How to show up in Dallas County
Surveillance is approved by people who hold public meetings any resident can attend. This page lists the bodies that do that in Dallas County, what we have confirmed about attending each one, and where each publishes its agendas.
We do not publish meeting dates. A schedule we cannot check often enough would eventually send someone to the wrong place on the wrong night. Each body below links to wherever it publishes its own agendas and schedule, and that is the copy to trust.
Countywide
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Dallas County Commissioners Court
Watch this oneThis is the room where the county's plate readers and its real time crime center were approved. It is also one of the more answerable rooms in Texas: every meeting publishes an agenda, minutes and a set of motion sheets in which each decision appears as a numbered court order with the mover, the seconder and the roll call. You can follow an item to its vote without asking anyone.
- When
- Twice a month, on the first and third Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. July is the exception: the Court meets only on the first Tuesday that month.
- Where
- Commissioners Courtroom, Dallas County Records Building, 500 Elm Street, 2nd floor courtroom, Dallas, TX 75202. The Commissioners Court Clerk's office is on the 7th floor, Suite 7600.
- Remote
- Meetings are streamed on the county's YouTube channel, linked from the agenda portal. Watching is not speaking. To speak you register in advance, whether you attend in person or not.
- Public comment
- The county's own page states the rules: "Each individual appearing before the court shall be limited to a maximum of three minutes. Maximum discussion on any one topic shall be limited to 30 minutes regardless of the number of speakers and each speaker shall be limited to one appearance in any calendar month." Read the second and third clauses carefully before you plan around them. On an item a hundred people want to address, the thirty-minute ceiling means roughly the tenth speaker is the last, and speaking once in a month uses up your turn for that month.
- Written comment
- The county's speakers page describes registration and the three-minute limit and does not describe a written comment route. If you cannot make a Tuesday morning, ask the Commissioners Court Clerk's Office on (214) 653-7165 what it accepts.
- Who to ask
- Commissioners Court Clerk's Office, 500 Elm Street, 7th Floor, Suite 7600, Dallas, TX 75202, (214) 653-7165. Open records requests go through the county's Public Records Center. (checked )
The cadence, the room, the three-minute limit, the thirty-minute cap, the one-appearance rule and the Monday 4 p.m. registration deadline were all read from the county's own meeting schedule and speaker registration pages on 15 September 2026. The portal link is the one the county's own Commissioners Court menu uses for both "Court Agenda" and "Court Orders and Contracts".
Confirmed ·
What this list does not cover yet
These are the bodies we have confirmed, not every body in the county. Dallas County has other commissions and committees, and other school and special districts, that we have not documented yet. Several of the county's own committees publish on the same county portal linked above.
Before you go, and after
Civic action
Read what is already on the record for Dallas County first. A resident who has read the contract changes the room.
What is documented in Dallas County →Personal protection
Knowing which systems operate near you also tells you where your own choices still matter.
EFF Surveillance Self-Defense ↗