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Mary Lou Reports
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03/28/05 Do-Gooders doing great harm!
In response to their
homeless story,
A
Place of Their Own by Zac Crain (Dallas Observer,
3/24/05),
I sent the following to the
Dallas Observer.
If you're rich and living in a gated community, not to worry. If
you're in a single-family neighborhood (even with homes costing $150-200,000),
you could have a group home next door, next time the house goes on the market.
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Excuse me for being mean, but my
formerly quiet and stable neighborhood is currently experiencing the joy
of having a do-gooder group buy one of that we know about) our
single-family homes for Sec. 8 housing.*
We don't know how many people/families live in the home. We do
know there was a major incident there last weekend, and we can't get a
straight answer from the DPD about exactly what happened.
About Midnight, Sat, neighbors
heard angry screaming and yelling in front of the house and saw at least
20 people in the yard and street carrying on. Several neighbors
called 911 and then heard more screaming and tires squealing as a car
took off.
Within a few minutes, there were
2 ambulances, several squad cars and a fire truck. There were
police elements there as late as 9:30 am, Sunday morning.
We got the following 3**
explanations from 3 different DPD sources:
1 - female yelling for help
2 - female jumped out of a car, parked on the street and yelled for help
3 - female ran over by car in the yard two times
All explanations were
careful not to blame the occupants of the Sec 8 house. Baloney!
That's where the action was and they were the participants.
This house is on a street with an
overcrowded elementary school. Our neighborhood has many seniors
and hundreds of very young children.
The problem with the do-gooders
who are touting SRO's and Sec 8 and all the other aging-hippie feel good
ideas is that they want to plant them in middle-income neighborhoods.
Rich guys (as nice as he is) like Tom Dunning don't have to worry about
this stuff happening next to their homes.
My neighborhood is very mixed
ethnically, with about 45% Hispanic, 45% White and the remaining 10%
Black or Asian. We have singles, married couples, gay couples,
families with several children, lots of seniors.
More and more, our longtime
residents are selling their homes and moving to the suburbs because of
the problems generated by nearby apartment complexes. This is
happening all over Dallas.
Someone in the article asked
whether you want a street bum living in your alley or next door.
Please! Once a home has been turned into a group house or an SRO,
the people next to it will have a permanent problem and can anticipate
similar incidents on a regular basis like what happened to us last
weekend.
I just wished the do-gooders
cared as much about the needs of my immigrant neighbor raising 5
children. They own their home and maintain it.
Moving low-income people into a house
they cannot afford to maintain and probably would not anyway is an
absolute recipe for neighborhood decay. Turning any properties
near Dallas neighborhoods or businesses into SRO's just locks in the
blight.
Here's an idea! What not
reopen the institutions the do-gooders closed down in the 70's and 80's?
What about telling the street bums, either follow city laws or you're
going to have to live on a reservation away
from law-abiding people?
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| *We
have since learned the Section 8 investor sold the house to another "investor", which
is probably normal operations in this exploitive real estate scam. **I
finally got a 4th explanation from Chief Villareal at NW Substation that was
much more plausible, in-keeping with what the eye witnesses saw and actually was
more frightening than what we were previously told. A party escalated into
a drunken brawl, then to a domestic relations squabble, then an aggravated
kidnapping and finally resulted in a man being run over TWICE in the front yard
where his daughter lives (the Section 8 house) while he was trying to rescue
her. |
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Bob Hosea:
I am too mad to let this go. I have been fed up for a long
time about some in government feeling
they have a mandate to solve
to all our problems.
As a wise friend once explained to
me, "inequality is endemic to society. So get a life and get used to it."
To try to fix it all is folly, an
enormous waste of time and assets. Reduce what you can, then move on to
other areas where you may actually make a difference.
Government is seldom the answer. As
long as we have our disgustingly low turnouts at the polls, we are doomed to
the type of government we have imposed on us.
We should have to pass a test to be
able to vote. Our current populace is frankly too
uninformed to competently vote for/against anything.
For the last 30 years, our populace
has not been taught to think. They avoid
it at all cost. This may
result in a new version of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. I
am not eloquent and do not do well as an
extemporaneous speaker, but I try to "THINK". |
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Then there was the story about some car wash owner getting one of Houston's
idiot politicians in Austin to investigate Dallas "nuisance laws".
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House Republicans blast Dallas over public nuisance law;
City says carwash was drug haven; officials blame police work
09:34 PM CST on
Thursday, 3/24/05
By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News
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AUSTIN ?
A House committee chairman is threatening to subpoena the Dallas mayor,
police chief and city attorney over the treatment of a carwash owner, who
lawmakers believe was harassed for trying to operate a business in a
neighborhood overrun by drug dealers, prostitutes and the homeless.
During a Wednesday night hearing,
Republican House members blamed poor police work and an arrogant city hall
for victimizing business owners under a beefed-up public nuisance law.
Lawmakers are considering changes to the law to make it much harder for
cities to apply it against legitimate businesses.
"I, for one, am incensed," said Civil
Practices Committee Chairman Joe Nixon, R-Houston.
He said the law was intended for
police to go after the owners of crack houses. "Instead you use this statute
to intimidate and shake down this guy for basically some civil fines that go
to the city," Mr. Nixon said.
Assistant Dallas City Attorney
Jennifer Richie told the committee that Jim's Car Wash on Martin Luther King
Boulevard had 24 drug incidents requiring police attention and one murder
dating from October 2000.
