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6/03/08 Reunion's going
to get the wrecking ball!
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In 1997, when Donna Blumer and I lost our
minds and stepped out to play David to an army of Goliaths, the primary
motivator for us was the bad deal crafted by then City MisManager John
Ware and Mayor Con Jerk/Ron Kirk with Ross Perot, Jr. and Tom Hicks. |
If there was anyone who really
showed courage during that Don Quixote effort, it was former Councilwoman Donna
Blumer. Except for her, Con Jerk had the entire council bullied into
submission with his plan to accommodate John Ware's future boss. (Ware
went to work for Tom Hicks just a few months after the election.) Donna
Blumer was not intimidated by Con Jerk.
We tried to find some celebrity or "big name" to
be the spokesperson for our
campaign, but there were no takers. Donna agreed to be our Chair, and I
was the Treasurer.
Immediately after we announced our campaign, we had offers of financial help
from Dave Capps (Capps Van & Car Rental), Bob Hayes (Avis) and John Grimes
(Enterprise). They had a vested interest in killing the sales tax on car
rentals because it would victimize their customers. The late Lee Posey
(Palm Harbor Homes) had no vested interest other than concern for this city, but
he gave generously to the effort. Greg Mullins was our financial
wizard. |
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6/4 Darryl Baker:
We really
should start a list of "I told you so's"!
1. The Arena for one.
American Airlines, when it finally has to throw in the
towel and declare bankruptcy. Then
whose name will be on the building?
2. Reunion Arena and the red ink
it is bleeding.
3. Union Station / Hyatt and the
red ink there.
4. Starplex -
Annette Strauss'
husband's company sweetheart deal that has never been profitable
-- not to mention the hundreds of poor Black people who were
displaced to build it!
5. Countless City Councils who
will vote to BUILD anything but MAINTAIN and STAFF nothing!
6. Sweetheart deals that allow
former department directors and assistant directors (Kathleen
Davis of Code Compliance) to stay on after they have screwed
up. They are allowed to stay on long enough to get vested in
the City's Retirement Fund -- still 5 years, one of the most
generous in the state. She is not the only one.
7. Trinity River boondoggle that
the Corps of Engineers WILL NOT sign off on because they know it
is a bad idea to build a roadway in a flood way. Why else
is there no another anywhere in the
US? DUH! With less than 25% of the
design and engineering completed at the time of the vote, the
Corps knew full-well there was never a project in its history
where they were called on to review
and give even "tacit approval".
I am sure you can find other items to add to the list. I
only listed ones from the City of Dallas side.
There are other items from DISD,
Dallas County, and other entities that would make the list. |
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We had over 400 volunteers, phoning, building and delivering yard signs.
It was an amazing movement of Dallas taxpayers trying to stop a serious wrong
from happening.
One of the first things we did was send out a bold mailer, which listed several
points of the agreement that were bad for the city, one of which was:
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"These guys control Reunion's
fate, but we still owe $28 million for it." |
That turned out to be a
significant issue to the voters.
The VOTE YES campaign had $4 million to spend, much of which went on polling.
Their polls must have indicated the voters did not want Reunion demolished
because they suddenly started talking about plans to utilize both arenas.
Like the rest of the bad deal cut by Ware and Con Jerk, there was nothing in
writing about preserving Reunion. We were supposed to trust the word of
Tom Hicks and Ross Perot, Jr. We all know what that's worth.
Arlington voters won't be reaping sales taxes or other tax revenue from Tom
Hick's mystic Glory Park any time soon, if ever. How those people could
fall for another pack of sports teams' lies is still a puzzlement.
Reunion was doomed from the get go. The Ware/Con Jerk deal gave the AAC
people the right to manage Reunion and also gave them the right to grab any
bookings secured for Reunion. Right after the AAC opened, the Arena
Mafia announced they could not operate Reunion profitably and dumped it back on
the city (another blooper in the Ware/Con Jerk deal). But, they still got
to grab any bookings secured for Reunion that they wanted.
That's like you going out and finding oil, spending all the time and money
needed to find the oil, and then having a big guy take the oil well from you
because they want it, with no compensation to you for your efforts.
Dallas taxpayers got shafted coming and going.
Here we are 10 years later, and Dallas taxpayers are going to have to pay
several millions to demolish a multi-million dollar building. Guess who
will likely benefit from any land sale afterwards? Of course, Ray Hunt and
his compadres! Dallas taxpayers will have to foot the demolition bill, and
somehow we will wind up paying Ray Hunt to take the land off our hands.
Sounds preposterous, doesn't it?
A lot of my close buddies do not share my enthusiasm for a casino in Reunion.
