to finish the work quickly and move staff back once the building is complete,” he added.
Even DMN’s editorial board was surprised by the incompetence of City management in allowing such an error to occur.
“It is impossible to call this mess anything other than an inexcusable management failure that is all too common at City Hall. … The council must hold city management responsible at high levels for this failure,” the editorial board wrote.
Oversight of DSD ultimately falls to Broadnax, who announced in February that he planned on resigning from his role after most members of Dallas City Council requested his resignation. The troubled city manager initially planned to leave in June, but he was hired by the City of Austin to lead its operations, prompting Broadnax to resign earlier. May 6.
Once Broadnax departs for Austin, Deputy City Manager Kim Tolbert will step in as temporary city manager and serve until the Dallas City Council selects a permanent replacement.
As previously mentioned, reported, a recent investigative series into Tolbert’s left-wing social media activity by DX seemingly led her to block the news outlet on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
