6 June 4 - 10, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents outside of Plano, while that number is only slightly lower in low-income and minority neighborhoods. Dallas officials, including Mayor Eric Johnson, have championed park access over the last decade, with initiatives such as TPL’s “10-minute Walk to a Park” campaign helping to bridge gaps. Where the city has fallen behind some suburbs is in investment. While Dallas in- creased its per-capita parks spending from $155 to $170 per resident in 2026, that total still lags behind cities like Plano ($228 per resident), Frisco ($304 per resident) and Garland ($270 per resident). Molly Morgan, the state director of TPL, said investment in parks has driven subur- ban gains and is essential for residents’ qual- ity of life. “A healthy, well-funded Park system means that residents have access to every- day green space that is going to help them be healthier, happier and more connected to their neighbors,” Morgan said. “We know that having a park nearby and just spending 20 minutes outside a day can reduce cortisol levels. It encourages greater physical activ- ity in residents.” As the city grapples with soaring police spending and employee health insurance payments while sales tax returns fall short, Dallas officials have asked the park and rec- reation department to reduce its funding by roughly $14 million ahead of the next fiscal year. The decrease could force the depart- ment to close four community centers, cut aquatic center hours and reduce funding for litter pickup and mowing. Community centers and aquatics are both considered in the amenities metric of the park score. Dallas scored near the national average in that regard, although it was the city’s lowest- rated metric, and the amenities score falls be- hind Plano’s and Arlington’s grades. Morgan said she is concerned about the cuts and encouraged residents to advocate for their parks ahead of the budgeting pro- cess. She also said funding cuts would likely lead to a further decrease in the city’s ranking. “I will say that it will impact it,” she said. “We don’t know what percentage amount at this point with how peers will change, but it’ll definitely impact the overall score.” ‘Better Off in the Suburbs’ Rudy Karimi, who represents neighbor- hoods in downtown and Lakewood on the Park and Recreation Board, said the TPL re- port wasn’t especially surprising. “The fall in the rankings is typical for where we’re weak,” Karimi said. “We’re weak in the investment area, in the ameni- ties area, things that we could always do bet- ter if we had more time, more money, more resources to invest in these spaces and intro- duce new amenities that would naturally improve our score, where we do well.” Karimi, along with the majority of the park board, pushed back on the proposed cuts at a recent meeting. District 2 represen- tative Fonya Mondell called many of the proposed cuts “non-negotiable” at the meet- ing and asked, “Where do you expect these people to go” with programs slashed. The department has identified $4.5 mil- lion in efficiencies and new revenue streams, staff told the board, but may still have to cut $8.9 million from the operating budget to align with City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s suggested 15% departmental budget decrease. To bridge the gap, staff have suggested that the Arcadia, Marcus An- nex, Teen Tech Center and Umphress com- munity centers may close. With the cuts presented by staff, remain- ing recreation centers may be limited to 40 operational hours a week, programming for Dallas ISD students would be slimmed down and four aquatic centers would only be open a few days each week. Mowing and litter cleanup would also happen less frequently. “It’s going to be a significant impact, be- cause these are fixed costs,” Karimi said. “We can’t stop grass from growing, we can’t stop litter from showing up in our parks… these things have to be taken care of, and if they’re not taken care of as often, that’s a sig- nificant impact to everybody.” At the meeting, Park and Recreation Di- rector John Jenkins said that the service cuts follow years of staff reductions and budgetary constraints, adding that service cuts may now be unavoidable. “I don’t want anyone to have the false assumption that I’m able to find you $15 million, $14 million in cuts without service cuts,” Jenkins said. The director also told the board that the department will need to decrease its depen- dence on the city’s growingly constrained general fund, which is currently tied down by Texas’ cap on property tax revenues and a voter-approved mandate that 50% of new city revenue be directed toward police funding. To help generate new revenue, staff floated the idea of parks selling billboard space. “That makes sense near the Dallas Zoo or Fair Park or perhaps even on the outskirts of White Rock Lake and Bachmann, but it does not make sense for the smaller parks,” Karimi said. “We don’t want to do that in the smaller neighborhood parks, because these are places where people feel a sense of ownership. It feels like it’s theirs, they’re safe