That's probably because they haven't been to Lake Charles or Shreveport or all
those casinos in Oklahoma, where most cars in the parking lot have Texas license
plates. Gambling is fun! Casinos create lots of jobs. Casinos
also draw conventions (if anything draws conventions these days).
The last time I was in Lake Charles visiting my niece, I stayed at a nice hotel
with a pretty busy casino. I was in the lobby when a tour bus pulled up
and began unloading its passengers. The bus had a lift to lower the wheel
chairs and scooters, and it was like a parade of wheeled geezers motoring
through the lobby, straight for the casinos. Now, you tell me where a
bunch of oldtimers can go around here and have that much fun?
We could rename Reunion to "Transfusion" for the stimulus it would provide our
Dallas economy.
I appreciate Councilmen Ron Natinsky and Dwayne Caraway for trying to do
something to save Reunion and spare Dallas taxpayers another soaking.
Councilman Caraway is convinced the AAC people will come back to the table and
release us from their hold over Reunion bookings:
Several
council
members
expressed
frustration
over an
agreement
City Hall
signed years
ago with the
operators of
the American
Airlines
Center. That
deal
stipulates
that the
larger,
newer
city-owned
arena has
first crack
at any
arena-appropriate
event
attracting
at least
5,000
people.
Reunion,
therefore,
can only
book the
American
Airlines
Center?s
castoffs.
"This is
the most
craziest of
agreements
I've ever
seen,"
Deputy Mayor
Pro Tem
Dwayne
Caraway
said. "They
have us
strangled
... this is
why concerts
are leaving
our city,
going down
I-30 to
Nokia in
Grand
Prairie. The
city of
Dallas is
losing
revenue -
revenue that
could be
coming to
Reunion
Arena."
"They
must come to
the table
with a
reasonable
attitude,"
Mr. Caraway
said of
American
Airlines
Center's
operators, a
group called
Center
Operating
Co. The city
owns the
American
Airlines
Center, as
it does
Reunion.
Don't
count on
such a
contract
renegotiation,
however.
Mr. Poe
said
discussions
with Center
Operating as
recently as
this weekend
went
nowhere.
Brad Mayne,
president
and chief
executive of
Center
Operating,
couldn?t
immediately
be reached
for comment
Monday.
Mr.
Caraway, for
one, wasn't
pleased to
hear about
the
fruitless
weekend
discussions.
"I will
not be one
that will be
strangled
and be
pushed into
a move, and
that's what
I feel we
are doing,"
he said,
imploring
staff to
continue
direct
meetings
with the
executives
of Center
Operating
Co. "I'll be
calling for
a meeting.
I'll be
calling for
it
publicly."
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| I love Dwayne Caraway. He
will be the last optimist standing in the whole World. You just cannot
make him believe that all things are not possible. He lost several races
before he won his seat on the City Council. He never lost his expectation
of success. What others see as defeat, Dwayne Caraway takes as a momentary
set back. We could all use a dose of his optimism. |
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6/4/8 Bob
Hosea:
Dwayne. Must have been four
years ago when he had campaign offices on Corinth. After
hearing some of Dwayne's remarks about
the city, I went over there, met him and had a long talk. Which
led to some door to door stuff and other for his campaign which
he got screwed out of. Our house was in his district. Not
now. I like him. He seemed to be his own man. |
Reunion. Did not stand a chance. Dallas
is notorious. If something has dust on it, it must be torn down. I
spent 14 months traveling to every non-big city from Florida to
Arizona, Junction TX to Edmonton, Saskatchuan(?)
(in the winter) There were so many cool things these cities
and towns; things we should have
done. What did we do? Allowed developers
to tear it all down and replace it with
glass and steel. Monuments
to our stupidity. This city is not going
to change short of a bomb at a meeting of the ODB.
Craig Watkins. Wasn?t there a kids story about the fox watching the
hen house?
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Unfortunately, in the case of Reunion and AAC's strangle hold on it, Perot and
Hicks not only had better lawyers than the City of Dallas when they were
crafting the Arena contract -- they had our City MisManager John Ware looking
out for their interests and not the interests of Dallas citizens. Our
Mayor who supposedly holds a law degree also fell down on his fiduciary
responsibility to our interests during the contract negotiations.
Today, Councilman Caraway calls the Arena contract "the most craziest
agreements". In 1998, Donna Blumer and the rest of our team said
"It's a Bad Deal!!". The deal doesn't smell any better today.
We are $50 million in the hole for our 2009 Budget, but we will wind up spending
up to $10 million to remove Reunion and clear the land for Ray Hunt to take at
some criminally low price.
Sometimes, it feels good to say "told you so". In this case, it
would have been a lot better for everyone had we been proven wrong.
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