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Lorlee Bartos
Jack McNulty
Politicklish
Jorge Torres, Jr.
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01/22/04 Sometimes it works --
Tuesday, the Texas Supreme Court refused to overturn
the 5th Circuit's ruling that denied Domingo Garcia's request to be reinstated
as a candidate on the Dallas County Democrat Party's ballot as a candidate for
state Legislative District 103 against Rafael Anchia.
I told you the only documentation Garcia attached to his Petition for Writ of
Mandamus was his own Affidavit (or his word). Well, he did provide some
other items. Here's a statement from his Affidavit that might explain why
no one should ever take him seriously again:
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Appendix A: Affidavit in Support of Petition for Writ of Mandamus |
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... "Sometime in October, 2003, my landlord Samuel Cortez advised me that he
would not be able to sell the house to me . . . I gave Mr. Cortez
notice of my intent to terminate the lease. I paid the rent on the
house at 2823 Ingersoll through November 30, 2003. I located an
apartment at 1312 Winding Brook ... located within the current boundaries of
House District 103. I moved into the
apartment on November 25, 2003, and I signed a written lease for the
apartment on December 16, 2003. I still currently
reside in that apartment and intend to remain there indefinitely.
I do not intend to return to my prior residences."... |
That must be news to Dr. Elba Garcia because she
lives in one of Domingo Garcia's "prior residences". The
Dallas Central Appraisal District valued their house
at 500 E 5th St. in 2003 at
$167,930 and the lot it sits on at $9,600 for a total value of $177,530 in Oak Cliff.
Do you really believe Domingo is going to hang out in an apartment complex when
his beautiful wife and two sons are living in a luxuriously restored home?
How does the homestead exemption work if one of the owners says he doesn't live
there? Does a married couple get to claim homestead exemptions on two
different properties? That doesn't seem fair.
Susan Hays, the 5th Circuit and the Texas Supreme Court used common sense to
discount Domingo Garcia's claim of residency in House District 103. There
is no way to figure out how Garcia came to his convoluted claim of residency,
but common sense was nowhere in the process. In
this matter, the Courts did their job and the system worked.
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We've been laughing and told-you-so-ing about Grandpa Jones funneling Super Bowl
tickets through his Houston lawyers to Dallas County Commissioners. Four
of the five Commissioners had the good sense to reject the tickets immediately.
Ken Mayfield is not the brightest lamp in the room. It took him a couple
of days and lots of ridiculing publicly and privately before he realized that
Grandpa Jones was behind the tickets and not the Houston Sports Authority.
Wonder how many commissioners in other counties got a couple of tickets each to
the Houston Super Bowl? |
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W. Mike Baggett
Shareholder
Chairman & CEO
Winstead |
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214.745.5303 Direct |
The attorney who boldly
distributed valuable -- very valuable Super Bowl tickets to the County
Commissioners was Mike Baggett. Why don't you take a moment and call his
direct line and let him know what you think of lawyers who try to bribe public
officials in Dallas on behalf of plastic-faced Millionaires from Arkansas?
Even for Grandpa Jones, this was particularly brazen and ill-planned, but when
was the last time we had a Super Bowl in Texas? Mayfield claims he
intended to use the tickets and trip to Houston as an opportunity to measure the
economic impact of a super bowl.
Oh, P - L -E - A - S - E.
As one local activist comments:
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Let's hope that there will be no more incidents such as this as the "Jones"
tax issue is voted upon. |
Unfortunately, we will see more of this stuff. Grandpa Jones is
from Arkansas.
The media did a good job shaming Mayfield into doing the right thing. In
this instance, the press did its job and the system worked.
In 1998 (the same year Perot & Hicks bought enough votes to steal the key to our
municipal vault), Con Jerk was the front man again for the Trinity Project.
The pro-Trinity liars mailed out brochures showing a project light years away
from what's on the plate today, 2004. There was going to be a fixed cost,
there was going to be state money, toll road money, federal money. Not!
Our bond money was just really going to be the seed money to kick start the
project. Ha! Ha!
We not only don't have state and federal money, the council crooks and housewife
extraordinaires have added millions to the original project, which we couldn't
afford in the first place. We have millions we need to spend to get a
couple of ugly string things to replace our beautiful and historic viaducts.
The Princess of Preservation is out raising money for a string thing bridge so
that our 1912 viaduct can be demolished.
The council is looking at you and me having to subsidize TU Electric, so they will move the
utilities in the Trinity River corridor. Guess how that gets
done? Not with raising property taxes that we can write off our federal income
taxes. They are considering allowing TU to slap a surcharge on our
electricity bills, which we can't deduct. We are going to get hit with a
utility rate increase about the same time we get hit with a surcharge to throw
away on the Trinity River Project.
Whether it's the Mayor or any councilmember, any vote for such a surcharge is
not for the benefit of Dallas citizens and businesses. This is such a dumb
idea that it's certain to happen. If it does, it will prove no one at City Hall is looking out for
our interest. At City Hall, the system does not work for Dallas citizens.
It was particularly hypocritical for the council to hold voting on their
resolution condemning the Patriot Act last week, since they intend to beg,
borrow or steal $100 million from Washington for the Trinity.
Council is doing one thing right. Someone is finally facing the reality
that over-populated apartment complexes are time bombs going off almost every
day. Children are living in apartment buildings where they have no green
space or playground areas. Entire families are living in one bedroom
apartments. This week had a man stabbing his wife and three-year-old son.
They were living in a 1 bedroom apartment with the child's grandmother. If
an adult cracks under the pressure of living in such a cramped situation, think
about what it does to the psyche of a child or pre-teen or teenager.
They can talk about the problem all they want. They can correctly conclude
that much of our city crime relates to apartment complexes. But, until the
council invokes the nuisance rule and demolishes a bad complex as an example to
other slumlords, it's not going to get better.
Still, council is on the right track on this one if they stay focused.
All in all, knowing Rafael Anchia will be my state representative and not
Domingo Garcia. That's a good thing.
The main reason I ran for council last year was to try to break up the patron
system in West Dallas and Oak Cliff where all the elected offices were rotated
between the families and friends of Domingo Garcia, Steve Salazar and Roberto
Alonzo. There are so many new faces in the Hispanic community who are
being denied their place at the table by the old guard "High-Spanics", as Jesse
Diaz calls them.
Rafael Anchia is the future. He is a successful attorney with a Downtown
firm. He is totally bilingual. I have seen him at PTA meetings in
his School Board Trustee capacity. He goes back and forth between English
and Spanish without stuttering or missing a beat.
This has been a big news week with 3 more days to go. So far, pretty good.
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