Meet the new boss, not as strong as the old boss

Newly appointed City Manager A.C. Gonzalez, Dallas' answer to Howdy Doody

A couple months ago I thought the "Uber Affair," in which interim City Manager A.C. Gonzalez tried to railroad past City Council an ordinance governing transportation companies that would have forced one of them, Uber, a smartphone car service, out of business, was going to cost Gonzalez a shot at becoming the fulltime city manager.

Turns out I was wrong. Way wrong. 180 degrees wrong.

The City Council severely chastised Gonzalez for his actions in the Uber Affair and afterwards realized "Hey, this guy now knows his place. We can keep our collective feet on his throat and he will scream ‘Thank you!’."

According to the outlines of the City Council-Manager form of government, the role of the council is set policy and it’s the role of the City Manager to run the city. And publicly, all the parties involved express fealty to that concept.

However, in reality, this council, one of this most incompetent in memory, has decided that it is going to run the city and the last thing they want in the City Manager’s office is a strong leader like immediate past City Manager Mary Suhm. When council members talk about "change" at City Hall and keeping Gonzalez "on a short leash," this is what they are talking about: "From now on, we’re running things here and neither you nor anybody else better get in the way."

That’s why Gonzalez, who, because of Uber, has become the council’s whipping boy, was named City Manager today instead of the much stronger candidate, David Cooke, a former county manager in North Carolina, who would have run the city as he saw fit, much in the same way Suhm did. (Cooke was also "cooked" as a candidate because he is a white male. Hate to admit it, but that’s an accurate statement.)

I also think Cooke wouldn’t have lasted much more than a year in the job. Much sooner than later, he would have thrown up his hands in disgust at the incompetence of this council and walked away.

Let me tell you just how incompetent this City Council is. If any one of these council members (outside of Mayor Mike Rawlings) really cared about the city as a whole, having a marionette as city manager might not be that bad, at least for a while. But, as was feared by the critics of 14-1 (I most definitely was not one of them) when it was instituted more than 20 years ago, these council members have decided they are the mayors, the bosses, the ward healers of their individual districts, nothing more.

This was abundantly clear recently during the debate over a possible plastic bag ban in Dallas. Every single council member began their individual remarks on this topic with "In my district …," or "What I’m hearing from people in my district …," etc. During a conversation about renovating the dog park at White Rock Lake, the topic became "How come there are no dog parks in my district?" Earlier this week Sandy Greyson became incensed that a study of Dallas County did not include a significant portion of her Far North Dallas District. When she was told that the part of her district that was not included was in either Collin or Denton County, she didn’t care. She wanted all of her district included whether it was a legitimate part of the study or not.

So what I’m seeing is Dallas evolving from a city into 14 individual fiefdoms and today the City Council appointed someone as City Manager who will not stand in the way of that transition. And that’s a tragedy.

Happy (un)Homeless Holidays from Phoenix

I have no idea when the systematic racism in Dallas was instituted as policy. It might have been as early as the 19^th Century. Like most racist acts, there is no paper trail, although traces can be found here and there.

There are documents revealing that blacks – even as late as the 1950s – were restricted from purchasing homes unless they were in unprotected floodplains such as Rochester Park.

But regardless of how it was done, Dallas was divided between north and south – blacks restricted to a bleak existence south of the city, whites prospering in the northern half. Taking a drive from the southern border of Dallas to the northern one on old Highway 75 was a revelatory experience – the stark contrast between north and south was an ugly boil on the butt of the city.

And to a large extent, that boil remains today.

Which is the major reason Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings launched his "Grow South" campaign. I’m not sure what that is, exactly, what its specific goals are. Take a peak at the City’s Web site and you’ll find nary a mention of "Grow South," so I guess this is some kind of clue as to how seriously the City feels about this concept. From where I sit, it’s nothing more than an attempt to throw a couple of bones to the folks south of I-30, which will do more to appease the collective consciences of the North Siders than to appreciably help the economic conditions in the South.

Besides, at what point in a campaign like this can you declare victory? Or do city officials simply at same moment transform City Hall Plaza into a simulated deck of air aircraft carrier and hang a "Mission Accomplished" banner across the north face of the building?

Contrast this "Grow South" shadow to a program undertaken in Phoenix that had its goal actually stated in its mission statement – to eradicate chronic veteran homelessness.

