Ron
Carter:
I also received this dissertation from Mary Poss trying to
explain her vote for the Palladium deal. It was interesting that
she chose to respond on gold embossed stationery rather than via email
as I had originally contacted her. How fiscally responsible was
that was given the city's budget shortfalls?
Who paid for copying all 10 pages, addressing and stuffing the
envelopes and then the additional postage to mail the letter first
class? I also noted that the return address was listed as
"Office of the Mayor and City Council" but never gave a title
for Ms. Poss--only "Mary Poss, City of Dallas". I'm just
surprised she didn't include a photo of herself with a "Mary for
Mayor" bumper sticker as well!
Keep up the good work!
_________________
W K Gordon, III
It is telling that Ms. Poss conceptualizes the Palladium deal as a poker
game. Perhaps knowing that she sees her council activities as game
playing and gambling (with our tax dollars) helps one understand
her bizarreperformance as an elected representative.
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What a
crock! I have a 95 Blazer. In the past 4 years, I had
to rent a car 5 times. I have been adversely impacted by Mayor PreTend Poss'
inconsequential sales
tax. She doesn't work, and she's married to a rich man, so she doesn't
get the significance of a $20 or $30 surcharge when you
rent a car because your vehicle is being repaired. The sales tax
generated by events at the Hicks/Perot arena doesn't come close to the
revenue generated by the hotel/motel and rent cars sales tax. We don't share that revenue. It goes into the
arena, which is completely controlled by the Robber Barons, who keep all the revenue from events at the
arena.
The area where the arena is located was being aggressively developed
before Ross, Jr. set his greedy sights on it. We would be
receiving substantial property taxes from the Intervest project that was
stolen by Hicks and Perot. We would be more competitive for
conventions without the hotel/motel and rent car sales taxes. We are
losing millions in reduced convention bookings. |
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| Mayor PreTend Poss
thinks it is OK for Dallas taxpayers to be held hostage by two team
owners. We had contracts with those two Robber Barons. We
had a contract that keeps the Stars in Dallas to 2003, and the Mavericks
to 2008. It was an empty threat that they were leaving without a
new arena. Lewisville had a referendum previously regarding a
sales tax for a basketball arena, and they turned it down flat.
They had no place to go. It
has not hurt Dallas one iota for the Cowboys to play in Irving. |
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Mayor PreTend Poss
cannot conceive that our opposition is based on principle, as well
as reality. When the rich and powerful are allowed to put their
wants before the needs of all Dallas property owners, it is not
only unfair, it is a threat to Democracy. When Dallas taxpayers
who own buildings and hotels in the Stemmons Business Corridor are
forced to pay their full property taxes, while an out-of-town
organization gets a free ride -- that is a threat to Democracy. Tax abatements
allow one taxpayer to spend his share of the
general tax on his personal property and desired infrastructure.
That means the businesses and property owners in the Regal Row area have to wait for their deplorable streets to be repaired,
but Palladium
will have new streets around their development immediately.
The Central Business District exists now. We have invested
millions in the restoration of the CBD. Why would we jeopardize
our investment by forcing the CBD to compete with a new project?
The 8-5 vote would not have happened if the minority council members had
not been promised chunks of the tax abatement to be spent in their
districts on their pet projects. |
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| Mayor PreTend Poss
does not understand she voted to give Palladium $43 million that
should be going into the General Fund. She says the tax dollars
"would not be there in the first place" had Palladium not
taken the risk of building the project. What risk? We were promised
the
arena would be all the stimulus needed for development in the
area. |
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| When and if Palladium builds their project,
it will place new demands on our infrastructure and will require
more police and firefighters. Our sworn officers are already
stretched thin. There will be no new revenue to pay for more
police or firefighters. Palladium will have spent our $43 million
on new streets and water/sewer lines to their project, while the rest of
us wait our turn for needed capital repairs to the streets and
infrastructure in our neighborhoods.
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Did you know the
neighborhood right behind European Crossroads (north of NW Hwy) has
ditches next to the pavement which forces school children to walk in the
street or jump in the ditch to avoid some drunk driver? The same
situation exists in Arcadia Park and the community around Bataan Rec
Center. MPT Poss would not know about that. She doesn't have
those situations in her district. The Dallas homeowners in those
neighborhoods will have to wait their turn to have some of their
property taxes spent on improving their community. They just want
a path for their children to walk -- curbs and gutters would be beyond
their wildest dreams.
Apparently Mayor PreTend Poss is not aware that JPI faced the same
situation as Palladium before they built their apartments just South of where the
arena is now.
MPT Poss must have been too busy attending some function to notice that when a high rise is built on what was once a
parking lot, they don't start erecting it at surface level. They
dig down and they dig deep, so the building will have a good
foundation, as well as subterranean parking. Any existing
infrastructure must be replaced by the developer. |
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| Mayor PreTend Poss
seems to think this project will be completed and operational on
schedule. She also must be assuming that in the 3-4 years it will
take to have retail stores in the Palladium project that we will still
be in an economic slump. We have retail, restaurant and hotel
traffic currently -- just not enough to keep existing hotels
going. Several major hotels have closed portions of their
buildings. All they need is more competition. We have a glut
of office space, hotel rooms and high end restaurants in this
city. Why encourage more? |
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| Mayor PreTend Poss
is either delusional or she is just outright lying. All the
experts say this project will drain tenants and businesses from the
CBD and likely from the Stemmons Business Corridor. It will not
create new law firms or other companies to fill the office space.
It will just draw them from other locations in the city. Sadly, building owners who will lose tenants to the Palladium
project will continue to pay all of their property taxes into the
General Fund while the streets around their property continue to
deteriorate, but Palladium will have their tenants and nice new streets. |
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| Mayor PreTend Poss
just cannot let go of "world-class". Aren't you just
exhausted with this silly, silly woman? |
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| I sincerely hope
you will give Mayor PreTend Poss your opinion on all this malarky. |
