DAI

City Hall Statements

August 24, 2005

My name is Theresa Comstock. I am a resident of District 10, a mother of two, and a leader with Dallas Area Interfaith and the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration. Dallas Area Interfaith is an organization of institutions across the city of Dallas, in every council district, that stands for families. Those of you who attended our convention saw 3000 of our members set an agenda for the next two years. We are here today to work on that agenda because we want Dallas to be safe for our children.

For the last 7 years, Dallas has led the nation in crime, including violent crime, for cities our size. This is unacceptable. The solution requires two elements; adequate numbers of police and a real community oriented policing strategy. Dallas Area Interfaith calls for 100 additional police officers per year for the next four years to reach the threshold of 400 new officers in 4 years instead of eight. We also want those officers to be trained in community policing, which to us means, officers getting to know us, patrolling our areas and walking a beat. Having more officers on patrol is essential to making our city safe. This is not an unreasonable expense, it is an investment in the future of Dallas.

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My name is Juanita Cron and I am a member of St. Augustine Catholic church in Pleasant Grove. I am here to tell you that we need more officers in Pleasant Grove and in Dallas.

We can’t wait 8 years until 2013 to get the minimum amount of officers we already need now! Some say this will cost too much. We are already paying too much in the following ways:

¨ Neighborhoods that can afford it, “hire protection” in the form of Enhanced Neighborhood Patrol services. That costs them more.

¨ All of our insurance rates are higher.

¨ And we can’t attract businesses and development because of our crime rate – especially in southern Dallas.

It is costing us more to NOT have the officers we need. Because of this, we, DAI, think that the city manager’s budget is a baseline that needs to be enhanced and not cut.

It is surprising to us that some council members are proposing cuts to our already low services and fee hikes in other areas. To add insult to injury, we are asking people to pay more for services they are not always getting – like the trash that was not picked up for weeks off Saner and Marsalis. We need more officers and we need to maintain our current level of city services.

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Gerald Britt

In the various faith traditions of our Dallas Area Interfaith member congregations, we teach of the ideal city – the city of compassion, the city of love, the city of God, where we live in peace and with justice. However our reality is far from that. In Dallas we live in a city of fear. Listen to what we heard from hundreds of people in our congregations and your districts about crime. In congregation after congregation, North Dallas, South Dallas, and Oak Cliff, we have heard stories about vandalism, break-ins and homicides. We’ve heard about crimes against our homes, against our schools, and against our churches. We’ve heard stories of people chasing after criminals because the police didn’t come. We don’t feel safe. At night gunshots keep us awake. When we go to work, we fear that our houses will be broken into while we’re away. We worry about our children when we send them to schools surrounded by gangs, drugs, and prostitution. We stay away from stores and supermarkets where assaults and robberies have repeatedly taken place. We can’t even feel safe going to church for fear that our car will be one of those stolen during Sunday services. And worst of all we heard a story of a woman being set on fire and burned alive in her car while neighbors called police and watched in horror. All across Dallas we live not in a city of love but in a city of fear. We will not allow this to continue without speaking up. That is why we, Dallas Area Interfaith, call for sufficient funding for more police officers and for community-based policing to significantly reduce the rate of crime. Other cities have succeeded by doing this and so can we. If we are to make our faith values real we must invest in reducing crime, not by cutting other key services, but by renewing our commitment to each other and renewing our commitment to Dallas as we would like it to be.