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Our Mayor's Speech
M Brey
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06/24/04 Our Mayor is presiding over
a smaller city!
We are smaller than San Antonio, Ft. Worth is
growing faster and nobody at City Hall can figure out why.
It's very simple!
San Antonio and Ft. Worth
embrace their Texas heritage. Neither city is overwhelmed with people from
elsewhere who want their city to look like the place they left or a cheap copy
of something that works in Europe.
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Consultant to help
city reach goals
:
In annual address,
Miller says Dallas at 'turning point,' not 'tipping point'
Wednesday, June
23, 2004 By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas
Morning News |
...
Former Parkland Hospital board
member Pat Cotton said McKinsey, with whom she worked during the late 1990s
on Parkland issues, may not be a good fit for Dallas.
"They had some pretty good people,
but they're used to planning for businesses, not government entities," Ms.
Cotton said. "The idea of someone coming in is excellent, but I have no idea
whether McKinsey is the group to do it." ... |
Our Mayor's Speech yesterday was as bogus as her campaign promises. Rather
than dissect 25 pages of sound bites with no substance or factual base, it is
attached for your own reading pleasure.
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"big, big announcement."?
She's got a consultant firm to donate their time and come up with a new
organization for City Hall operations. Of course, that means the
consulting firm will spend a lot of time (or not) and come up with a report that
says Dallas needs a strong mayor form of government. |
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Jim Northrup:
So, a management therapist has offered
to help our dysfunctional system "on the come" for follow up
implementation.
If that's the big deal, it's time for
regime change. |
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I want to remind you what Candidate Miller told us in her brochure responding to
attack ads by Tom Dunning and Domingo Garcia:
... she's
fighting for --
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clean up the backroom deals at City Hall |
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But, she voted with the rest of the council
crooks to give a $64,000 rebate to a millionaire to reimburse him for
repairs he has already made to his personal residence. |
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Basics like ... smooth roads |
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She says we are on track with our road repairs.
Really? Where's that? |
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Basics like ... green parks |
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We didn't know she only meant green parks for Downtown. |
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Basics like ... well-paid police |
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Her 3-year 5% raise doesn't even get our officers up to
the level of Grand Prairie. |
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Basics ... rather than million-dollar consultant studies
and big-ticket projects downtown |
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Yet, her "big, big announcement" is another consultant
studies and all her big plans are for downtown. |
KLIF had a substitute talk jock
on the Thursday morning talk show and he wanted to talk about Our Mayor's
speech. Of the first 5 calls, 3 callers were from the suburbs. The
two local callers (including me) were former Miller backers and both of us want
her to get back to basics. North Dallas Jim said "She hasn't been that
great in my opinion".
"Round 'em up and throw 'em out" (street begging bums) was one caller's answer
to a rejuvenated Downtown. He prefers Addison at night. Addison
doesn't have an opera house or a river project, but they have a booming economy
and people want to live, work and dine there. Like Carrollton, Farmer
Branch and Plano, Addison has "a big vision of the little things" that make
those cities better than Dallas.
I want to make one more comment about the tax abatement to Gail and Dan
Patterson to reimburse them for restoration costs they have already expended to
restore their personal residence. Princess Velveeta justified the give
away by saying we have given over $700,000 in the same kind of tax abatements.
She claimed these abatements for residential properties have created "permanent"
jobs. Does she mean permanent jobs for gardeners and housemaids? The
Bromberg/Patterson property has a "service entry".
I hope you saw the wonderful report Sara Dodd on CBS11 the night before the
council voted for this give away. The house and grounds are just
beautiful. The new owners paid over $1.5 million for their property.
They even bought the house next door to live in while the Bromberg house was
being restored. Do you think they were not going to restore their home
without this rebate?
Backroom deals at City Hall like granting tax abatements for residences owned by
millionaires who are politically connected and part of "in crowd" at City Hall
are our image. Council members who were not even born in Texas much less
Dallas natives are our image.
Basically, why would a tourist wanting to taste some Texas life pick Dallas,
when they can get the real thing in San Antonio or Fort Worth and pay less in
hotel/motel or car rental taxes?
Laura Miller is symptomatic of what's wrong with this city. She's a
caricature and is trying to copy herself after someone else. Our Downtown
Betters (the ODB) get to travel (possibly because they don't pay property taxes
like you and me). They see stuff like String Thing Bridges while they are
out and about and think they can bring them back to Dallas. Our fancy
public buildings are designed by people who have never spent a summer in Dallas.
Our rich families rip off Dallas Taxpayers and use their influence to divert our
limited resources to their pet projects.
Ft. Worth buildings may not get world wide acclaim, but they look like Ft. Worth
and the locals feel comfortable with them. Ft. Worth rich families build
fancy buildings and DONATE them to the city for taxpayers to enjoy. Ft.
Worth leaders keep their eyes on the "little things that make a big difference
in people's lives" -- like their Zoo, which makes money for their city and
attracts tourists.
I looked and looked throughout Our Mayor's speech, and found not one promise of
improving our Zoo or community parks. We voted for a populist who would
focus on our issues, but elected a fake who just wanted her shot to move with
the ODB.
It's so sad.
sb
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