Mayor Johnson: A greener and greater Dallas
The focused advocacy of the Dallas Parks Coalition will give Dallas a competitive advantage as we work to become the major city with the best park system in Texas.
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Last week, I joined some of Dallas’ fiercest park system advocates to officially launch the Dallas Parks Coalition.
Great cities need and deserve great parks. And now is the time to take this city’s efforts to make Dallas greener and greater for all to the next level.
The focused advocacy of the Dallas Parks Coalition will give Dallas a competitive advantage as we work to become the major city with the best park system in Texas!
Help turn the ship around
On Wednesday, the City Council will have a budget workshop where they will vote on proposed amendments to the City’s Manager’s recommended budget.
The amendment process presents the City Council another opportunity to turn the City of Dallas’ ship around and avoid the fiscal iceberg that looms ahead. (Watch an explanation of this metaphor here.)
I will be supporting amendments that put Dallas city government on a path toward fiscal responsibility and lower your city property tax bill.
Email your City Council representative before the workshop on Wednesday and let them know you want a lower tax bill this year, not just a lower tax rate.
A premier American city
It was an honor and a privilege to promote Dallas on the world stage at The Monocle Quality of Life Conference in Munich, Germany.
More than 200 international experts in business, culture, architecture, urbanism, and politics gathered in Munich for the eighth edition of the conference. I joined Mayor (and literal rock star) Matúš Vallo of Bratislava, Slovakia for a panel discussion — “Lessons from City Leaders” — moderated by the editor in chief of Monocle magazine, Andrew Tuck.
The conversation presented an opportunity to share what distinguishes Dallas from other cities in America and across the globe: Dallas is a welcoming city of genuine opportunity for everyone.
The audience was eager to learn about Dallas’ singular success in lowering violent crime and how Dallas became the economic and cultural engine of the fourth largest and fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States.
Dallas is a premier American city on the rise and represents urbanism at its best. Leaders from around the world have taken notice and are interested in learning the secrets of Dallas’s success.
SMU to the ACC
The Southern Methodist University (SMU) Mustangs will join the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in 2024, which means that Dallas’ college football team will be playing the likes of Clemson, Miami, Florida State, and Virginia Tech and its other athletic teams will be playing the likes of Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia very soon!
“The ACC is really interested in using Dallas as a place where teams might come together to have games to minimize the impact of travel on both eastern members and Cal and Stanford.” — Cal Chancellor Carol Christ
With SMU’s ascent to the ACC, the Hilltop will become the premier venue for top tier college athletics in all of North Texas, which means even more visitors to the City of Dallas!
SMU energizes and enriches Dallas. Read the article below to learn why I am confident SMU will do the same for the ACC.
SMU’s ascent to the ACC is long overdue and is the product of a lot of hard work by a lot of people for a very long time. Congratulations to the Triple D Mustangs and Pony Up, Dallas!
Major League citizens
Texas Rangers owners Ray Davis and Neil Leibman provided a tour of the state-of-the-art Texas Rangers Youth Academy in West Dallas. It was impressive to see firsthand how the Texas Rangers are changing thousands of young lives in Dallas. Since opening its doors in 2017, the Youth Academy has welcomed more than 125,000 baseball and softball players and helped more than 80 young people achieve their dreams of playing baseball or softball in college.
The Youth Academy provides children across North Texas with year-round baseball and softball instruction. Its first-rate staff hosts tournaments, coaching clinics, and skills camps in addition to tutoring programs, college preparatory classes, career fairs, financial literacy and internship programs, Major League Baseball industry alternative career workshops, and more!
Major League citizens are being built at the Youth Academy. The commitment of the Texas Rangers to Dallas kids and families is inspiring!
That is all for today. Hope you had a wonderful Labor Day Weekend!
