7 January 2 - 8, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents ties Mike Rhyner, Jake Kemp and Dan McDowell also made their own audio splashes with new podcasts that look to cap- ture some of the 1310 magic. Allred’s Trailblazing Replacement For local Democrats, Nov. 5 wasn’t exactly brimming with happy news. To many ob- servers, Ted Cruz’s decisive defeat of Dallas U.S. Rep. Colin Allred in the U.S. Senate race was the biggest missed opportunity for Democrats. But Allred’s successor in Dis- trict 32, Julie Johnson, represented some- thing encouraging. With her victory, Johnson became the first openly LGBTQ member of the U.S. Congress from the South. Overcoming Obstacles In April, we ran a cover feature taking a look at a local nonprofit that helps kids with spe- cial needs learn indoor rock climbing, skills that help them excel in life outside the climbing gym. And speaking of indoor rock climbing, one of several North Texans to participate in the Paris Summer Olympics, Sam Watson, grabbed global headlines for his speed. No More Homeless Veterans? In February we reported that the city of Dallas had applied for a federal designation stating that it had ended veteran homeless- ness in the city. Now, that doesn’t mean there will never be a veteran on the street, our story explained at the time. It only means that the local homeless response sys- tem can identify homeless veterans and get them off the streets in a relatively short amount of time. ▼ PUBLIC SAFETY QUICK FIRE CHALLENGE DALLAS MAINTAINS TOP-NOTCH FIRE DEPARTMENT WHEN IT COMES TO RESPONSE TIMES. BY ALYSSA FIELDS T he Dallas Fire-Rescue (DFR) Depart- ment is on fire — figuratively. The lo- cal fire department currently boasts quick response times and high ratings de- spite low staffing. “We are doing great, and we just seem to be getting better and better,” said Interim Dallas Fire-Rescue Chief Justin Ball. DFR responds to structural fires within 5 minutes and 20 seconds, or 320 seconds, 92% of the time, says Ball. The National Fire Protection Association establishes a 320-second benchmark goal for fire stations, but many do not reach it. The Houston Fire Department averages 9 minutes and 30 sec- onds to arrive at a fire. In Austin, fire trucks take as long as 16 minutes to respond to the edges of the city. “The members of the department are dedicated and really understand the impor- tance of time in regards to emergencies,” Ball said. Each fire station is scored on how well equipped it is to protect its community. An independent organization, the Insurance Services Office, designates the score based on a number of factors including station lo- cations, water supply and staffing. Scores range from 1 to 10, the lower the score the better. Seven years ago, DFR received the first Class One rating in the department’s history under the guidance of former chief Domi- nique Artis, who is now the city’s first Chief of Public Safety. DFR made great efforts to increase the number of fire stations and hy- drants since the department was given a Class Two rating in 1999. Now there are 59 stations scattered throughout Dallas and 1,719 first responders. Still, the department is understaffed and burdened with high overtime costs. The city hopes to have 2,260 total firefighters by the end of September 2025, effectively lowering the amount of overtime. With 215 firefighter trainees on the way, it would seem the goal is well on its way to being achieved. But that’s not quite so. “For us to take into account attrition and come in on the number, we have to hire a lot more,” said Ball. “So it appears that we have more. But, you know, it takes a long time for them to actually take effect by coming into the field.” The city’s fire academy program takes 14 months, and high turnover rates create gaps in employment numbers. In August, the Dal- las Morning News reported that 44% of the officers expected to be leaving the depart- ment this year were quitting after five years or less. The department is actively working on their retention rate with personal ap- proaches that bolster morale among fire- fighters. “Since I’ve been in my position, I go, me and a few of us go, to the stations every sin- gle week, for the whole afternoon,” Ball said. “And we listen to our members, their con- cerns, and we communicate directly with them.” Ball also hand-delivers awards to exem- plary firefighters. “I intend to continue that, going to the stations every week,” he said. “But, you know, we’re 59 stations and three shifts. It’s still going to take a long time to get around to everyone, everywhere.” This year, DFR was dispatched to 300,000 calls, 7,000 of which were for fires. Stations are dispatching first re- sponders an average of 780 times a day. The department regularly utilizes overtime hours to maintain minimum staffing but it has caught heat for excessive overtime. DFR will wrap up 2024 with