01/16/05  City Council Show Time             

Listening to the City Council meeting on Wednesday, January 12, 2005, was liken to an "ol time movie" script --- like Abbot and Costello. 

The merry-go-round dialog concerning the insurance/liability issues at the Resource Center was both entertaining and sad. 

One just had to feel sorry for the landlord of the Resource Center as he pleaded for security and liability protection (very basic requests).  The City Attorney's representative was almost comical as he attempted to plead complete lack of understanding as to why anyone would want liability coverage or security protection with 200 or 300 homeless walking/sleeping inside and outside of the property.  Are not those issues what attorneys are are hired to solve?

Then there was the hilarious discussion of whether 300 homeless can stand up in the facility, then how many can lie down in the facility?  The mathematics were just too cumbersome for anyone in the council chamber to fathom.   Perhaps that was why an executive session was called immediately to ascertain how 300 standing homeless translate to 300 sleeping homeless in the same square footage. Not mentioned in the discussion were the square footage requirements for the homeless belongings.  
 
As if the above was not enough entertainment, the issue of security arose.  It appears that it's too much to ask for two officers or security officials (to control up to 300 homeless, early release, and unpredictables).  City officials stated the city cannot afford to assign two officers at the location full time due to more pressing concerns around town.  Once again, it appears reasonable to believe that crime prevention would be better than responding to crime after it transpires.  Thus, another instance of non-proactive crime prevention, but response to events after the fact. 

One might ask --- and this is important --- of all the crimes in Dallas during the year 2004 --- what was the case solution or closure rate?  For all those unsolved crimes, the perpetrators perhaps remain at large.

Many issues on the Council agenda regularly require much discussion in order to resolve the issues.  One might ask why the City Manager's and City Attorney's offices do not work on and resolve a multitude of those issues during normal working hours rather than continually attempt to solve them in a public eight hour meeting?  Again, in the above meeting, a couple of deep thinking council representatives attempted to provide very good questions and answers for the city to work on ---but, as usual, they were ignored by the majority --- or the others did not bother to listen. 

Representatives Blaydes and Rasanky raised great points of concern for the consideration, but were ignored as usual.

The council meetings are wonderful to attend or listen to, but if one listens too often a visit to a personal psychiatrist might be necessitated. 

Rad Field
Council District 11