Gary Turner
Barbara Mathews Blanton
                             

05/31/04  Remembering Councilwoman Laura Miller vs. Mayor Laura Miller

Has it only been a little over two years since community activists, environmentalists, North Dallas conservative homeowners, police and firefighters all worked our collective rears off to get Laura Miller elected on a platform of "smooth streets, green parks and fair pay" for cops and firefighters?  Remember how proud we were?  Remember how stunned Our Downtown Betters (the ODB) were?

You had to have been part of the campaign to understand the incredulous joy we all felt that night.  We were taking our city back from the ODB and from the ill effects of ward politics.  We did it with a great looking, articulate candidate and hundreds of volunteer campaign workers devoting untold hours to the campaign.  It was an army of people fed up with the likes of Ron Kirk/Con Jerk and a completely dysfunctional City Hall.

We really believed we had elected someone who shared our concerns.

We were ready to see this city restored to a place where businesses would want to locate (or just not leave) and people would want to live (or just not leave).  We were fed up with  Kirk/Jerk's big ticket agendas.  We bought Councilwoman Miller's line:  fix the basics first.  We got duped.

Nowhere to go but up mentions this DMN story:

Council's $100 million dream: providing electricity without view Wednesday, May 26, 2004 By EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News

When Dallas Mayor Laura Miller envisions the future Trinity River project, she sees scenic parks, busy sidewalk cafes and sold-out luxury condos.    Hundred-foot-high, tapered steel power poles don't fit into this rosy picture. But the city's utility company says they might have to, if Dallas wants to keep up with growing demand.    As Oncor ? soon to be TXU ? maps out a new, high-capacity power line along the Trinity River, city officials are lobbying for a compromise that would keep it far from sight. And the mayor said she would do what it takes to remove existing electric eyesores in coming years ? even if it means the city paying millions of dollars to bury the lines.    The City Council's dream plan would cost the city nearly $100 million over the next six years.    City staffers haven't determined how to pay for such projects. But they have recommended earmarking funds from Oncor's franchise fees or adding a surcharge to Dallas ratepayers' electric bills ? at least for a portion.    "If you have a luxury condominium, you can't have windows looking out at big towers and wires across their path," Ms. Miller said. "We can't have economic development like this. At the end of the day, we're going to have to take existing lines and put them underground." ... Ms. Miller said the city made a mistake in granting Oncor the river right of way. And with plans for development along the corridor, she said, "It's something we need to reconsider." ... But in the case of one proposed line, the city's power needs might override aesthetic concerns. Since 2001, Oncor has been crafting plans for a 345-kilovolt transmission line from Irving's Norwood Switching Station to Dallas' West Levee Station, which services downtown's central business district, West Dallas and Oak Cliff. Oncor's original blueprint took the path of least resistance ? the Trinity floodway. ... "The line is primarily to reliably serve the D/FW area," Mr. Gill said. "You have to operate so that when you lose a line, nothing happens." ... Mr. Gill said transmission lines are typically buried only if there is no space for overhead lines. When customers want their lines buried for aesthetic reasons, the cost burden falls on them, he said. ... The city's proposal to bury one mile of line would cost $12 million. ...  the city entertained thoughts of putting the entire line underground ? at a cost of $72 million. ... In the next three years, council members hope to free up the Trinity River by consolidating existing lines from the East Levee onto Irving Boulevard and converting aerial lines near the future Woodall Rodgers Signature Bridge to underground lines. These projects would cost a combined $24.6 million.    And by 2010, the mayor said, she hopes to bury the power lines along both levees ? at an estimated additional cost of $60 million. ... The central business district has its power lines buried underground, she said, so the Trinity River Corridor should, too.    "Why would you build the [Woodall Rodgers Signature] bridge and have it obscured?" Ms. Miller said. "If we have to pay to put them underground, that's what we're going to do."

Who is this woman?  Why is she more concerned about aesthetics than our costs of living?