She said the owner, Dale Davenport,
had failed to take steps to secure the property ? such as adding lighting
and fences and hiring security guards ? until a court ordered him to do so
in November. ... |
If you live near an un-attended
car wash, you live near a problem. These properties are just invitations
for problems -- from drug deals to something as innocent as a hangout for
teenagers. This Davenport guy is typical of the people who operate car
washes near neighborhoods. They do the minimal to keep their equipment
running and the $$ coming regardless of the consequences of their business
operations. When it gets so bad that the city actually takes action (which
is hardly ever), there have been so many problems that area property owners are
ready to take mob action if the city does not.
It's the same thing with problem apartment complexes. I heard this
Davenport guy on Kevin McCarthy's Main Street 990 whining about how the city is
trying to make apartment complexes hire security guards and make their
properties safe for their tenants -- like that was a bad thing!
It gets harder and harder to fight back in this town if you are just a regular
citizen who wants to spend your time with your family, doing your job, working
in your yard. For the first time in a long time, residents and decent
businesses in Northwest Dallas have our own council representative at City Hall.
He puts our concerns first.
Those who would promote the Blackwood Strong Mayor Scam, including the Mayor,
claim that a councilman looking out for the interests of his constituents first
is a bad thing. Under Blackwood's scam, the Mayor would make all the
decisions about the city's priorities. The way things have worked in the
past several years, Our Mayor's focus has been on Downtown and the Trinity River
Bondoogle. Everything else comes a distant 5th or 6th.
Apparently, the voters are not as unhappy with the council-manager system as the
Park Cities Cabal would have us believe. According to a DMN survey, it's a
dead heat and the Mayor's side has been hitting it hard since last Fall.
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Tight race for strong mayor;
Exclusive: Poll for The News shows city nearly
evenly split on proposal
Sunday,
3/27/05
By EMILY RAMSHAW and DAVE LEVINTHAL / The
Dallas Morning News |
... Just six weeks before a landmark election that
could change Dallas' form of government, the city is divided on whether to
maintain the current system or greatly increase mayoral power, according to
a Dallas Morning News poll.
Nearly 500 likely voters were asked
whether they would vote on May 7 to eliminate the city manager position and
give the mayor a slate of new powers. Forty-one percent favored the change,
40 percent opposed it, and 19 percent were undecided.
... Ms. Miller and lawyer Beth Ann Blackwood, the
lead advocates of increasing mayoral power, concede that their opponents
have run a smart campaign by tearing into the legitimacy of the strong-mayor
proposal and luring undecided voters with promises of a "less-strong mayor"
alternative.
... City Council members and organizations working
to defeat the measure say they are adding to their ranks every day and have
little doubt they will win. But they recognize that they are still battling
Ms. Miller's high approval rating ? and the fact that many voters are
willing to give the mayor what she wants to reach her goals.
... Miller polarizing
Opinions on the proposed strong-mayor amendment were also
closely aligned with support of Ms. Miller. Most of the poll respondents who
said they would vote for the proposal also voted for Ms. Miller in 2003.
... Forty-seven percent of likely voters polled
said they think a stronger mayor would improve city services, while 42
percent said he or she would not.
... A shift in support
The poll results represent a departure from earlier polls
conducted by Ms. Miller's and Ms. Blackwood's campaigns, which they said
showed strong support for the measure except in sections of southern Dallas.
A poll conducted by the mayor's
Stronger Mayor, Stronger Dallas campaign last week also indicated a tight
race, with many voters undecided, said Mari Woodlief, vice president of
Allyn & Co. and an adviser to the mayor.
"A bunch of people who were for it in
December are now undecided," Ms. Miller said. "The opposition has succeeded
in confusing the voters."
... The Coalition for Open Government did
its own phone poll in February and found that a majority of respondents
opposed the measure, Ms. Cotton said.
... And the lead opposition group is overwhelmed
with requests for yard signs and will continue spreading its message that
the ballot referendum is dangerous for the city, Ms. Cotton said.
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It is so infuriating when the
elitists assume that we must be confused if we disagree with their vision for us
or if we do not want to live under a monarchy in Dallas in 2005. I am part
of the opposition, and I think we have succeeded in ALERTING THE VOTERS to the
dangers of the Blackwood strong arm mayor scam.
We have got to keep our eyes focused on Our Mayor's original vision. When
she ran for mayor the first time against Tom Dunning,
Laura Miller said "I
have a big vision of the little things that make a big difference in people's
lives."
I am opposing the Blackwood
plan because I am concerned about the little things that make life livable or
unbearable in this city. If you live in a highrise or a gated community
then you don't have to worry about much other than your taxes, the potholes in
the streets and the pitiful state of our parks and our zoo. If you live in
a middle-income neighborhood just a few blocks from aging apartment complexes
and some do-gooder or no-gooder buys the house across the street from you or
across the alley to rent out as Section 8 housing, it's a little hard to focus
on the big ticket visions that have Our Mayor's attention.
Since Mayors always get lured into the big ticket vision thing, I don't want my
councilman emasculated.
I want someone at City Hall looking out for the little things that make a big
difference in my life.
I want someone at City Hall who doesn't see my neighborhood as expendable for
the common good of rejuvenating Downtown with the latest sure-thing plan, in a
20-year long list of sure-thing plans to revive Downtown.
I want someone at City Hall to call when I can't get a straight answer or
something done that is important to my neighbors and me.
I tell you what I don't want -- I don't want another Section 8 house in my
neighborhood.
sb
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