07/17/03   When the Spirit Moves You!

When was the last time you told a mechanic AFTER he fixed your car that you would only pay what your heart told you was the appropriate amount?   When did you ever even think about such a thing -- much less think you could get away with it?

Oh, that's right!  Rules are different for the ruling elite of Dallas vs. regular law abiding folks like you and me.  For Billionaires or football players (current or former), things are just different.  

It's not right vs. wrong or fair vs. unfair.  It's just the way it is.  

Our Downtown Betters (ODB) function under the premise that what's yours is theirs, but what's theirs is only theirs and you are supposed to help them maintain theirs and buy them new stuff when they tire of the old stuff that you paid for in the first place.  It's easy to understand why Cowboy Preacher Deion Sanders assumes normal rules of commerce do not apply to him -- being a former football player and all.  

He watched what happened to Grandpa Jerry Jones when he interfered with a police officer issuing a traffic ticket.  Other than some embarrassing publicity, not all that much.  It would been a little different for you or me.  Now, Grandpa Jones is busy buying enough crooked politicians to get himself a new stadium for his hoodlum teams -- at your expense.

But, we were talking about Cowboy Preacher Sanders, a self-proclaimed Man of God, stiffing a car repair place, and claiming he was doing as his heart told him.

  

Sanders prevails in car-repair lawsuit; Athlete doesn't have to pay more; he denies Jesus remark 07/15/2003  By TERRI LANGFORD / The Dallas Morning News

Deion Sanders scored a touchdown in Dallas County civil court Monday when a judge ruled that he did not have to pay more than $1,500 in a lawsuit over a 2001 car repair bill. . . .   former Dallas Cowboys cornerback refused to pay a $4,265.57 car repair bill because Jesus had informed him that $1,500 was all he had to pay.    Mr. Sanders . . . denied that he ever said anything more than "God bless you"  . . .   he felt he was being taken advantage of because he is a sports celebrity. . . .  During his testimony, Mr. Sanders took issue with Mr. Compton's attorney, Ed Edson, who said Mr. Sanders had asked for a "Jesus discount." . . .  testified that he did tell Mr. Compton that he was giving him a check for $1,500 because that was all "in his heart" he knew he had to pay.  . . .  Mr. Montoya told Mr. Compton simply to "fix the car." He never said anything about a $1,500 repair limit, Mr. Compton said. . . .  Mr. Compton said that he refused to back down on the bill and that Mr. Sanders launched into a religious sermon. He gave the car repair shop owner a check for $1,500 and then said he knew in his heart that was all he was required to pay. . . .  Mr. Sanders told him to go ahead and sue him for the rest. . . .  "I am totally the little guy, and the little guy has no standing in Dallas when it comes to mega-ego and mega-dollars," Mr. Compton said. . . .  "I never said no 'praise be to God,' " Mr. Sanders said. . . .  "Did I ever say what you said I said? ... 'Jesus discount?' " Mr. Sanders said. . . .   Mr. Sanders explained why he decided to fight the lawsuit.    "It's a principle thing," he said. "That's my main thing. Don't play with God."

Compton (owner of repair place) did not ask for Sanders' business.  Sanders had his car delivered to an expensive, specialty repair place.  Sanders did not take his car to Firestone or a dealership or a some small operation.  Sanders took his car to one of the best car repair outfits in town where people take Ferrari's and other fancy wheels.  Compton's shop is not for bargain hunters.

Bill Gordon thinks other mechanics in the future may feel "divine guidance" to suggest Mr. Sanders take his vehicle elsewhere.
  

Letters for Friday  07/18/2003 "Sanders prevails in suit," Tuesday's news story.