I’m not going into the whole story of what Phoenix has accomplished because you can see it for yourself right here. The reason I’m bringing this up is because, as this story says, the cities of Salt Lake City, Philadelphia and Washington are following the Phoenix model and are also on the verge of eradicating veteran homelessness.

Dallas, of course, is not mentioned and that’s another reason I feel ashamed for the city in which I reside. This is an idea that works. Not only that, it’s one that is noble – making sure that those who served in the American military to protect us can, at the very least, have a roof over the heads to show our appreciation for their sacrifices on our behalf. And, obviously it is winnable. It is one after which you can stand on the hilltops and declare victory in no uncertain terms. Absolutely no one can dispute that victory.

If I were Mayor Rawlings, who, by the way, was once this city’s "Homeless Czar," I would be preparing to instruct my new incoming city manager to put together a team that could get to Phoenix immediately and return with the roadmap for that’s city success in this ambitious undertaking. Then I would instruct city staff find a way to overlay that map on the City of Dallas and set a date for when this city, too, will finally do something honorable for a segment of its population by ending chronic veteran homelessness.

Bye bye A.C.

Interim City Manager A.C. Gonzalez (left) and Mayor Mike Rawlings

I was talking to a high ranking Dallas city official (who will remain nameless for obvious reasons) during a particular budget townhall meeting a couple of months ago and I asked this person (not even going to reveal my source’s gender) how things were going in the managerial offices at Dallas City Hall. "Not well,’ this person said rather frankly. "You could cut the tension with a knife."

When this person told me that I knew some of what was going on in the City Manager’s department. Mary Suhm had resigned as city manager and her first assistant, A.C. Gonzalez, had assumed the position as the interim city manager, a position he will hold until the City Council names Suhm’s replacement. The tension, I believed, revolved around the fact that Suhm was still occupying the office set aside for the city manager while Gonzalez had to remain in the office designated for the first assistant city manager. I could understand why Gonzalez might be put out by this, but I thought it was petty. As for Suhm she had her own history to serve as precedent. When her predecessor, Teodoro Benavides, resigned as city manager and Suhm, his first assistant, was named interim city manager, she remained in her own office until the City Council officially confirmed her to replace Benavides.

But reading the article in the Dallas Morning News today about the Uber transportation debacle, there might have been more to it than just a spite over office space. Although Suhm was as anxious as Gonzalez to get an ordinance passed that would put Uber out of business, it now appears, according to an investigation into the whole process initiated by Mayor Mike Rawlings, that the two differed significantly on how to get it passed. Gonzalez wanted to push it though with as little discussion and notice as possible. Therefore he had it placed on the very next available consent agenda to be considered by the City Council. Items on the consent agenda are passed en masse without discussion (unless some watchdog council person notifies the city secretary early enough to get the item pulled from the consent agenda to be considered individually, but that practice sort of went out of fashion when Mitchell Rasansky left the council a half dozen years or so ago). Suhm, on the other hand, vehemently disagreed with this process, according to the mayor’s report released yesterday. She favored the more traditional process — taking the proposed ordinance to an appropriate council committee for discussion and debate prior to placing it on the full council’s agenda.

That kind of strong disagreement between the two most powerful individuals on the city’s staff could definitely cause tension that could be cut with a knife.

As anyone following this story knows by now, the mayor and a majority of the city council agreed with Suhm and disagreed with Gonzalez. It wasn’t the proposed ordinance that came under review by the report, but the process by which Gonzalez took it to council. The mayor’s report was a devastating blow to the interim city manager who has made no secret of the fact that he wants the word "interim" removed from his title.

It ain’t gonna happen.

One thing is clear from all this — A.C. Gonzalez has absolutely no chance of being named by this council as the next city manager. He has tried to fall on his sword with an apology that seemed too well crafted to be genuine (i.e., it came across as something written for him and not sentiments from his heart). But this particular paragraph from the Morning News’s story is devastating for Gonzalez’s future:

Sam Merten, the mayor’s spokesman, said no disciplinary action will be taken against Gonzalez. "But this incident will be evaluated as part of his overall job performance when he’s considered for the full-time job," Merten said.

You don’t have to read that closely between the lines of that paragraph to realize Gonzalez could save himself a lot of embarrassment by withdrawing his name from consideration right now. Especially when he has to deal with city council demagogues like Philip Kingston, who, according to the News’s story, said this entire affair "did confirm my assumption that the Uber debacle was not the result of discrete instances of poor judgment. It resulted from a culture in the manager’s office of removing policymaking authority from the council."

