| No
More Mega-Mayors
We've already been there: I'm Jim Schutze's biggest fan, even
rented the movie based on his book Bully. But he has gotten this
mega-mayor thing backward ("Survival
of the Flattest," May 23). The fact is, Dallas has had a
"strong mayor/strong manager" form of government--the tag team
of Kirk and Ware. It doesn't work. Kirk was "responsible to the
electorate" under Jim's formula for municipal efficiency, by cowing
the council into complacency, and Ware was nothing if not a domineering
city manager. But Jim chalks up the results of their efforts to Perot and
Hicks--who are still the bogeymen for the new mayor, who comes across in
the article like a whiner, and the city manager, who dropped the ball on
the Palladium negotiations but gets a pass.
We've seen what a
"strong mayor" can do. Why revert to that? Why not do what DISD
has done and hire the best manager available? That's the step the mayor
doesn't want to take.
James Northrup
Dallas
|
