You know that 3-inch putt you needed to make for a birdie? Whoops!

Every once in a while, something happens down at Dallas City Hall that makes living here fun. Every once in a while someone comes along and messes up the well-defined order of things. Every once in a while someone has the notion that chaos may be just what we need. Every once in a while, a true anarchist emerges from the masses.

That happened today today during a meeting of the staid old Planning Commission which was expected to rubber stamp the city's decision to rename Industrial Boulevard Riverfront Boulevard.

For those just coming out of six months of hibernation now that football season is back, here's the deal. With all the hoopla surrounding the Trinity River Corridor Project, which city planners expect to do for Dallas what Central Park does for New York City or what Golden Gate Park does for San Francisco or what Hyde Park does for London (i.e., put this city on a visible map), there was this feeling that Industrial Boulevard, the major thoroughfare that runs along the downtown side of the project, sounded too, well, industrial. My heavens, the planners thought, we don't want people to think we would have big smoking industrial factories right alongside our park. (Of course, these same planners did decide to put a big smoking cars and trucks right inside the park along a high-speed tollway, but that's another story.) We need to rename this street something tranquil, something peaceful, something park-like, something like a street that fronts a river should be named.

And in a display of let's pretend we're giving the people a voice in this decision the city presented this Internet poll to give Joe Q. Citizen the opportunity to voice an opinion on what the new street should be named. The choices were four tranquil, peaceful, park-like, something like a street that fronts a river names and, in a patronizing move typical of Dallas, two names that represented the two significant minorities in Dallas, Eddie Bernice Johnson Blvd. (for the black population) and Cesar Chavez (for the brown population). What happened was beyond anyone's wildest expectations. Cesar Chavez captured something like two-thirds of the total votes. Of course, the city just brushed this aside saying those Hispanics are far more Internet savvy than we ever gave them credit for but, by gum, they've got to know their place, so we're going to go ahead and rename Industrial the way we wanted to all along. We're going to call it Riverfront Boulevard.

And great cries of jubilation were heard from the bowels of City Hall and a group of city council members the mayor had appointed to the Trinity River Corridor Committee met and voted unanimously to go along with the Riverfront Boulevard idea. It was all so carefully orchestrated. Next it goes to the City Planning Commission and then to the full City Council, which puts the final stamp of approval on it.

But then along came Neil Emmons and Jeff Strater. They're members of the City Planning Commission and at today's meeting they decided not to be part of any rubber-stamping. They decided to mess up the well-defined order of things. They introduced a motion to keep the name Industrial Boulevard and they were joined by enough of their colleagues to pass the motion on an 11-3 vote. Not once, mind you, but twice. Why twice? Because the Council could instruct the Commission to reconsider its position on this issue, but not if they have already voted on it twice. At least that's how I understand it.

So what's the upshot? Will Industrial now be renamed after Cesar Chavez? I doubt it, but the Planning Commission is going to consider that possibility at its next meeting a week from today.
The day before, however, in another confusing bit of orderly logic, the City Council will consider whether to change Industrial's name to Riverfront, unless (which now seems likely, the council decides to delay the vote). However, because of what the Planning Commission did today, the council needs to get three-quarters of its members to approve the name change and that could be a little dicey. According to my count, that's 12 of the 15 council members. I'm betting council members Steve Salazar, Elba Garcia and Pauline Medrano will vote against the name change. Now all they need is one more person to come over to their side and I think they can find that one. Let's see. How about Angela Hunt? After all, she appointed Neil Emmons to the Planning Commission.

This may turn out to be fun after all.