If the results of last month’s City Council Elections weren’t a victory for Dallas neighborhoods, including East Dallas, they came tantalizingly close.
That’s the opinion of numerous neighborhood residents and business people following the first 14-1 balloting in City history.
“I guess I’m saying I’m really happy with the results,” says Dan Patterson, former president of the Swiss Avenue Historic District Association. “I’m not only happy for East Dallas, but I’m happy for the entire City of Dallas.”
Patterson’s optimism, shared by others, centers on the new Council’s makeup. Eight of its district encompass areas not part of the traditional North Dallas power structure that has ruled the City for years.
The eight districts include much of East Dallas, Oak Lawn, Pleasant Grove, Oak Cliff, South Dallas and West Dallas – racially mixed neighborhoods whose residents have long felt neglected by the City. Now, representatives of those neighborhoods make up a majority of the 15-member Council.
“We have an opportunity to build a coalition between these neighborhoods that is going to make a difference,” says Bobbi Bilnoski, former president of the Greenland Hills Neighborhood Association and editor of the group’s newsletter.
“Going into the election, I was quite upset that East Dallas had been divided into three or four different districts, splitting up neighborhoods. But it didn’t turn out that way.”
In East Dallas, voters re-elected District 9 incumbent Glenn Box, whose district includes the M Streets and Lakewood. Neighborhoods helped incumbent Lori Palmer handily defeat five opponents for the District 14 Council seat, which stretches from Oak Lawn to Lower East Dallas. (At press time, a District 2 winner had not been elected in the runoff between Ricardo Medrano and Chris Luna).
East Dallas residents were part of the overwhelming victory scored by Steve Bartlett in the Mayor’s race, in which the former North Dallas congressman bested five opponents. Bartlett even carried areas that don’t usually vote for conservative Republicans, such as Precinct 3312 in Lower East Dallas, which backed Democrats in the 1984 and 1988 presidential elections.
“From what I heard during the election, I think all of the candidates realize the City has to come together,” says Judy Summers, president of the Greater East Dallas Chamber of Commerce.
“I think they realize this Council will have to be a lot different from the previous Council and will have to set the tone for leadership.”
Bartlett, in fact, may be the key to assembling the eight-district coalition, according to neighborhood leaders. Their reasoning: His support was so broad and included so many diverse groups that he should realize every part of the City – not just North Dallas – is entitled to its fair share.
“He certainly didn’t bend over backwards to court the neighborhoods,” Bilnoski says, “but he is going to be awfully conscious of anything dealing with equality. Because of his past votes, he is going to have to be more aware of public appearances and public relations.”
Still, coalitions are notoriously hard to put together and even harder to sustain. Will a distrust of North Dallas be enough to bind the eight districts together?
“It’s possible, but it sounds improbable,” says Glenn Linden, a past chairman of the SMU history department who writes about Dallas politics.
“It means that the eight will have to feel there are sufficient inequities in the system, and there’s no reason to assume they will do that.”
