August 7th, 2013 Mayor Mike Rawlings & Dallas City Council 1500 Marilla Dallas, TX 75201 Mayor

Rawlings and City Council members, As you know, the City Plan Commission has begun tackling some of the most controversial provisions in the new local ordinance to govern potential gas drilling operations. Unfortunately, evidence is mounting that some City staff members are not acting as honest brokers of the public interest, but rather as advocates for the rejected Trinity East permitswhich they still have hopes of accommodating under the new ordinance. These staff members are contorting what should be an objective process to draft the most protective ordinance for Dallas residents into an exercise designed to make sure the discredited Trinity East permits, and possibly other drilling sites, are ultimately awarded. In particular, staff counsel assigned to the Plan Commission has shown an inability to act as the kind of independent watchdog residents and council members need. Her bias is now actively obstructing the democratic process. At the July 25th Plan Commission workshop on the new ordinance, Assistant City Attorney Tammy Palomino knowingly mislead Commission members about the result of their previous decision concerning the buffer zone or setback distance from a gas well operation to protected uses such as homes, schools, businesses and parks. Almost a month earlier, Commission members came to a consensus that Dallas residents would be protected with 1,500-foot setbacks. There were way many witnesses to this decision, including journalists. According to KERA1: "One of the first changes that grabbed consensus of the Plan Commission was an increase to the buffer zone or setback between gas wells and homes, businesses, schools, and recreational areas. Plan Commissioners want 1,500 feet, not the 1,000 recommended by the task force." In addition, an audio recording of every Plan Commission meeting is made by the City Secretarys office. Excerpts from the recording confirm the Commission reached an undisputed consensus on a 1,500ft setback, despite an attempt by Ms. Palomino to have them reduce that distance2: Commissioner Anglin: The mandate generally would be, in my view, 1,500 feet generally and a 2/3rd [vote] waiver down to 1,000 feet. Commissioner Ridley: I agree with that. Chair Alcantar: OK, any comments? Not one word of opposition to this conclusion is spoken. Toward the end of the meeting, Ms. Palomino tried to get the distance reduced to 1,000 feet, a distance that could be more accommodating to new requests for approval of the Trinity East sites and other drilling proposals. Assistant City Attorney Tammy Palomino: Commissioner Anglin recommended 1,500 feet, do we

need to have more debate on that? Is there a majority that wants to go back to 1,000 feet vs. the suggested 1,500? Chair Alcantar: I think we are all in agreement on 1,500you got that, Tammy? Assistant City Attorney Tammy Palomino: I doI will draft the changes to the spacing. But in reporting back the results of that decision to the Commission last week, Ms. Palomino told the Plan Commission that none of that had ever happened. She tried to clumsily erase a critical decision about setbacks from the official record that only she is allowed to compile. According to her, there had been no consensus on setbacks at all, and even if there were, staff would have to analyze how these setback distances would affect the existing drilling proposals. Consistent with her assertion that we did not have a consensus, Ms. Palomino did not include the 1,500ft setback provision in the latest version of the draft ordinance that she distributed at last weeks workshop. Again, excerpts from the audio recording3: Commissioner Paul Ridley: At the last meeting we had a consensus on 1,500 feet. Why is that not reflected in the base draft? Assistant City Attorney Tammy Palomino: Because at the last meeting at the end I said that staff needed to look at that because those numbers are different.from what the task force recommended.and we need to come back and provide information on how that may or may not affect land use.We did not have a consensus on that, either.Those two things will come back to you after we do our research about how the two numbers affect the areas.We agreed that I would only put consensus items in the ordinance and come back to other items.Those two issues are still outstanding. Even after this embarrassing exchange, Ms. Palomino has continued to refuse to include the 1,500ft setback in her official record of the ordinance draft. She left it out in her latest version of a draft ordinance4 prepared for the August 8th Plan Commission workshop. It is clear that, in this case, whenever the Plan Commission comes to a consensus that City staff thinks will make it harder to approve the Trinity East permits, staff disregards it and attempts to manipulate the process until that obstacle is removedat least from the record. This problem of staff bias towards the Trinity East permits has been omnipresent at Dallas City Hall since the 2007 secret deal between Trinity East and City Manager Mary Suhm was signed. There has been a long trail of contorting the process over the last six years: While the City Council and Park Board agreed that drilling would only be allowed under Dallas park land, the City Manager signed a secret letter with Trinity East pledging to assist the gas company in any way necessary to obtain permission to drill on park land. The Gas Drilling Task Force was compelled to reconsider its own agreed-to recommendations at its last meeting and reverse some of its protectionsone week after a presentation from City staff about the implications of those proposals, and without any public comment allowed. City staff strongly recommended approving the Trinity East drilling applications, even though they had recommended rejecting another industrial operation that would have produced far less

pollution in the exact same place. All the reasons given by City staff to reject one proposal protecting the new Elm Fork Soccer Complex and Trinity River wetlands, complying with the forwardDallas! comprehensive planwere strangely missing from their recommendation on the drilling proposal. After such a long history of interference on behalf of the company, residents and Council members would be nave to expect staff to now reverse course and act as unbiased arbiters in the writing of a new gas drilling ordinance. Staff cant serve two masters, and some clearly are not. Time and again, these staff members have chosen to be lobbyists for the Trinity East sites rather than for Dallas residents. A new Dallas gas drilling ordinance should reflect the most recent science and public sentiment on display at City Hall over the last seven months of debate on this issue, not the institutional bias of a small circle of city staff members who have their own, different agenda. To prevent their bias from permanently disabling the new gas drilling ordinance, independent counsel should be sought by the Council to provide more objective advice and expertise. Citizens cant have any confidence in staff that so actively tries to subvert the will of what is supposed to be a fair and impartial process. We hope youll take action to restore their faith and remove the threat of another ethics controversy stemming from the Citys handling of the Trinity East permits. Thank you, Zac Trahan Texas Campaign for the Environment Raymond Crawford Dallas Area Residents for Responsible Drilling Molly Rooke Dallas Sierra Club Jim Schermbeck Downwinders at Risk Ed Meyer Mountain Creek Neighborhood Alliance Mary Warren Climate Reality Leadership Corps Marc McCord FracDallas

1. Dallas Gas Drilling Ordinance Could Be Tougher Than Task Force Recommendations, KERA News, 6/20/13 http://keranews.org/post/dallas-gas-drilling-ordinance-could-be-tougher-task-force-recommendations 2. Excerpts from audio recording of June 20th Dallas City Plan Commission meeting http://www.texasenvironment.org/downloadit.cfm?DocID=473 3. Excerpts from audio recording of July 25th Dallas City Plan Commission meeting http://www.texasenvironment.org/downloadit.cfm?DocID=474 4. Draft gas drilling ordinance provided by Dallas City Attorneys Office to City Plan Commission, 8/2/13 http://www.texasenvironment.org/downloadit.cfm?DocID=472