09/14/07  Has Ron Kirk taken possession of Tom Leppert?

The past few weeks have been pretty tough for me.  My mother was rushed to the hospital for an extended stay with a life threatening condition.  While she was hospitalized, one of her brothers died.  One of her sisters came up from San Antonio for the funeral, and wound up in intensive care on life support in Waco when she tried to drive home.  Then another uncle's wife of 50 years died.  As I've been driving back and forth to Paris, Texas and down to Waco, all of this illness and death had me feeling very introspective about my own mortality and life experiences.

		If I wasn't already heavy into recollections, Mayor Leppert certainly put me there.  I have a B.A. in History, and I've always heard history repeats itself.  I thought that meant over long periods of time.  It seems like only yesterday that Ron Kirk/Con Jerk was stripping Laura Miller, Larry Duncan and Donna Blumer of all committee chairmanships or even vice-chairmanships because they defied him.			Dave Stokes:   After reading this entry on Mayor Tom’s hissy fit, I suddenly invision him wagging an index finger at us to warn us we may be kept off his toll road after it is built as punishment.     Goodness, if he wanted to hurt Angela Hunt, he could have punished her by naming her head of the new commission to oversee city staff paper cuts or a study group to investigate spelling and grammar of graffiti found within the city limits.  Keeping her off the standing committees is a blessing to Ms. Hunt.  It gives her more time to investigate what happened to the sail boat filled lakes, water front promenade and the gracious life voters were sold so many years ago.     I fear the toll road will be built even if it means sacrificing the Calatrava bridges, the lakes and piles of taxpayer extorted cash.     The folks who are much smarter than everyone else in the universe are going to win again.  This time they cannot call it Victory. It is time to name this monster toll road.  I am torn between ‘Ron Kirk Alimentary Canal’ or ‘Boondoggle Bypass’.
Do you know what they did that was so terrible?  They supported the late Charlotte Mayes for Deputy Mayor Pro-Tem rather than Kirk's choice of Chris Luna.  Actually, Con Jerk did appoint Donna Blumer as Vice-Chair of some committee, but she declined the appointment in a gesture of loyalty to Miller and Duncan.					9/15 James Northrup:    Mitch has lost at least a third of his body weight in a crash diet. The human brain weighs in excess of 24 lbs. So figure he's at least 3 lbs. light upstairs.    As to Leppert acting like Kirk, it's the other way around.  Kirk made good money talking Black and acting White, just like he got paid to do as a lobbyist. Leppert's just being himself.

The news all over the place today is how Mayor Leppert snubbed Councilwoman Angela Hunt by refusing to give her a Chairmanship or Vice-Chairmanship of any council committee and even removed her from the Trinity Project committee altogether.

Leppert shuts Hunt out of leadership September 12, 2007  By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News

Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert isn't giving District 14 City Council member Angela Hunt any more power than he must, declining to name her chairwoman or vice chairwoman of any of the seven council committees he established Tuesday.    Ms. Hunt, a two-term council representative who last session served as vice chairwoman of the body's quality of life committee, is the only member of the 2007-09 council to whom Mr. Leppert did not grant a coveted chairmanship or vice chairmanship.    The mayor, who alone appoints council committees, excluded Ms. Hunt altogether from the Trinity River project committee, which he tapped freshman District 3 council member Dave Neumann to lead. ...  Asked if she felt snubbed by Mr. Leppert, Ms. Hunt said: "I'd leave that to the mayor to discuss. … All of the committees are important, and I'm happy to serve on those the mayor appointed me to."    But former council member Donna Blumer said she's "very disappointed that the mayor I supported would resort to such petty tactics."     "It's purposeful that he didn't put her where her expertise is," said Ms. Blumer, who supports Ms. Hunt's Trinity efforts. "He's trying to limit her influence, and it reflects poorly on him." ...

As usual, Donna Blumer is succinct and correct.  Sam Merten at Dallas Blog had more to say.  I just love this guy.  He's so excited about City Hall stuff.  Even better, he takes positions and states his case well.  Of course, I happen to agree with most of his positions, so I might be biased.

The Wait is Over: Leppert Names Council Committees   by Sam Merten Tue, Sep 11, 2007

... With seven committees and 14 council members, that leaves a spot for each person to serve as chair or vice-chair of a committee. However, someone was left out. Mayor Pro Tem Dr. Elba Garcia is both the chair of the Public Safety Committee and vice-chair of the Trinity River Project Committee, leaving Angela Hunt out of the mix. She also was kicked off the Trinity River Project Committee. Leppert has let the toll road debate cloud his judgment in a disappointing turn of events. I’ll have more on this soon.

If you think Sam Merten is critical of Mayor Leppert's classless treatment of Angela Hunt, Jim Schutze is less tactful.   I am not a great admirer of tact when you are discussing a classless act.  Schutze's blog is right on the money -- no pun intended.

