Landfill audit: This emperor has no clothes and no guts

I am going to step up and say the two words to the Dallas City Auditor that others have either been afraid to say or, in the case of the media, simply too lazy to say: "Prove it." Prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the city has lost more than $1 million dollars because of the way fees are collected at McCommas Bluff.

And you know what? The auditor can’t prove it. He has a hunch, but he has no solid evidence. Yet the reputations of outstanding city officials are being tarnished because a worthless, gutless assistant city manager and the lazy reporters and editorial writers for the Dallas Morning News refuse to stand up to the auditor and say "Prove it."

I have an assistant city manager, some reporters
 and editorial writers to nominate for membership

I worked for the City of Dallas for some years and I know from the inside how these things work. When the auditor issues any kind of report such as this piece of junk about the landfill, city staff has the opportunity to respond. I’d be willing to wager every single cent I’ve ever earned and every cent I hope to earn in the future that, at least during one point in the process, the staff disagreed with just about every single word in the auditor’s document. Yet, when it finally becsme public, an assistant city manager, who should have been fired years ago over his handling of issues at the Dallas Animal Shelter among other fiascos, responds like some whipped boy and says "Oh, yes, we agree with every lie the auditor has put forward." What a pitiful act of cowardice!

And then the reporters from Morning News, acting more like court stenographers than journalists trying to present the truth to their readers, insert rings through their noses so they can be led around by the auditor. I also worked for a major wire service and this aformentioned newspaper and I know if I submitted stories like the ones they wrote on this subject, I would have been severely castigated by actual editors, like the great Don Myers or the equally superb Ron Cohen, who know what reporting actually means. Why didn’t these reporters march into the auditor’s office and simply say "Prove it"? Laziness is the only reason I can think of.

Then there was that demeaning editorial in yesterday’s Morning News that, without so much as a shred of evidence cast a shadow over the reputation of an individual who is so well respected by her peers in the industry that she was elected statewide president of the Texas Solid Waste Association, who sits on an advisory board at SMU’s School of Engineering, and who, according to former City Manager Teodoro Benavides, singlehandedly saved the City of Dallas from bankruptcy. How many others can make that claim?

The events of the last few weeks involving the Landfill Lies and other related activities have demolished any and all respect I once held for the staff at the top of the city’s organization chart and has destroyed the last shred of credibility I once had for the Dallas Morning News.

And that’s a sad thing to have to admit about two former employers. If only they had simply said "Prove it."