Former Dallas Mayors Laura Miller, Tom Leppert on opposite sides of saving or scrapping City Hall

As Dallas council members are set to decide Wednesday whether to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to repair City Hall or abandon it and sell the land, two former mayors are weighing in on the controversy. 

Last week, new estimates showed it would cost the city between nearly $532 million to $611 million to make major repairs to the nearly 50-year-old building designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei. 

Dallas former mayor rejects fixing City Hall

In an interview with CBS News Texas, former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert rejected the idea of fixing City Hall. 

"It's almost a crime to the taxpayers of this city to put that much money into a building,"  Leppert said.

He agreed with the current mayor, Eric Johnson, who spoke with CBS News Texas exclusively last week that it would be much cheaper for taxpayers to move into another building downtown. Leppert said even if the city conducted major repairs on City Hall, it would still cost much more to modernize it and bring it up to today's code standards. 

"So, you'll save that $800 million upfront," said Leppert. "You will have some expenditures to move all of those sorts of things. But the reality is, if you make the renovations to the buildings, you're going to have to move those people anyway." 

When asked if the city could save hundreds of millions of dollars, Leppert said, "Oh, hundreds of millions, easily, hundreds of millions of dollars."

Former Dallas mayor wants to fix City Hall

On the other side of the issue, former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller said the city should fix City Hall. 

"We have an I.M. Pei building," said Miller. "It is significant. It is unique. It's been in movies. It's our home. It's our gathering place. What is really strange to me is that they would have a vote on this when we just heard that their hopeful tenant, the Mavs, wants to go to Valley View. So why the rush? There's no plan for the building. There are no cost estimates and we're just going to cost to demolish it."

Dallas is on the verge of having both the Mavericks and Stars leave the American Airlines Center at Victory Park, with the Mavs likely headed to the old Valley View Mall site and the Stars likely moving to the Willow Bend Mall site in Plano. 

Leppert said the city needs to come up with an entertainment district downtown near the new Convention Center that's being built to attract more people downtown. 

"That's only going to work if conventions come in and see that there's opportunities for retail, restaurant, hospitality, those sorts of things," Leppert said. "So, regardless, we're going to have to rethink and make downtown strong. One of the great things about Dallas is the entrepreneurial spirit, the creativity, the innovation, and the business community come together. If we do, then we'll be fine, but we have to do it."

Miller said the city can better connect its existing parts of downtown, and that it doesn't have to cost a lot. 

"We have so many wonderful pieces now already downtown," said Miller. "We have the Arts District, we have the West End, we have Dealey Plaza, we have all these things. We need to connect them with shade and flowers and clean up the sidewalks and smooth out the roads and make it a place where people say, 'Let's go downtown today and hang out.' We don't have that right now. We can get there much cheaper than we can to, you know, build a $1 billion sports arena."

Both Miller and Leppert said what is really needed in Dallas right now is a new form of governance for the city. They believe instead of the city being run by a City Manager, which is now the case, a strong Mayor should run the city, in which he or she lays out a vision and helps execute it. Then, they said, voters can hold the mayor accountable for his or her plan and leadership. 

Three councilmembers filed a lawsuit on Monday, claiming the city rushed a special meeting to decide if the city should repair City Hall or go somewhere else.  

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