Dallas Asks AG to Withhold Thousands of City Hall Emails

Adding significantly to the present drama, the City of Dallas is asking the Texas Attorney General for permission to suppress thousands of emails about the future of the I.M. Pei-designed City Hall. The move deepens an already combustible transparency fight between City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert and members of her own council.

"I questioned this decision on her part, this unilateral decision without consulting the council, and I also question the fact that she kept it secret for a year," Council Member Paul Ridley said on WFAA's Inside Texas Politics. "That is not a transparent process."The open-records standoff follows Mavericks CEO Rick Welts's disclosure at a Greater Dallas Planning Council sports economics panel that Tolbert approached the team "over a year ago" about vacating the building. "City Manager Tolbert came to us and said, 'Look, I've got to move out of City Hall. I can't afford to operate what we do in that building going forward for the taxpayers,'" Welts told the panel audience.

Tolbert has declined on-camera interviews but said in a statement that discussions with the Mavericks and Stars included "the teams' need for a modern fan-friendly arena experience." The city turned over 649 pages of records but invoked the Texas Homeland Security Act to shield the rest. Council is expected to decide the building's future in late May.