Back to Basics

It's disconcerting to be where we are this Monday as compared to everyone's optimistic nervousness of last Monday. For some, the optimism was misplaced; for others the optimism was valid. That it's! That's the last reference or mention of Ron Kirk's failed Senate race. Unless something at City Hall ties directly back to Con Jerk, there will be no mention of him again on DallasArena.com. I don't care what "that former Mayor" is doing, who sets him up in a business or anything else. So, don't send anything to be published on DallasArena.com relating to "that former Mayor". He's history.

Some good things are happening in Dallas, but some really sleazy stuff seems to be off the authorities' radar screen.

City Hall has designated my part of town as the city's area for servicing perverts -- young and old. We have sex clubs that stick it to the perverts' pocket book, which makes those facilities not too assessable to young perverts. At least the sex club hookers service the pervs under the tables and leave their disposables there. We are, however, convinced the sex clubs are the draw for our bigger problem -- street hookers. The hookers on our streets are a whole other species. They are sub-human and should be treated that way. Their pimps are something even less.

Never forget Old Al Lipscomb was a California pimp, which means he enslaved African-American women and others.

The problems in the Northwest part of District 6 mirror what's going on near Ft. Worth Ave. It may be worse down there. It's the hookers. It's the perverts who pay them. It's the lack of police enforcement. We are all just disgusted with this stuff.

One Oak Cliff homeowner and I compared our situations. I told her about the women on Walnut Hill in really obscene outfits. She said Ft. Worth Ave. hookers can't afford cute outfits. I told her many of the hookers on Walnut Hill are very pretty and slender and must be amazing athletes to walk so far in those 4 inch CFM heels. She said when they see a hooker on Ft. Worth Ave. who is even remotely attractive, they assume she's a Police decoy.

Oak Cliff has a big problem with day time hookers. When the perverts see school age cute girls, they proposition them. Walnut Hill hookers mostly service their perverts between Midnight and 7 a.m. and leave their debris in front of people's homes just in time for our kids to see unspeakable trash as they head out for school.

You know it's bad when the men in my community are more outraged than the women. We are tired of excuses. We want results. We want Judge Bully Buchmeyer to stop siding with the prostitutes and their pimps when they violate city ordinances -- whether in or outside the sex clubs.

Sex club owners are pimps. In some cases, they may pimp their whores for "pretend sex", but in most of these "gentlemen" clubs real sex happens -- well, real sick stuff happens. When a man tells me he goes to places like "Illusion" and only sees those women as "eye candy", he becomes someone less to me than who he was.

We can't get the TABC or the city to enforce laws against Illusion or Silver City. Both of these "private clubs" are in dry areas (Stemmons Corridor), and have limits on how much alcohol they can sell in ratio to their food service. Both far exceed those limits, but they are still open.

Illusion should be closed just because of their big billboard. The other sex clubs have pouty looking hookers on their billboards, with the implication they are hard to please. That Illusion sign with the digitally enhanced woman on her back with her knees spread and her mouth open is just too much. That billboard clearly implies there's more of that inside. Must be hard to serve food or drinks or "make conversation" in the position their billboard slut has assumed. Eye candy?

There is much good happening betweem Northwest Highway and Walnut Hill Lane. DART's light rail to Carrollton is coming up Harry Hines/Maple/Denton Dr. with three stations in our area. The alignment is going through areas needing the stimulas, areas where there were and still are thriving businesses that have to compete with illegal operations because the city will not enforce its code enforcement laws.

If a business is operating illegally, it should be closed down until it can comply.

The way the city works -- if a business operates illegally, it gets to stay open until the city either changes the laws to make it legal or the operator gets someone at City Hall to bend the rules to make it legal or Judge Bully Buchmeyer gives them a permanent injunction against the City.

There is no such thing as a harmless non-conforming business. When you let one operation slide and ignore your regulations, you cannot enforce them against anyone else.

With light rail moving in, hopefully City Hall will want to protect its and DART's investment and start cracking down on those businesses that make the area look bad, but maybe not. Many at City Hall don't see our property taxes or sales taxes as real money. It's Other People's Money to be spent cavalierly.

It's past Halloween and the election is over, but there's a spooky story in The Dallas Business Journal involving Regionalism.   I hate Regionalism.

Government works best when it's small. It never gets better when it's big. Using School Districts for example, the smaller the School District, the better their kids are educated. A regional transportation system sounds great, but it will be another taxing authority even more removed from taxpayer control. Bureaucrats will levy taxes on us and will spend more of our money to lobby Austin politicians to levy more taxes on us.

Now that DART is finally delivering on our investment, please don't let our the Mayor and our city council screw it up.

Regionalism always means Dallas loses something. I have always supported DFW, but has it benefited Dallas as much as those cities closest to the airport?