Kingston, of course, is wrong. As the mayor’s report shows, the entire mess was the result of a discrete instance of poor judgment — a judgment that most within the city manager’s department disagreed with. But Kingston is emerging as another one of those council members, like Scott Griggs and the aforementioned Rasansky, who is never going to let the truth stop him from what he wants to complain about, especially when it comes to the city personnel.

But what he is putting on the table is that no one currently employed by the City of Dallas has a chance of becoming the next city manager. In fact, Gonzalez probably did the council a favor by effectively removing himself from consideration. The council believes one way to show it is racially unbiased is by picking persons for positions based on race. For example, if voters elect a mayor who is white, the mayor pro temp must be either black or Hispanic. And if a black is chosen, than a Hispanic is named deputy mayor pro temp.

So here’s going to be the council’s thinking process on this. The last city manager was a white female. Her predecessor was a Hispanic male. So the next city manager needs to be African-American and other than Police Chief David Brown there is not a single African American on the city’s staff qualified to be city manager. (Sorry, Forest Turner, but that’s the truth.)

Which makes me think: Where’s Charles Daniels when we need him?

Just in time for the party

I'm wondering if the City of Dallas is planning on highlighting this as part of it's 50th anniversary commemoration.

City gets to maintain Flow Control, but at a heavy price

The City of Dallas has won lost its battle to enact a Flow Control ordinance.

For those who have not been following this environmental issue, the City of Dallas wanted to turn the McCommas Bluff Landfill into a recycling center, a environmentally friendly place where all trash is converted into energy. In order to make such a development economically feasible, the center would need a lot more trash than it is receiving now. So the city passed an ordinance requiring that all trash collected in the city of Dallas be taken to McCommas Bluff for depositing.

The City wanted to use Flow Control to turn this ...

Now a bunch of private haulers, who needed more time to develop the technology needed to build and operate such a recycling center, so they could either (1) bid on the right to build the McCommas Bluff Center or (2) build one at their own landfills (which would be financially "iffy") took the city to court to challenge the ordinance.

... into this

And, lucky for them, the case landed in the court of a George W.-appointed judge who always sides with business interests in cases against the government even though the Supreme Court had ruled years earlier that flow control ordinances like the one the City passed were perfectly legal. So this business biased judge issued an injunction to stop the implementation of flow control.

The city appealed the ruling which put one of those private haulers, Waste Management, in a terrible predicament. Waste Management was the company that was stalling for time so it could figure out a way to bid on the McCommas recycling center. The problem for the private hauler was that another city ordinance prohibits any company that has a lawsuit pending against the City to bid on another City project. Waste Management had two options: Settle the suit or file another suit against the city challenging the "no-bid-allowed" ordinance.

The decision was made to settle.

At first glance, it may have looked like the city came out looking good. The Flow Control Ordinance, as it is written, is allowed to stand. It is legal. It’s when you get to the fine print that you see the City came out of this covered in garbage. Yes, the Flow Control Ordinance can stand but it can’t be enforced against any private haulers who signed a franchise with the city before the ordinance was passed during the life of that franchise agreement.

It wasn’t that long ago that the city charged private haulers a fee based on the number of dumpsters it placed throughout burg. Each dumpster was required to have a city sticker on it and those stickers had to be purchased from the City. Problem was the City didn’t have enough dumpster cops to go around inspecting every dumpster in the city to see if it had sticker on it and many of the private haulers knew this so they had dumpsters — lots and lots of dumpsters — out there without stickers.

So the City came up with a new plan in 2009: franchising the haulers. Under this proposal, in order to collect garbage within Dallas City Limits the haulers had to open their books to the City which would charge them a percentage of their income as a "franchise fee." The haulers went along with this and signed 20-year franchise agreements.

Get the picture now? That means the city can’t force these haulers to obey the perfectly legal Flow Control Ordinance until the year 2029. That doesn’t seem like too much of a "win" for the City as far as I can see. I’m at a loss to explain why the City agreed to this when it seemed, based on Supreme Court precedents, it had the winning hand.

But then the City of Dallas, especially when it comes to the City Attorney’s Office, has never been much of a fine-tuned fighting machine.

