05/25/06  What's left for the rest of the city?

If you live anywhere North of Downtown, you can't expect much out of the upcoming bond election or anything else from City Hall.  For that matter, there's not much going to happen good for any area that's not Downtown or the Trinity Project.

No group has been more supportive of the Trinity Project than businesses in the Stemmons Corridor.  Now, their support is turning around to bite them in their collective rears. 

Power line route sparks businesses' anger; Dallas: Irving Boulevard not ideal but keeps Trinity clear, city says Wednesday, May 24, 2006 By EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News

When TXU warned that it would need a new high-capacity power line along the Trinity Corridor, Dallas officials made a desperate request: Keep it out of the riverbed.    While the proposed alignment skirts the bulk of Dallas' signature parks project, it runs smack down the middle of Irving Boulevard ? a route that has property owners along this "Trucker's Row" agitated.    "We're business owners who have invested in the area and paid property taxes and generated sales tax for so many years," said Rud Hefner, general manager of Southwest International Trucks, which has been on the strip for a quarter-century. "And now they're going to drop these power lines in our lap so they can attract new people to invest in the Trinity."    City officials say they've exhausted their possibilities, and the Irving Boulevard route is "the best of the worst." While not ideal, it serves a dual purpose: it keeps power lines out of the Trinity and allows lower-voltage lines along the east bank of the river to be moved inland and hung below the proposed 345-kilovolt line.    That line will stand 11 stories tall and will be an essential link between Irving's Norwood switching station and Dallas' West Levee station, which serves downtown, West Dallas and Oak Cliff.    "It's not the perfect situation, but we have run every alignment possible, and we have not come up with a better one," Dallas City Council member Ed Oakley said. "Keeping [power lines] along the Trinity ? that's not going to happen. We're not making that mistake again."    For years, the city has treated the Trinity River as its back alley. Now it's threatening to do the same along the Stemmons Corridor, Irving Boulevard business owners say. The transmission lines will be eyesores that dramatically devalue their investments, they argue, and they say there's no telling what health and safety risks they could pose.    "They're cleaning up the river and throwing out the power lines ... and our boulevard is caught in the cross hairs," said Mark Spence, who operates Superior Cooling Services and is one of more than 40 property owners who have filed with the state to intervene in the alignment process. ... The Irving Boulevard business owners aren't the only ones protesting the alignment. The city itself has filed to intervene in the process ? but for a far different reason. Dallas agrees with the route but wants a milelong portion of the unsightly line along the river's West Levee to be buried, a $17 million cost city officials say should fall to state ratepayers.    That's for the Texas Public Utility Commission to decide. ...  It's all about the view for property owner Richard Knox. His family has owned the Knox Super Stop at the foot of Sylvan Avenue since 1972. And in the last year, three developers have approached him, with dreams of condos overlooking a trio of Calatrava bridges. That could all change, he said, when a power line juts into view. ... But his peers on Irving Boulevard say it's mostly about safety. They worry about the health implications of having hundreds of employees spending eight hours a day under such high-capacity power lines. ...

Do you understand what our representatives at City Hall are doing to us?  We are not only spending an inordinate amount of our public monies and future borrowing power (bonds) on the Trinity Project, but our City Hall officials want the Texas Public Utility Commission to hit us with a $17 million hit on our utility bills. 

I'm not denying that I have been against the Trinity Project from the get go.  It's too much money for a project that will not do what's been promised. 

	City Of Fort Worth Projects $20 Million Shortfall May 24, 2006 Mary Stewart
FORT WORTH Fort Worth jobs and salaries could be on the line as the city begins reviewing its upcoming budget. Currently city council members are projecting a $20 million shortfall.    Fort Worth's property values have soared and many taxpayers say they just don?t get it. The city is raking in money from its Barnett Shale gas wells and it's one of the fastest growing areas in the country.    ?I'm really concerned about the uh, people getting tax breaks and I'm not gettin' one,? said Gale Wood, homeowner.    Gale and his wife Barbara suspect big companies are reaping the benefits of tax incentives to move to Fort Worth. They fear government projects, like the Trinity Uptown, are getting priority, while homeowners pick up the slack.    ?I think it's so sad that our government is putting $237 million into a flood control project that has not flooded since, when 1949?? Barbara said.    With a $20 million shortfall, city officials say they will begin the budget review looking at where they can cut salaries or jobs.    City officials say while growth is good, it costs money to provide new services, thus there is a shortfall.    Fort Worth Budget Manager Joe Komisarz says, ?We believe that the payoff in terms of development, and growth, and the economic side of it is well worth the investment.?    City leaders say tax breaks will eventually pay off. ?From our perspective it's important to encourage companies and commercial establishments to move to the City of Fort Worth, and sometimes the incentives are the things that bring them here,? Komisarz said.    Barbara Wood says she has her doubts. ?My street has not been paved in a long time. We have fancy bridge rails and we have dog parks. I think our priorities are in the wrong place personally.?    City officials say the budget numbers are very fluid and they?ll be working on them throughout the summer.

