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Rad Field
Jorge Torres
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02/24/05 So much for fair play from
Belo's Editorial Board.
As a member of the Coalition for Open Government
(appointed by my councilman, Steve Salazar), I was aware our Co-Chairs were
meeting with the Editorial Board of The Dallas
Managed News Wednesday morning.
We have been incredibly disappointed for the past several weeks to have DMN
Editorial Board member Victoria Loe Hicks acting as the public relations lead for the Blackwood proposal
(and/or the Mayor's "Stronger Mayor, Stronger Dallas" machine),
considering the fact that we had not yet met with the Editorial Board in person.
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VICTORIA LOE HICKS:
Where is this ship headed?;
The 15 captains at City Hall are all setting their own course - and
taking their sweet time getting there
06:46 PM CST on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 |
... the City
Council launched itself in pursuit of an alternative to the so-called
Blackwood proposal. The first order of business was to resurrect the
recommendations of the Charter Review Commission, which labored heroically
for the better part of a year and produced a set of recommendations that
would strengthen the council's hand in relation to the city manager.
... It is neither surprising nor instructive that
the council prefers the commission's proposals. Many of them, such as
letting council members hire their own staffs or creating a panel of
accountant types to formulate periodic pay raises for the mayor and council,
are fine ideas, worthy of adoption later, whether or not Blackwood passes on
May 7.
... Here's what is both surprising and
instructive: It took the council nearly two years to have a serious look at
the commission's report.
... This is not a dig at the
individual council members, most of whom are smart and hard-working.
This is about the system of governance we have ? a
system in which council members are so consumed with matters affecting their
individual districts that they have trouble coalescing around larger issues
even when it is clearly in their own self-interest.
... It is no longer lost on the city's residents
or its corporate leaders ? if it ever was ? she said, that City Hall's
workings resemble nothing so much as "a circular firing squad."
... Under the present charter, the mayor is
effectively one more council member ? one voice and one vote among 15. By
sheer force of personality, some mayors succeed in
advancing an agenda for the city as a whole. But the charter gives them
virtually no tools with which to do so. The tools are in the hands of
the city manager, whose job is not to lead but to follow.
... |
Right off the top, Victoria Loe
Hicks is flat wrong. The Mayor has several tools, which Ron Kirk used very
effectively. The most powerful tool is the appointment of chairs, vice
chairs and members to the various council committees.
Since most council decisions are actually made in committees, excluding one
defiant council member from the committee of their choice or even from all
committees sends a strong message to the rest of the council. That's
what Ron Kirk did to Donna Blumer, Laura Miller and Larry Duncan.
Mayor Miller has never even tried to use this tool.
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Stan Aten:
The "Blackwood" proposal appears to be a naked grab for
power by wealthy non-residents who are tired of dealing with democracy.
If they succeed, they will line their pockets with your money.
I don't know what the vision may
be unless it is connected to that report commissioned by the DMN
last year.
Hitler had "Mein Kampf". I guess
the DMN has "Dallas at the Tipping Point"?
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The February 23 editorial
was just her latest in a series of wrong-way position papers.
Here are two more that Hicks wrote before she or anyone on the
DMN Editorial Board
had even talked with one representative from the Coalition for Open Government:
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VICTORIA LOE HICKS:
Power games;
Despite council members' complaints,
strong-mayor plan leaves their roles intact
07:05
PM CST on Tuesday, January 11, 2005
By VICTORIA LOE HICKS / The Dallas Morning News
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.... Your elected representative on the Dallas
City Council is not in eminent peril of being emasculated (or its feminine
equivalent), amputated at the knees or robbed of his or her ability to fully
represent your interests.
The May referendum to change the
city's form of governance would not usher in a monarchy, a dictatorship or a
reign of terror. In fact, it would make your city
government more democratic, not less so.