Of course, any new private hauling firm that wants to do business with the City of Dallas will have to obey Flow Control and take its collection to McCommas. But I don’t see any new haulers knocking on the City’s doors these days.

The winner and loser in today’s city council gas leases debate

Clear winner: City Manager Mary Suhm, who received the approval and support of 12 of the 15 council members for her actions.

Clear loser: District 14 council member Angela Hunt who, in calling for an independent investigation of Suhm’s actions regarding leasing city-owned land for gas drilling, called the city manager "a liar" and "dishonest," and then had the audacity, after 12 of her colleagues backed Suhm, to declare "no one has the right to attack my character." Thus, she goes on record as being the world’s thinnest skinned pit bull.

City Manager Mary Suhm
the winner and still champion

This whole debate has been much ado about nothing. It has to do with the difference between "city parks" and "city parklands." City parks are those places set aside by the city for some type of recreational purpose, whether it’s playing on swings, swimming, hiking, engaging in activities at a recreational center, cavorting at a splashground or just a marvelous semi-wilderness area like Moss Park where I can let my dog run wild and free without bothering another human soul. City parklands includes all these areas plus any other land owned by the Parks Department. It turns out some of this land is isolated swampland in the far corners of the city where no human being would venture unless they wanted to dump a body in place where they could be assured no one would find it.

When the city council said they didn’t want drilling on parklands it was obvious members were referring to city parks and not to Dallas’ answer to the swamps of the Meadowlands or Pelham Bay.

As a strict environmentalist, I do not support the concept of gas drilling within the city limits of Dallas. But an overwhelming majority of the city council disagrees with me on this issue and I would not argue with anyone who contends that a majority of the residents of this city supports drilling. Plus, when this matter first came up for debate almost six years ago, the city was going through such severe financial straits the council was forced to raise property tax rates just to continue to provide most basic services. At that time they instructed the city manager to "be creative" and (one of my least favorite expressions) "think outside the box" in finding new ways to increase revenues.

Now it seems a small handful of demagogues on the council want to chastise and punish her for doing exactly what they told her to do.

I worked alongside Mary Suhm for a few years when she was first assistant city manager. She has her faults. She tends to overreact in many situations. She can make decisions before all the facts are in. And, occasionally, she puts her faith and trust in individuals who do not deserve that faith and trust.

But I’ll tell you three things about Mary Suhm you can take to the bank. One: She is truthful. Two: She is honest. Three: She always — always — acts in a way she is convinced is in the best interest of the city and the citizens of Dallas.

Hopefully, when she does decide to step down, her replacement will have half of her integrity.

Wimpy city council to vote today on wimpy waste management plan

Want to get rid of some trash? First, dump the Dallas’ proposed waste management plan which hopes and prays but does nothing to guarantee the city will achieve zero waste by the year 2040, at least 10 years later than what any reasonable plan should call for.

Chief Wimp
Forrest Turner

But, according to the city’s chief wimp, Assistant City Manager Forrest Turner, this is the will of the people of Dallas. Ha! The constantly misguided and misinformed Turner is basing this on the fact that 50 people — 50 out of a city with a population of 1,223,229 — attended a meeting at City Hall back on Jan. 26 and, according to the city’s own presentation Monday to the Transportation and Environment Committee, could not agree on one single thing.

Here’s the plan in a nutshell: We’re hoping the good citizens of Dallas will voluntarily help us achieve zero waste by the year 2040 and if we see they are not volunteering to do this we’re going to get very, very mad.

Don’t believe me? Read it yourself. I wish I could link you right to the presentation but this link will get you close. It takes you to a list of Monday’s city council committee meetings. Just scroll down to the Transportation and Environment Committee and click on Local Solid Waste Management Plan Update. Your computer needs to be equipped with Adobe Reader to see this travesty in all its glory.

Here’s another kicker. The plan completely removed any mention of bans on plastic bags and foam cups because, chief wimp Turner argues, these are an "environmental and litter related issue."

WHAT? What is that man thinking? What is he drinking? A solid waste management plan, by definition, is an "environmental and litter related issue." When push comes to shove, what we’re talking about here is trash and garbage and please — please! — tell me how can anyone in their right mind can try to argue that garbage is not an environmental issue and litter is not a trash issue. And if the solid waste plan is not an environmental issue, what the hell is he doing briefing it to a body called the Transportation and Environment Committee?

