Miller Mailer
                             

05/06/05  Pearl chokers do not make you a Republican.

Why is it whenever Mayor Miller wants to communicate with North Dallas Republicans she dons a string of pearls and speaks earnestly into the camera, spouting clich? and generalities? I have no idea whether those are real or faux-pearls.  I am sure they are expensive, but they do not make her a Republican.

If you live in North Dallas and voted in the Republican primary, you likely got the Mayor's flyer "An urgent message from leading Republicans".  If you live in South Dallas or voted in the Democrat's primary, you did not get the flyer.  How is that not racist?

It says "Read why respected Republicans are voting 'Yes' on Proposition 1."  There's a bit of a problem with the flyer.  Two of the Mayor's "respected Republicans" better not be voting on Proposition 1 at all because they don't live in Dallas.  One of them does not even live in Dallas County. 

I don't know whether Wick Allison is a Republican or not.  I've never seen him at a campaign rally or an election watch party.  Certainly, I have never seen him volunteering for a Republican candidate.  As a so called journalist, I would not expect him to have contributed financially to any politician either.  I doubt he has ever lived in the city limits of Dallas, but he lives in the Park Cities now.  Wick Allison best not be voting in our city election.

Mark Davis is a Tarrant County guy who knows nothing about Dallas politics other than what he hears from his buddies on the banquet circuit.  He not only has never lived in our city; he has never worked in our city -- unless you count his column gig with The Dallas Managed News.   Mark Davis best not be voting in our city election.

It speaks volumes about the desperate situation of Mayor Miller's Stronger Mayor, Stronger Dallas Committee when they would mail out such a deceptive flyer, but then the entire Blackwood escapade has been deceptive and fraudulent.

Commissioner John Wiley Price has a radio ad that says "Blackwood will put us back in the wood".  The Mayor's people are screaming that he's using the race card.  What he says about Blackwood pertains to all of us who are community activists, citywide.  Last time I looked, my eyes were still blue and my skin was still white. 

Blackwood will put us back to the days when Robert Folsom threw up monstrous apartment buildings in and near our single-family neighborhoods, and we were powerless to intervene.  Without the codified power of Blackwood, Mayor Folsom was a strong mayor who did what he pleased.  It was not good for Dallas. 

Citizens need a representative at City Hall to protect their neighborhoods from becoming the dumping ground for other more affluent and connected areas.

Northwest Dallas would truly suffer under a strong mayor system because we are increasingly becoming a community of immigrant homeowners, who not only can't vote but are reluctant to challenge authority.  We would have less influence with Our Mayor under Blackwood than we have now -- and I can tell you we currently have less than none of Our Mayor's attention.

Several reporter types are falling on the Blackwood sword.  Can't follow their logic, but there's a real pattern.  I'm still trying to figure out Jim Schutze's thought process in his Crosshairs column.  He was won over a couple of weeks ago when a rich former boss had lunch with him, and now he's trying to justify an illogical position. 

According to his reasoning in  Crosshairs, Schutze basically thinks we should do away with our council-manager system of government because Terrell Bolton wept in public after he was fired from a job he should have never held in the first place.

One thing Schutze says is just a mind blower:

He's talking about 14-1, which was the battle cry of all Dallas liberals in the late 80's.  Which brings to mind the old warning, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

Park Cities resident, Judge Jerry Buchmeyer imposed 14-1 on Dallas.  Park Cities resident Buchmeyer has single-handedly done more harm to Dallas than all the mayors and council members elected since he forced 14-1 on us.  Dallas voters had just approved replacing our 10-2-1 (mayor and 2 at large) system with 10-4-1 (mayor and 4 at large), when Buchmeyer overturned our election.  That was the first Park Cities coup d'?at in a decade long process to take control of Dallas City Hall and reduce Dallas residents to their serfs.

Since Annette Strauss was dominated by Lordi Palmer, no one at City Hall appealed Buchmeyer's usurpation of a political decision of the citizens of Dallas.

Liberals like Lordi Palmer claimed the smaller districts would give neighborhoods more power.  They then proceeded to draw district lines based on individual power bases, rather than neighborhood interests.  The districts were actually drawn to split up powerful neighborhoods like Oak Lawn.

Little did we know at the time that Jerry Buchmeyer was laying the groundwork for Vance Miller and his Park Cities Cabal to officially take control of our City Hall.

This week, there were two big stories about corruption in the Mayor's office of both Chicago and Detroit.  You didn't hear about either in The Dallas Managed News or on any local TV station because it would have confirmed what the opposition to Blackwood have been saying.  Detroit Mayor Ran Up $210K on Credit Card and  U.S. agents seize files at city offices (Chicago Mayor Daly's offices).  Strong mayor systems inevitably result in corruption.  

Do you want Dallas to emulate Chicago or Detroit?  Or would you rather Dallas be Dallas?

San Antonio has gone past us, and they have a council-manager system.  Ft. Worth is prospering, and they have a council-manager system.  If we have to emulate another city, why not make it one of our successful Texas cities?

With the limitations of our current system, other mayors have been able to get things done -- things that I did not particularly support.   We should not change our system of government because our current mayor cannot get 7 votes.

We have an election to get through Saturday, and you will have 12 hours to do the right thing.  Don't let anyone tell you we need Blackwood to shake things up at City Hall.  By such logic, we need a train wreck to fix our traffic gridlock.

Jim Schutze admits he's usually on the losing side of elections.  It's because he likes to be a contrarian.  It may also be that he works for a newspaper.  He likes bosses -- that's what he knows.

I like democracy.  Dictatorships are much more efficient than democracies, but self-government is a necessary component of freedom.

Don't be fooled by the Mayor's pearls and earnest TV ads.  She's no Republican, and Blackwood is no solution to our current problems.

sb