Farmers Branch council member accused of calling DART riders ‘trash’
Councilmember Richard Jackson, left, was accused of calling DART riders “trash.”
Councilmember Richard Jackson (left) allegedly referred to people who use DART as trash.
A city council member in Farmers Branch has come under fire for comments made during a meeting Tuesday in which he appeared to call Dallas Area Rapid Transit riders “trash.”
The comments from District 4 Councilmember Richard Jackson came during a discussion on safety, as the northwest Dallas suburb’s city council weighed a resolution to cap its one-cent contribution to DART. More than half of the agency’s 13 member cities want to cut funding including Dallas, Plano and Irving.
“Will this cut result in less policing or more unsafe or reduced services? I find [that] offensive for a city that’s been paying half of its sales tax for 40 years,” Jackson said.
Passengers board a DART light rail train at a station in downtown Dallas.
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Most of DART member cities want to reduce their funding
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Jackson added that DART police don’t seem to do their job in a parking lot near the light rail station.
“We’ve got residents in pretty high dollar townhomes right here in front of a beautiful little rose garden area with nothing but a chain link fence between them and all the trash that comes up here on their trains,” Jackson said.
Jackson’s words led to backlash on social media, including from users on the DART Reddit page.
Jackson did not immediately respond to direct requests for comment. Jeff Brady, a spokesperson for the city, told KERA in a phone call that Jackson’s intent wasn’t to call DART riders “trash.”
“That was never said,” Brady said. “He said that the DART brings vagrancy, trash and crime to Farmers Branch but he was referring to litter.”
When asked for clarification, Brady said that littering and crime at the Farmers Branch light rail station has been an ongoing concern for the city.
“He was talking about the litter that the train actually and literally brings to the DART station in Farmers Branch,” he said. “It’s become an issue and it’s a recurring issue. There is a crime element that our law enforcement has had to deal with on a recurring basis.”
M. Nathan Barbera, who represents Farmers Branch on DART’s board of directors, said in an email that he wasn’t aware of the comment because he was in board meetings on Tuesday.
The Farmers Branch city council ultimately voted unanimously to pass the sales tax resolution calling to cap its contribution to DART.
This story was corrected to note that more than half of DART’s 13 member cities want to cut funding, but have not all formally passed resolutions.
Pablo Arauz Peña is KERA’s growth and infrastructure reporter. Got a tip? Email Pablo at [email protected]. You can follow him on X @pabloaarauz.
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