Spending Money

Just to set the record straight, the DPA did not ask its membership to spend their money OUTSIDE Dallas, just to spend it with companies that did not give money to the campaign opposing their pay referendum. Seems like a fair request to me, but where are you spending your money these days?

When you go clothes shopping, is it at a store in the city limits of Dallas?

When you bought your car, was it in Dallas or did you go outside the city to save sales tax expense?

What about the last furniture you bought? Dallas?

When you went out to dinner last week, did you pick Dallas restaurants?

If your answer to anyone of the above was NO, you are part of the problem causing our $83 million shortfall. However, unless you are pretty well off, most of the stores in our city limits are not places where you shop. We have great groceries (in most parts of town), but there are several sections of Dallas that have little or no retail. No Target, no K-Mart, no Wal-Mart, no Dillards, no Foleys -- Nada. Residents of those areas must drive to North Dallas or the burbs to find one of those stores. If you are in Oak Cliff, it is just as quick to head toward Arlington or Grand Prairie or even Irving than over the Trinity to points North.

If you live outside the city limits, there is absolutely no reason to drive into Dallas to shop. Frisco, Addison and Plano have great shopping available for consumers. They are not driving into Dallas to spend their money.

WE MUST GET RETAIL IN DALLAS. The type of retail that draws low to moderate income consumers and retired people. They are not going to head for the Galleria or NorthPark because they just can't afford the prices -- or assume they can't.

Last week, the Plan Commission turned down a new Wal-Mart at Mockingbird & Lemmon -- just East of Love Field. People with clout in nearby neighborhoods hired Control Freak Lord Lori Palmer to lobby Plan Commissioners against the zoning request. Palmer has a particularly tight relationship with Neil Emmons (Lill's District 14 appointee). There was no way he would go against her. Lord Palmer does not even live in Dallas County, much less in Dallas..

Terry Williams:
   Thank you for such an informative and provocative website! I'm a daily reader and enjoy it tremendously.
   I must comment on the Wal Mart decision. I've lived in Oak Lawn for 17 years and suffered through the Lord Palmer reign. At one time, I swore the woman was systematically trying to destroy my neighborhood. I thought we were rid of her.
After all these years, who does she still know that she speaks to city commissions on zoning issues and winds up with a full color picture in the Dallas Managed News? That location is perfect for a Wa- Mart.
What do the residents want? Liquor store, auto parts, pawn shop, tattoo parlor, sex club? The City of Dallas cannot afford to be choosy in these budgetary times.
I'm mindful of traffic concerns (remember I live in Oak Lawn and travel Lemmon daily). But we do not live in a lakeside retreat. This is the urban core of Dallas which happens to be one of the largest cities in the nation. I would say the nearby residents should deal with that as I do on a daily basis.
   I don't like my Oak Lawn traffic gridlock, but that never stopped the zoning folks from rubber stamping every zillion floor highrise on Turtle Creek now did it? But I love Oak Lawn and accept it as a fact of inner city living. These residents should do the same.
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Stan Aten:
I have to agree with you regarding Wal-Mart. The closest Wal-Mart to me is in Duncanville. The next closest is De Soto. There are none south of I-30 or East of I-45. There is land south of I-30 if the city would just work with Wal-Mart. I keep hoping that retail will develop at Pinnacle Park to boost sales tax revenue.

I don't know if that location was right for a fancy Wal-Mart, but we desperately need a new Wal-Mart somewhere generating sales tax revenue for Dallas. Why is every Wal-Mart bigger than the last one? Their only real competition are their own Sam's stores. It seems like they could think smaller scale for an urban store.

Our desperate need for sales tax revenue may be the rallying cry from city council to approve Wal-Mart's zoning request, but sales tax revenue should not be a justification for a bad zoning decision. No more so than generated sales tax being a justification for entering a settlement with the sex clubs on NW Highway. Land use is forever -- budget shortfalls are temporary.

What we ought to do if Wal-Mart appeals the PZ ruling to the council is be ready with some alternative locations inside Dallas where the community would welcome a Wal-Mart. Communities like Oak Cliff. Having an Upscale, Urban Wal-Mart located in Oak Cliff would be a great boost for the Southern Sector. People north of LBJ probably would not drive down there to the Wal-Mart. But, people in Southern suburbs might just very well drive North into the city limits to shop there. Certainly, people in East Dallas and Oak Lawn would trot over there because it would be as close as driving to a Wal-Mart in Plano or Lewisville for them.

If the sales tax argument is used by 8 council members to approve a Wal-Mart at the Mockingbird/Lemmon site, that bodes ill for Bachman-NW Highway's efforts to force the sex clubs out of their area. Those sex clubs generate piles of sales tax revenue for Dallas -- just like all the other night clubs (large and small). They also cost the city enormously in lost retail revenue from businesses that have left the area in disgust.

Not to beat a dead horse, but we warned the city big shots and voters that the sales taxes imposed to fund the Hicks/Perot arena would be a real problem for our convention business -- once the city's golden goose. Convention planners take sales taxes into consideration for the total cost to attendees. Dallas never had lots of entertainment doings to draw conventions here, but we did have fairly cheap total costs as compared to New York, etc. Convention bookings have been dropping steadily since the arena vote of 1998.

When you combine the lost sales tax revenue from non-booked conventions with all the tax abatements that councils have been giving for the past several years, you wind up with a $83 million shortfall. We have been penny wise and pound foolish for way too long.

We could generate some immediate revenue by auditing every tax abatement and determining whether the recipient has kept their part of the deal. If not, cancel the tax abatement and demand a return of the property taxes withheld per the tax abatement. If the recipient can't pay the back taxes caused by their lack of performance, the city should seize the property and sell like they would do to any other property owner who failed to pay their taxes.

Then the city would have a little more spending money.