Laura Miller is the same politician who signed the police and firefighters petition to SUPPORT their 17% pay raise referendum in exchange for their endorsement of her campaign for mayor against Tom Dunning and Domingo Garcia, then turned on them and campaigned AGAINST their 17% raise that would have improved our public safety. 

Sort of like 'I actually voted for it, before I voted against it.'

In Stinking River, DallasArena.com had a "told you so" moment:

Raw Sewage Flows Through North Texas; Control Gate Malfunctions At Water Treatment Plant POSTED: 5:34 pm CST March 31, 2004; UPDATED: 6:53 pm CST March 31, 2004 DALLAS -- A control gate at the Trinity River Authority's wastewater treatment plant on Singleton Boulevard in Dallas malfunctioned at about 5 .m. Wednesday, sending raw sewage flowing in to the Trinity River and blowing off manhole covers in Irving. Authorities said the malfunction is the first of its kind to occur in Dallas. . . .    An NBC report estimated 15 to 20 acres of land had been flooded by mid-afternoon Wednesday. At that time, only Irving was affected, but the sewage line serves 20 North Texas cities. No homes or businesses were affected Their footage was so gross - bubbling raw sewage -- floating down the Trinity. Raw sewage sent gushing in Irving after gate mishap; Stench no picnic, but biggest problem could be fish kill downriver 10:08 PM CST on Wed, 3/31/04 by JIM GETZ and ERIC AASEN / The Dallas Morning News    Geysers of raw sewage soared as high as 4 feet, and at least eight manholes were launched into the air.    Bubbling dark liquid flowed across the ground and a stench permeated the air, prompting Irving officials to close a city golf course.    Before the Trinity River Authority solved a problem with a malfunctioning gate at its east Grand Prairie wastewater treatment plant Wednesday afternoon, southeast Irving bore the brunt of the mishap. The faulty gate blocked all sewage from getting into the plant for half a day, and the smelly mess backed up into low-lying areas nearby. ... The faulty gate was highly unusual. Mr. Jadrosich said it was the first time a gate had malfunctioned at the plant since he began working for the Trinity River Authority in 1975. Ron McCuller, who has been public works director in Grand Prairie for eight years and worked as an assistant in Irving for 24 years before that, agreed.    "We've never had a situation with the plant like this, that I can recall," Mr. McCuller said. "There were times when we had a sewer line wash out because of heavy rains. But as far as the sluice gate going into the plant, that's a highly unusual situation."    If the problem had not been solved, all the customers on the system, extending from Carrollton south to Cedar Hill, could have been affected, Mr. Jadrosich said.    About the same time Mr. Jadrosich announced that wastewater was again flowing through the plant, enabling the backup to subside, raw sewage flows were seen in the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. He said the Trinity River Authority would be responsible for cleanup.    The river is not a source of drinking water; rather, treated wastewater is released into it. ... Equipment breaks.  Equipment jams.  Equipment needs maintenance.  Our Mayor and the ODB don't worry too much about maintenance.  Future taxpayers and mayors can deal with all that trivial stuff. This is where Our Mayor wants to spend billions of dollars rather than in areas that are actually habitable and inhabited.  This is where Our Mayor wants her silly String Thing Bridges that she claims will be tourist draws.  Can you imagine how impressed those tourists will be to smell something that a golfer told the DMN: "Take the worst thing you've ever smelled and multiply it by 10" ... .

"If you have a luxury condominium, you can't have windows looking out at big towers and wires across their path," Ms. Miller said. "  Someone needs to tell all those people in Oak Lawn, Turtle Creek and Uptown that "you can't have windows looking out at big towers and wires".   Uptown actually has street car lines added to their power lines. 

Our Meddling Mayor is out of touch with reality, and she and Bob Decherd are the only ones who don't know it.  She never had the votes to fire Ted Benavides before he tendered his resignation, now she thinks she can get 11 votes to fire him before his retirement.  Delusional. 

Our Meddling Mayor doesn't have the 5 votes to get a "strong mayor" charter amendment on the ballot either, but she keeps hitting all the radio talk shows trying to drum up support for her agenda (or is it Belo's agenda?).  She wants Mary Suhm as the interim City Manager (or is it Belo who wants Mary Suhm?).  She's not likely to get her way on this one either.