just under 55,000 total overtime hours. Last fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30, the depart- ment exceeded the allotted overtime bud- get by several million dollars. In 2023, one fire and rescue officer made over $184,000 in overtime pay. In 2025, the city plans to curb the added expenditures by reducing the DFR overtime budget. “The FY 2024–25 budget includes a re- duction in overtime by $10.3 million with additional savings of $4.5 million annually expected in future years,” said the city’s lat- est budget presentation. But the cut is just one small part of a co- lossal overall city budget increase to the tune of $5 billion. While the overtime budget was dented, the base salary for firefighters in- creased to the $70,000 range and the city added 63 firefighters. In addition, the city’s first responder team budget increased by $78 million. The new budget was approved by Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, who is a strong supporter of the po- lice and fire departments. “Public Safety has always been a top priority and the City of Dallas has demon- strated that through our FY 2024–25 bud- get, which includes recruiting and retention incentives,” said Tolbert in an email. “Dallas Fire-Rescue, led by Interim Chief Justin Ball, exemplifies excellence with exceptional performance and inno- vative programs that set a national stan- dard.” According to the National Fire Protection Association, the average fire response time in the country is over eight-and-a-half min- utes, so DFR is well ahead of the curve. “The credit is for the firefighters in this department, their selfless commitment and their general concern for the people in this city,” said Ball. “I truly believe we have some of the best firefighters in the nation. I hon- estly believe that.” ▼ POLITICS X MARKS THE SPOT TEXAS LAWMAKERS DOMINATE SOCIAL MEDIA AS X BECOMES HOME FOR CONSERVATIVES. BY EMMA RUBY T ed Cruz has been a prolific social me- dia user for years, regularly claiming whatever made-up award is given an- nually for most posts made to X, formerly Twitter, by a member of the U.S. Senate. And though a good portion of Cruz’s many, many tweets are the usual political mumbo jumbo — clips of cable news appear- ances and publicly congratulating col- leagues on various appointments — or advertisements for his podcast, every so of- ten a gem sneaks through that makes it clear how ridiculous this man really is. Like the time he started a Twitter beef with Big Bird, of Sesame Street. Or the time he started a Twitter beef with Elmo, also of Sesame Street. In 2024, Cruz hit “post” on 33% more tweets than he did in 2023, climbing the rankings to become the second overall postingest member of Congress for the year. For the second year in a row, Republican Congressman Chip Roy was X’s most active legislator, a report by Quorum, a D.C.-based public affairs company, recently found. Roy represents parts of Austin, San Antonio and Fredericksburg in the U.S. House. Although Cruz hasn’t achieved the crown of top overall poster, no one in the Senate is coming close to claiming his cham- ber’s title. In 2024, Cruz averaged 27 tweets a day with 9,056 posts; in second place, Rick Scott of Florida posted just over 5,600 times. In fourth place, Texas Sen. John Cornyn hit the post button 3,841 times. “Considering it was an election year, it makes sense that lawmakers were more vo- cal on social media compared to the start of a legislative session,” the report states. “Re- publicans dominated the conversation, au- thoring 54.4% of all posts. This is a major shift from last year when Democrats ac- counted for 50.8% of posts.” As the two top tweeting legislators over- all and the leaders in their respective cham- bers for X postage, Roy and Cruz recorded nearly 20,000 posts to X between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30. These are important people doing important things, y’all! The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recognizes social media in- fluencing as an important cornerstone of our country’s economy! Cruz Can’t Let Cancun Go Not to beat a dead, frozen solid horse corpse over here, but in 2024 Cruz continued using social media to make light of what probably should have been the deciding faux pas of his tenure: the Senator’s 2021 trip to Cancun during a brutal winter storm that knocked out the state’s power grid. We can’t understand how a senator ditching his state during a winter storm that killed 250 Texans wasn’t enough for him to lose reelection, but hey, that’s de- mocracy, folks. Still, are we the only ones left with a sour taste in our mouths each time Cruz continues to joke about the trip? As a cold front descended upon our state this past January, Cruz coyly posted Tom Pennington/Getty Images Dallas Fire-Rescue responds to structural fires in just over five minutes in the vast majority of cases. >> p8
