Giovanni Valderas is an artist and activist who also ran for Dallas City Council District 1 in 2019.
He says he’s running again because he’s unsatisfied with the current council member’s performance in office.
My Oak Cliff is a neighborhood where everyone belongs, regardless of race, ethnicity, or how much money you make. Where our paleteros, seamstresses, and dishwashers coexist with our local business owners and newest residents. We are a community that welcomes one another rather than displaces each other.
How would you like to see Dallas change in the next 10 years?
Dallas has one of the highest rates of social, racial and economic inequity of any major cities in America. So we find ourselves at a crossroads. We can continue electing leaders who maintain the policies that have created this inequality, or we can elect leaders who understand the struggles and issues of our community. We need leaders that acknowledge that Dallas doesn’t work for the majority of working families who call it home. We need leaders who will fight for more equitable resources for our neighborhoods instead of approving handouts to special interest groups and out-of-town developers who threaten our history, green space, and culture.
What do you think Dallas did right in the last decade?
Dallas has fallen short of its potential by chasing this idea of “world class” and thinking it’s about fancy bridges and tall buildings. But we have an opportunity to start utilizing the skills and gifts of our community and finally invest in our neighborhoods so that we can build a stronger, healthier, and more equitable Dallas.
Give the current City Council a compliment sandwich:
Name something they’ve done right.
I think there were real attempts in the last budget cycle to start a real conversation about alternatives to spending 60 cents out of every tax dollar on the old model of public safety. But sadly as political pressure grew, most voices on the council that proclaimed ‘Black Lives Matter’ during the protests over the summer grew quiet in their advocacy around the horseshoe.
Something that needs work.
It has been several years since Dallas had the ignominious distinction of being ranked the least equitable big city in America. And since then very little has changed as it relates to the widening gaps between the rich and the working families in this city. I believe our current path is unsustainable – our city will collapse on itself if we do not do more to create opportunity for every child and every adult in this city.
One thing that totally sucked.
The pandemic has shown us in stark relief the harsh inequities that working people in Dallas face. Years of disinvestment by this City have brought many of our working families to the brink of despair and heartache. Covid-19 and the February winter storm only compounded these realities and revealed just how bad it really is. So let’s break this pattern by investing in our working families.
Let’s work with community partners and emergency specialists to establish an equitable crisis plan so this tragic situation of long vaccination lines and power blackouts in our most marginalized communities won’t happen again. Let’s establish a comprehensive equitable Covid-19 outreach program instead of relying on volunteers. Let’s secure funding from public and private partnerships to create qualified mobile teams to go door to door to register people for the vaccine and answer any questions and build trust in our marginalized communities.
Let’s set up an equitable process for grants to benefit our most needy families and small business owners who have been negatively affected by Covid-19.
Let’s invest in our people by providing more resources to improve and deliver better services to our public transportation.
Let’s reevaluate and reimagine what public safety can do and how our community stakeholders can bring solutions that best fit their neighborhood to solve our most pressing issues.
Another thing that also needs work.
We need to engage more voters in our municipal elections. Low voter turnout is a symptom of systemic voter suppression. We need to have more candidates that have lived experiences that are familiar to more working class residents. We need to help voters understand how decisions made by council impact their daily lives in profound ways.
And then another compliment.
I loved seeing the council vote to give voters the opportunity to change the requirements to serve on boards and commissions to include all Dallas residents, regardless of citizenship status. This is an important step toward greater engagement of residents in the business of the city.
What makes you proud to represent Dallas? Oak Cliff?
I was raised by hard-working folks in Oak Cliff. From Mrs. Ransom, my teacher at George Peabody Elementary, who recognized my value and nurtured me through her love and patience; to our next door neighbors who picked my sister and me up after school and watched us until my mother got home from work. In short, I want to represent and give back to the community that helped raise me.
What are your anxieties about where District 1 is headed?
I fear that developers will continue to dictate the trajectory of our neighborhoods. But I want to be clear, I’m not against development. But I am for responsible and sensitive growth that listens to our neighbors.