...With their usual faulty instincts,
council members are attacking the strong-mayor proposal from the wrong
angle. There's a legitimate debate to be had about the wisdom of ditching
the city manager's post, but it's about whether elected officials (in this
case, the mayor) or bureaucrats (in this case, the city manager) are best
suited to manage city government.
... Those who favor the mayor view government as a
political institution in which accountability ?
making the person in charge directly answerable to the citizens ? is the
first imperative.
... council members
are squealing like stuck pigs,
... The mayor, rather than council members, would
appoint people to the city's advisory boards and commissions. But the
appointments wouldn't go into effect unless the council approved them.
And the council could reclaim the power to make
appointments merely by passing an ordinance reinstating the old process.
... Truth be told, I suspect that's why many
council members are so spooked by the current
proposal. They fear that they won't be able to walk over an executive mayor
? with the power of the voters behind him or her ? the way they've walked
over some city managers.
... You can do the math yourself,
but by my calculations, strong mayor means you win.
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This first Hicks editorial is
so biased we were all shocked. Look at the digs at the council "faulty
instincts", "council members are squealing like stuck pigs" and "council members
are so spooked". Hardly fair and unbiased, certainly not accurate.
| Her claim that "the
council could reclaim the power to make appointments merely by passing an
ordinance reinstating the old process"
is just flat out wrong. The Blackwood proposal is a new charter, a charter
amendment. If Blackwood passes, the provisions can only be amended by
another charter election. If Blackwood passes on May 7th,
no new charter amendment elections can
be called for TWO YEARS! |
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Michael Davis:
The strong arm mayor deal is not something we need.
For three reasons:
1) The proposed changes are too far-reaching and allow Dallas to be run
like a dictatorship. The city already is already ran like one - how much
power is enough?
2) It's not just the proposal, it's the people behind it. I don't want
any changes under this mayor; she has already proved she is not capable of
building coalitions and working with different groups of people to achieve
common goals. What makes people think that she will be any less irascible
with more power.
3) The proposal keeps the Mayor's salary around
$60,000. You will never attract top-tier talent if you continue to pay
middle-management salary for such a Herculean task.
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You probably already knew that, but apparently the not-so-smart Victoria Loe
Hicks does not, and neither does the average voter out there.
The not-so-smart Victoria Loe Hicks followed her January 11 column with another
Strong Mayor promotion piece on February 1:
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VICTORIA LOE HICKS:
It's time to see the
light
Dallas' strong-mayor
proposal not as radical as critics pretend
08:22 PM CST
on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 |
How "radical" is the strong-mayor
system proposed for Dallas?
About as radical as the U.S. government, the Texas
government, or the municipal governments of seven of the nation's 10 largest
cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Diego and
Detroit.
... Few opponents of the change are foolish
enough to argue that everything is hunky-dory at City Hall ? reality does
have a nasty habit of intruding. Instead, they're saying that this
particular fix is too extreme, that voters should reject it and wait for a
more moderate proposal to come along.
... Take, for example, an issue that's kicked up a
lot of dust among opponents of the proposal: the mayor's authority to
appoint the heads of city departments and the members of the city's citizen
advisory boards. ... |
Word on the street says Hicks has agreed to speak to at least one group on
behalf of Blackwood -- not about Blackwood's proposal, but
in favor of the proposal.
How's that for a fair playing field at the DMN
?
Here's why I'm so hot. Wednesday, February 23, 2005, the three co-chairs
of the Coalition for Open Government (former Councilman Alan Walne, Adelfa
Callejo and Lynn Flynt-Shaw), as well as Coalition member, David Marquis and
Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill went to visit the
DMN 's Editorial Board to explain our
position. David Marquis told me "We really thought
we had a shot at the
DMN
playing fair." The
DMN board
attending (including Victoria Loe Hicks) seemed to be hearing new information
and the Coalition members felt like they were really making some progress.
Imagine our dismay to find out that Hicks had already written a column that was
running for Thursday and was on-line by 6:46 pm Wednesday BEFORE she had even
met with the Coalition's representatives. This is the worst kind of
deception.