My $78 million estimate for what it would take to pay the cops and firefighters the 17% raise they sought in 2002 was based on a Benavides comment:

Council will decide replacement, role of city manager 07:11 PM CDT on Friday, May 28, 2004 By BRETT SHIPP / WFAA-TV

When Dallas City Manager Ted Benavides announced this week he would retire in six months, it renewed a simmering debate, not only about Ted Benavides, but the city manager's role at City Hall. ...  Benavides is still hard at work. "I stayed until 8 o'clock last night doing budget kind of matters," he said Friday. ... His focus is not on what beach he will retire to when he leaves in November, but how he going to raise $23 million to pay for a 5 percent raise promised to police and firefighters. But if Mayor Laura Miller has her way, balancing the budget may not be Benavides concern. She wants him out of the picture and soon.    "I would like an interim, but I would like everybody on the same page here," she said. "We are gonna have those conversations and we are gonna have it on the agenda on Wednesday." ... Council member Don Hill thinks Benavides should stay, because of his role in the budget-planning process. ...  Hill suggested that Benavides is actually the perfect person to craft next year's budget -- simply because, as a short-timer, he is less likely to fall prey to political pressures. ...

If it takes $23 million to meet the third leg of Our Mayor's promise to voters in 2001 that cops and firefighters would get three 5% raises (15%) over three years, then those 3 raises together are $69 million and counting.  So, a 17% raise would have been $78 million.  Granted, it would be a recurring $78 million, but it would have been for something we actually need not some aesthetics issue that may or may not be true about what might turn off condo buyers who are stupid enough to consider living on the shores a sewage ditch.

"Why would you build the [Woodall Rodgers Signature] bridge and have it obscured?" Ms. Miller said. "If we have to pay to put them underground, that's what we're going to do."

Why build a String Thing Bridge off Woodall Rodgers in the first place?  It only benefits the Hicks/Perot arena people, as Councilwoman Laura Miller well knew.  Apparently, Mayor Miller sees it differently.  It is only necessary to build those String Thing Bridges because Our Mayor's plans for the Trinity will put the river (using the term loosely) in a shallow and deep trough forcing the water to flow faster (those few times a year the Trinity has water), which will wipe out our historic viaducts.

Mayor Miller has sold her soul to get next to Bob Decherd at Belo.  Between Decherd's wants and the spell her Gorgeous Guru has over her, there is no room on Miller's plate for the concerns of those who actually supported her for Mayor in 2002.  Like most Limousine Liberals, she does not respect us and only sees us as little people who need to be controlled.

Jim Schutze discusses the Miller/Decherd relationship:

Poof City manager disappears--a trick!   BY JIM SCHUTZE

So by now you already know City Hall is a magic show, where all the tricks are based on misdirection. ... so you won't see the trap door.    We're about to get a good example. In this act ... Ted Benavides, Dallas city manager, who is about to disappear before our very eyes. The trap door--the thing they don't want us to watch--is a huge transit decision that can either turn downtown into a crapped-out Vaudeville house or turn the lights on like Broadway. ... A strong majority on the council feel loyalty toward Benavides but believe he does have to go sometime soon. They think The Dallas Morning News is out to get him in ways he and they can't survive. ... Here's the thing to watch: the second DART train line through downtown. And just to save you some time, let me telegraph my punch line here a little: If it goes down Elm Street, preferably in a subway, the new rail line has the potential to create that wonder of wonders--life without automobiles! We could see an explosion of downtown population and commerce unlike anything this or any other Western inland metropolis has seen since the arrival of the railroads in the late 19th century. ...  Forget "Laura Miller, mayor of Dallas, former tabloid terminatrix, scourge of the gentry." Think of her as "Laura, handmaiden to Robert," as in Robert Decherd, chairman and CEO of Belo Corp., owner of The Dallas Morning News.    Decherd wants a second rail alignment down Jackson Street on downtown's far south side, bringing the trains right through the southwest corner of downtown where Belo and the Decherd/Dealey clan hold most of their land. ... One solution--the bad one--is to move the second line four blocks south, across town to Decherdville, by bringing it down Jackson Street. Why is that bad? Oh, just this: If you want to switch from line to line, you'd have to walk four blocks through the 130-degree Fahrenheit and the going-to-the-toi-toi people. ... The trigger point for choosing the second rail alignment is right now. Haven't read much about this in The Dallas Morning News recently? Yeah, that's odd, isn't it? ... The Decherdville plan, a train down Jackson Street, is Urinetown. ... I'm convinced. For the last several years, Decherd has been pushing and shoving, nudging and budging to get Jackson Street all lined up for the train. ... He wants to suck that train line down Jackson Street so it will go right through Decherdville. It's a terrible idea. The DART second rail alignment is the one real window that's ever going to open for a vibrant downtown. The Decherdville line would kill it.    That's the act you want to keep your eye on. Forget Benavides in a harem suit. Seductive as that concept may be.