Of course, this city administration has proved time and time again it doesn’t give a damn about the environment anyway. If it did, it wouldn’t be signing leases to drill for shale oil within the city limits or pushing for plans to construct a high speed tollroad through a city park and wilderness area. So this is just another way by chief wimp Turner to shunt aside product bans.

What the City Council will do, ultimately, is embrace this plan today that doesn’t ruffle any feathers. Heaven forbid, that body should demonstrate actual leadership, which often involves major feather ruffling. District 12's Sandy Greyson will argue the plan is "not very proactive" (her words at Monday’s committee hearing), but I’ll bet she, too, will cave and ultimately vote for it.

So what’s the big deal? Because it appears the city is also caving in on the Flow Control issue, in about 50 years the city will be looking for a spot for a new landfill and because that landfill will have to be hundreds of miles away, sanitation rates will climb at least 1,000 times of what they are today. But these wimps don’t care. They won’t be around then. That will be somebody else’s problem. How’s that for leadership.

City's Congressional program acknowledges climate change

I was about to criticize the City of Dallas’ Legislation Program for the 113^th Congress, which was briefed to City Council today, for only paying lip service to deficit reduction — and I’m still going to do that — but first I must applaud the city for accepting the reality of global science change.

This is a big step forward for a council that, regardless of how blue the county is trending, is still a rather conservative body. There are Tea Party nuts out there who, regardless of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, absolutely refuse to accept the reality of climate change and many of those right-wingnuts are Congressmen representing the North Central Texas area.

Yet here is the city of Dallas, saying in its Legislation Program: "Although the challenges created by global climate change (emphasis mine), air pollution and energy security are international in scope, local governments are well placed to implement policies and pursue innovations to meet these challenges, especially if they are given the resources to do so."

What the City is saying in this section is basically this: Don’t order us to do anything that reduces greenhouse gases unless you give us the money to carry out those orders.

But the overall message of the program is "Don’t cut any more of our funding." And that’s where I have a problem.

If there is one thing upon which Democrats and Republicans can agree it is that the national deficit must be reduced. Where they disagree, of course, is how to reduce it. The Democrats argue that the deficit should be reduced with a combination of budget cuts and tax increases, primarily by eliminating deductions that benefit only the wealthiest of our citizens and the largest of our profit-making corporations. Republicans, for the most part, want the deficit reduced solely by cutting spending.

It appears to me the City is siding more with the Democrats on this issue. Here is what it had to say on deficit reduction:

"The City of Dallas supports efforts to reduce the federal deficit through a balanced approach (emphasis mine). Elimination of the federal deficit solely through discretionary spending cuts is impossible. Deficit reduction efforts should neither disproportionately focus on core local government programs nor reduce or delay much-needed investments in our nation’s core infrastructure. The reduction of the federal deficit should share the burden evenly and should not disproportionately harm national defense and our troops, safety net programs, or our nation’s cities."

My problem here is a lack of specificity on what the city means by "a balanced approach." That phrase is the one Democrats use to argue for both revenue increases and spending cuts. It appears the City doesn’t want to offend those millionaires here in Dallas, many of whom give money to the City, or the Congressional leaders from the area like Pete Sessions, Joe Barton, Sam Johnson, Jeb Hensarling et al to whom "a balanced approach" is anathema.

So my reaction to the city’s congressional legislative plan, if I was a member of Congress, would be "All well and good, but don’t tell me what not to cut until you give me a viable alternative for reducing the deficit."

Observer's landfill coverage is nothing but garbage

When Robert Wilonsky left the Dallas Observer, I quickly discovered reading the weekly newspaper’s blog, Unfair Park, was a complete waste of my valuable time. Conversely, I have found a lot more value in the blogs Wilonsky contributes to at the Dallas Morning News.

Every once in a while, however, I’ll pick up the printed version of the paper to read Jim Schutze’s column, the pieces on dining and restaurants and to learn what acts are playing at what clubs. But then I’ll read an entry reprinted from Unfair Park and just have to shake my head over how bad the reporting has become at the Observer.

A visual representation of
the Dallas Observer's reporting

For example, in its piece about the landfill audit performed by the Dallas City Auditor, the misinformed writer, Eric Nicholson, just comes and says, without any attribution, "The upshot (of the audit) was that the city had lost a garbage truck full of potential revenue over the past decade, a total of $1.1 million." That’s just flat wrong. The only person in any way connected with the city who has said anything like that is Scott Griggs, the arrogant jerk of a city councilman who thinks he knows-it-all, but never, EVER, does.

