Angels on Our Shoulders
Sir K
                             

02/17/05  As seen through colored lenses.

A few days ago, Our Mayor was on the Mark Davis show (WBAP, 820 AM).  She was certainly having her way with Mark Davis, but not to the disgusting level that she had Mike Gallagher (KRLD, 1070 AM) groveling.  You have to face it, Our Mayor is a charmer and most men (except some pesky elected officials) are just mesmerized by her.

I was listening to Mark and Laura on my morning route (bank, post office, and office) while Our Mayor went through her spiel about accountability and bad employees and uncooperative council members, etc.  Then, she made a comment that almost caused me to run off the road.  To paraphrase her:

"You go out and campaign for a year talking about your vision for the city.  And, the voters say 'Yeah, that's my vision, too' and they vote for you.  Then you get in office, and you can't implement your vision because of the pesky city manager-council system."

I was pretty close to the throne while Our Mayor was running for Mayor, and her "vision for the city" was much different than the way she see things once she got elected, particularly her second term.  Our Mayor ran on a platform of "a big vision of the little things that make a big difference in people's lives. ... signature schools matter more than signature bridges. ... Paying our police officers and firefighters what they deserve ..." 

For more of her "vision" as stated in her campaign brochures, see In her own words.

The difference in Mayoral Candidate Laura Miller and Mayor Laura Miller is exactly why we cannot afford a strong mayor as proposed by Bah! Bah! Blackwood. 

An example is the looming Homeless Shelter.  The street bums are Downtown because the do-gooders service them Downtown, and because Downtown is where street bums go in cities all over the country. 

Early in the discussion of whether to use an abandoned hospital on Harry Hines (Health South), Our Mayor was ready to dump Downtown's problems on NW Dallas without a thought for the people who bought her ORIGINAL VISION.  If District 6's councilman Steve Salazar had not fought for us, it would have been a slam dunk.  There are thousands of children living in over-populated apartment complexes and single family neighborhoods within walking distance of Health South.  The families are predominantly Hispanic and lower income, so they don't rate very high on Our Mayor's radar screen.  

There's a way to handle the street bums, but it's not politically correct.  Our Mayor and the council could pass an ordinance banning do-gooders from treating the street bums and homeless like human pigeons by feeding them on the street.  Our Mayor and the council could require all facilities purporting to service the street people to provide lodging for their clients and restrict the facilities' capacity, just like we do restaurants and bars.  Once the street-feeding is eliminated and the service facilities are restricted, the street bums (who will not use organized assistance centers) will head out for greener pastures.  The mentals will have to be re-institutionalized for their own welfare, and ours.

Creating satellite homeless centers like the Harry Hines location will cause incredible harm to several vibrant areas between Downtown and Health South, not to mention several parks.  Think about hordes of street bums migrating between their favorite haunts Downtown through Uptown, Turtle Creek, Oak Lawn, the Hospital University District to NW Highway.  Think about hordes of street bums pitching tents in Reverchon Park, along Turtle Creek, all around Bachman Lake and even Grauwyler Park -- worse in residential and business neighborhoods.

Did you know they are actually considering running a shuttle between Downtown and the Health South facility for the street bums?  Can you imagine the liability?  Is anyone offering you as a taxpayer a free shuttle around town?

Again, this would have happened in a heartbeat last year if the Blackwood proposal was in effect at the time because Bob Decherd wants the street bums out of Downtown, and Our Mayor wants Bob Decherd aka Belo Corporation (The Dallas Managed News) to be happy.

Here's another reason we must not move to Blackwood's proposed Strong Mayor system.  Our current mayor was a journalist -- never had an employee, never managed an office, much less a business.  Our current mayor was not even in Dallas when the Wright Amendment happened, and doesn't seem to understand that Dallas has a contract with Ft. Worth regarding activities at Love Field.

The mayors of Dallas and Ft. Worth sit on the DFW Board.  Our Mayor told Mark Davis that she has a fiduciary responsibility to DFW to look out for DFW first.  She was very dismissive of the Wright Amendment, which means she is not concerned about the thousands of people who live in the million dollar high rises and condos in Oak Lawn or the teeming masses who live in less grand circumstances near Love Field.  She absolutely missed the appropriate response for why Dallas always backs down when this issue rears its annoying head.

Dallas entered into a contract with Ft. Worth before DFW that prevents Love Field from operating as a regional airport.  She may not like it and the anti-Wright Amendment people may not like it, but that contract is valid and Ft. Worth will sue if we try to break it.

I would just as soon Ft. Worth sue us and win and take control of our city.  Ft. Worth officials do a lot better job of running their city than our elected officials do for us.  Oh, my, and they have a Council-Manager form of government!

It would be better for Ft. Worth to own and run Dallas than to have a few Park Cities tycoons making all the decisions that we have to pay for.

It's that vision thing, you know.  Ft. Worth doesn't chase after professional sports teams.  Ft. Worth puts a ton of money into (and gets a ton of money back from) their city zoo -- big tourist draw.  Our city officials ignore and neglect our wonderful zoo.  Ft. Worth has an arts district away from Downtown and honors it.  Our city officials have robbed Fair Park of its museums and neglect the one truly unique thing we have in Dallas, our incredible collection of art deco buildings at Fair Park.  Ft. Worth has a vibrant Downtown and forced the do-gooders to service the street bums in an industrial area AWAY from their convention center.  Dallas officials would create 10 new problems for a quick fix to our street bum problem.

As I told Mark Davis after his session with Our Mayor, her CURRENT VISION is not the one she sold us.  He said all politicians do that -- sell one image and change their focus once they are elected.  That's exactly why we do not need a strong mayor system, and exactly why we need the checks and balances of a council-manager form of government like what works so well for Ft. Worth.

We do need to give the mayor more power.  The mayor should hire and fire the top executives with the check of a two-thirds vote from the council to override the decision. 

A better option would be to have the Mayor (elected citywide) and the Mayor Pro Tem and Deputy Mayor Pro Tem (elected by the council) hire and fire the top executives with a two-thirds vote override from the council.  Blackwood's proposal even has the mayor selecting the Mayor Pro Tem.

Changing our council-manager system to strong mayor will not allow Our Mayor to implement the "vision" she sold us as a candidate because that apparently was just a PR sales pitch from the same guy who put out those Trinity brochures with swans and sail boats on the Trinity.

We voted for a mayor who had a big vision of the little things that make a big difference in people's lives.  We got something else. 

sb