"City leaders say tax breaks will eventually pay off."  Barbara Wood doesn't think so!  She and her husband are not Spring chickens.  They will not live to see the benefits (if any there be) of Ft. Worth's Trinity Project. 

There are a lot of Dallas homeowners who know exactly how Gale and Barbara feel.  We just don't have anyone looking out for us.  We have everyone at City Hall looking to take us for every last dime.  We pay more taxes, but get less city services.  Only government works that way.

North Dallas homeowners pay more than our share of property taxes, but all the incentives for new development are applied elsewhere.  The Comprehensive Plan pretty much calls for North Dallas to be wall-to-wall apartments and multi-family.  The idea is to force developers to build single family homes in the Southern Sector of the city, which will force new homeowners to move down there.  That's as big a pipe dream as anyone thinking they are going to get the stink out of the Trinity. 

What will happen if the Comprehensive Plan actually goes into effect and North Dallas single family neighborhoods become unaffordable or unlivable due to negative impact from all the apartment projects?  People looking for single family homes will not look to South Dallas; they will leave the City of Dallas all together. 

Which brings us back to the existing businesses and property owners on Industrial Blvd. who are having 345-kilovolt line crammed right down on top of them.  As DMN's Emily Ramshaw reports, the line will be 11 stories tall!  The support towers are going to be right down the middle of Industrial Blvd., which will doom that business district.  Don't you know those business owners are regretting their opposition to having Industrial Blvd. widened, as they did during the early design talks about the roadway along the Trinity?

None of this is right or fair. 

I can live with wrong and unfair, but there are incredibly dangerous assumptions being made in every aspect of the Trinity Project.  Barbara Wood says ?I think it's so sad that our government is putting $237 million into a flood control project that has not flooded since, when 1949??  I think it's terrifying that Dallas officials are putting almost a billion into a so-called flood control project that will cause more future flooding than we have ever known from the Trinity in the past.

Jim Schutze pointed out his Dallas Observer Devil Creek (3/30/06) that much of this Spring's flooding in East Dallas was directly caused by the existing Trinity levees that prevent rain water from flowing into the Trinity River and floodplain where it wants to go. 

I don't know about you, but I'm sick of pipe dreams and plans that don't fit our city.  I want to live in a city that knows who it is.  Until recently, Ft. Worth seemed happy to provide a quality of life for its citizens to the extent it was named an All American City.  Now, they are chasing the development fantasies that Dallas has been afflicted with since the 80's.

I don't believe in the Trinity Project, never have and never will.  Even if it were to deliver what they promise -- which it will not, the neglect to the rest of the city's infrastructure cannot be made up.  Some of our problems may not be repairable.  Exposing the long-buried Mill Creek will help, but much of the creek runs under buildings and neighborhoods.

Some of my own neighborhood's problems are going to be lessened with the DISD condemning three bad apartment complexes (over 300 units) to make a place for a much needed middle school.  Unfortunately, the remaining apartments projects are absorbing some of the tenants from the closing complexes.  The drug dealers will manage to find an apartment to rent.   These are not nuisance problems we have from the apartments.  Here's one report about activity just this week.

We can't take care of our citizens.  Ft. Worth can't pave the street where Gale and Barbara Wood live.  Yet, we can build huge ego monument projects that will not benefit anyone who currently pays taxes in either city.

North Dallas is the Golden Goose of Dallas that has been laying the golden eggs that City Hall has spent to feather the rest of the city's nest.  City Hall is depriving us what we need to survive, much less prosper and continue supporting the rest of the city.

There's no way things are going to get better for those of us who live and work in North Dallas or the Stemmons Business Corridor.  All the resources in this city (including all the taxes we pay) are being sucked into the Trinity Project.  What little is left over will get diverted to the Southern Sector.

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