It sounds like Dallas has now had its own "mini O.J. trial." If your account was correct, justice was not served well.    I do not know Deion Sanders, but I do know the plaintiff, Phil Compton, who has worked on my cars and who is an extremely talented race driver with whom I've enjoyed a couple of "fun" races. My experience with Mr. Compton has always shown him to be an honest and straightforward businessman, a consummate sportsman and an excellent craftsman/mechanic.     As seems to happen far too regularly, a celebrity athlete has prevailed in court, but may have lowered himself significantly in terms of public esteem. I strongly suspect that this bit of religio-legal nonsense will result in (1) an increase in demand for Mr. Compton's services and (2) considerable reluctance on the part of any mechanic to accept Mr. Sanders as a client (perhaps citing divine guidance). William Gordon, Dallas

What other crook do we know who frequently justifies his wrongdoings by interjecting religion and references to Christ into the argument?  Why that would be Old Al Lipscomb!  Looks like Cowboy Sanders took notes.

Is there no end to all this Dallas in Wonderland business?

There's always something wacky coming from Police Chief Bolton.  Even The Dallas Managed News disapproves of his plans to put IAD directly under him.  If anyone in the DPD needs to be investigated, it's Terrell Bolton.  Let's see:  Who helped Old Al "assist" Caligula Rizos with his sex club business?  Who put inexperienced and untrained people in charge of DPD sections?  Who blocked the investigation of the sheet rock/fake drug scandal and tried to divert the report with a display of guns?  Who couldn't get into the FBI Academy because he wasn't qualified?  

	Editorial Page:  07/14/03 Internal Affairs?: Reporting to Bolton isn't our idea of reform
Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton wants to take over direct supervision of the Internal Affairs Division. And he wants to end the department's relationship with the county-run lab and take bids from private companies. When we said the Dallas Police Department needed to make meaningful reforms in the wake of the fake drug scandal, this isn't quite what we had in mind. . . . Internal Affairs Division was derelict in its duty in the now infamous Sheetrock scandal.  . . .  Chief Bolton has held off an internal probe until a federal investigation is complete . . .  Chief Bolton has called for direct supervision of the division, removing an intermediary layer of oversight. . . .    From the beginning of the Sheetrock scandal, however, Chief Bolton has played down its gravity and seemed less than forthright in his public comments about it. We suggest, therefore, that now is hardly the time for the chief to be arguing for greater power and discretion ? not on the heels of a scandal where his very power and discretion are at issue. . . .  no justification for what the chief has in mind for the crime lab. . . .   In the Sheetrock scandal, the crime lab did what it was supposed to do.  . . . Do we really want tests of such import ? sometimes the results spell the difference between life and death of the accused ? to go to the lowest bidder?. . .

This is exactly why it was so important that Mary Poss not be Mayor of this city.  It is also why it is a great tragedy that Roxan Staff was defeated by Gary Griffith, who is so connected to Poss and has all that Epic Health Care scandal in his closet.  How is he going to call for any police investigations or ethics inquiries?

It should not be necessary for a citizen to be forced to do the authorities' job.  Tim Dickey is absolutely right that Dallas voters had a right to know the Commission had already found AGAINST Mary Poss in 2001 before and during the Mayoral race -- not AFTER the election.  What if Poss had been elected?  How embarrassing would that be for the city to have our Mayor get hit with a big fine, which has only been assessed to one other politician?  Particularly so soon after the Lipscomb scandals!

I have never been overwhelmed with community policing.  A bunch of amateurs doing the Police Department's job cannot be as effective as a police officer.  Tying up officers for ICP (Community Police) duty is wasteful.  When I go to neighborhood meetings and see 2 officers there -- one reading some crime statistics and giving safety tips that any moron already knows, I think they should either be out chasing the bad guys or at home with their families.    

If someone doesn't know to hide their valuables from view in their car, they are not going to leave that meeting and start being more careful.

Any single family neighborhood adjacent to an apartment complex will have problems caused by the apartment complex.   The aging and unattractive complexes in my part of town attract hookers and drug pushers.  One solution was to put up NO PARKING on the streets to make it inconvenient for the bad guys to hang out near the apartments.  Works great for the apartment complexes which have too many people with too many cars living in too few units.  Doesn't work well at all for nearby single family streets.

