Faux Park

07/16/07 We need some reality in Dallas.

As someone who spends much of her time communicating in the surreal world of the internet, it may seem contradictory for me to criticize a park to be built on top of a tunnel.

DallasBlog has a story about the lid park that is to be built over part of Woodall Rodgers. Construction on Woodall Rodgers Park May Now Begin by Scott Bennett (7/13/7). This park concept has been in the making since the early 90's. It's another ODB project to "revitalize Downtown".

I wrote the following comments on DallasBlog:

This was a stupid idea back in the early 90's when I was on the P&Z.

$10 mill could be better spent on turning Industrial Blvd into the reliever for I-35. Let Ray Hunt and the developers make up the $5-10 mill difference. They will benefit most from this fancy camp for street bums.

How do you have a shortfall of $5-10 million? That's not $5-10. That's a difference of $5 million. But who's counting millions in taxpayers' $$.

I live in NW Dallas and work just north of LBJ. Our area is terribly neglected. Our parks look like they've been vandalized. One much used park was given to DISD and the promise to keep it available to the community was broken.

For the past 20 years an inordinate amount of $$ have been sunk into Downtown. Each project was going to be the catalyst to turn things around. The rest of the city has suffered.

Bachman Lake did get dredged but it's not safe to even sit on a park bench in the middle of the day.

When our existing parks and rec centers are up to decent standards, I'll join the "vision" rah! rah!'s. When NW Hwy stops looking like abandoned, I'll look at the big picture.

Building another fake park that we don't have the resources to maintain is so typical of ODB-thinking. We have Fair Park. I envision City Hall marketing Fair Park for mini-conventions and upgrading the facilities and grounds. I dream of City Hall spending just a little more at our wonderful zoo in Oak Cliff.

If you actually visited some of our neglected treasures, you would understand my lack of enthusiasm for a fake park built on top of a freeway.

The first comment triggered several critical responses from ODB wannabe's. The typical stuff about my lack of vision, my negativity, etc., etc., etc. So, I took the bait and wrote a second comment about my vision. Granted, my vision is somewhat pedestrian. It seems so basic to me that we should fix up our current park stock and restore a treasure like Fair Park before we spend any money on a fake park over a freeway.

The second response generated this little ditty from some anonymous brave heart:

Sharon -- channel your outrage into organizing a community group to support your parks and rec centers. I'm sure that Northwest Dallas has many good people willing to help you do that. That's why Friends of Reverchon Park was formed. Find a corporate partner to help you. Relying on Parks & Rec and demanding tax reductions at the same time makes no sense.

Public-private partnerships in developing green space is necessary in these days.

Can anyone tell me when I have demanded a tax reduction? Not supporting a property tax increase when we see how City Hall wastes our tax dollars does not mean I support a tax reduction.

For over 25 years, Reverchon Park was about 4 blocks West from where I lived and Lee Park was not much further to the East. I was one of the founders of the Lee Park & Arlington Hall Conservancy. It's a very expensive part of the city. Very beautiful, very urban, but very expensive with lots of super wealthy and near wealthy and wannabe wealthy folk living in a tight geographic area. They have the disposable income and leisure time to organize groups and fund those groups. Northwest Dallas is a completely different world.

In my DallasBlog comment, I not only mentioned Bachman Lake, but also Fair Park and the Zoo. Fair Park and the Zoo both have strong organizations behind them, but the lack of interest or adequate funding from City Hall prevents either facility from ever achieving comparable facilities in Fort Worth.

About the same time the first imagining for the Woodall Rodgers Lid Park was happening, a manager of a major downtown hotel who originated from England was trying to convince anyone who would listen that Fair Park was the perfect location for a mini-convention center and tourist attraction. He was bewildered by the cold shoulder he got from City Hall officials and Downtown "leaders". Before accepting his Dallas position, he didn't even know the art deco treasures at Fair Park existed. This was a man who had worked in several cities around the World. He said he had never seen anything like our Fair Park. It was one of the few things about Dallas he found unique to the city. He didn't have to convince me.

Like the man from England, I have never understood why City Hall officials (elected or employed) never prioritize making Fair Park a year round destination. Instead, the people who robbed Downtown of its tenants and retail in the 80's by encouraging office and retail development all the way up to LBJ Freeway are the same people who robbed Fair Park of its museums to revitalize the very Downtown they tried to destroy.

The obvious explanation for City Hall's indifference to Fair Park and our Zoo is their location in South Dallas and Oak Cliff. Despite all the talk about economic development in the Southern Sector, two existing city owned parks are pretty much ignored. Look what Fort Worth has done with their Stockyards and their Zoo! They maintain and market both facilities and make them huge tourist draws.

Ft. Worth has a vibrant Downtown. They didn't strip their arts district and relocate their museums Downtown to make it all happen. They certainly didn't build a fake park over a depressed freeway.