What the audit actually reported was, because of systems that were in place, there was the remote possibility that as much as $100,000 a year was lost. There was also the remote possibility that the landfill actually took in more revenue than it earned, but I seriously doubt that happened. However, that possibility also exists.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s accept the very probable false premise that the city did lose $100,000 out of a total revenue of $28 million each year. That comes to a loss of 0.36 percent of the landfill's total income. Look, I work in retail and I will guarantee you Wal-Mart would absolutely love to have a shrinkage rate of 0.36 percent/per store after each inventory. Sam Walton would be turning cartwheels in his grave.

But I guess it’s too much to ask the media to put things in their proper perspect perspective. It shouldn’t be, however.

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."

What’s next for city’s Solid Waste Plan

"I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment."

President John F. Kennedy uttered those words in a memorable speech delivered May 25, 1961, during which he also said this: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

At the time, everyone applauded his determination while, at the same time, thinking such a goal was impossible. Yet, a little more than eight years after he laid down the gauntlet, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, and, of course, returned safely to earth.

The Dallas City Council on Wednesday passed a Solid Waste Management Plan designed to achieve zero waste going to the city’s landfill. Originally the plan called for this goal to be achieved by the year 2040, but Council member Linda Koop successfully added an amendment to the plan that removed this and all other "timelines" contained in the plan. Basically, this gives the city a "do-over."

So where should the city do next?

The city should establish the goals of having a 75 percent diversion rate by the year 2020 and a 100 percent diversion rate by the year 2030.

Too ambitious? Not nearly as ambitious as Kennedy’s "man on the moon" before the end of the 1960s. I know, many of you weren’t alive in 1961. But I was. Television shows were still broadcast in black and white. (1965 was the first year in which more than half of all television shows were broadcast in color.) Not only were there no personal computers in1961, that was the year the IBM Selectric typewriter was introduced. (For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, that was a revolutionary electric typewriter that replaced typing bars with a small sphere). However, most of us continued to use manual, non-electric typewriters. It wasn’t until 1970, a year after man landed on the moon, that Japan introduced the first pocket calculator.

So if President Kennedy could set less than a 10-year timeline for putting a man on the moon in that era, then achieving zero waste in 18years now should be a walk in the park.

The city must also lead by example.

The solid waste plan outlines things all of us must do to achieve zero waste. By all of us I not only mean us as individuals, but us as business owners, apartment owners, manufacturers, etc. If the city really wants "all of us" to follow its plan, it should take some actions to make it accountable.

The first thing the city can and should do immediately is to prohibit all city departments from using public funds to purchase bottled water.

Bottled water costs anywhere from 240 to 10,000 times as much as tap water and tastes no better than Dallas’s pristine tap water. An ounce of bottled water costs more than an ounce of gasoline and everyone these days is complaining about the high cost of gas. According to the Container Recyling Institute, only 20 percent of plastic water bottles are actually recycled; the rest end up in landfills where they take 1,000 years to biodegrade. In addition, large amounts of other resources, like energy, oil and even water are depleted in the bottle manufacturing process and transporting these bottles long distances burns enormous amounts of fossil fuels.

Require all city departments to purchase products that maximize postconsumer recycled content and recyclable or compostable materials, and that favor durability, repairability, and reuse.

Appoint a Zero Waste Coordinator to oversee the city’s diversion efforts and assistant coordinators for each city department. This coordinator should regularly update the City Council on how the city is "leading by example."

Actions the City Council should take immediately are:

An ordinance requiring the entire city to separate recyclables, compostables, and landfill trash.  The city now "asks" residents to separate recyclables, but doesn’t make it mandatory. The time for "asking" has passed and the city should provide composting containers in the same manner it provided the blue recycling containers.

An ordinance requiring the use of compostable plastic, recyclable paper and/or reusable checkout bags by all retail establishments starting October 1, 2015 and requiring these establishments charge a minimum of ten cents per bag. This ordinance should also apply to restaurants starting October 1, 2016.

An ordinance prohibiting restaurants and food vendors from using styrofoam food service ware and instead to use food ware that is compostable or recyclable.

