Council member has huge goals for Dallas

By Judy Babb

Dallas City Council member Paula Blackmon is a force to be reckoned with and one whose efforts resulted in things Dallasites are familiar with. She has had her hands in countless projects during her 25 years of public service.

The successes are many.

If you’ve visited Klyde Warren Park, you are standing on a structure for which Blackmon got the original funding. When she was working for the Real Estate Council, she was the staff member charged with selling the city staff on the idea and creating a path forward. That resulted in the first $1.1 million for the park.

If you have ridden Dallas Area Regional Transit, you are sitting in a vehicle she worked on as community representative and state/local affairs manager for DART.

Blackmon has served with Dallas ISD superintendent Mike Miles and as Deputy Chief of Staff to former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and as Chief of Staff to Mayor Mike Rawlings.

Blackmon is in her second term as a council member for Dallas’ District 9. She was first elected in 2019. Her enthusiasm about her work for Dallas is electric as she energetically explains what she does and her vision for all of Dallas. 

“Dallas is set up to attract people from the East and West coasts,” she said. “How we are going to manage people coming in so that we are in control of the growth and not having it control us is important.”

While Blackmon is elected by District 9, the district that encompasses White Rock Lake and East Dallas, her desire is to make all of Dallas better. 

“Our growth is going to have to be vertical,” Blackmon said of Dallas being pretty much built out. “We want to create a diverse, energetic city in every district in Dallas. The opportunity that lies before Dallas is to manage by preparing now.”

This means the Dallas City Council has to manage growth, the tax rate, the tax base and the council has to work in harmony, Blackmon said. In May, the council authorized moving forward with the ForwardDallas! Comprehensive Plan. 

Land in Dallas “is a critical and limited resource,” the City of Dallas website explains, but it isn’t the only thing council members are looking at. “This update comes at a time of great change for Dallas, the nation and the world. The crises of COVID-19, climate change and racial injustice have highlighted the need to reevaluate existing land use policies and adopt new, more equitable and sustainable strategies.”

Blackmon explained what the council is working on now will actually give a path to how the city will look in 10 to 20 years. The plan is both broad and specific. It looks at land use, economic development, housing, transportation, urban design, the environment and neighborhoods. 

ForwardDallas! recognizes the importance of maintaining, stabilizing and revitalizing existing neighborhood and “encouraging the creation of new neighborhoods that are safe, pedestrian-friendly and provide diverse housing opportunities is one of the City’s key economic development priorities.”

Blackmon has a number of projects of which she is most proud.

She sees the importance of keeping up with White Rock Lake a priority. In October 2020, Oncor clear cut an area around the south end of the lake, filling a pond with mulch. Working together, Oncor and the City of Dallas have created a nature area in which wildlife flourishes and nature enthusiasts can enjoy birds, beaver and other wildlife. The clear cutting won’t happen again, preserving the area for both creatures and people who enjoy them.

How streets can be made multi-modal systems is another area of import. “The streets need to be friendly for pedestrians, bikes and cars,” she said. 

Finally, she said she was proud of how Dallas survived COVID-19.

“We were active getting people the assistance they needed,” Blackmon said. 

“We have been using the dollars we had from the state and federal government to work with the community. We got WIFI connections for those who needed them. We worked to keep a balance.”

With the CDC moratorium on evictions cancelled, Blackmon said the city will be working to get the available money into the hands of renters and owners. She explained people wouldn’t be evicted immediately — the courts are just now opening up and the process of evictions would be delayed. Meanwhile the city will work to help.

As Blackmon looked toward the future, she talked of what she’d like to see the council accomplish. She first mentioned White Rock Lake. 

“We have a bond in 2023-2024 that will look at the big-ticket items,” she said. “We need to look at the docks, the trails and better connections. We need to figure out how White Rock Lake will be utilized as a regional park.”

You may wonder how Blackmon got into serving her city. Her mother said it was because you couldn’t tell Paula “no.”

“If someone said I couldn’t do something, I would figure out how to get to the root of the problem. I wouldn’t just go from A to B. I had to go to Z and work my way back to B.

“If it’s worth doing, then it’s worth taking all the steps to do it,” Blackmon said. 

And she also has a special talent, which helps her accomplish a lot.

“I work well with people.”

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