Maricela S. Vargas
                             

02/04/02  ODB would take us down Atlanta's Dark Road

How many times since former councilwoman Diane Ragsdale had her screaming fit at the council horse show have we heard Our Downtown Betters or their puppets hold up Atlanta as justification for doing something stupid, like building an arena we did not need or pursuing the Summer Olympics?  

The ODB are fixated on Atlanta as the epitome of all that is good and right for municipalities.  That's because they only read , and no one at The Dunning Managed News is going to admit that the establishment who have controlled this town for 20+ years have been wrong-headed.  It's embarrassing for the ODB to admit they are responsible for taking a beautiful, clean, prosperous city down to such a shabby state that we can't pay our cops and firefighters a salary comparable to what they could earn in Grand Prairie.

Is that a hoot?  Grand Prairie is in much better shape than Dallas.  Grand Prairie can pay its public safety officers more than Dallas pays our officers.  

The ODB are so desperate to have Tom Dunning as Mayor because he would not rock the boat.  He would be happy to run around town plugging up holes in the dikes and masking over ODB mistakes for another 8 years.  The ODB are sure that somehow, someway everything will work out fine if we just keep focused on the BIG PICTURE, keep investing in BIG TICKET PROJECTS (whether needed or not) and keep pretending the bottom is not collapsing under us.  Only small minds worry about mundane things like potholes and exploding water mains.

At his White Rock Lake press conference/rally, Tom Dunning said we could spend all our time worrying about fixing potholes and wind up with empty freeways that could serve as parking lots.  I have no idea what that meant or why he was standing on a platform behind a podium with White Rock Lake behind him or why he would want Veletta Lill to introduce him when he barely carried 33% of the vote in her District 14.  He at least broke 40% in Walne's District.  The only council member who endorsed Dunning and delivered his district for him was Beat that Indictment Fantroy.  With all the legal problems Dunning has caused for endorsers from his last mailer, some other council members may hope to share Fantroy's nickname before this is over.

Since Dunning did so well in Fantroy's district, why wasn't he standing on some platform behind some podium in District 8 with Fantroy introducing him?  Well, we all know the answer to that one.

But, this piece is about the ODB's fixation on Atlanta.  The ODB envy Atlanta's mass transit system.  Even though DFW is an incredibly successful airport and we are an American Airlines hub, the ODB covet the success of Atlanta's airport.  

As much as the ODB would want to think otherwise, things are not so great these days in Atlanta.  Stan Aten found these two articles among others that paint a much different, but more realistic picture of Atlanta than we get from The Dunning Managed News.  It's not just that things are not ducky in Atlanta that makes these two articles so interesting.  Apparently, Atlanta's Chamber of Commerce does not dictate what news is fit for the Journal-Constitution to print.  Can you imagine stories like these in the DMN's Business Section?

Atlanta is in the mess it is today because their ODB was more successful than our ODB at convincing the citizens to try to spend their way into prosperity.  Just keep THINKING BIG and BIG THINGS WILL HAPPEN.  Right -- big problems.

I had a silly debate with Donna Halstead regarding the Olympics.  It doesn't matter that there may have only been 20 people there and we had to pay for our own dinner.  We were both going at it for our sides.  Halstead's the head of a clandestine ODB group that does not disclose its membership.  I'm one of the hordes of aginners who get in the ODB's way.  She said it makes her mad when she hears people thinking that Dallas can't do anything that Atlanta has done.  She credited the Olympics with all of Atlanta's success.  That was just last October -- 4 months ago!

Even if Dallas had made the first round cuts, Dallas voters were pretty decisive in their rejection of the Olympics tax - 76.73%.  The proponents tried to dismiss their sounding defeat by saying they stopped campaigning when we missed the short list.  The aginners' campaign also stopped when Dallas missed the short list.  Dallas voters did not want the Olympics here.  Dallas voters did not want the expense, the hassle or the danger of having the Olympics here.  The ODB were dismayed with our lack of VISION.

Sometimes, common sense makes one's VISION much more realistic than what the ODB see through their rose colored glasses.  That's the difference in Laura Miller and Tom Dunning.  Miller is not afraid of reality.  Dunning would name a committee to reach a consensus on what is reality and how we make it a reality that is fair for all. 

Have you been paying attention to Tom Dunning in the last couple of weeks.  He is not having fun.  Even at that strange gathering on the shores of White Rock Lake, he looked annoyed and uncomfortable.  The contrast with Laura Miller greeting people one on one is pretty telling.

We have hundreds of volunteers phoning fellow citizens all over town.  They are having fun because there is such a positive response to Laura.  

We need a plain speaking woman like Laura Miller to deal with some tough times ahead for this city.  The irony of Laura being Mayor at this time is that she will be dealing with problems brought on by decisions that she fought over with Ron Kirk.  Much of our current mess can be blamed squarely on Ron Kirk and those 5 Borg council members who have endorsed Tom Dunning.

Speaking of which, Allen Gwinn is filing an official complaint with the City Secretary in the morning as to Mary Poss, Veletta Lill, Alan Walne, James Fantroy and Lois Finkelman using their official titles in a political mailer for Dunning.  Allen Gwinn publishes www.Dallas.org, which has a more detailed report on his complaint.  This will be the second time Allen Gwinn has filed an Ethics complaint against Mary Poss.   That first complaint is still pending with the State Ethics Commission -- very bad for Mary that it has not been dropped.  You would think she would be more careful with that other case hanging over her head -- but then that would be giving her credit for occasionally thinking out of her Borg collective.

The more you apply that Borg collective thing to Dunning and his 5 endorsers, it becomes more understandable how that gang and the ODB operate.  They have a central command that thinks for them and they are all sent out to enforce the decisions of the central command.  Avi Adelman did this little art work:   

But	They seem to have advanced to where their appliances are internal.
Avi assumes the Borg still use the primitive external appliances on their assimilated humans.		Look at the Borg symetry in how all the gang in this picture are standing.   Not an ounce of animation.  Do they look human to you?

Allen Gwinn is not the only one who has been busy the past few days.  Avi Adelman has a really informative posting about Dunning's efforts to block Miller's response to his nasty TV ads.  Check out Hey, Tom, cease and desist THIS! (www.Barking Dogs, 2/02/02).  Apparently, the City Attorney is freelancing for the Dunning campaign.  What other attorney in town could give such bad advice?

Just a few more days.  We are going to win this election.  With Laura out front, we are going to save Dallas from going down Atlanta's road to bankruptcy.  It's not going to be easy.  Some hard choices must be made.  We will have to decide whether we want a decent animal shelter or public art in parking garage tunnels.  We must decide whether green parks are more important than a designer bridge that only services the arena.  We will have to insist the County re-assume responsibility for health care for the indigent -- as is mandated by the State Constitution.

If we are to avoid Atlanta's plight -- and we can -- we are going to need to bring that ODB VISION thing back down to human scale.