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Ralph Goin
Gehrig Saldaña
Wilma Avalos
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07/21/05 Or not quite
hopeless!
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Watching the reporting on the FBI investigations at
City Hall, the related
brave fronts and half-hearted denials, it's hard to get a fix on where things
are going with our local drama. Some reporters are wondering out loud if
the FBI really have anything. I hope they don't, but I'm pretty sure they
do. |
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7/21 James
Northrup:
Laura Miller's moratorium on tax credit apartments was
pretty cold blooded, considering Maxine Thornton Expressway already had
her untitled luxury car picked out. Once again, this shows the Mayor's
insensitivity to the transportation needs of the Southern Sector. Time for
another recall petition?
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We City Hall groupies know something has been amiss at City Hall for decades.
Some of it goes back to Annette Strauss and before with Robert Folsom annexing
all his property up in Renner and diverting public monies to that area when the
funds were needed for infrastructure improvements in Oak Cliff and East Dallas. Look at the Starplex contract which was done under
Mayor Strauss's watch to benefit her husband.
That horribly one-sided Starplex deal was one of the major hurdles that made it
impossible to do a new football stadium at Fair Park -- that and Jerry Jones'
greed. In all fairness, I doubt Mayor Strauss knew anything about the
details of the Starplex contract, and Mayor Folsom likely thought it was a good
thing for Dallas to develop a new area where it would be almost exclusively
rich, white people.
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"He
[Mayor Folsom] came under special attack for an alleged conflict of interest
when he led the council to annex the town of Renner despite personal
property holdings there. The annexation included exclusive North
Dallas developments such as Bent Tree, which Folsom's development company
had begun in the early 1970's, and it extended far into Collin County."
Big D: Triumphs and Troubles of an
American Supercity in the 20th Century, revised edition, by Darwin
Payne, 2000, p. 428. |
Pay to play has been de rigueur at City Hall for decades.
When Ron Kirk was Mayor, he got a vacation on a yacht in the Mediterranean and
the yacht's owner got a huge tax abatement TO KEEP his business where it ALREADY
EXISTED!
Then there were all the perks that went to Kirk's family
and John Ware for their assistance in securing the rip off of the century for
Ross Perot, Jr. and Tim Hicks. Like three-quarters of a million dollars in
stock options in Tom Hicks company for the Kirk's and a half-million dollar
annual "make work" job for John Ware. Sweet rewards for just a
bit of influence peddling and conflict of interest.
You can understand why a pseudo preacher man like D'Angelo Lee assumed no one
would mind if he did himself a little good while doing his civic duty as a city
plan commissioner. As things always go at City Hall, what should be a
half-day a week tour of duty has evolved into a very time-consuming chore.
The P&Z has almost as many subcommittees as the council, and they are just about
as unproductive. The entire situation lends itself to corruption.
Unless you are independently wealthy or retired or a housewife, it's hard to
spend that much time on a volunteer position and maintain a job or normal
business -- unless that volunteer time benefits your real
estate or development business. Of course, there may be one
commissioner who has nothing else to do and loves the attention and power of
serving on the city's most important board.
There is no need for those commissioners to be there as much as they are.
If they would let the staff do their job and present their recommendations, it
would be better all around. The way things work now, the decision on most
cases have been made before there is any public hearing. If the
commissioner is tight with a particular homeowners' group, they will likely be
able to kill a project they don't want. If a homeowners' group is out of
favor with their commissioner, as in the case of the Oak Lawn Committee and Neil
Awful Emmons, they are paddling up river.
The Board of Adjustment cannot be lobbied because it is a quasi-judicial panel.
We need to cut back the P&Z to a tour of the project, a briefing and the public
hearing. Eliminate all those committees. They are make work sessions
and a drain on staff's time and resources. If things keep going the way
they are, it will not be long before some group starts screaming about salaries
for P&Z commissioners as the only way to eliminate fraud and corruption
opportunities.
Wasn't that what we were told when we voted to pay council members? Pay
them because they spend so much time at City Hall. Pay them and it will
discourage corruption.
Still, I'm hopeful. The current scandals may scare some of the borderline
crooks onto the straight and narrow.
Mary Lou Zijderveld circulated her notes from Mary Suhm's "State of the City"
report. It was more of the same, with all the focus still on Downtown and
the Southern Sector. North Dallas taxpayers will continue to subsidize the
rest of the city because all the other areas are in Tax Increment Financing (TIF's)
Districts or Public Improvement Districts (PID's), which means that much of
their share of property taxes gets spent on their own property. In North
Dallas, we are
lucky if some of our property taxes gets spent in our
neighborhoods. In North Dallas, we have to pay for any repairs or improvements to our
own property all by ourselves.
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A few days ago, a smart real estate friend of mine told me about several new
developments in Oak Lawn. He said many old apartment complexes are being bulldozed
to make room for new high dollar residential projects. I was so envious
because much of our North Dallas problems would be solved if someone bulldozed
the apartment buildings between Walnut Hill and Northwest Highway. Our
area parks are overwhelmed by apartment residents because landlords do not
provide playground areas on their own property. It should be required by
the city. Proximity to an apartment complex determines the stability and
marketability of single-family neighborhoods in the Bachman area.
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7/21 Michael Davis:
Watch how the Vickery Meadows deal goes with the apartment
buildings coming down, and those awesome new
schools going up.
Lake Highlands
is also pushing hard to reduce crime in the apartments in the area of
Skillman/Abrams/Royal.
The fact is, until someone gets tough
with absentee apartment complex owners in NW
Dallas, nothing is going to happen.
