Brandon Rodriguez
Kevin Fries
                             

06/14/04  Defying common sense may not work anymore.

It makes no sense to give $42.50 dollars, much less $425 Million to a billionaire.   It makes no sense to build 3 String Thing Bridges over a sewer trough, when they each will cost millions more than a perfectly good bridge to get you from here to there (in a hurry to avoid the smell).  It makes no sense to erect glass buildings in Dallas, when we have Summers that can make visitors think they've had a religious experience and want to get right with the Lord as soon as they get home.

How can something that looks like the rejected glass boxes of the 70's be applauded in 2004?  Are we in some kind of revival of failed ideas? 

It probably is much higher now, but a few years ago a former councilman told me that all the glass and direction the Meyerson's glass wall faces are the reason it costs us over $3 million a year to maintain the interior of the concert hall.  The paper thin, layered wood which creates the wonderful acoustics of the Meyerson must be kept below a certain temperature or they separate and peel.  Having walls of glass face into a Southern Dallas Sun was something only someone who had never been in Dallas between May and October would have done. 

That's not $3 Million a year flat expense -- it's after all costs are applied against revenue.  The Meyerson has never been profitable, but a $3 Million annual shortfall out of our budget is something to consider.

You don't build an igloo outside Alaska.  You don't build a facility designed for a cool climate in Dallas.

Designs applauded, booed Plans for center called innovative by some, impractical by others June 10, 2004 By TOM SIME / The Dallas Morning News

The unveiling of preliminary designs for the two major venues of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts has drawn enthusiasm from the organizations that will perform there and some puzzlement from the public. ... Architect Brooks Howell of Houston, who attended Tuesday's event, was more cautious. ... Debbie Higgins of Dallas was more harsh. "Frankly, the opera house looks like it belongs at Disney World," she wrote in an e-mail. "And the theater is one of the ugliest buildings I've ever seen." ... Community activist Sharon Boyd said the buildings aren't suited to the climate. "We need to require any architect doing a major building in Dallas to spend a summer here," she said by e-mail. "They would then use less glass on the building and less cement on the ground."    Mr. Howell agreed that the operable glass windows of the Winspear Opera House, "while appropriate in Northern California, [are] not particularly practical in Dallas." ...

But, of course, we will. 

Add the annual cost of maintaining the Meyerson to the  the millions it will cost to maintain these two these two buildings designed for non-Dallas climates not to mention the $3 million (optimistically) projected annual cost of maintaining artificial lakes in a sewer trough, and you are talking about over $12 Million out of our annual budget to provide entertainment, mostly for the city's elite. 

I remember taking a relative to a July 4th concert at the Meyerson.  She said everyone in her office was really excited for her because none of them had ever been in the building, much less attended an event there.  Most Dallas taxpayers have only been in the Meyerson a few times for a paid event, if at all.  Actually, most Dallas taxpayers have never been to the Meyerson.  It wasn't designed for the masses.

The Opera Hall will be even more elitist than the Meyerson.  It doesn't matter if 92% of the cost are privately funded.  Bass Hall in Ft. Worth was 100% privately funded. 

Even if you still believe what you read in The Dallas Managed News, 8% of the cost of a building that was not designed for Dallas summers or to be adjacent Woodall Rogers is more than we can afford when we are facing a $14 Million shortfall in our budget for 2005.  Council members are already talking about raising our property taxes, but that does not mean our basic needs will be any better served than in 2004. 

See what happens when you vote for a bloated bond election?

An opera hall or a performance hall is not a necessity to Joe Taxpayer's quality of life.  When was the last time, Cinemark asked Joe Taxpayer to pay for their place of business?  A lot more taxpayers attend a movie than an opera.

Despite what the elite and water carriers like Princess Velveeta on the City Council claim, it is not essential to my life for my tax dollars to be squandered providing entertainment for Park Cities millionaires in the guise of art and culture.  As rich as are the coffers in University Park and Highland Park, their residents spend their money convincing Dallas voters to spend a lot more of our money to build stuff we don't need that only Our Downtown Betters (the ODB) and the elite can afford to use.

It's the same issue with Our Mayor's obsession with her String Thing Bridges.  Spending millions to erect monstrous bridges over a sludge pit that occasionally looks like a river is nonsense. 

With these extravagances the costs just go on and on.  Now, Our Mayor will be lobbying for the Public Utilities Commission to allow TXU to hit you and me with a surcharge to raise $100 Million to bury utility lines in the Trinity Corridor because:

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

Discussed in more detail in Memorial Day Reminiscences of Councilwoman Miller.  But, why would you build a String Thing Bridge over a sewer trough in the first place?

It looks like the ODB's new dreams for wasting our money, rather than leaving it in our bank accounts to be spent on things we actually need and want, may be going up in Trinity fumes.

The Span of Public Works: Artful design, burning bridges, silly games Editorial Page 12:04 AM CDT on Sunday, June 13, 2004

... Performing Arts Center designs ...  Good Calatrava bridges (stalled by congressional impasse) ... Bad Cowboys stadium negotiations ... U-u-u-u-u-g-l-y ... If they do what they're meant to do, the Arts District should become a much livelier and more inviting place, a place to stroll and sit and eat, as well as a place to imbibe art. ... By contrast, though it pains us to say it, the Cowboys look downright unsporting. They want the public to pony up two-thirds of a new stadium's $654 million cost, but they scuttled talks with Dallas County rather than disclose financial information against which county commissioners could judge the merits of their proposal. ... Given that the city owns Fair Park, the Cowboys probably should have been dealing with the city rather than the county, anyway ? and, with all due respect to the second teams, that ultimately means Laura Miller and Jerry Jones. ... Now for the Calatravas:  ... Dallas is already assured of one Calatrava-designed bridge, the extension of Woodall Rodgers Freeway. (Thanks, again, largely to private donors.) ... The prospect of two additional Calatravas, on Interstates 30 and 35, is dimming because Congress can't seem to pass a transportation bill ? ... Above all, we mustn't let any interim disappointment daunt our determination to seize the ultimate prize.

Of course, the "ultimate prize" is how do we waste as much of Joe Taxpayer's tax money as possible on the most expensive, impractical project or structure possible?

One piece of good news is the frantic coverage we are getting from The Dallas Managed News these days.  If things were going swimmingly, they would not be so frantic in their editorials and so rah! rah! in their reporting.  It doesn't really matter whether it's on the editorial page or in the so called news section.  The message is all controlled by Bob Decherd.

Another piece of good news is Our Mayor's silence in this stadium mess.  If the The Dallas Managed News is having to publicly encourage her to get cracking, she must be showing some resistance.  Is Councilwoman Miller rearing her populist values and influencing Mayor Miller?

Or is Our Mayor is too focused on her Trinity Project and her String Thing Bridges to be bothered with the travails of Grandpa Jones and his quest to be the No. 1 Robber Baron of the Metroplex?

Even though she's done so much damage with her obsession with the Trinity Project and her String Thing Bridges, let's give Our Mayor the benefit of the doubt on Jonestown. 
 

sb