Don Abbott
Coalition for Open Government
                             

04/05/05  Why can't we have honest campaigns in Dallas?

By now, you have received a mailing from the "Stronger Mayor - Stronger Dallas" campaign that I'm calling her "green piece".  Did you read it?  Did you agree with it?  Did you toss it?

Her "green piece" is false campaign advertising.

Our Mayor campaigned on a platform of smooth streets, green parks and better pay for cops and firefighters.  We didn't know she only meant those improvements for Downtown.  That was false campaign advertising.  Her mayoral campaign pieces were prepared by her same handsome guru who is doing this Stronger Mayor propaganda.  We could have green parks and improved streets in our neighborhoods if Our Mayor wasn't so hell bent on her Trinity Project and Signature Bridges -- which she belittled in her mayoral campaign.

The green piece says "Civic volunteers, business leaders, minority leaders and Dallas Mayors past and present agree:  It's time for a change."  Our Mayor confuses Park Cities tycoons with Dallas civic volunteers and business leaders.  Only Steve Bartlett (a 1-term wonder) and Our Mayor herself are endorsing her "Stronger Mayor" power grab.

I'm going to refute her green piece, point by point, but here's what Pat Cotton says about some of Our Mayor's claims in her green piece:

These are not insignificant misstatements.

Let's go back to the green piece, to the center pages where she lists "Five reasons why The Stronger Mayor Plan means a stronger Dallas" and take those items apart.

Some of the cities Our Mayor wants to emulate are a hundred or more years older than Dallas, dating back to Colonial America.  They have had time to work out their mistakes -- and even more time to repeat their mistakes.  For the average resident of those cities, there is little or no access to City Hall.  Those cities have histories of corruption and crooked politicians who kept Police Chiefs from doing their job. 

I worked very hard to get Steve Bartlett elected because I thought he would be strong and good for Dallas.  He was neither.  He doesn't even live here now.

There was a time when I believed neighborhood issues would be important to Our Mayor.  I don't hear her talking about neighborhood issues.  I see her trapping up to D.C. to get money for bridges to nowhere, while we are losing funding for DART.  Dallas cannot continue to build roads to get people back and forth from work.  What those cities Our Mayor admires have that we need is an effective mass transit system that moves people around quickly, efficiently and safely.

Those "14 politicians" she derides were elected by Dallas voters.  She's a politician, too.  She was elected citywide, but they had their own tough campaigns to get their council seat.  She gets to speak at big, Downtown gatherings, they get to speak to their constituents in weekly crime watch and homeowner meetings.  She's screened from the mundane.  They hear face-to-face what the people they represent want -- Dallas residents, not Park Cities residents. 

When Dallas had all at large council members, the Mayor and council only looked North.  Those were the days of Mayor Robert Folsom, who annexed Renner and diverted city resources away from Oak Cliff, South Dallas, Downtown, East Dallas and Oak Lawn to develop his holdings in an area that should never have been part of Dallas and isn't even in Dallas County.  Until we had single-member districts, there was no one at City Hall "accountable" to the neglected areas. 

Why does the Mayor want to eliminate single member districts?  Why would anyone with a grain of sense run for the city council when they will have no power and no ability to deliver services to their district, unless they are on the Mayor's team?

This is just an outright lie.  Some of the things she mentions in this 4th item of her green piece came out of the Charter Review Commission.  They were rejected by the council members and are not being proposed by the council's plan.  The council's plan raises the mayor's salary, not their salaries.  There is no recommendation of district offices or longer terms or percentages of the city budget for each district.  This is false campaign advertising.  This is the section that Pat Cotton refers to in her comments above (in blue box).

I don't have a big problem with each district having some percentage of the budget devoted to specific needs of that district.  When you see how much money has been spent on Downtown every year for one scheme or another that is going to do what previous scams failed to do, the "big picture" stuff looks like an empty bag of wind for those of us outside Downtown.   When you see how much of the tax revenue in this city comes from outside of Downtown, having our council member look after our needs seems like not such a bad thing.

San Diego just recently switched from council-manager to strong mayor.  We don't know if it will work all that well for them.  Chicago and Atlanta are much older cities than Dallas, and things aren't going so swimmingly for them either.  Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia all have histories of corrupt mayors who abused their office.  The Blackwood plan gives the Dallas Mayor even more power than those three cities. 

What is is that phrase about "absolute power" and "absolute corruption"?

