Shabby
Mary Lou
                             

01/01/02  New Day?

Things may look the same in town -- shabby.  DMN Editorials will likely read the same -- biased and out of touch.  The campaign of the ODB's candidate is using same old platitudes and promises and the same old shady characters who play dirty tricks with old people's ballots.  But things -- they are a-changing.

Sunday, I stopped by to see Willetta Stellmacher, one of the smartest women in town who was a feminist before we knew what the term meant.  She had been sorting a stack of keepsakes and clippings.  We started talking about the mayoral race, city stuff and the town's general shabby appearance.  She grabbed the stack of clippings and pulled out a 10 year old  DMN "Viewpoints" by Stanley Marcus.   If anybody subscribes to the DMN archive, look it up so we can have a proper citation, but at least you can read Dallas is Growing Shabby.  Nothing has changed in the last 10 years -- at least not for the better.  

Change does not happen by doing things the same as always.

The Dunning Managed News has gone way over the top in a desperate effort to save control for the ODB and keep doing things in Dallas the same as always -- at least the recent always.  It wasn't a shocker that Belo endorsed Tom Dunning for mayor over Laura Miller or even Domingo Garcia.  The shock was the timing of the first endorsement with the promise of more editorials to come for the ODB candidate.  Those of us who have been involved in Dallas politics for more than a few years know there has been a schedule of when and how the DMN would make political endorsements, even after we started having "early voting".

The DMN made endorsements usually a week or two before the election, and the endorsed candidate slapped that endorsement on a mailer and sent it out to voters.  On election day, the DMN would re-run an abbreviated endorsement.  That was when a DMN endorsement meant something.  Check their record lately.  They endorsed Steve Salazar over Elba Garcia, Jim Graham over Mitch Rasansky, even Thorton-Reese over Larry Duncan.  Completely out of touch with Dallas voters.  

The DMN knows their candidate is in big trouble.

But even at the DMN, things are a-changing.  As DallasArena.com keeps saying, there are 3 DMN reporters who are just writing up a whirl wind week after week.   They not only write well, they write truthfully.

We can find money to build an arena for two billionaires, but we can't find the money to pay our cops and firefighters a 15% raise.  We can shell out $11 Million to consultants when we have high paid management at City Hall, but we can't find the money to pay our cops and firefighters what Grand Prairie pays their public safety officers.  We even have $200,000 to pay out to a police informant who helps Chief Bolton bust a counterfeit drug ring.  The guys who got busted were pushing gypsum.

Duh!  Drug users who ingest drugs always risk serious health consequences.  I say those counterfeit drug dealers ought to get medals for putting drug users out of OUR MISERY.  Do you get how stupid this is?  We have an informant who makes 4 times what a regular cop earns, and he's turning in guys who are passing powdered sheetrock off as drugs.  Just another example of why we need a change in Dallas.

Maybe we could get the counterfeit drug dealers to fill our potholes with their fake drugs, but then one DMN airhead columnist says we don't have a pothole problem in Dallas.

Trying to find some logic in that column will cost you brain cells, but no one buys that baloney.  We live here, we drive these streets, we know reality from ODB wishful thinking.

Linda Neel got really irate over Blow's column.  

Having the President of a large community group take on City Hall and the DMN is not the way things have been done in the past.  ODB approved "community leaders" were like Princess Velveeta who never challenged the status quo and was expected to keep the people in her community quiet and subservient.  Things are a-changing.

Whether it's DallasArena.com, or Dallas.org or BarkingDogs.org, someone was going to make use of the internet as a communication vehicle for citizens who are fed up with the way things have been done in Dallas in the past 10 years.  I'm thrilled that you and others are reading DallasArena.com as a source of information and you use it to share information with other citizens.  Just a few years ago, it was not possible to get the truth out to enough people to make a difference.  

DallasArena.com was created during our It's a Bad Deal!! campaign, and we were amazed how many people hit the site then.  We had no idea what we started. 

Instead of a handful of people knowing about some incident, 2-3,000 people a week find out about stuff that once was kept from us.  Politicians do not want you to know what really goes on at City Hall.  Like other vermin, they function best in the dark.  Look at who sought ways to shut down www.Dallas.org and www.BarkingDogs.org and even DallasArena.com.  It was not Donna Blumer or Laura Miller.  Blumer was the one who caught the expenditure for legal advice on squelching free speech in Dallas.

IT ISN'T JUST A NEW YEAR, IT'S A NEW DAY IN DALLAS!

We are about to elect a new mayor.  It looks like that new mayor is going to be Laura Miller.  Straight shooting, straight talking -- Laura Miller. 

Her critics claim she makes promises she can't deliver.  So what?  When I was a teenager, my minister told us to always set impossible goals because even if you fail to accomplish all your goals, you will have gone way beyond the mediocre.

What has she promised that is impossible?  

She promises to put street repair and park maintenance at the top of list for City Hall priorities.   If we have millions for signature bridges to nowhere, why can't we find the money to get our streets back into a decent state of repair.  After all, Dallas looks worse today than it did 10 years ago when Mr. Marcus wrote his Viewpoints piece.

Miller promises to find money to give raises to Dallas police and firefighters.  We are about to fund a new performance hall.  Someone has got to provide security for the patrons of that facility.  We are building another public facility that will not generate property tax revenue, that will require  perpetual maintenance expense, that likely will not generate adequate revenue to pay the cost of operation, that will be used more by Park Cities residents than Dallas citizens.  We spend out a ton of money annually on the Meyerson.  

If the Trinity Project is completed as the ODB want, we will have a $3 Million annual expense just to maintain that silly pond in the middle of the two channels, which will be in the middle of a divided toll road.   

So, why can't we find money for our public safety officers?

LAURA MILLER PROMISED those mothers in Arcadia Park that she was going to save their public wading pool, and SHE DELIVERED.  Ron Kirk, Lois Finkelman, Barbara Caraway all tried to stop her, but she saved that pool and two others so poor Dallas children could do more than run through a fancy sprinkler system.

When John Ware took that job with Robber Baron Tom Hicks just months after selling out Dallas taxpayers with the deal he cut for the Hicks/Perot arena, we were all just stunned.  No one could believe there was no law or regulation preventing such blatant double-dealing.  LAURA MILLER PUSHED for a new Ethics Code with an Ethics Commission, and SHE DELIVERED even though Ron Kirk tried to block her.

She thought we would get better people to run for the city council if we pay them.  LAURA MILLER FOUGHT FOR council pay, and SHE GOT IT.

We hear about the great accomplishments of Tom Dunning in civic matters, but what are the results of his efforts?  Is Dallas "Together" racially?  Hardly!  What about the pollution mess at DFW?

This election is about getting stuff done -- not forming new commissions and task forces.  

This election is about making decisions -- not finding consensus.

January 1, 2002 may be the start of a truly NEW YEAR for Dallas.  In just 18 days, we will make a decision that will either free us from the yoke of ODB oppression or keep us in a rut that is leading Dallas further and further into decline.

Just because Carol Reed and Kathy Nealy are playing their crooked political games again does not mean they will win this time.  Just because the ODB are throwing millions into the Dunning campaign does not mean they will buy another election.  We know what they are doing, and we are not going to put up with it anymore.  It's a new day in Dallas.

When you greet your friends with "HAPPY NEW YEAR",
we really have a shot at having one.