Just because Northwest Dallas has some modest neighborhoods does not mean we don't pay property taxes. There are some very pricey neighborhoods North of Northwest Highway. Unfortunately, Bachman Lake isn't surrounded by high dollar neighborhoods like Reverchon and Lee Park. Much of the remaining neighborhoods that are near Bachman Lake are modest with blue-collar residents who few disposable dollars and even less time for organizing anything. They are raising kids and dealing with all sorts of problems.

Many Northwest Dallas residents are in a burnout mode. Northwest Dallas residents and businesses have spent almost two decades fighting sexually oriented businesses in our area. Northwest Highway has an entire section north of Bachman Lake where City Hall has allowed Burch Management to let their abandoned buildings deteriorate, which discourages investment in the area. When you see the state of their properties, you have to wonder how Building Inspection ever approved them in the first place and why Code Enforcement allows them to remain.

One DallasBlog commentator agreed with me and mentioned how pretty the original Trinity Project pictures looked. Yes, the campaign material looked lovely, but very unrealistic to me. There goes my lack of vision kicking in again. Look at the Woodall Rodgers Lid Park drawing DallasBlog is running with water areas, sculptures, strolling pathways and common areas -- all very green and lovely.

Does anyone remember I M Pei's new City Hall was supposed to be the anchor for new development in the southern end of Downtown? Big plaza for city gatherings. Big pond with floating sculptures. Trees and benches. Those wonderful bronze sculptures.

How many gatherings of citizens have you attended on the City Hall Plaza? There were all those non-citizens last year, but not sure that's what we were promised. The floating sculptures were vandalized. The bronze sculptures were vandalized. How many times have you sat down on a City Hall Plaza bench to enjoy the open space there? Most of the time when I've had to cross the Plaza, the benches were occupied by reclined and sleeping street bums. I just go under the Plaza now and park in the City Hall basement, so I can't say if things have improved.

All that vandalism and vagrancy happening right on the City Hall Plaza!

Sundance Square in Fort Worth worked at ground level primarily because the Bass Family had a private security force protecting it. If anyone truly believes Dallas taxpayers will never have to maintain the Woodall Rodgers Lid Park, I've got some sailboats that floated in the Trinity River to sell you.

Another issue I have with the Woodall Rodgers Lid Park is that $5 million discrepancy in their funding shortfall. There's a huge difference between $10 and $15 million dollars. Since when is $5 million an insignificant amount of money?

When we did the Lee Park Conservancy, there was not even a $500,000 discrepancy. A restored Arlington Hall could generate revenue to sustain its maintenance and continued restoration and maintenance of Lee Park. Had we approached the city or donors with a $5 million discrepancy in our needs, the project would have been dead on arrival.

For those of us who live in the real world where regular people want a park with picnic tables and nearby parking, the Woodall Rodgers Lid Park seems a bit farfetched. Northwest Dallas had a lovely neighborhood park on Walnut Hill between Marsh and Webb Chapel. City Hall entered into a deal to turn the park over to the DISD to use in conjunction with a new elementary school on the corner of Walnut Hill and Webb Chapel. The neighborhood was promised we would have use of the park again after construction was completed. Before the City/DISD deal, there were several covered picnic tables and drive up parking to the park. Almost every Saturday and Sunday, there were families using those picnic areas for birthday parties and other family gatherings. Most of the families were Hispanic.

The school has been open for 2 years now. We didn't get the picnic tables back. We don't have convenient parking. We really don't have much access to the park. I don't know how a senior citizen or someone with any physical disability could get much use out of the park at all.

There has been some talk of using the city's eminent domain condemnation to take the vacant Burch Management buildings and land for a new park. It would be a wonderful thing for the area. Our overcrowded schools are evidence of the many children living in Northwest Dallas. The park would be very visible from Northwest Highway, which might cut down on criminal activity and/or vandalism. It would remove several eyesores currently discouraging redevelopment in the area. It would not take any great engineering fete like hanging a park over a recessed freeway. That's why it's not very likely to happen. The people who decide where to spend the tax dollars that Northwest Dallas homeowners and businesses pay don't think in terms of practicality or real need.

No, it's all about the impossible dream. Even if Don Quixote did tilt at windmills, they were already built and a bunch of horses were not running beneath them.

I confess to having a severe case of resentment toward so much of our limited resources being diverted to Downtown. When is that baby going to walk? When the Woodall Rodgers Lid Park doesn't work, what will be the next sure fire high dollar scheme to "turn Downtown around"?

When is the rest of the city going to get City Hall's attention? For that matter, when is City Hall going to touch base with reality and have some concern for the real world where most of us live?

It's time for City Hall to stop trying to create a faux scenario that obfuscates the reality of Joe Taxpayer's world.

sb