New Dallas apartment safety ordinance approved

by Michael Davis of Dallas Progress

Now the City has more tools to rid our city of slumlords that ignore major issues on their properties.

I have been writing about needs to increase apartment safety since I started Dallas Progress. This ordinance has been worked on for months.

Thanks to Mayor Pro Tem Dr. Elba Garcia, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway, and the rest of the Public Safety Committee for making sure this ordinance got to Council. Councilman Tennell Atkins also added a great amendment to make sure that the owners must be at the table when problems get addressed.

I also thank Deputy Chief Brian Harvey and Lt. Keith Allen for their hard work, creativity, and leadership. I thank them for using some of my ideas in crafting the program. Among other things, the ordinance calls for required security, monitoring, lawsuits, and shutting down apartment complexes.

I also thought some of the editorials written in the last week or so targeting certain complexes were ill-targeted. Before Dwaine got to Council, little or nothing was said about apartment complex safety in southern Dallas. Dwaine has been pounding the table about apartments at every public safety meeting and almost every week at the horseshoe, down to asking about specific complexes. The result is this ordinance.

Most of the things that have called for in last week's newspaper editorials are already on the way, as mentioned above.

Again, thanks to all that are responsible for this ordinance coming to pass. Now the City has more tools to rid our city of slumlords that ignore major issues on their properties.