At Least Tom Leppert's Done Bullshitting By Jim Schutze, Sept 12, 2007

There was an a-ha! moment when Mayor Tom Leppert’s city council committee assignments came out -- for council members, anyway. The most notable feature of the assignment list was the freeze-out of council member and Trinity toll road foe Angela Hunt, who was kept from a leadership position on any committee.    In a way, I think the news probably was liberating for the council. It meant they could say to themselves, “Well, thank God we don’t have to give any credence to that corporate team-building mumbo-jumbo bullshit the mayor was selling us right after the election.”    In effect, the mayor has stripped off his platinum corporate commander suit and revealed his under self to be what most mayors are -- a lumpy, bumpy, sweaty-armpits pol.     Right after they got elected, Leppert made the council go do one of those corporate-style retreats, where he brought in a “facilitator” and had them spend hours filling out a personality profile questionnaire, all of which I believe we paid for.    It’s the kind of stuff big corporations typically make you do. Then they can then turn around and tell you: “Based on your LIFO-WIFO profile, the one thing you want in order to become fully hyper-actualized is for us to lay you off. Intriguingly, everyone else in your department has the exact same LIFO-WIFO profile and wants to be canned. Right now. Without returning to your offices. Remember, it’s what you wanted, so you can’t sue us."    So they spent hours listing their favorite food textures and such (I always list “nails and human flesh” on those things). Then the mayor showed them a PowerPoint presentation about what it all meant and how they all fit together according to their head-banger exams.    Only one problem. The PowerPoint had already been put together before the retreat.    Amazing! Hours of head-banger testing reveal that the council already completely agree with the PowerPoint that the mayor already had in his laptop before the retreat even began! Hey, what are the odds? So fantastic!    Look, that’s why I believe that PowerPoint is the source of all evil. It comes from the devil. Wherever you see PowerPoint, the Horned One lurks inside the laptop.    Anyway, they were all waiting to see what Leppert would do with the appointments, because those appointments happen to be a mayor’s only real source of power and his first and most telling opportunity to show his hand. So who does he reveal himself to be?    Ron Kirk!    It’s exactly the same blunderously crude, badly calculated and very counterproductive sleazo-pol move that former mayor Kirk did on then council member and maverick Laura Miller, trying to slap the spit out of her mouth for opposing him on key policies.    This wasn’t just raw politics on Leppert’s part. It was raw dumb politics. This will boost Hunt’s profile far more than any price she will pay for lack of committee assignments.    I spoke at some length yesterday with Leppert about the Trinity toll road controversy. I do not believe that he is a deliberately devious guy. That would give him either too little or too much credit, depending on your view.    The truth is that he’s a consultant himself, more than a true tycoon, and as such he actually believes all this mind-warp stuff that consultants pitch to their corporate clients. You know, “We can make firing people fun. When we’re done with them, the wee little sheepies will be begging to be fired. They will threaten to sue you if you don’t fire them right away.”    Trouble is, politics is too much of a street thing to really allow for much of that crap. He doesn’t have the corporate sanctum to protect him from reality. Thus, he has to show his hand. And it’s a dirty little paw, ain’t it?

Like Donna Blumer, I supported Tom Leppert in the runoff.  Unlike other campaigns I have worked in, I was not emotionally vested in Mr. Leppert.  He was just the better choice.   I knew where he stood on the Trinity Project -- opposite side to my position.  I thought he would bring a different perspective to City Hall, rather than what you would expect from a seasoned politician.  The last thing I expected was that he would morph into a loser like Ron Kirk/Con Jerk. 

Mayor Leppert, you need to set a higher standard as your role model.

This is not a bad day for Angela Hunt.  She is the talk of the town.  It is a very bad day for Mayor Leppert.  He has stepped outside of his charming persona, and a whole bunch of people don't like what we see. 

I love it that Mayor Leppert got Verified Response repealed.  I'm really proud of my councilman, Steve Salazar, for listening to his constituents and voting with Mayor Leppert on this issue.  Monday night at the Bachman Association meeting, Councilman Salazar was still struggling with his decision.  Tim Dickey very eloquently said verified response was effectively removing the "thin blue line" of police officers between the citizens and the bad guys.  Apparently, Councilman Salazar took the comments he heard Monday night to heart.  It's a good thing when a politician listens.

I love it that Mayor Leppert is tight with Dwaine Caraway and Dave Neumann.  They are both serious about making changes in the quality of life of neighborhoods in the Southern Sector.  They both also see the city as a whole.

I do not love it that Mayor Leppert was so low-handed with Councilwoman Hunt.  It's understandable he would put people who support his position on the Trinity Toll Road as chair and vice-chair of the Trinity Project committee, but he should have named her to the committee at least.  More, with 14 chair/vice-positions, he could have given her a vice-chair position of some committee.  She represents a large voter district.  She did get 5816 votes in her re-election.  Only Mitch Rasansky got more votes (6,307).  No other council member broke 5,000.  

As others are saying, this petty move on Mayor's Leppert part will only make Angela Hunt more popular, and will certainly embolden her supporters to get to the polls in November.  She could not buy the kind of publicity that she has had today. 

She has handled it all very well.

I feel just as angry and frustrated as when Con Jerk was so mean to Laura Miller.  Never having been a fan or admirer or supporter of Ron Kirk, any low down stunt he pulled was not unexpected.  It is Kirk's nature to be nasty and mean -- at least to anyone he doesn't need or who he doesn't think will give him money.  I was hoping for more from Mayor Tom Leppert.

Folks can say what they want about Laura Miller, but she refused to do what Tom Leppert has done.  With the way most of the council treated her, Mayor Miller could have shut down Blubbering Bill Blaydes and Flip Flop Ed Oakley by stripping them of their chairmanships and removing them from significant committees.  She did not do that, even though I encouraged her many times to do so. 

Tom Leppert tried to humiliate Angela Hunt without any provocation from her.  She has been respectful in meetings and briefings, even when forcefully stating her case.  I say "Tom Leppert tried to humiliate Angela Hunt", because he failed miserably.  His actions only make him look petty and Ron Kirk-ish.  He may be impressing Our Downtown Betters and the Chamber of Commerce crowd, but they won't be voting in November.  Most of them don't live in the City of Dallas.  The people who signed Angela's petition are Dallas residents.  More importantly, at least 80,000 of them are registered voters.

We had 6 horrible years of Ron Kirk's bullying and nastiness.  Most of the people who supported Tom Leppert were looking for a change in the way things are done at City Hall.  We were promised civility and team building.  It looks like what we've got is Ron Kirk lite.  That's a shame.

sb