05/14/03 -- Rules at City Hall, but Courage can Prevail

Lord Palmer and other interlopers should stay home.

It's one thing when Dallas residents get involved in council races in districts across town or near their neighborhoods.  After all, those 15 people on the council vote on things that affect your life in Dallas, whether you get to vote for them or not.  It's a whole other ballgame when people from outside Dallas County, much less the city limits, interfere with local elections or City Hall decision making.

Once upon a time when Lord Palmer pretended to be a neighborhood person, council members did not vote in step with a district representative.  We had 2 at large council members who took active roles in zoning cases.  If you had a big zoning case in your neighborhood, your group met with as many council members as possible.  Of course, you wanted your representative on your side, but you needed those other votes, too.  If your council member opposed your side, you had an honest shot at prevailing.

Lord Palmer was popular in her district, but very unpopular on the council.  We always had to deliver the other council votes.  We had a big time drug rehab group wanting to plop down a bunch of troubled teenagers right in the middle of the bar scene between Maple and Cedar Springs.  The group had big dollars and bigger names behind it, and was headed up by a Catholic Priest.  Lord Palmer told us she didn't have the votes to deny it and advised we needed to compromise.  We fought on and got a unanimous vote to send those carpet baggers back home.

One reason we won -- the Daytop facility would compete with Johnnie's Manor where Al Lipscomb's wife worked.  He went on one of his phoney-baloney preaching jags.  The two at large councilmen were our best friends on that case.

Unfortunately for Greenway Park (GP), things are much different at City Hall today.  With James Fantroy and Leo Chaney wanting to rule their districts like fiefdoms, it is heresy to challenge the will of a council member regarding a zoning case in their district.  

5/14/03, the Mayor, Ed Oakley, Alan Walne, Sandy Greyson showed courage and stood up to ward politics, at least temporarily.

We should not tear down Crozier Tech regardless of the current owner's plans for the site, because it was a public building the DISD sold below market value per a very questionable real estate deal.  St. Ann's should be saved regardless of the current owner's plans, because it was a community center paid for by community fundraisers and given to the Diocese in trust.  St. Ann's was sold by the Dallas Diocese to cover sins not done by those who loved St. Ann's.

When you get to individually owned homes, I get a little uncomfortable about imposing restrictions on houses where the owner objects.  If the owner wants to join a conservancy and deed restrict their home and property, that's fine.  The next owner will buy that house knowing the rules.  Conservation districts have become the power tool of choice of control freaks.

I wish those control freaks cared about code enforcement in more modest neighborhoods, just half as much as they want to control wealthy neighborhoods.

Dallas has rules on occupancy in single family homes in areas zoned "single family", but the city does not enforce those restrictions -- at least not in my neighborhood.   So, I get a little impatient with imposing new rules on people when we don't enforce the ones we have in neighborhoods that are really struggling.

Granted, my neighborhood is a little more modest than GP, and we don't have any celebrities up here, unless you count former Ch. 5 reporter, Tim Dickey.  But, the GP houses are not particularly significant except for having all those big, expensive houses in one place outside the Park Cities and South of Northwest Highway.  What makes GP so special is its open green space right down the middle of those big houses.   In any other neighborhood, that would be an alley and those houses would be enclosed with high security fences.  

Villages were once built around a common green space.  From the street, you don't really appreciate the size of the community commons.  The size or style of the houses would not change the green space, which is owned in common and cannot be intruded on by any structure.

It would be nice if the GP houses stayed the same forever, but I don't own any of those houses.  The only people I ever knew who lived in Greenway Park have sold their homes and left town.  Rich people can do that!

My smart and sharp-tongued friend Nancy puts it more bluntly: "If you want to save an old house, buy it."

It seems to me that if your house is well maintained, it's your house and your lot.  If you own a cottage and you want the cottages on either side of you to stay cottages, buy those houses.  If the owners want a two-story house, it's their property.

Everyone keeps talking about the change in houses in the Park Cities.  So what?  The owners want to live in a certain area with good police protection and city services and they have 2 or 3 kids and can afford to replace a cottage with a big house.  If their taste is not up to some snob's standards, too bad!

If that troll house off Preston can get architectural accolades, who's to say what is worth saving or has value?

A neighbor up the street from me has moved to Allen and rents out their old house because the people across the street painted their shutters pink.  Granted, it's a particularly ugly shade of pink, but it's their house.  They keep the yard nice, no cars on blocks or multiple cars parked on the street.

In many District 6 neighborhoods, we have multiple families living in 2 or 3 bedroom houses.  No one at City Hall cares!  Preserving our modest neighborhoods is not very high on the snob registry of concerns for preservation.

A 20% opposition to a zoning change requires a super majority of council members to pass (12), so only 4 votes the other way can kill a case with 20% opposition.  More than 42% of Greenway Park homeowners oppose the CD in the form Veletta Lill and Lord Palmer and their lackey Neil Emmons are pushing forward, with a 50% lot coverage restriction.  Most of the opponents would compromise with a 55% lot coverage restriction that excludes garages.  Control freaks do not allow compromises.