Since Belo's DMN
is our only daily newspaper, what their Editorial
Board did by pretending to give the Coalition an audience while knowing that
Hicks already had her pro-Blackwood column in the can was absolutely confirm
what DallasArena.com has been saying since 1998:
Belo publishes The Dallas Managed News.
Despite some very good reporters, the bias and deceit on the Editorial floor
refutes any pretense that it is a news reporting agency.
Contrast The Dallas Managed News
having Victoria Loe Hicks report on something she clearly knows nothing about
(or clearly has an agenda) with this week's story in the
Dallas Observer:
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Voting Wrongs;
Why one expert thinks choosing a strong mayor will lead to "a lost
decade" -- Robert Wilonsky
dallasobserver.com
| originally published: February 24, 2005 |
Laura Miller and Beth Ann Blackwood--one the supporter of the strong-mayor
initiative that will be put before voters in May, the latter its
creator--have not sought the counsel of Southern Methodist University
professor emeritus Ruth Morgan about their beloved city charter amendment,
nor have those against the strong-mayor proposal.
... seek out Morgan because she knows as
much as anyone about the rights and wrongs of the proposal: As author of
Governance by Decree: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act in Dallas, which
contains a detailed history of the 1990 federal court order creating the
current 14-1 system of Dallas government, Morgan
offers invaluable insight untainted by political motivations or the generous
donations of concerned millionaires living in the Park Cities.
... when pressed, which means when simply asked,
Morgan is not shy about sharing her opinion about Blackwood's proposal. She
thinks it's a lousy idea--and, quite possibly, one that could land the city
in federal court and on the desk of the Department of Justice for years.
The proposal "would actually make
this mayor the strongest one in the entire country," Morgan says, dismissing
Blackwood's claims to the contrary. "It strips the council of an awful lot
of power, so what you're doing is not creating a balanced structure for the
good of the city. You're making the legislative branch
and the executive branch in one person, and that's not a good system...I
think what will happen will be we're going to be tied up in court for years,
and it's just going to have a detrimental effect on the city. Look at what's
happened already. We can't do a city manager search. We can't do the city
attorney search. Things will come to a standstill when you're involved in
litigation, and that's certainly not healthy."
... Morgan insists there's no real
accountability: The council, according to the proposal, can impeach the
mayor with a majority vote, but that won't happen unless there are serious
criminal allegations brought against the mayor, and even then the process of
bringing charges and then convicting the mayor would be so protracted and
time-consuming it would likely ground the council to a dead stop for months.
... Morgan would like to let the city's 14-1
system of government mature; after all, it's only 15 years old. But if she
were to reinvent City Hall, she'd have the voters elect the city attorney
and city auditor, positions that would be appointed by the mayor under
Blackwood's proposal. This way, she says, at least there would be
independent checks and balances at City Hall. And she would also allow for a
few at-large council seats, because there would be a handful of council
members who'd have to build coalitions with their colleagues rather than
fight solely for their own constituents.
... "If this passes," Morgan says, "I think that's
going to be one of those events in the history of Dallas that we'll look
back at a number of years from now and say, 'Oh, goodness, why? Look at the
decade we lost.'"
... Analeslie Muncy, former Dallas city
attorney under Mayor Steve Bartlett, studied the charter amendment at the
request of the Greater Dallas Chamber and found it in violation of several
state laws ... . And there are several sections of
the proposal that, she believes, are in violation of the Federal Voting
Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits elections that discriminate on the basis
of race and color.
Muncy says that "there is a good
chance that [the Department of] Justice" will object to the language and
intent of the proposal ... . After all, the
proposal emasculates the council members elected from predominantly black
and Hispanic districts. ... |
Quite a contrast in reporting
between the two newspapers. One paper prints a biased and misinformed
column BEFORE talking to representatives of the opposition. The other goes
to two experts in Dallas governance and let's them state their learned
positions.
