After more than a year of politicking, prioritizing, planning and more politicking, a once-meager bond program focused primarily on streets will now go to voters in November as a $1.05 billion laundry list of long-desired projects.

The Dallas City Council on Wednesday added money to the bond package again at the last minute for projects that had been left on the cutting room floor. The additional $25 million will be spread among a Klyde Warren Park expansion, streetscape improvements in the Medical District and a developer-driven water gardens project on the southern edge of downtown. All three projects have pledged private matching funds and powerful interests behind them, such as energy magnate Kelcy Warren.

The decision to add more projects to the bond -- they were tacked on in an 11-4 vote -- nettled White Rock council member Mark Clayton.

City officials had previously relied on the council and a citizens bond task force to help prioritize the projects and decide what was bond-worthy.

Clayton asked rhetorically if, since the City Council was "having all the lobbyists down here" adding projects at the last minute, he could call a 90-year-old resident and explain to her why she couldn't get what she wanted in the bond.

"I don't know what we do sometimes around here," Clayton said. "If we're going to do a bond program and get all the citizens involved, we had to make choices. We had to do that. Crap, guys. Our normal citizen around here gets the big giant middle finger on every single thing."

City Manager T.C. Broadnax initially pushed back against further expanding what was, a few months ago, an $800 million bond proposal aimed primarily at fixing broken streets and disintegrating alleys.

But in the end, only North Dallas council member Lee Kleinman voted against the package, contending, as he often does, that he couldn't "support maxing out the credit card" for the city. Kleinman did, however, say that he also added "goodies" to the bond since everyone else was doing so.

The other council members were much more upbeat about the bond, which includes parks for downtown Dallas and Pleasant Grove, a skate park at Bachmann Lake, repairs for Fair Park and other cultural and city-owned facilities and new libraries and fire stations.

Council member Philip Kingston, who was critical of the process, said he was nonetheless happy that the council could come together on a bond package that he believed would be "extremely meaningful" to Dallas residents.

"This is the hog trough that these pigs wanted, and it's the one that can get the votes," Kingston said.

And Pleasant Grove's Rickey Callahan called the bond a "game-changer" for his long-neglected district.

"Coming out of the recession, this city was really starved down," he said. "There's a great need, a lot of deferred maintenance items. We've got a lot of pent-up demand."

Voters will be asked to vote on 10 bond propositions on Nov. 7:

$533 million for streets

$262 million for parks



$50 million for Fair Park

$18 million for city facilities

$15 million for libraries

$20 million for homeless assistance facilities

$14 million for cultural facilities

$49 million for flood protection

$32 million for public safety facilities

$55 million for economic development

*Numbers do not add to $1.05 billion because of rounding