Establish a cigarette litter abatement fee of 20 cents per pack of cigarettes sold in Dallas to recover the cost of abating cigarette litter from city streets, sidewalks, and other public property.

Require Yellow Pages distributors to get the approval, or opt-in agreement of all Dallas residents before delivering phone book directories.

If we could put a man on the moon in the 1960s, surely we can accomplish these aforementioned recommendations now.

Random thoughts on the NBA, DPD, DMN. DART and other acronyms

I really don’t like the Miami Heat. I don’t like the way the team collected it’s Big Three, and don’t try to tell me the Boston Celtics did the same thing, because they didn’t. They acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen through some shrewd trades. And don’t get me started on that whole LeBron James "decision" thing. On the other hand, I really do like the Oklahoma Thunder, partly because its No. 1 star played his college ball at my alma mater, but mainly because I admire the team’s approach to the game. Guess who I’m going to be rooting for in the NBA finals that begin tonight.

I admire Dallas Police Chief David Brown. I have worked with him in the past and always found himself to be a professional, a standup guy. (I wanted to call him a "straight-shooter," but realized that didn’t fit in this context.) Still, this idea of shooting a man in the back in self defense smells, no matter how much Chief Brown tries to spin it.

I rarely find myself in agreement with Dallas Morning News editorials, but I must admit I find the paper’s suggestion for an open primary in Texas to something worth pursuing. California has adopted this system in attempt to reduce partisanship and free the primaries from being captured by extremists, as they have been in Texas. The way an open primary works is this: All candidates would keep their party affiliations but there would no longer be separate primaries for each political party. Instead, all the candidates for each office would appear one ballot and everyone — Republicans, Democrats and, most importantly, independents — would have the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice. Then two candidates who received the most votes for each office would face off in the November general election, even if it meant two Republicans running against each other or Veasey vs. Garcia. The theory is that candidates — in order to appeal to the widest number of voters — would gravitate toward the center of the political ideological spectrum. For those who say such a system couldn’t work, that’s exactly the way Dallas elects its mayor.

DART is looking for a way to get more riders. To achieve this goal it must overcome a tremendous obstacle and convince potential customers it’s absolutely safe the use the transit system. I know of one woman who’s son refuses to let her ride DART rail because he fears it’s too dangerous for a woman traveling alone. Until such fears are eradicated, DART will never achieve the ridership levels it should.

This headline in today’s Dallas Morning News caught my attention: "Drownings concern safety experts". Ya think?

Arboretum parking

The Dallas Arboretum

One of the many reasons I have opposed the Trinity River Tollroad from the get-go is because it is my firm belief city officials should be deploying all their resources to finding ways to get people TO Dallas, not THROUGH Dallas.

As part of this campaign, I always thought one of Dallas’ shamefully overlooked treasures was the Arboretum on the east shore of White Rock Lake. I really believed this facility needed to be marketed nationally so that it became a vacation destination point and a reason to bring tourists to Dallas (where they will spend tax dollars). When I was the head of the East Dallas Chamber of Commerce (then called the Dallas Northeast C of C) I tried to convince the membership to support and work for the installation of highway directional signs on Interstates 30 (at the Grand Ave. Exit) and 635 (at the Garland Road exits) for the Arboretum.

But it now appears the Arboretum is gaining in popularity even without the help of city marketing or local business support. It’s doing it simply on its own. Congratulations and job well done to whomever is handling the Arboretum’s promotions.

However, all the Arboretum’s good work may be undone by a bunch of narrow-minded residents who refuse to accept one simple fact: They live in a a city, a metropolitan area, a major urban environment. These are the same ignorant fools who blocked the construction of a high-rise condominium project a little north of the Arboretum on Garland road that could have had a marvelously positive economic impact on the Garland Road/Grand Avenue corridor, an area that desperately needs an economic shot. These jerks don’t accept the fact that Dallas’ borders are completely closed and the only way the city can grow — the only way it can expand — is by going up!

