$$ for Arts

04/18/02 . . . but pennies for Our Protectors?

Will someone please explain how $46 Million for a new performing arts center qualifies as a "nuts-and-bolts" infrastructure improvement?

With dire warnings of tax increases if we give Our Protectors a 17% raise, these same morons are seriously proposing $46 million for a new performing arts center. What happened to basics first?

During her campaign, our Mayor frequently talked about budgeting and paying for necessities first before you party. You buy groceries before you buy that new dress. You pay the light bill before you go to the movies. You prioritize.

All the actors and musicians and Park Cities arts patrons will just go ballistic on me, but art is entertainment. It may be basic to air heads like Princess Velveeta, but performance halls come way down the list AFTER public safety, animal shelters, the zoo, smooth streets and green parks.

Stan Aten:

Wed night, I went to a neighborhood assoc. meeting where councilman Mark Housewright spoke about the police pay raise and its impact on the operating budget for the city. If we vote for a 17% pay raise for the police and firefighters, either we get a big tax increase or 500 city employees are laid off Oct. 1st.

Then he said, "the preliminary budget for next year is short $54 million". Plus, the city council is looking at a bond program of between $255 and $500 million dollars for a Sept. election.

It does not make sense for a city that cannot give its employees a pay raise or take care of basic city services to be borrowing such large sums of money, but our city council does. What good is a new park, library or city building if you cannot pay the electric bill or staff it?

Basic services, first! Necessities before luxuries! Smooth streets, green parks and fair pay for the police and firefighters who protect us!

Gosh! That sounds like some very successful campaign slogan.

Size of bond package depends on pay-raise vote, council says 04/16/2002 By COLLEEN McCAIN NELSON / The Dallas Morning News

After spending seven hours sifting through long lists of the city's needs, council members cautioned that many essential projects could be left undone if voters next month approve a 17 percent pay increase for public safety officers. With a price tag of $60 million, the raises would be expected to result in a significant tax hike in the next fiscal year.

Senior Cpl. Glenn White, president of the Dallas Police Association, said tying the bond package to the pay referendum is "unfair and underhanded." "That's unfortunate that they've tied two totally separate issues together and put them in competition," he said.

Most council members said Monday that if the pay raises were approved, the city would have to cap the bond package at $255 million. That's the most the city can spend without increasing taxes. . . . "This is a real choice for people," she said. "We can make a lot more progress in a lot more areas if we don't pass this 17 percent pay raise."

Property taxes would increase 14 percent ? from 66.75 cents per $100 valuation to 76.18 cents ? if the raises were funded entirely with a tax increase. The council has proposed increasing police and firefighters' salaries about 15 percent over three years.

Council members and business leaders have announced plans to campaign against the 17 percent increase. . . . Council members said Monday that the city couldn't afford a $60 million pay increase. A larger bond package is needed to fund "nuts-and-bolts" infrastructure improvements, . . . .

The preliminary list of proposed bond projects totals $668.5 million. . . . The preliminary proposals include $133 million for streets, $132 million for parks, $7 million for a new animal shelter, and $46 million for a new performing arts center.

If we eliminate the $46 million for the performance center and turn down the latest Hicks/Perot extortion effort for another tax abatement, we have more than enough for the animal shelter and the cops and firefighters who protect us.

A couple of OTHERWISE very smart people on the council think we must find a way to make Palladium happy by giving them another tax abatement. As I have said many times, tax abatements are not free money.

When a piece of land is undeveloped, there is not much demand for police or fire protection. There is not much wear and tear on area streets. There is not much water use or trash pickup. Grannted, there is limited property tax revenue on the property.

When a developer builds something and improves a piece of vacant land, obviously the need for public service increases, but so does tax revenue to pay for the increased demand. If a developer builds something and gets a tax abatement, there is also increased tax revenue on the property, but the developer gets to keep the "increased" portion and spend it on HIS OWN PROPERTY. It does not go into the general budget to pay for everyone's public safety, smooth streets and green parks.

Specifically, Palladium, Hicks, Perot, Cuban and BELO, get to spend a large portion of what should go to the city's general budget on their own property. They get the new infrastructure that your neighborhood needs. They get the smooth streets your neighborhood may never get. They get the well maintained pocket parks while your neighborhood parks continue to deteriorate. They get private security while you wait for an officer to respond to your emergency.

That's right! Palladium, Hicks, Perot, Cuban and BELO can spend their tax abatement on private security, landscaping, new streets/sidewalks, street lights, sewer lines, private parks, and still cause more demand for police and fire protection for which they will not be paying.

Wouldn't you like to keep 70% or more of your property taxes to spend improving your street and property?

