6/18/8  Why dump on one of the few things the city does right?

DallasArena.com readers know I'm a big fan of the Dallas Zoo!  Our city employees are performing wonders out there.  It was a blow to my heart when I read about City Mgr. Mary Suhm's proposal to help balance the budget by cutting the days of operation at the Zoo.  Of course, it is just a bargaining chip, but it comes when we should be investing more money at the Zoo, not short-changing it.

There have been lots of areas where I have differed with Mayor Leppert since his election, but I don't think he will let harm come to the Zoo.  He was active with the Dallas Zoological Society as a Board Member in 2000-01.  He held his fundraiser out there last week.

What I do believe is that things are out of whack at City Hall when we not only are talking about balancing the budget on the back of our animals, but permanently closing down the Aquarium at Fair Park.  Why?

Obviously, closing the Aquarium will save some money because it's a museum after all and not intended to be a revenue source.  How is closing the Zoo or the Library a day per week going to help the budget?   The animals must be tended daily whether there are paying customers visiting or not.  Librarians are salaried employees and must be paid whether there are library patrons on premises or not.

Museums and Aquariums and Zoos are part of the fabric of urban living.  They are not supposed to be money-makers.

We have billions to spend on String Thing Bridges to nowhere and all the other plans for the Trinity, but the regular people of Dallas who attend the Zoo will not have daily access to affordable entertainment.  Regular people who check out books or use the facilities at the main library or the branch libraries will not have daily access.

All the libraries in town could be closed, and it would not impact my life at all.  I use the internet for research and spend a hefty amount of my disposable income on books.  After I've read them, I like to look at my books and touch them and loan them to friends.  I don't like going to libraries and lugging home books that must be lugged back.  Still, a city that perpetually strives to be "World Class" can never be so without vibrant and well maintained libraries.  Unfortunately, our Downtown Library is abused by the street bums. 

How can we be in this situation when we were just sold the Trinity Project?  How are we going to finance a convention center hotel when we are $50 million short of a balanced budget?  How are we going to afford to demolish Reunion Arena when we are in such a financial hole?

There are so many ways the city can be more efficient.  Actually, the city would be more efficient if we were split into several different cities.  Dallas is just too big geographically to manage efficiently.  Once former MisManager John Ware (who screwed us so he could impress his future boss, Tom Hicks) was speaking to the Greater Dallas Planning Council.  I asked him why my sister paid less taxes and got better city service in Plano than Dallas homeowners.  He didn't even apologize when he told me I should not expect to receive the same level of service in Dallas as Plano residents get.  Sort of the penalty for urban living!

I keep hearing and reading that the bloom is off suburban living and young professionals now want to live in the city.  How is that news?  Yuppies have always wanted to live around other hip and happening cool dudes and dudettes.   We had singles only apartment complexes in the 70's.  Those same apartment complexes are now crime ridden, poorly maintained dumps today.  When singles want to be couples and parents, they want a house and a yard and decent public safety and good public education.  They can find a house and a yard in the city, but wind up paying for private security or living in gated communities and sending their kids to private schools. 

When empty nesters move back to the city, it's to high rises and gated communities.

It's cheaper in the suburbs.  Might not be as stimulating and exciting as urban living, but young parents are usually pretty busy running hither and yon, tending to their youngsters.

Here's what Dallas has for me that I cannot get from the suburbs:  the Dallas Zoo. 

I work just North of LBJ and live just South of Walnut Hill.  I have a neat little "Leave it to Beaver" neighborhood, but I'm a lot closer to Farmers Branch than Downtown Dallas.  Like most areas of Dallas (Lakewood, Oak Lawn, Lake Highlands, Oak Cliff), my "Dallas" is the community where I live.  What happens in Lake Highlands stays in Lake Highlands, etc., etc.  Has nothing to do with me or my neighborhood.

We are getting a new branch library with a theater and other non-book amenities at Webb Chapel.  Grawyler Park has a brand new branch library just off Harry Hines.  Why are we spending millions on new branch libraries if they are so expendable we can close them a day a week?

I could not and do not support the Trinity Project because we cannot and do not maintain what we already have.  Our parks are in terrible shape, but we acquire more land for pocket parks that we cannot afford to maintain.  We cannot and do not take care of our public pools, but we are supposed to believe the city can maintain a giant white water section of the Trinity and fake lakes in the middle of a river that we cannot keep clean.

Look what is happening up in Iowa and all the way down the Mississippi!  Why?  Because people trusted man made structures (levees) to protect them from flooding rivers.  Because people covered up too much arable land with pavement and man made structures, leaving no place for water to be absorbed.  We've got the levees that will fail like 20 are doing along the Mississippi.  We've got the lack of arable land to exacerbate the flooding.  We are going them one better by spending billions to build a road in the middle of our river to absolutely guarantee disaster in the not too distant future.  But, hey, there will be lots of new construction.

What's all this gloom and doom got to do with the Zoo and our libraries being closed a day a week?  We spend way too much of our municipal funds on desert and fast foods and there's not enough left for the vegetables, and we are not exercising good sense. 

One of my neighbors often says he loves to pay taxes and frequently calls for higher taxes at townhall meetings.  If I thought City Hall would suddenly start making sensible decisions with our money, I would be glad to pay more taxes.  I supported the referendum to give our cops and fire fighters a 17% raise several years ago.  I would support a designated new tax like Fort Worth has for their public safety officers.  I will not support throwing more good money after bad, when there is such a lack of common sense at City Hall.

Councilman Rasansky always tries to get his colleagues to see the waste, and frequently has help from Councilwoman Hunt and others.  No matter how sensible their argument for frugality, it is seldom enough for 8 votes. 

To paraphrase Sonny and Cher, "The waste goes on -- la ti da la ti da."

We are going to spend millions demolishing Reunion and then Ray Hunt will charge us big bucks to take the land off our hands.  Why don't we just let it sit there and keep spending a million or so a year?  To paraphrase Dr. John, "It's cheaper to keep her."

We lose $3 or $4 million a year on the Meyerson, and have since it opened -- that's after every penny of revenue is applied.  It would be cheaper to tear down the Meyerson and keep Reunion.  Of course, the Meyerson is used by Our Downtown Betters and the city's elite. 

We can't maintain our parks, and most of our rec centers have serious maintenance issues, like leaky roofs and broken a/c systems.  But, we can build an opera center and a performance hall.  I can count on one hand the people in my neighborhood who will ever attend an event at the opera center or the performance hall, even though homeowners in my neighborhood will have to subsidize those events.  The ODB and the city's elite must be entertained in style.  Regular Joe Taxpayer can make do with less, and should be happy to do so.

I would encourage you to pack your council member's town hall meetings, but the decisions will already be made before those meetings.  Council will already have heard from the special interest groups who don't have day jobs.  All the programs for Seniors will get funded (including stations at community centers for seniors to pay their utility bills rather than spend 42? to mail their payments).  All the programs for the indigent will get funded (free dental and other stuff duplicating county services).  All the artsy fartsy programs for the ODB and the elite will get funded.  Items used by Joe Taxpayer who pays the bills may very well not get funded.

If we can fund an opera house and carry the annual $3-$4 million hit on the Meyerson, we can keep our libraries open, we can keep the Zoo open every day except Christmas and we can save our Aquarium at Fair Park. 

Where are all those Preservation Nazi's when you need them? 

sb