We know the quickest way to generational wealth is by homeownership, so let’s work with local builders to create dwellings the community can own. Let’s build affordable homes rather than high-rent apartments. It’s time for Dallas to stop giving millions of tax dollars away to developers who build apartments. It’s time to invest in our communities. Let’s prioritize the needs of our homeowners and long-term residents over short-term rentals like Airbnb. Let’s allow our community to decide if they want their neighborhood to be a tourist destination or a community that preserves its culture and legacy for future generations. Let’s establish a community guarantee. Any developer that wants to build something new has to seek out and gain the support of the majority of our community first before they step into my office
How should the City of Dallas be spending money differently?
This city doesn’t have a money problem, it has a priority problem. Let’s end special favors to special friends at City Hall by combing through the budget and redirecting funds into our neighborhoods. The special handout to Royal Blue Grocery store from Highland Park is a perfect example of how “special friends” have certain privileges and access to resources that the majority of our local Oak Cliff businesses don’t. Instead, let’s make sure information and resources reach our current local businesses that have made our community home.
What are this community’s priorities regarding crime and policing?
The most important role of a city councilperson is to concentrate on the necessities that affect us the most, which are safe streets, safe neighborhoods, and investment in infrastructure — especially in the parts of our neighborhood that have been left behind. Let’s have a council member that takes on the issues headfirst instead of delegating his responsibilities to others.
Let’s truly invest in social services like mental health and homelessness services so that our overwhelmed police officers don’t have to handle every issue.
Let’s truly be proactive in regard to public safety by investing in creating an Office of Violence Prevention to create proactive solutions in and with our community.
Let’s invest in a violence interrupter program like other major cities do to help to de-escalate potential deadly situations by hiring community stakeholders who know and live in these communities. I want to be clear, violence interrupters won’t respond to emergency situations such as active stabbings and shootings. Our violence interrupters are valuable assets in our community and I do not want to put their lives in danger.
Let’s compensate our police officers fairly, keeping them from getting poached by other cities, and keeping them in the communities they call home.
Let’s further solid training for our officers in community policing, deescalation of difficult situations, racial sensitivity and crisis intervention along with the standard firearms training.
Let’s strengthen our police oversight board with equitable appointments of community-minded board members, and give the oversight board the power to hold the police accountable when appropriate.
Let’s creatively attack issues such as street racing by working with police and other departments to increase patrol and monitor social media/chat rooms. Let’s be proactive by creating youth outreach programs that educate and allow mentorship with professional race teams. Let’s partner with community stakeholders to create online public service announcements about the dangers of speeding.
Let’s finally take on gunfire by investing in outreach programs to educate our community about the deadly dangers of shooting in the air, but let’s also inform our community that there are consequences. One simple thing we can do now is to install yard signs telling folks about the monetary fines of shooting guns during major holidays and place them in key areas. Other cities do this, why not us?
Let’s invest in lighting our streets so we can discourage, see, and report any criminal activity. These are just a few things I plan to begin doing once I’m on council.
How can the city better serve local small businesses in District 1?
Let’s work together to give our existing small business owners an opportunity to grow so that they can become staples of the community when new development comes in. Family-run businesses should not be driven out by chain stores and luxury apartments.
Let’s truly make it easier for local business owners to understand and access city resources through real, accessible community outreach programs. Let’s focus on smart and sensitive economic growth by creating an effective small-business incubator program for training and development of our local entrepreneurs.
Let’s focus on creating learning labs for new skills run by the employers who will hire them. We do this by teaming up with local chambers of commerce and nonprofits by creating small business incubation programs providing valuable mentorship, business guidance, and relationships with financial institutions making it easier to get business loans.
What is your No. 1 priority, if elected to City Council?
I look to take on our community’s biggest needs and issues by taking an Asset Based Community Development approach. I will gain the perspectives of ALL of my community and work to keep them fully informed through comprehensive outreach. We can no longer just be content with just social media posts, email blasts, and meeting with neighborhood associations occasionally. We should go further by creating new relationships by meeting with folks where they are. Communities will take precedence over developers under my administration. My constituents will know where I stand especially during community meetings.