Our Protectors (police and firefighters) must be confused with priorities at City Hall. Our Mayor ran a campaign promising a focus on basic services. In a very large poll (over 1000), 64% of Dallas voters support a raise for Our Protectors. West Dallas was the one area where there was least support, and that is probably where the least amount of taxes are paid. The rest of the city knows we can't live together without the best police and firefighters available. Still, officers wonder about the city's priorities:

from Undergroundcop.com

IS THERE ANY PUBLIC SUPPORT?

The campaign has started by the big city political machine to break the backs of the front lines of the police and firefighters. "The referendum is not the right way" says the Belo Big D solo news paper. The council wants to pass out 5 percent for the next three years, which will probably be deluded and splitting it down to 3 percent over a 12 month period as they have done in the past. Can you trust City Hall to keep their word?

Look no further than the history of the Parity Lawsuit and you will get your answer. We have been lied to and even had our salaries reduced 1 percent by another thoughtless city council of the past.

So now we turn to the citizens, as we did during the 1978 pay raise referendum, which the city showed no respect for or long term compliance. Morale hit a very high level back then when the referendum was passed by the voters. Now the same groups that were against us then are again campaigning against us.

Morale is again very depressed. Our hopes are with the public that believes the old adage -
"YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!"

Don't expect me to start bashing my friend, Laura Miller. I disagree with her big time over the pay raise for Our Protectors, and I think her effort to tie it to a diminished bond sale is unfair. She is listening to the wrong advisers on that one, and it will cost her politically. I don't think it will cost her re-election, but it will give her enemies a weapon.

That said, she is trying to do right about everything else. She is trying to find a way to get those people out of Cadillac Heights (or Cadmium Heights as Chip Northrup calls it). There is some logic to using a proposed Police Academy as leverage to buy out those homes, but ultimately it's not a good idea.

We should not put a multi-million dollar facility in an flood plain area that is too polluted to clean up. Cadillac Heights is polluted cess pool. Let it go back to the river.

As a primary voting, card carrying Republican, I am also an environmentalist with some degree of common sense. The biggest reason the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers cause so much flooding damage periodically is because they were screwed up by the Corps of Engineers. It's that 1950 syndrome of believing man (i.e., engineers) can control everything in nature. The Greatest Generation whipped Hitler and came back home thinking they could whip nature, too. We are living with a lot of their man-made mistakes. We need to correct the mistakes -- not enable them.

No levees! Just that simple. Levees will cause other problems up and down the river. Buy out those houses in Cadillac Heights, relocate the residents to those new little in-fill brick houses all over East Dallas and the Maple Avenue area of Oak Lawn. There could even be some arrangement with Habitat for the Humanities.

There are no new businesses in Cadillac Heights. Whatever is there have long since amortized their investment. Besides they knew they were building in a flood plain.  Let Cadillac Heights go back to the river.

Laura will do the right thing about Palladium even if she and Veletta Lill are the only votes against the tax abatement. A downtown lawyer said council should just use the rule -- NO MORE MONEY UNTIL YOU DO WHAT YOU SAID YOU WOULD WITH THE FIRST TAX ABATEMENT. Another simple truth!

Speaking of simple truth -- Mary Poss has a conflict of interest with anything relating to Victory or Palladium's proposed development because of her husband's relationship with Ross, Jr. and all the Perot enterprises. Why is she allowed to comment, discuss or vote on this matter?  Why isn't Belo reporting on this?

That's another issue, as is the council manager vs. strong mayor discussion for a future DallasArena.com piece. Today, we need to be focused on the 17% raise referendum.

Are we going to pay Our Protectors a salary that gets them up to the "average" for the metroplex? Or are we going to let the mayor and council get away with distorting the pay raise while promoting a new performance hall?

One problem with symphony halls and performance halls and art museums is construction is only part of the cost. When "philanthropists" make large "matching" donations, we wind up with another White Elephant -- very impressive, but very expensive to maintain. We spend millions every year on upkeep for the Meyerson. It does not pay for itself even though it is a very popular public building -- at least for the elite for the city and the metroplex. We can't maintain our recreation centers, but the Meyerson never goes without repair. It would be the same thing with a new performance hall, another drain on the budget -- less money to maintain our parks and rec centers.

When we elected Laura Miller, Dallas voters said we want smooth streets, green parks and fair pay for our police and firefighters who protect us. It was the other guy who was against a pay raise for cops, and he lost!

It is only going to cost you 25? a day if the referendum passes. Rather than say we can't afford to pay police and firefighters a salary that is only average in the metroplex, the Mayor and council should realize

We cannot afford not to give Our Protectors a 17% raise.