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08/21/02 Report
on Mary Poss’ Budget Meeting
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First, some numbers:
- Over 60 people showed up – chairs
were brought out from the back room.
- Mary Poss plans to "find $27
million" in the budget in the next six weeks.
- At least a dozen of the people there
were city employees.
- Why am I the only person under 30 years
old who attends these meetings?
I arrived ten minutes before the meeting
started. The parking lot was full, and I had to park in the street – even
though several of the folks had walked there from their houses. This is a good
sign! The Ridgewood neighborhood is very tightly knit, and the Rec. Center is
the center of the community.
Somebody from the budget office gave a
PowerPoint presentation that skimmed over the budget. Basically, she
showed us slides of the packets we received when we entered the room. I’m not
a professional speaker, but I do know that she violated rule #1: DO
NOT hand out packets and then read it to the audience. We know how to read,
thank you.
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Linda
Helton:
I also attended the Mary Poss budget meeting Tuesday night.
I was very happy to see a young "naysayer" there - who I
now know is John Burton. I totally agree with him -
From the way Mary conducted the meeting, one would think she ACTUALLY
represents the will of the people in her district!
The meeting was a bit tamer than I expected, but I think she heard
enough about Palladium to know that most people don't agree with her
about it.
I also noticed in the thick handout that we were given that they skipped
a few things - one thing about AIDS education or prevention and
something about SOB's. Do you think they were trying to avoid
controversy? |
Poss also noted that two fire stations were
still going to be constructed, one is Station 39 (Ferguson and Shiloh in
District 9). Poss made a special point of noting this is in District 9. Yeah!
It’s literally across the street from the current Station 39. Our
nearest EMT/Ambulance is by Casa Linda. The State Legislature had more to do
with this construction than Poss could ever have pretended to. Poss smiled and
took credit for a Fire Station but is totally hopeless when it comes to her
figuring out that maybe Perot Jr. and Tom Hicks should open their own wallets to
build their Palladium Playgrounds?
The PowerPoint "information" was
a bunch of piddly $2-5 million dollar items. Absolutely no mention of
Palladium! Mary Poss, in a stunning – yet typical – denial of
responsibility blamed the budget shortfall on everything from September 11th
to the mild weather we had last winter. I’m not even kidding!
[Note to Mary: you cannot control what
terrorists nor the weather decide to do, but you CAN decide how to vote for your
buds at Palladium.]
The Ridgewood pool has been closed for
several years. Several people brought this to the attention of Poss.
She did the stale "these pools violate health codes"
nonsense. Several people called her on it – she said she has paperwork to
prove it. She was called on it again. But those silly facts just don’t matter…….
After attending this meeting, I have the
following points:
- Mary Poss actually said: "If
I were Queen I would devote 100% of our budget to streets"
- Mayor Miller won district 9 by a 2:1
margin – on a platform of basics over big ticket downtown projects. Poss
was the #1 cheerleader for Dunning and the #1 cheerleader for Palladium. How
she can pretend she represents the will of district 9 is unconscionable?
- For every 20 words from her mouth,
about one or two actually mean anything.
- After I asked about prioritizing pools
over Palladium, Poss rehashed her press puff piece about how 5,000 permanent
and 10,000 temporary jobs will be created by Palladium. The audience
response to her nonsense was cold – folks actually applauded after my
question – and most Ridgewood residents have been around the block long
enough to see Mary’s nonsense for what it is.
- Any complaints about cutting library or
rec. hours were met with Poss’ "You’re preaching to the choir"
response, as if she’s an advocate for regular folks or something.
She made a strong stance against hurting libraries. That reminds me of a
line from an old movie: "We’re ‘Citizens Against Crime’, officer…"
and the officer replies: "Most citizens are against crime,
sir."
- That’s basically what Poss did –
she took courageous stands for the universally obvious.
- I guess those librarians can go pour
concrete at Palladium while singing Amazing
Grace.
- One citizen pointed out that if the
rec. center hours are cut, the juvenile courts budget better be
increased. If kids aren’t in rec. centers, they’re more likely to
get in trouble. In a stunning display of ‘not getting it', Poss said that
truancy courts are reimbursed by Dallas County, so it’s not an issue.
Somebody please let Poss know that if you
live and pay taxes in the City of Dallas, you probably live and pay taxes in the
County of Dallas as well.
Sharon, several weeks ago you asked for a
reason for Mary Poss to run for mayor next year. Here’s my reason: It
would be mildly amusing to see her lose her own council district in a citywide
race.
$42 Million could buy a better choir; the
current chorus is tone deaf.
John Burton
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