Police Chief Daniel Comeaux led a tour of the department’s 54,000-square-foot property room near downtown, which has been in use for 42 years. He described the facility as “organized chaos” and said the warehouse is expected to reach 120% capacity, forcing the department to store overflow there.

The department says the crowded building is also unsafe and frequently takes on water. Sexual-assault DNA evidence is covered by tarps, according to the police department. Council Member Willis, who joined the tour, said boxes were leaning into the aisles.

Comeaux said the department has cataloged and stored 145,000 new items in the property room over the past three years. The inventory includes recovered firearms and stolen property, among it hundreds of bicycles. Police say evidence must be retained for trials, appeals and unsolved cases.

“You can’t get a conviction without a good property room,” Comeaux said, warning that evidence problems could jeopardize convictions.

Proposition A also includes a new fire station, a 911 call center, a police academy and a gun range. City officials say those facilities need replacement or major attention.

Rudy Karimi, an opponent of the $443 million proposal, said the city should focus on emergency response times and divide the projects into separate ballot questions. “If this is such a good program, why aren’t they piecemealing it out and breaking it up in five different components and let us, we the people, choose?” he said.

The competing arguments put the condition of city facilities and the priorities for public-safety spending before Dallas voters as they consider the bond measure in November.