The 42% in opposition to the CD at is a large number of unhappy people, a large number of rich, very rich unhappy people.  

Veletta Lill wanted to take the case under advisement (postpone it) for 2 weeks and close the hearing to stifle further debate.  Early in the council discussion, Duh Walne did his usual stunt of giving all the reasons for doing the right thing (which would be to oppose the CD), but then said he was going to vote for it so Veletta Lill would not be mad at him.  

All those homeowners will be denied their property rights so Veletta Lill won't get her feelings hurt?  That's how ward politics works.

When Mayor Miller started asking some leading questions, Sandy Greyson expressed some reservations and Ed Oakley added points of concern, Alan Walne decided closing the public debate would be unfair to the opposition.  He said the proponents would have no reason to negotiate with their unhappy neighbors because it would be like they had already won.  Well, Duh!  

Lord Palmer must have been shaking her head while Walne was talking on his second round, because he said, "Ms. Palmer don't shake your head.  You don't live there."  It was wonderful.  

Lord Palmer not only does not live in Greenway Park, she not only does not live in Dallas, SHE LIVES OUTSIDE DALLAS COUNTY.

Having Lord Palmer continuously involved in Dallas zoning cases and neighborhood problems is just wrong.  Having our limited tax dollars being used to pay her consulting fees is worse.

During the council elections, some people were picketing at a precinct polling place off Greenville against John Loza.  His campaign manager berated one of the protesters because that woman lives just outside District 2.  Can you believe it?

Loza's campaign manager doesn't live in District 2 either.  Like Lord Palmer, Loza's campaign manger LIVES OUTSIDE DALLAS COUNTY.

From www.BarkingDogs.org, You deserve what you voted for

After this photo of Cheryl Kellis and her Traitor Banner was posted Saturday morning, John sent Anna Casey out to pound signs and people at the polls. She confronted another young lady minding the banner and asked where she lived. When the young lady said she lived in another district, Anna said (not sic) This isn?t your district, so what the hell are you doing out here?

The woman was doing something Palmer and Casey would not understand -- volunteering her time for something important to her, FIGHTING FOR HER OWN CITY.

What say those two out-of-towners just stay home and stir up trouble in their own town?

Dallas.org has even more on Anna Casey's activities in Dallas.

Wonder how the folks in Nevada would take to Casey and her bullhorn on their public streets?   Then, there's the issue of Pete Sessions having so little to do in D.C. that he has time to be in Dallas campaigning for Mary Poss and Gary Griffith.  Strange Bedfellows, indeed!

Back to the real world -- something's basically unfair with what is happening to Greenway Park.  Outside of filing a lawsuit, the opponents of the CD really have no chance.  State law permitting communities to have zoning REQUIRES public hearings to change zoning.  There is no such process at City Hall anymore.  The council member decides what he or she wants on a particular case, and that's the deal.  The Plan Commissioner is directed which way to go.  

The Plan Commission operates just like the council.  Commissioners defer to the district commissioner, who takes their orders from the council representative who appointed them.  Veletta Lill put Neil Emmons on the Plan Commission at the instruction of Cay Kolb and Lord Palmer, over the objection of most on the Oak Lawn Committee.  Oak Lawn just suffered through years of domination by Hector Garcia, only to now have a vindictive wimp in a position to punish those who ever crossed him.

If the opponents of the Greenway Park CD are smart, they will be raising money (and they have lots) to hire a decent lawyer and sue the pants off those at City Hall who denied them a fair hearing.

Here's a chance for the Mayor, Mitch Rasansky, Ed Oakley, Mark Housewright and Alan Walne to save the city a ton of money in litigation costs by doing the right thing and voting against the Greenway Park CD, or at least amending it to the 55% coverage the opponents want.  A conservation district is hard enough to make work when an overwhelming majority of the homeowners are behind it.  An overwhelming majority is not 58% -- that's a plurality.

When the city staff hires Lord Palmer as a "facilitator" (whatever that means), when the Plan Commissioner is on board with the proponents from the get go, when the Council representative already has a close relationship with most in the proponent crowd, when both the Plan Commission and the Council automatically defer to the wishes of the district representative, there is no public hearing.  

No one knows better than Ed Oakley how Lord Palmer operates.  

Today, was a set back for the proponents of the Greenway Park CD.  If Mark Housewright and Alan Walne decide to make their last voting day as council members count for something important, and if Mitch Rasansky and Ed Oakley are willing to stand up for good zoning over council politics, we might avoid another expensive lawsuit that we will have lost before we even file an Answer.

The Mayor asked all the right questions.  Sandy Greyson expressed valid concerns.  Even heard Mary Poss defending keeping the hearing open for a 20 minute debate.  If just 4 of those 7 council votes go against the CD, it's over!

Lord Palmer must be having a hissy fit just now out in the boonies where she lives and needs to stay put.