8 March 12 - 18, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents ▼ CITY HALL PUMP THE BRAKES AFTER 15 HOUR MEETING, FATE OF CITY HALL BECOMES CLEARER . BY EMMA RUBY N obody believed that determining the fate of Dallas’ City Hall — the bil- lion-dollar building designed by a big-name architect that has become the most famous hunk of concrete in town over the last six months — would be easy. The March 4 City Council meeting to discuss a damning property condition report certainly wasn’t a picnic. Hours of public comment (over 80 individuals spoke on the topic when the council’s special-called meeting began after lunch) were followed by hours of debate that stretched into the next morning. It was tense, at times it got outright adversarial, and it ended with Mayor Eric Johnson speculating that antag- onistic commentary on ethics and the Dallas Mavericks (who have, to this point, stated that there is no plan on the table for the City Hall site) would “probably have conse- quences.” Finally, sometime after 1 a.m., a vote was held to add guardrails to the resolution passed last week by the council’s Finance Committee and to place greater emphasis on providing ongoing information about re- pairs needed in the building. Only the true masochists were still around to see that 9-6 vote roll in. The resolution on the table directed city staff to pursue relocation options for the city government and urged the more immediate relocation of 911 and 311 dispatch opera- tions. The full-steam-ahead directive was tweaked by the full council and softened, as a voting block comprising council members Cara Mendelsohn, Paul Ridley, Adam Ba- zaldua, Paula Blackmon, Bill Roth and Laura Cadena seemed determined to stave off the proverbial wrecking ball. The council members introduced a slew of amendments to the resolution, some of which passed and others that were pretty obviously going to fail after a few minutes of discussion. That didn’t stop our representa- tives from spending their full time allotment discussing them anyway, though! (Sorry, the Observer gets sassy when we’re sleepy.) Here’s what did pass: The city manager’s office is now charged with “exploring” relo- cation possibilities instead of “pursuing” them, and they’re instructed to do so while also continuing to dig into the $1 billion in maintenance repairs that were identified by the team of engineering and design industry leaders that wrote the condition report. They will also provide the council with funding plans for both options, and they have been asked to develop a report that pri- oritizes the most critical maintenance re- pairs needed around the building. In the plan presented to the Finance Committee last week, a panel of experts warned the council against a phased approach to re- pairs, recommending instead a full, five-year overhaul of the building that would see em- ployees temporarily relocated to avoid dis- traction, inconvenience and that pesky little construction carcinogen, asbestos. Finally, the council asked city staff to de- termine whether any of the companies in- volved in the facility condition report stand to benefit from the potential sale of City Hall, which could pose a conflict of interest. Some at the horseshoe insisted that the measure was necessary after dozens of Dal- lasites urged the council for more transpar- ency in the process. Future reports on the state of City Hall will go directly to the full council, rather than a committee for initial briefing. ▼ ELECTIONS STOP US IF YOU HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE DALLAS COUNTY DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS TRADE BLAME FOR ELECTION DAY CONFUSION. BY AUSTIN WOOD C oncerns of voter suppression in Dal- las County swirled on Election Day as voters were redirected under a new precinct-based polling system. On March 3 poll workers at the Martin Weiss Recreation Center in Oak Cliff told the Observer several residents had been re- directed to their registered voting precinct while trying to cast votes at the center. The Dallas Morning News also reported that hundreds of voters, specifically at High- land Park United Methodist Church and the Oak Lawn Branch Library, were directed to other polling places by county-designated election navigators. “We’ve been at the polls all day, and we have experienced time after time voters be- ing confused about their location, about di- rections that they’ve been receiving,” state Rep. Venton Jones told the Observer on Election Day. Jones is headed for a runoff election against Amanda Jones after receiv- ing just under 49% of the vote. Unlike most elections since 2019, Dallas County voters were required to vote at des- ignated voting precincts determined by their place of residence. The change is the result of a push by Dallas County Republicans to hold separate primary elections. Under state law, countywide voting must also be agreed upon by both parties, and the county GOP instead decided to pursue a “precinct-based, community, separate Election Day electoral process.” In January, the county redrew precinct boundaries to adjust for Texas’ controversial new congressional map. Dallas County Democratic Party Executive Director Brenda Allen said most voters didn’t know which precinct they live in, and those who did may not have been aware of the new pre- cincts. “We also have the combination of now separate polling locations, separate voting machines and separate poll workers,” Allen said. “It was an impossible task for our Dal- las County Elections department to execute an election under those circumstances. We had equipment that had not updated.” Dallas County Elections officials did not return requests for comment. “There’s a reason why they want to si- lence voters,” Allen said. “There’s a reason why they’re doing these efforts and testing these kinds of processes and changes. We cannot let them win.” Confusion stemming from the precinct- based system led Dallas County Democratic Party officials to file an emergency petition to extend the 7 p.m. voting deadline to 9 p.m, citing voter confusion tied to inaccuracies on the Texas Secretary of State’s website, is- sues with polling equipment and a brief out- age of the Dallas County Elections Department website. “This is voter suppression by design,” Dallas County Democratic Party Chair Kar- dal Coleman said in a March 3 statement. “When the countywide voting system peo- ple have used for over a decade is discarded, it forces working Texans to hunt for new lo- cations and navigate unnecessary barriers. We are stepping in to clean up the mess made by these partisan decisions.” District Judge Staci Adams granted the motion and ordered the county to keep 279 Democratic polling places open for an addi- tional two hours. Just before 9 p.m, the Texas Supreme Court stayed the emergency motion and or- dered Dallas County to separate votes cast by those who got in line after 7 p.m. as provi- sional ballots after Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed his office had not received the one-hour notice required to make the change. Along with U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s support base, the ruling also ordered Wil- liamson County, the home county of fellow Democratic Senate candidate and state Rep. James Talarico, to separate ballots. William- son County voters waited in lines for hours on Tuesday after another Republican-led implementation of a precinct-based voting system, prompting a court ruling to extend polling hours, the local ABC affiliate re- ported. Dallas County Commissioner Andy Som- merman, a Democrat who ran unopposed in his primary, said that the move to precinct voting was intended to incite “chaos” on election day and spread voter mistrust in a Democratic stronghold. “Their goal is to make us have no confi- dence in elections,” Sommerman said. “There was clearly a strategy here that they Nathan Hunsinger As usual, Dallas City Hall is a hot spot for North Texas news. Nathan Hunsinger Dallas voters were confused about their polling locations under a new precinct-based system. Unfair Park from p6
