8 September 4–10, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents lic hearing, DART representatives continu- ously described the changes as the “worst-case scenario” and said any combi- nation of the changes could be implemented or abandoned. Hundreds of North Texans packed into the DART headquarters for the hearing to express their discontent with the proposed changes. The meeting, which had several overflow rooms as capacity was reached early, lasted well into the night, and local transportation advocates have remained anxious since then, hopeful that the board would listen to reliant riders and release a decision sooner rather than later. “If there is some magic way to do [this] without cutting some important part off, sure, I’m open to it, but I don’t know if we’ll find that in time,” Tyler Wright, vice presi- dent of the Dallas Area Transit Alliance (DATA), said to the Observer. “We’ve been doing this for the past year. Let’s get this passed so we can focus on what we need next. We’ve got a whole two-page sheet of suggestions for things we can advocate for that we’re ready to get in on.” Wright and several of DATA’s members spoke before the board at Tuesday’s meet- ing. They also attended a number of prior meetings about the GMP. But as the board has dropped certain changes and clarified their plans, DATA has changed its tone, ac- cepting that change is necessary for the transit service to stay afloat. “When we found out that service cuts, re- gardless of the GMP, the ones they’re pro- posing, were going to happen… that changed things for us,” said Wright. “Service cuts are happening anyway. The really essential stuff, like new trains and new buses, is not affected by this.” DATA is not necessarily enthused by the changes, but it’s willing to cut its losses so long as it means DART continues to serve North Texas. The hope is that the system can continue to introduce new offerings and improve old ones, while also keeping the city of Plano and its House Rep. Matt Shaheen at bay. Plano, over the last few years, has spear- headed pushback to DART’s funding sys- tem, and Shaheen, on their behalf, has continuously filed bills that would allow Plano and other cities to contribute signifi- cantly less. “DATA does not support the GMP, but we accept it,” Wright said. “We’re not excited about it, but we’re okay with it as long as it protects DART from future existential threats of that same nature that we saw [during the 89th Legislative Session.” Initially, DATA’s knee-jerk response to the changes was outrage. But Wright says the organization has refocused, understand- ing that something needs to be done. If two years of improved but lesser service is the trick to avoiding another battle in the next session, then so be it. “There’s another argument that could be made that if they just run an excellent agency for two years, there’s less of a case for cuts.” Wright noted that Dallas is one of the few cities to increase transit services post-CO- VID, and says that ridership has only in- creased since then. “Ridership is up. Big cities cut revenue service, DART added more,” he said. “If these people could just get out of the way so [DART] can focus on running a good agency and getting more riders, that’s the goal. If this keeps DART safe, we’ll take it. For now, I think they did their best to keep the service cuts down to something that is not great, but not catastrophic.” ▼ FIRST AMENDMENT SCORE ONE FOR A FREE PRESS UT DALLAS LOOSENS BAN ON STUDENT NEWSPAPER DISTRIBUTION. BY EMMA RUBY A fter starting the school year with a sweeping ban on campus news- stands in place, the University of Texas at Dallas has lifted some restrictions for student journalists. The Retrograde, an independent, student- run publication that started last year after campus officials dismantled the staff of the longstanding university newspaper, The Mercury, announced last week that univer- sity officials have granted the publication access to four distribution sites across cam- pus. Before the ban, papers were distributed in 43 locations across campus. A letter sent to student journalists by University President Prabhas Moghe states that The Retrograde will be allowed to be distributed in the student union, activity center, and two locations in the student ser- vices building. This is not the first time UTD student journalists have struggled to distribute their work due to what they describe as university officials’ retaliatory actions. Last year, campus leaders officially shut- tered The Mercury when the entire staff went on strike following the removal of Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez as editor-in-chief. Docu- ments shared with the Observer show that Student Media Director Lydia Lum at- tempted to oust Gutierrez by accusing the journalist of violating the student media’s governing bylaws. The Mercury staff, on the other hand, said Gutierrez’s removal was consistent with speech-squashing actions taken by university officials after student re- porters covered a pro-Palestine encampment that was set up on campus in May 2024. “All of our management team