District 14 friends and neighbors, 

Happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed the Holidays. We are excited to see what this new year will bring. City Council meetings resume today, Wednesday, January 10. Please remember these are available to watch online.

2024 Bond

There will be two Special Called Council Meetings this month that will include briefings on the 2024 Bond. The first will be held on Friday January 19th, at 2:00 PM and the second will be held on Wednesday, January 31st at 9:00 AM. This is a critical time to provide your input and feedback to the Council. City Staff and Council have been working to get the bond on the May 2024 Ballot; in order to do so, Council must approve the Bond package by February 14th, 2024. Recommended projects by both the Community Bond Task Force and Staff are available on the City of Dallas Bond Website. You can register to speak on the City Secretary's Website. Click Here to Register!. I encourage you all to voice your priorities through public speaking or by calling and emailing my office.

DFW Airport Board of Directors

On December 13th, the Council voted to appoint the Honorable Angela Hunt, whom I and Councilmember Bazaldua co-nominated, to the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Board of Directors. Having served as District 14 Councilmember from 2005 to 2013, which included Love Field Airport until 2011, Angela possesses extensive knowledge of airport operations, budgets, and management. I am confident that she will be a valuable asset to the City of Dallas on the Board, and I am proud to have supported her appointment.

Homelessness

Like most large cities, homelessness is an ongoing issue in our city. Dallas has initiated many programs to address the needs of our unsheltered neighbors which have successfully made inroads. To provide an update on these efforts, I encourage you to read the following articles on our successes in Dallas.

Here’s how Dallas is reducing homelessness (Dallas Morning News 1.4.24)

How Dallas, Houston flipped the script on the national homelessness trend (Dallas Morning News 1.2.24)

Day Care Facilities

In the last edition of the newsletter, I mentioned a staff-proposed code amendment before the council that would eliminate the currently required specific use permit for child and adult day care facilities in residential areas. I successfully delayed a decision on this issue so that we could obtain input from the community on the pros and cons of such a change, which could have many implications for our residential neighborhoods. The District 14 office is hosting a virtual town hall meeting on Jan. 24. I will provide details soon. I am very interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic. I invite you to share your thoughts and opinions at the meeting or via email before council considers it again on Feb. 14.

As always, if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me or my staff via email:

paul.ridley@dallas.gov

max.sanchez@dallas.gov

apryl.davismaynard@dallas.gov

We appreciate your comments and feedback!

Thank you,

Paul E. Ridley