The only thing people like that respect is money.
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Still, I'm hopeful. There are some good things happening up here.
Revitalization on Northwest Highway and Harry Hines will eventually encourage
redevelopment and removal of the over-populated apartment complexes (many of
which were built under Mayor Folsom's reign).
Now, the Wright Amendment debate is on the front burner AGAIN. If it did
not impact me personally because I live so near Love Field AGAIN, I might be
able to enjoy the posturing of both sides. My favorite turn of events is
having
Sens. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
file a bill to end all commercial flights at Love Field. That's exactly
what the City of Dallas agreed to do when we entered into a partnership with Ft.
Worth to develop DFW.
For years, Chip Northrup has called for closing Love Field and redeveloping all
that land. It used to sound far fetched, but I may get on his bandwagon.
No matter what happens this round, the greedy folks at Southwest will never be
content with their current monopoly of a regional airport. They want a
monopoly of a national airport -- at the expense of all the people who live near
Love Field.
Early in this new pitched battle, I assumed everyone in Northwest Dallas was
against the Wright Amendment. The past few weeks, several neighbors have
let me know they want the Wright Amendment to stay in place and keep the status quo. We are sort of coming out of our pro-Wright Amendment
closets and getting a little more vocal. What I've noticed is the
long-time residents in my neighborhood who remember the horror of Love Field
pre-DFW do not want to go back to that.
If you watch the DMN letters to the editor, the pro-appeal folks don't have
Dallas addresses. It is particularly hypocritical of those who don't
intend to live under the mayhem that will come from repeal of Wright are the
ones pushing for its repeal.
Preserving the Wright Amendment is another area where I am hopeful. There's a
pattern developing where Senators and representatives from underserved areas
recognize hub and spoke systems like DFW benefit their constituents
because they get left out of direct city to city operations. They will
team up with the Ft. Worth delegation to Congress, which is united against
repeal of the Wright Amendment. The Dallas delegation is split on the
issue, and neither of our Texas Senators are coming
out for repeal. Two of my least favorite Republicans, Tom Delay and John
McCain, have come out against Wright -- so they become the enemy.
| There's another area where we can be very hopeful. The city is actually
considering selling some park land that is outside our city limits and using the
money from the sale to improve public parks that are more accessible to Dallas
residents. |
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7/21 Citizen
D:
You couldn't even begin to make this kind of stuff up! Just
glancing through any of the stories you keep track of for us makes me
think that we are all in a sort of twisted "Twilight Zone" kind of play.
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Council to consider selling off lakeside
park;
Dallas: City may seek
development plans also; Rowlett weighs new bid
July 19, 2005
by IAN McCANN / The Dallas Morning News
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The
Dallas City Council is expected to consider next month whether to solicit
bids and development plans for the 237-acre Elgin B. Robertson Park on the
shores of Lake Ray Hubbard.
Dallas parks planner Michael Hellmann
said the city would seek at least $30 million for the land, a peninsula
crossed by Interstate 30.
... "We felt that the park
doesn't serve Dallas as well as it does Garland and Mesquite and Rowlett,"
Mr. Hellmann said. "Right now, the city of Dallas spends almost $100,000 a
year on the maintenance of this property. And the improvements on this
property aren't getting any newer and will have to be replaced. Getting bond
money appropriated for this park might not be justifiable."
... He said the $30 million asking price ? nearly
$3 per square foot ? is more than Rowlett would pay. Previous offers from
Rowlett were approximately $22 million to $25 million, Mr. Johnson said.
... The amount Rowlett offered "is still a lot
higher than it'll appraise for as raw parkland, which is what it is," the
mayor said.
Rowlett's vision for the property
includes 30 to 40 acres that would include public lake access, 300,000 to
400,000 square feet of retail space and high-value townhouses or
condominiums, Mr. Johnson said.
Such development could generate substantial
tax revenue for Rowlett, which has been trying to shift the tax burden off
homeowners.
... Mr. Hellmann said anybody ? whether a city
like Rowlett or Garland or a private developer ? could bid on the property
if the Dallas City Council decides to seek proposals.
Dallas would
use proceeds from the sale to buy or improve land throughout the rest of the
city.
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Now, that's cause for
celebration. Dallas tax dollars being spent for the benefit of Dallas
taxpayers? What a novel idea! It would be great if the money goes to
improve our current inventory before we buy more land that we can't afford to
maintain. Just disposing of land outside our city limits and not spending
$100,000 a year on a park that is mostly used by people who live in Garland,
Mesquite and Rowlett is exciting.
If we stop spending our limited resources building entertainment facilities for
Park Cities residents, it will be absolutely orgasmic.
Don't worry, be happy? Well, worry some!
In summary, we have some elected and appointed city officials who may or may not
wind up in jail for doing business as usual at City Hall. I hope Mr.
Fantroy gets off. He's in very bad health and prosecuting him is not a
good use of tax dollars. I have very mixed emotions about Don Hill.
He's a lawyer, which makes him an officer of the Court. I like the guy,
but there's something really wrong with his part in this mess. D'Angelo
Lee deserves a special place in Hell if the charges are true because he
represented himself to be a man of God. I hope Mr. Fantroy gets off and
Lee gets jail time.
The Wright Amendment may not be in the big jeopardy we thought just a few weeks
ago. It's encouraging that Oklahoma's
Sen. James Inhofe
has the cojones to make such a bold proposal to protect his constituents.
With so many wienies in public, just to have an elected official with that kind
of nerve is reason for hope.
City staff is actually considering something practical. If that doesn't
give you reason to be hopeful, you are just hopeless.
sb
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