The responsible homeowners then have to put up "resident only parking signs" and issue car stickers to deal with a problem that could have been solved by enforcing parking and occupancy requirements on the apartment complexes in the first place.  

Tim Dickey frequently rants about port-o-potties and filthy bathrooms at Bachman Lake.  Initially, Port-o-potties seemed reasonable to me since they can be switched out on a regular basis.  Who wants to clean a filthy public bathroom?  Who could we hire to do it?  

Even street people would refuse that work -- of course, they refuse all work! 

Unfortunately, the port-o-potties folks don't tend to their business any better than the city took care of the park restrooms.  It's not Tim Dickey's job to clean those bathrooms or even have to nag the city about taking care of them.  He pays taxes.  

NO ONE AT CITY HALL CARES!

We cannot take care of one of the 3 biggest parks in this city, but our Mayor and the Council are spending an inordinate amount of time planning for more park facilities along the Trinity River that we will not be able to maintain any better.  

It might make sense to the Mad Hatter.   But it seems nutty to me for our Mayor to be planning a big park Downtown for the street bums when we can't take care of our existing parks that taxpayers want to use now. 

City Hall won't enforce occupation limits on slum apartments.  

City Hall is about to spend billions on the Trinity River, when we know whatever we do will cause problems elsewhere. 

 

Rouging the Corpse  Miller wants to pretty-up a stinker on the Trinity River deal  07/17/03 By Jim Schutze

. . .  The river-bottom land interests are still pushing hard for a brand-new multilane superhighway jammed in along the banks of the Trinity River where it runs through the heart of downtown. Miller is very proud of the fact that she may be able to whittle them down from eight lanes to six, and she hopes to get them to agree to put in various "amenities." Think: portable toilets on the road to hell.    But wait a minute. It's our land. It's our money. Their superhighway will do a poor job of relieving our traffic congestion and a worse job of "creating new tax base" (not). And it will ruin the park we want to build there. So why is the mayor so proud of slicing the dime with them? What dime? . . .  if this were only about mean greedy landholders vs. virtuous cosmopolites like myself, it would be a lot easier for most of us to make up our minds.  . . .  We are coming to the fundamental understanding that cars and highways are always agents of sprawl and always the enemies of urban life.  . . .  Here are some items I would be willing to bet our esteemed city council knows nothing about: Does the Dallas City Council, which is supposed to vote up or down on the toll-road project next month when it returns from its summer hiatus, understand that it will be expected to sign a "no-compete" agreement with the toll authority? I'm talking about an agreement by which the city would legally hamper its prerogative to build other roads downtown in the future.  . . .  all of the financial viability data for this proposed toll road assume and require that it will be eight full lanes of traffic, with a 55 mph speed limit but traffic allowed to travel at actual speeds of at least 60 mph? . . . Let's say Miller does succeed in trimming it down to six lanes from eight. Maybe she keeps enough people happy that way and keeps enough political contributions rolling in to ensure her next office-seeking adventure. But her legacy in Dallas will be of greatness lost, for the city and for herself. . . .

We can't pay our firefighters and cops what they deserve, but we are going to hit all hotels and motels with another tax to pay for a hotel that will compete for their convention business (what little there is).

On top of that loonyness, we are months away from Grandpa Jones throwing together a multi-million dollar campaign to get those dead votes he needs to divert $600,000,000 from city and county necessities to a football stadium.  Isn't that great?

It's time for our Mayor to stop promoting big ticket projects and pay attention to the nuts and bolts stuff as she promised.   I worry that she's going to support Grandpa Jones' new stadium for the likes of Cowboy Preacher Sanders and that Cowboy who murdered two Good Samaritans on Stemmons Freeway.  

That stupid Judge who ruled for Cowboy Preacher Sanders is typical of the mindset of the "leaders" of this town.   

We need to pray very hard.