As for Houston, they have lots of problems that are beginning to surface -- like a nearly bankrupt employee retirement fund and the following story:

HoustonChronicle.com

Audit slams housing agency, A report finds potential fraud, other problems widespread in city department By MIKE SNYDER April 4, 2005 Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

For more than a decade, Houston's Housing and Community Development Department chose projects based on its directors' whims, allowed for massive defaults on loans and created opportunities for conflicts of interest and fraud, an independent review of the department concludes.    The report, prepared for the city by the Jefferson Wells consulting firm, identifies fundamental deficiencies in virtually every area of the department ? from a secretive, retaliatory management culture to a shoddy system for checking on contractors' performance and ensuring repayment of loans.    Sound business practices were routinely disregarded, the report says, citing one instance when an assistant director changed the interest rate on a loan for an apartment project ? without modifying the loan agreement or securing City Council approval ? to correct an erroneous calculation in a repayment schedule. ... Bingham, who headed the department from 1992 to 2002, is now a private housing consultant. She recently received $500,000 from the city to subsidize an apartment development, and she has participated in projects that received low-income-housing tax credits from the state housing agency, of which she is a former board chairwoman. ...  In December, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development froze $14.7 million of this year's funding, as well as $33.3 million accumulated in previous years, because of mismanagement. ...

Imagine someone with no management experience who is very attractive and glib getting elected to be Mayor of Dallas.  Imagine that person trying to fill all the management positions necessary to run this city, when that same person doesn't know enough qualified and willing people to fill her board and commission slots. 

There are some council members who have absolutely no business holding public office and thank goodness a couple of them are termed out this election.  At the same time, there are people on this council who are successful business people who understand the process of managing and delivering.  Dr. Elba Garcia has a dental practice.  Ed Oakley has a construction business.  Don Hill and Steve Salazar have their own law practices.  Bill Blaydes and Mitch Rasansky are successful businessmen. 

Our Mayor was a very good journalist, but she is no business woman and certainly has no management skills.  Our Mayor told a business group recently about how she dropped in on a civil service appeal hearing -- not only a bad management decision, but an intrusion on that employee's rights to a fair hearing. 

Our Mayor is a very smart woman, very attractive and very glib.  She may have some great ideas, but implementing them is not something they teach in Journalism 101.

Our Mayor knows there are problems with the Blackwood plan.  She says "trust me", I will let the council appoint Board and Commission members just like they do now and in two years I will get the Charter amended again to fix the problems.  She can't disregard the existing Charter if Blackwood is approved, and she can't deliver on her promise to amend or fix the charter in two years.

Despite the falsehoods in her green piece, Our Mayor knows what the council is proposing for a November charter election is better than Blackwood, but she says "you can't trust them" to do what they say.  Well, I disagree. 

I ran unsuccessfully against Steve Salazar for city council from District 6.  I have learned over the past two years that I can trust him.  He has been proactive and focused on our district needs.  He appointed me to the Coalition for Open Government as his representative with one proviso -- we are not against a stronger mayor, we are against Blackwood.  Since that was and is my position, it was certainly a condition that I could accept. 

Our Mayor's green piece is false political advertising.  I cannot imagine that she did not agree to its content, but it was done by the same guy who had sail boats and swans floating on the Trinity in the brochures for the Trinity Bondoogle.  Remember, some district judge said we can't expect honesty in political mailings.

If you got the Mayor's green piece, then you likely got a mailer from the Coalition for Open Government.  Here are some statements on the COG mailer:

Jim Erwin says "Dallas is a $2 billion corporation.  This would completely eliminate requirements for professional management from the charter." 

Jack Lowe, Jr. says "A mayor will be able to set construction standards for Dallas buildings.  That power could be used to pay off allies and endanger lives and property."

Former City Manager George Schrader says "A mayor will be able to give jobs and contracts to political cronies."

Ebby Halliday Acers says "I won't be able to sell Dallas unless it has clean, good government."

Attorney Darrell Jordan says "Our city will be paralyzed for years by costly litigation."

These are real people who have real businesses and management experience in this city, people who know what they are talking about.

None of them are saying we don't need to give the mayor more power, they are saying the Blackwood plan goes too far, will do more harm than good and needs to be defeated.

I agree with them.  The Coalition's mailer is not campaign propaganda.  It is a collection of comments from Dallas business people who know what it takes to run a big company successfully.

There is such a thing as truth in political advertising.  It's just not coming from the Stronger Mayor - Stronger Dallas campaign.

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