With an appointed DFW Board beyond our direct reach, we have pollution problems that don't get resolved and we have a Board doling out contracts for major construction projects to politically correct or connected firms with no experience or expertise. Had Mayor Miller not been there, this current DFW Board would have given a huge construction contract to Matthew Harden -- the crook who skimmed off the DISD while he was fooling around with the Superintendent. She went to jail for diverting a lot less money than Harden. Anyone who remotely supported Harden getting that contract should be removed from the DFW Board.

That's what we can expect from a Regional Transportation System. Too much money in the hands of a few politically connected folks who are not elected by taxpayers. We do not need another layer of government controlling our transportation issues. The DBJ article refers to a defunct system called the Lone Star Transit Authority. Some of the people who promoted the LST system also envisioned an authority that would include all area airports and tollway systems with mass transit. Not kidding.

When Oak Lawn and Park Cities residents were fighting (and winning) noise at Love Field, that regional transportation authority was floated around, with a "Transportation Czar" in charge of all. At the time, it was assumed Lee Jackson would be the Czar. It was intended to stifle community dissent and involvement.

Regionalism is a bad idea and favored by those who fear Democracy!

We have a local group doing exciting stuff needed by local people which will solve immediate local problems. Is that possible?

A group of wealthy Hispanic landowners with major land and business investments in the Harry Hines/Walnut Hill/Stemmons area have put together a proposal for an international bus terminal on Walnut Hill, West of Stemmons. It could solve that mess we have with big buses opening up shop on residential corners from Oak Cliff to North Dallas. This is a direct, positive result of Laura Miller standing up to those gypsy lines that were plaguing Oak Cliff.

After their facility is up and going and prospering (because it is so desperately needed), other transportation systems will send routes to it. This is fixing a local problem immediately, rather than going for a "big picture" goal that will take years to accomplish.

The old expression "You can't see the forest for the trees" should be reversed in Dallas. Our leaders frequently can't see the trees (the basics) because they are so focused on the forest (the big picture). They are all too anxious to cut down hundreds of trees to get to the forest, only to find they have less than they started.

We need to focus on the trees -- the basics. This bus terminal group is focused on a specific problem and are trying to fix it. Their "basic" approach will benefit the "big picture" by locating a bus terminal in an under-utilized part of Dallas near DART proposed light rail, with ready access to Stemmons Freeway and the North Dallas Tollway. The terminal will absolutely stimulate the economy for the immediate area and the city, as well as the region. This is a project City Hall should back.

Mike W:
We know you are running and we know that you support firefighters and police officers. We are grateful on both counts.
   I don't foresee the DFFA taking a stand on the bond package for the reasons you have mentioned. I think they may get thumped anyway. With all of the whining they did about how hard the budget process will be next year any taxpayer would be silly to think they won't get a tax increase next year.
   Voting for a bond package will make it worse.
   I hear a lot of people talking about getting back to the "basics". I don't think a lot of them know what the basics are when it comes to government.
    Roads, public safety, water treatment, sewage, trash collection --those are basics. When you can consider something and say that, although it is nice to have, life would continue without it then that is not basic.
   It's extra. It's fluff. It's luxury. And when your wallet is empty, you don't pay for luxuries.
   That kind of thinking won't endear you to the arts crowd. It won't make you any friends down at the library. It won't pay for arenas. But it also won't make you take money from the "basics" to pay for luxuries you've committed yourself to.

This is a project the city should have already done. It would justify public financing.

Unfortunately, a facility to serve regular people -- not Our Downtown Betters or their Do-Bees -- is way down on the list of priorities at City Hall. The arts crowd has much more influence with our council than regular folks who would take a bus trip to Mexico or anywhere else.

The taxes for my new (pre-owned) home are horrendous. One man I met Saturday talked about his property taxes as compared to his annual income. He said a few years ago his $35,000 annual income was more than adequate to meet his family's needs, but the accumulated taxes on his very modest home (where he's lived for 20+ years) are eating his family's lunch.

If we pass a Billion+ bond program, it's coming right back out our disposable income. We would be better off giving up that AAA rating and going with a reasonable bond program only involving infrastructure, parks (zoo), libraries and the animal shelter. But -- every special project of every politically connected insider will be in this bond program. They will tie it all together, so your streets don't get fixed if the whole package doesn't pass.

Get ready. They are already strategizing the bond campaign. Anyone who opposes any component will be an Aginner. Last Winter, Mayor Miller had a brochure saying "Laura Miller has a big vision of the little things for Dallas."

Laura Miller said "I have a big vision of the little things that make a big difference in people's lives."

Our Mayor was elected on a Back to Basics platform.
That's what we want!

Transportation guru promotes a new regional transit authority; Fleet to be financed in part with controversial 4A, 4B tax money by Michael Whiteley Staff Writer