We know Belo supports giving Laura Miller power, so long as she's doing
everything they want done. But, didn't you expect just a little bit of
subtlety and a bit of pretense of fair play from our only daily "newspaper"?
Here's something else that might interest you. It just may be the mailer
that Mayor Miller's group "Stronger Mayor, Stronger Dallas" wants to put out:
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Dear Dallas
voter,
On May 7 we can replace America?s most
inefficient municipal system with a leaner, more efficient system that puts
taxpayers, citizens and neighborhoods first.
Let me tell you how the stronger-mayor
charter reform can improve things in Dallas:
The buck stops here.
Instead of an unelected city manager with 14 different masters, the mayor
will be 100% responsible for improving the quality of city services. As in
other big cities, a stronger mayor will be the chief executive of the city.
High-level city employees, such as a Chief Operating Officer, City Attorney
and Police and Fire Chiefs, will answer directly to the Mayor, who will in
turn answer to the public. If voters aren?t happy with the result, they can
fire the mayor on Election Day and hire a new leader who can do better.
Lead Dallas like a business.
The City of Dallas is a $2 billion enterprise. If you were to rank by number
of employees, it would be comparable to a company like TXU. In private
business, the CEO has the ability to manage top executives. That?s not the
case right now at Dallas City Hall, where even the best city manager must
constantly answer to the 14 different council members. The strong mayor
proposal will change that by giving the mayor the authority to manage
high-level city employees, and improve efficiency at City Hall.
Get taxpayers their money?s worth.
The proposed changes would give the mayor the authority to oversee the city
budget ?
which means cutting wasteful spending and
protecting tax dollars for basic city services. As you know.
improving basic services for every neighborhood in
Dallas
is my passion. Making Dallas once again ?The City That
Works,? with green parks, good roads and excellent schools, is vital to our
city as we compete for new business. But the first step in making Dallas
great again is to take better care of the people who
already live here.
Help Dallas compete economically.
Imagine
if you were being forced to run a business
using systems that were put in place in the 1930?s. That?s what it?s like
right now for Dallas to compete with cities like Houston and Chicago. We
have such a great city with so many positives
... but
for Dallas to become once again the can-do city we need the stronger-mayor
system that other big cities are using to win the competition for economic
growth.
Protect the rights of every
citizen. There are those who claim that
this proposal weakens the 14-1 system. That?s simply not true. In fact, this
charter reform leaves legislative powers in the hands of the elected City
Council, along with a system of checks and balances designed to make sure
that the mayor performs fairly. The Council still retains all legislative
authority to make laws, pass ordinances and make major decisions, like final
approval of the city budget.
Under the proposal on the May
7th
ballot, the Council will still make
our laws, approve the budget and exercise all the legislative and ordinance
powers it has today. But Dallas will finally have one
leader in charge of making city
services work.
I love Dallas. We have
a great business climate, we have friendly, hard-working citizens and we
have nice neighborhoods that together can make our city shine. But now is
the time to change our form of government, so the only citywide elected
official, the mayor, can be responsible and accountable to every citizen in
Dallas - this is the most important thing we can do for the future of Dallas.
Laura Miller
For more information please call (214)
871-7760 Pol. Adv. Paid for by Stronger Mayor, Stronger Dallas Committee, P0
Box 190569, Dallas, Texas 75219 |
I don't know what's worse.
Having our only local daily pretend to print the news, when they are only
printing propaganda -- or having our Mayor insult our intelligence by getting in
front of such a farce and pretending her power grab is for our own good.
If you are as unhappy as I am with The Dallas Managed
News, why don't you call 214.977.8222
and ask for the Editor of the Editorial Page and express your displeasure, if
not disgust.
This is another bad deal that Belo Corporation is behind, when what we need is a
newspaper that prints a fair and balanced account of things.
Unfortunately, all we have is The Dallas Managed
News.
sb
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