|
| |
12/12/04 My experience with doing
business with the city in South Dallas
Another Tipping Point, huh? This time it?s
focused on South Dallas. When is it going to be time to put up money and do
something instead of listening to a bunch of studies? This is not the Park
Cities or Southlake or Plano. This is Dallas and we don?t have time to look at
a bunch of reports and contemplate our actions. Parts of our city
are dying NOW and we need action NOW!
|
I am an aspiring real estate developer.
My goal is to buy houses, fix them up and sell them to another person. Pretty
simple huh? Not in South Dallas. Here?s a quick summary on my experience with
our fair city.
I drove the neighborhood of South Dallas
near Fair Park, looking for a property that was run-down, unoccupied and in need
of repair or demolition. It wasn?t hard to find.
I found a house on South Boulevard that
could fall over any day. It had citations galore and it was in such bad shape I
didn?t want to walk on the porch. Plus, the drug dealers were watching my every
move, so I didn?t want to cause a stir.
Because much of my native Philadelphia is in the same
state of disarray, I am cognizant of the situation but
never deterred.
I thought for a moment; this is a pretty
area with lots of trees and this drug den could someday be a nice house. At
worst, it could be torn down and replaced with a new home that some family could
take pride in and pay some property taxes. We are not getting property taxes
for the house now because it is city owned.
I looked up the records and saw it was
owned by the city of Dallas. Great! I could go
to the city property office in Oak Cliff and get the process started?. or so I
thought.
|
|
|
John Willis:
Michael, your recent experience
with Dallas illustrates just one of the things
very worrisome about how Dallas operates.
I hate to disappoint
you, but the business of Dallas has always been Business.
Dallas "Business"
(as opposed to regular old business) does not
include regular folks like you and me.
The drug den you mention could indeed
be a nice house, on the tax
rolls and have a good family living in it. Unfortunately,
what you would do with it today is not what the
City (rather the actual name and face
attached to the person the City is holding it for) would have done
with it.
You want to make a little money and
help the town you live in, and do both at the same
time.
The face
behind the City is only interested in one of those
things, and it seems to me it isn't helping out.
You are a success story.
I will not believe you will allow this
rather small roadblock to slow you down for long.
There are lots of properties for
sale, the City of Dallas does not own them all.
In my experience,
every deal you do will be different as the
details of each are different.
Look around, ask friends and
associates, you'll find more properties than you thought you would just by
asking the right questions.
The trick is to ask the correct
questions to achieve the results you really want, as opposed to the results
you merely think you want.
BTW, Dallas or Philadelphia,
it makes no difference. The Business of Business
is Business. Independent business
folk like you and me, well, we don't show
up on their radar screens. Come to think of it,
that is probably a good thing... |
|
I was told by the city that the property
?cannot be purchased? and that they were ?holding it for someone??
Holding it for whom? Have you seen the
block? This house has been owned by the city since September of 1995! I
relayed this info to the person behind the desk and could not get a straight
answer. This person shall remain nameless, as I?m sure he/she or just following
orders.
This is the convoluted message that is
typically sent to a person like me by a city like Dallas.
I am a 31-year old, African-American
male. I turned my life around as a youth, stayed on the right path, went to
great schools, have no criminal record, graduated college with honors and have
done everything else I?m supposed to do. I am as comfortable talking to a
miscreant as I am in a boardroom. While our council people and others grandstand
about the type of young people we need in society, I?m
trying to start a business that will create jobs and revitalize communities.
Instead, I meet cold faces and the stiff arm of resistance that is typical in
this city.
I am an underutilized wasted asset, another college graduate who toils away
anonymously in an office building cubicle because I can?t get my business
started.
So I pose to you, elected officials?what
kind of message are you trying to send to people like me?
The city has young people like me willing
to make a difference. We have survived the killing fields of America only to be
told ?no? by the same people that say that we should go to school and stay out
of trouble. Most of my friends are dead or jail. To remember all of the names
you would have to give me a pen and paper. I have a sister
who was killed before I was born, a victim of gang violence. My life was
on the line many a day while I grew up. I survived; and this is my reward. A
city that would rather make case studies and do nothing to help the problem.
If I knew it would be like this, I
would?ve stayed in my home state of Pennsylvania.
Welcome to Dallas.
| |
|
