4 May 7–13, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents The Survey Says?! Council members say staff are trying to ‘guide the public’ with ques- tion about City Hall’s future. BY AUSTIN WOOD T wo Dallas City Council mem- bers said city staff added lead- ing questions to a public survey about the future of City Hall in a recent memo. Paula Blackmon and Adam Bazaldua have been among the council’s loudest critics of plans to relocate from I.M. Pei’s brutalist city hall building, which is reportedly in need of over $1 billion in deferred maintenance and upgrades. After a marathon 15-hour meeting in March, city council members directed staff to gather more information on funding for existing maintenance needs and on potential relocation options. The two council members cast two of the six votes against the resolution ultimately adopted after 1 a.m. that morning, and now, they have issues with how the information called for is being collected, according to a memo sent to the city manager’s office from Bazaldua and Blackmon. As part of the council directive, city staff prepared a survey gauging resident opinion on city hall’s future with research company Zencity in early April. The 21-question on- line survey is currently open to the public. Blackmon and Bazaldua wrote that it seemed “designed to guide the public to- ward a predetermined conclusion” and failed to provide “adequate space” for the opinions of residents opposing a move. The final list of questions approved by staff differs substantially from Zencity’s original draft questionnaire, according to a copy of the survey obtained by Blackmon, who told the Observer she approved of the earlier version. “They’re not changing an adjective or whatever,” Blackmon said. “It is dramati- cally different. And I’ve been around enough campaigns to know what a poll looks like and what you’re trying to gauge and the pur- pose of it, and I thought what Zencity put forth was definitely a more balanced ap- proach. What I think of the options put for- ward by city management is it became more of a push poll.” The Survey In Question The Zencity draft includes three more ques- tions about City Hall itself, including “Which general approach do you prefer for the future of the current City Hall building and civic offices?” and “What information would you most want before forming a final opinion?” Answer choices include “Preserve the existing City Hall as a civic landmark” and “Preserving it is worth significant in- vestment because of its civic/historic value.” On the other hand, the publicly available survey approved by staff seems to only ask what residents think of the current build- ing’s condition — not its importance or what should be considered in decisions to replace it — and what they want in a future city gov- ernment center. Questions ask how often residents use the building, how they get to 1500 Marilla Street and “what obstacles” they face when visiting City Hall. While two questions ask about what residents think the city should prioritize at a “future City Hall,” none of the prompts exactly give respon- dents a chance to advocate for preservation. “When you put out a skewed poll, or we put out skewed questions, your data is going to be skewed,” Blackmon said. “So then you’re expecting us to make a make a deci- sion on skewed information.” After hearing that staff had made changes to the survey, Blackmon asked for a copy of the questionnaire put forward by Zencity on and received it a few days later, she said. The survey is expected to remain open until the number of residents polled be- comes statistically significant. Collecting that number of responses takes roughly six weeks on average, according to a memo from City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert. “It just piles on to say ‘We’re really not listening to you. We’re just pretending we are,’ and I don’t play that way,” Blackmon said. In a statement, a city spokesman said the questionnaire had been developed based on two council committee meetings that pre- ceded the March 4 meeting. “Zencity, drawing on its best practices and experience, developed preliminary sur- vey questions,” the statement reads. “City staff, informed by discussion at both com- mittee meetings, reviewed and finalized the survey questions.” Council members did not review either set of questions before the survey’s launch, Blackmon said, who added that she felt “the survey should be scrapped.” She also said she felt the process to decide City Hall’s future has been “a textbook of how not to do it.” “Even if you wanted to have a certain re- sult, this is not how to do it, because it’s not just, to me, a bad decision tree,” Blackmon said. “It’s just that we’re setting an example of how processes work at City Hall, and this isn’t proper.” ▼ WTF? FEELIN’ LOOPY WTF IS UP WITH THE CONSTRUCTION ON THE SYLVAN AVENUE BRIDGE? BY EMMA RUBY A t this point, Dallasites are used to orange traffic cones popping up like spring daisies, but it’s rare for the construction scenes to disappear all that quickly. Which is why, sometimes, we get so used to seeing a construction site that it com- pletely fades into the background. That’s what happened to us when it came to the Sylvan Avenue Bridge, which crosses the Trinity to connect West Dallas and the De- sign District. Cones have been on that bridge for more than a year, which inspired one of our readers, Jeff from Oak Cliff, to finally ask, “What’s up with that?” We decided to find out. Bridge in Progress The Sylvan Avenue Bridge spans approxi- mately 3,500 feet and was originally built to carry six lanes of traffic across the Trinity. The bridge replaced an older roadway that sat at a lower elevation and often flooded, and, in an effort to encourage pedestrian traffic, protected sidewalks were installed on each shoulder. The bridge also has an unprotected bike lane, and an access ramp midway across the bridge allows pedestrian and car traffic to access the floodway’s Trammel Crow Park. Because pedestrian and bike traffic are al- ready accounted for in the bridge’s design, our reader Jeff was confused about why cones had suddenly appeared over a year ago, blocking a lane on each side of the bridge. “At first, they poured what looked like concrete plant boxes that sat empty for a year, and cars occasionally were stuck on, but now they are filling them with bricks. There is already a pedestrian walkway and a bike lane, so why would they need to narrow the road for only the bridge portion?” Jeff asked. As it turns out, the construction on the Sylvan Avenue Bridge is part of The Loop, the $135 million plan that will connect 50 miles of contiguous trail around Dallas. The Sylvan Avenue bridge is set to become the Discovery Gateway, connecting the Trinity Strand and Skyline Trails. The connection will also allow cyclists to access the Discov- ery Trail, which leads to Fort Worth. According to a spokesperson for The Loop, the eliminated traffic lane on each side of the bridge will be converted into a pro- tected trail for walkers, runners and cyclists. While the bridge’s original design included a hint of this infrastructure, the Oak Cliff Advo- cate noted in 2015 that the bridge’s unpro- tected bike lanes didn’t exactly feel safe. When The Loop began tinkering with the bridge’s design in 2021, the group said that eliminating two lanes of traffic on the bridge would slow vehicle speeds, creating a safer environment for pedestrian traffic. “But why did things sit there for Nathan Hunsinger Dallas City Hall on Marilla Street. | UNFAIR PARK | >> p6