there.” “These parks are accessible; it’s the one last thing they want to give up to commer- cialization or privatization or just any kind of revenue generation. We have to be very, very careful how we approach this.” Part of the $2.5 million in efficiencies in- cluded in the proposed cuts comes from the proposed privatizations of the Cedar Crest Golf Course and Southern Skates skating center. Board members also pushed back on the cuts’ impact on southern Dallas, which they said is disproportionate. Southern Dallas board member Grady McGahan said the proposed aquatics cuts especially “sting” in light of the recent closure of nine city- owned pools, the majority of which were south of downtown. Karimi said the pools were well past their effective lifespan and should have been closed well before last year, although he did say that cuts to ser- vices will “unfairly impact the folks who need them the most.” He said he feels confident that the de- partment will find a way to avoid some cuts after discussions with the city manager’s of- fice, which, he added, are necessary to avoid losing more people to Collin County. “The number right now is just stagger- ing,” Karimi said. “If nothing changes, and if we do hit this doomsday scenario, I’ve said it before, the city manager is basically telling us we’re better off in the suburbs.” ▼ ELECTIONS JUST HOW ELECTABLE, EXACTLY? PAXTON TROUNCED CORNYN. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN IN NOVEMBER? BY EMMA RUBY F or the first time in four decades, John Cornyn lost an election. The incumbent U.S. senator has represented Texas in Washington since 2002, and forged his political career as the state’s attorney general and on the Texas Supreme Court before that. But in a runoff election against his president-endorsed challenger, Ken Paxton, Cornyn was finally crushed. By the time President Donald Trump gave Paxton his backing earlier this month, early voting in the runoff election was already un- derway. Some felt that Paxton’s victory was already a sure thing. Trump accused Cornyn of being a fairweather fan, his support during Trump’s 2024 presidential bid coming too slow. Paxton, on the other hand, would be “a true MAGA Warrior” for Texas. Paxton’s victory on May 26 was decisive — a 28-point win against a four-term incumbent — and padded the president’s record of un- beaten endorsements across the midterm primaries. “I think there was momentum for Pax- ton,” said SMU Associate Professor Ben Voth. “President Trump jumped in, and I do think it helped Paxton. I think it did boost and cause him to win by a larger margin. … It does suggest that in the midterm, the con- servative base is not really asleep.” With the loss, Cornyn joins a diverse group of felled incumbents. Al Green, a Houston Democrat who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2005, was unseated during the runoff. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and Kentucky Congress- man Thomas Massie have both been ousted after Trump endorsed their primary oppo- nents in response to their criticisms of his agenda. Voth believes that voters’ reluctance to re-elect incumbents suggests a desire for a new guard to take over Washington, and that voters on both sides of the aisle may be look- ing for more extreme voices in that search. Whereas Massie and Cassidy were both tar- gets of Trump’s for their public disagree- ments with the president, Cornyn is one of the “less offensive offenders” of the Trump loyalty test. Just three weeks ago, he at- tempted to name a state highway after the president, for example. But compared to Paxton, and many of Congress’s loudest mouths, for that matter, Cornyn is a level head. “I think Cornyn is seen, especially when compared to Ted Cruz, as the more moderate of the two senators,” Voth said. “There is a perception that … Cruz and Paxton and the other alternatives are conservative Texas. And it looks to me like conservative Texans decided, yeah, we’re going to turn out for a May primary.” What This Means for Democrats Within minutes of the Republican race be- ing called for Paxton, Democrats began their attacks. James Talarico, the Democrat nominee for Senate, tweeted out thanks to Cornyn for his years of service and offered, “To Senator Cornyn’s supporters: you have a place in our campaign.” That campaign has already be- gun running attack ads on Paxton’s “cor- rupt” record, posting Paxton’s mugshot from the time he was indicted on three fel- ony counts for investment fraud and launched a campaign tour titled “The Peo- ple vs. Ken Paxton.” “Take this back to January, and Demo- crats had one hope, and it was that Talarico had to win the Democratic primary, and Ken Paxton had to win the Republican primary. Here we are,” said David de la Fuente, a Dal- las Democratic consultant. “It’s Texas, it’s a Republican state for a reason, but everyone’s seeing this $4-a-gallon gas and prices at the grocery store. It’s hard to see how Talarico doesn’t have a chance.” Unfair Park from p5 Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Ken Paxton likes to fight in court and on the campaign trail.
