Mary Suhm's future

I have absolutely no hard solid facts to base this on - it is purely conjecture -  but I just have the feeling that Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm wants to make a dead-solid perfect appointment of a new police chief -- an appointment for the ages -- get through the current budget cycle, see that budget embraced and passed by the City Council and then announce her retirement shortly after the start of the next fiscal year, Oct. 1.

I have mentioned this thought to a few former city officials - both elected and staff - and although all of them said they had not heard a thing that would lead them to make this same prediction, they also said my reasoning makes a lot of sense.

This budget business is going to continue to be more difficult - I would say the hard budget times will last another three, four years - before they get better. Not only that, Suhm lost the Ying to her Yang when Dave Cook retired. This is not meant as a criticism of Jeanne Chipperfield, Cook's replacement as CFO (except that, if possible, she smiles even less than Cook did), but in a strange way the Cook/Suhm melding was almost exactly that - the two coming together as one mind finding solutions to the city's budget woes where the best in the business couldn't locate them. I'm thinking Suhm is already spending some restless days and nights wishing Cook was still there and has no intention of repeating this process for an entire fiscal year without him.

Suhm has been eligible for retirement for three years now. That means she can walk into the sunset and continue to count on her full salary being paid to her through the City's Pension Fund, far more solid than most such funds thanks to careful planning and prudent management. She doesn't need to put up with this grief.

With Da Mayor announcing he probably will seek another term, Suhm is going to feel like she's leaving the city in competent hands for at least five or six more years. Plus, I think she would like the City Council, as it is presently constituted, to select her replacement. (The council will, of course, announce a nationwide search just as it did before Suhm was selected, but the best thing it could do would be to talk Ramon Miguez to returning the city - someway, somehow - although he probably would be foolish to entertain the thought.)

Suhm is getting close to her sell-by date. The average life expectancy of a Dallas city manager is five years and Suhm was appointed city manager in June 2005. Not only that, she has that rare opportunity to walk out on her own terms, with the overwhelming majority of the City Council wishing she would not leave, probably even begging her to remain. That's not the kind of the relationship you usually see between the manager and the council after five years at Dallas City Hall. Right now she would be remembered as the one of the greatest managers - deservedly so - in the city's history. Why take a chance on putting a blemish on that?

So here's my thinking: Mary Suhm (1) names Art Avecedo of Austin as the new police chief, (2) proposes a budget with no tax increases but a lot of severe service cuts, (3) allows the city council to restore many of those cuts with a tax increase (and smiles inwardly as they do it), (4) sees that budget passed by the council and finally (5) announces her retirement.

For those on the council that cringe at the thought of her leaving, here is their trump card: Mary Suhm really does care about the City of Dallas and its future. That's not a posture with her, it's a passion. I could see her assuming a role as a special consultant to the city in some fashion or as the city's official ambassador to other governmental entitities, particularly on the state and national level. In other words, as some sort of City Manager Emeritus, no longer making the day-to-day decisions but certainly influencing some of the more important ones.

Having said all this, I must bring up my track record on predictions - such as Colt McCoy winning the Heisman, Kentucky winning this year's NCAA basketball tournament and Indianapolis winning the Super Bowl. I did predict the Top 6 Oscar winners this past year, though.

Caraway urges residents to reclaim their neighborhoods

Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm and Mayor Pro Temp Dwaine Caraway

at the latter's Budget Town Hall Meeting Monday night at South Oak Cliff High School

City Manager Mary Suhm has a heart-to-heart conversation with a laid-off city employee

following Dwaine Caraway's Budget Townhall meeting Monday night

Dallas Mayor Pro Temp Dwaine Caraway didn't say this in so many words, but this was what was between the lines in what he said to his District 4 constituents: "Quit yapping so much about the city's failure to clean up the mess dumped in your neighborhoods and do a better job of taking care of it yourselves."


Caraway's message during his Budget Town Hall meeting Monday night at South Oak Cliff High School came after City Manager Mary Suhm sped through presentation of her proposed budget, figuring, I guess "If I talk really fast, the folks won't realize how bad this is." And when they did realize how bad it was, either Caraway, in effect, told them "You don't realize how good you've got it" or, in the case of one disgruntled city employee who was among those who received a pink slip last week and claimed the city was "putting a higher priority on things than on people," Ms. Suhm simply sat down with him face-to-face after the meeting for a heart-to-heart talk.


Now don't get me wrong. Caraway didn't condescend or make excuses. He made some valid points and observations. For instance, on the subject of economic development he said "I'm not going to try to get a Starbucks located in my district. A Starbucks would probably only hire one person from the district and besides, we can make our own coffee." About the illegal dumping a lot of folks complained about -- especially Code Compliance's seeming inability to stop it -- Caraway said: "People aren't driving here from North Dallas to dump their trash here. This is being dumped by people right here in our own district. You see it being dumped every day. I'm telling you to get the license plate numbers of the people that are doing that or at least the color and perhaps the make and model of the vehicle they are driving. Then report that."

He also said he was going to make an effort to crack down on "slum landlords" by forcing anyone who rents property -- even if it's just one house -- to declare himself a business and register with the city. "Then, if we have a code problem with a rental property we will know who to go to," Caraway said. And Ms. Suhm told all the homeowners in the audience to make sure they made out and filed away a valid will to help rectify property ownership questions.

I have been to three town hall meetings so far this budget season and all have been in the southern sector of the city. I will go to my first one in a northern area tomorrow night. Last week I attended two hosted by District 8's Tennell Atkins. The one common concern I have witnessed in all three is definitely not going to one-day-a-week garbage collection (there has not been the slightest peep about that, possibly because it means a reduction in the sanitation fee), but the cutbacks in recreation center hours. The residents of South Dallas are passionate about their rec centers, seeing them more as overall community centers. I will be interested to see if this concern is mirrored in the town hall meetings I attend in the areas north of downtown. I have a sneaking suspicion it won't be. And, if these suspicions are correct, than I have an idea, borrowed as it is from the so-called Robin Hood school funding theory. Take some more hours from the rec centers in the northern areas and give them to the folks in the south.

With apologies to Lerner & Lowe

She did it! She did it! She said that she would do it, And indeed she did. I thought that she would rue it; I doubted she'd do it. But now I must admit it That succeed she did.