What Belo/Decherd wants, Mayor Miller wants to give.  It's not working out so well for her as their official water girl as it did for Ron Kirk/Con Jerk.  Our Meddling Mayor is all over the place trying to prove she still has a following among the little people (as we now know she has always seen us).  If a personal poll I've taken among her former campaign volunteers and supporters is indicative of her standing throughout the city, Our Meddling Mayor might want to re-think her plans for seeking higher office (which she claims is not the case).

Look at this silly story:

Mayor vows Dallas will shed ranking near top of fat-city poll 08:35 AM CDT on Friday, May 21, 2004 By EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News

In this contest, you have to lose to win.    Dallas Mayor Laura Miller traded pumps for sneakers and a suit for spandex Thursday for a race to promote "Lighten-up Big D," her fitness plan to help the heavy city shed some pounds.    The initiative, which rewards local businesses that motivate employees to lead healthy lifestyles, is in response to a Men's Fitness magazine article that listed Dallas as the nation's third-fattest city. ...  Just before the 1.5-mile run to spearhead "Lighten-up," the aggressive mayor openly challenged Houston Mayor Bill White to see which city can fall farther down the fat ladder over the next year. ...  Several businesses, including Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola and McDonald's, have agreed to institute a point system where employees can keep tally of ? and be honored for ? their healthy habits. In October, the companies with the most points will be recognized, Ms. Miller said.    "We're working hard to come up with realistic ways to get people to lose weight and eat better," she said.

The hypocrisy of her alliance with Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola and McDonald's to help the "little people" slim down has been noted by several, like this DMN letter to the Editor:

Letters for Saturday 12:04 AM CDT on Saturday, May 29, 2004

Corrupted food industry spurs obesity    Picturing Dallas Mayor Laura Miller with Frito-Lay CEO John Compton at the lighten-up Big D press conference is the equivalent of having Pablo Escobar be the keynote speaker at a Drug Enforcement Agency convention.    The corrupted food environment that is responsible for the 368,000 obesity-related deaths each year in the country is spearheaded by companies like Frito-Lay that manufacture synthetic food products that poison the most precious asset this country has, the citizenry.    Power and politics are the culprits. Your paper pictured both on the front page of the Metro section on May 21.     Gary Kaposta, president/CEO, Nutrico, Southlake

With all the stuff our local governments are not doing regarding their mandated responsibilities, it is amazing Our Mayor would drag out the Judge of the County Commissioners Court and the DISD Superintendent to run a foot race.  It is more amazing any media would have covered it and not noted the hypocrisy of junk food companies sponsoring her plan.  Can you imagine how much fun Journalist Laura Miller would have with that setup?

It is a sad picture.  We should be relishing in a new day in Dallas a year after her second swearing-in ceremony as Mayor.  Instead, we are subject to daily shocks of new betrayals and positions from Mayor Miller.

Well, here's to the memory of someone we hoped we were electing as Mayor --

Councilwoman Laura Miller -- may she rest in peace.

sb