and staff are in agreement where the conditions we’ve been subjected to aren’t great,” Guti- errez told the Observer last year. “If this is something where they’re going to be attack- ing us because we don’t want to commit ourselves to censorship, then we will just be an independent student publication apart from the university.” In January, the student journalists who started The Retrograde, which university of- ficials do not have editorial control over (a standard practice across student media), an- nounced that university officials had begun removing dozens of newspaper stands from campus in advance of the independent pub- lication’s first distribution. When students returned to campus this fall, all of the kiosks had been removed. A spokesperson for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) told the Observer that “even with the rever- sal” of a full-fledged ban on The Retrograde distributing on campus, “UTD continues to discriminate on the basis of viewpoint.” Stu- dent journalists will be on campus through- out Tuesday to pass out newspapers by hand. “We do what we want as student journal- ists and we don’t have to fear campus repri- sal when it comes to our actions,” Gutierrez told FIRE. “The administration has been very insistent that they don’t want this structure to exist at all.” ▼ CITY HALL LET’S JUST TRUST THEM COUNCIL MEMBER SUGGESTS CUTTING POLICE OVERSIGHT, ETHICS OFFICES FOR SAVINGS. BY EMMA RUBY D allas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert doesn’t like the words “bud- get cuts.” She said as much last week, when the council discussed the proposed tax rate for the upcoming fiscal year, which could be half a penny cheaper per $100 valuation than it was this year. After council member Adam Bazaldua used the word “cuts” to de- scribe the city departments receiving less funding next year than they did this year, Tolbert reminded Baz that “cuts is not one of our words.” Instead, she prefers to think of the reshaped budget as an “optimization of service” that “serves the priorities of the community,” or something. Whatever words you want to use, almost no city office (outside of the police and fire departments) is going into the 2025-2026 fiscal year with as much spending money as they’ve had in the past — even though, for the first time, Dallas’ operating budget could top $5 billion. For some of the council’s more fiscally conservative members, that burgeoning budget is a problem, even as corners of City Hall that manage services such as public li- braries and parks are scratching their heads about what the future will look like. “I think we need to be tightening our belts,” said newly elected council member Bill Roth on Wednesday. And, evidently, Roth truly means that. And he doesn’t mind the words “budget cuts” nearly as much as Tolbert does. Thursday evening, the District 11 repre- sentative sent a memo to the city council, mayor, city manager and Dallas’ Chief Fi- nancial Officer, Jack Ireland, that outlined a few areas where Roth believes Marilla Street can slim down. The suggestions are about as close as City Hall can get to taking Ozempic. In the memo, Roth outlines 14 city pro- grams that he feels are “non-essential” to our city’s functioning. If slashed, these pro- grams would represent $13,118,570 in sav- ings in the upcoming fiscal year and $13,389,775 saved in the 2026-2027 budget. Among the programs on Roth’s hit list are the Office of Community Police Oversight (which carries a $673,836 price tag), the Of- fice of Ethics and Compliance ($150,345), the Economic Mobility initiative ($901,072) and the Vision Zero program ($1,597,245). The $1.4 million Drivers of Opportunity pro- gram, the $305,087 for public art contracts, the $2.6 million earmarked for climate ac- tion planning and the development services’ affordable housing program, which costs $934,727, also got the red line from Roth. For the most part, Roth believes that the services these programs provide could be filled elsewhere. For instance, the U.S. De- partment of Justice should be solely respon- sible for investigating police complaints, not a city agency. City Hall’s Human Resources department could manage ethical compli- ance issues. He suggests that public art and cultural services should be administered by philanthropic grants, private donors and community partnerships. Three of Roth’s suggested cuts, the Busi- ness Enterprise Hub, the Drivers of Oppor- tunity program and the Economic Mobility program, were flagged because of potential non-compliance with federal mandates on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. (The city council did approve a pause on DEI-related programming earlier this month, and the City Manager’s office is ex- pected to provide a complete overview of non-compliant initiatives in September.) “These proposed cuts are not made lightly, but are driven by a commitment to responsible stewardship of public funds,” Roth’s memo states. “By eliminating Adobe Stock Frustrated by overzealous campus officials, student journalists at UTD started their own publication last January. Unfair Park from p6 >> p10