Now these same idiots are trying to block plans for the Arboretum to add much needed parking to handle the larger crowds expected for some planned new attractions. Their opposition is wrong on so many levels. One of their spokespersons, according to a story on the front page of the Metro section in today’s Dallas Morning News, is one Matt White, identified as an American history professor at Ferris Junior College. (Sorry. I’m not impressed.) White laments the fact, according to the News, that "few pieces of the Texas prairie land, which once stretched along the Interstate 35 corridor from San Antonio to Dallas, exist today." It doesn’t exist in Dallas, prof, because Dallas is a city. I hate to break the news to you, prof, but few pieces of the rolling grasslands that once was the major feature of Manhattan island exist today either. It’s a city now, too. But I can also tell you this, prof: Yesterday and today I took my golden retriever to the prairie land and the woods of Moss Park, an island of wilderness in the middle of a metropolitan area. Yes, I had to drive to Moss, but there are plenty of wilderness experiences in Dallas if you just know where to look (and if you get to them before they build a toll road through them).

But there’s another reason opposing additional parking for the Arboretum is a form of mass suicide. The visitors are going to come, whether the parking lot is built or not. And they will park their cars and walk to the Arboretum. And if there is not a parking lot for them, they will simply go to the other side of Garland road and park all along the streets where the idiots live. Then these two-faced folks will come crying to the City to do something about that and I hope the City has the courage to respond by saying "We tried, but your narrow-mindedness prohibited us from taking care of the problem. Now you gotta live with it."

This area east of White Rock lake is in desperate need of major infrastructure repair. Problem is there’s no money in the city’s coffers to make those repairs. The ironic part of all this is that the residents of the area continue to do everything in their power to keep the city from collecting the money needed to really help this area. Shakespeare would have a field day with these folks.

Give me the money

Good news. Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm sent word tonight that sales tax dollars continue to climb. The city collected $16.1 million in sales taxes in February, which is a nice 10.4 percent over what was collected in February, 2011, and 8.7 percent more than was forecast. That means the city has $1.3 million more to play with than it figured it would have. I say put that money right into street repair.

City announcement raises more questions than it answers

Received this announcement from the good folks at the City of Dallas which proclaims that on Saturday District 6 Councilmember Mónica E. Alonzo, "on the occasion of the birthday of Don Benito Juarez, who was a national hero and president of Mexico in 1867 to 1872" … "will recognize the life achievements of past and current Community Heroes whose accomplishments have enriched the quality of life in our City."

Councilmember
Monica Alonzo

Sounds like a great idea. The release goes on to say the event will be held at the Benito Juárez Parque de los Héroes, located at 3352 North Winnetka in West Dallas. In case of rain, the entire shindig will be moved a tad further west to the Mattie Nash Rec Center at 3710 North Hampton.

All this is fine. But there’s one section of the announcement that gave me pause. It was the section labeled simply "Who." Not "Who will be there" or "Who will be honored," but just "who."

The names listed in this section are, in addition to councilwoman Alonzo, Cónsul General of Mexico, Juan Carlos Cué Vega; State Rep. (Dist. 104), Roberto Alonzo; Dallas County Commissioner (Dist. 4) Dr. Elba Garcia; Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez; Cockrell Hill Mayor Luis D. Carrera; and former Dallas city councilmember Steve Salazar.

My immediate question when I saw this was the one I hinted at above. Are these folks being honored or are they hosting? And of they are hosting, who exactly is being honored and why? And if they are being honored, than what did they do to "enrich the quality of life in our city." And why is someone who is not even from "our city" (Carrera) in ths lineup in any capacity? Another question just as vital (if not more so) was: Wonder what Domingo Garcia thinks about all of this? Domingo is a candidate for the new 33^rd Congressional District as is Salazar. Doesn’t this give Salazar an advantageous political platform? Or is Dr. Garcia serving as her husband’s beard?

Go ahead. Accuse me of making everything political. But isn’t it that time of year? I just wish the city authors hadn’t made that damn "Who" so ambiguous.

Dallas too cowardly to follow Austin’s lead

I’m betting right now that Dallas doesn’t have the cajones to do right by our environment and follow Austin’s lead in banning plastic and paper shopping bags.

The Austin city council voted unanimously — unanimously — this week to enact a broad ban on the bags, requiring consumers to use reusable bags when shopping. The ban doesn’t go into effect until a year from now, giving the city more than enough time to educate residents on the change.

Can you imagine our city council — which is going to be far more protective of the Tom Thumbs and Central Markets than they are about our environment — taking a similar action? Our city council barely had the courage to pass a pro-environment flow control ordinance and now many on the council are having second thoughts about that since major business contributors are suing the city to stop its implementation. Plus, with all the furor over flow control, I doubt the city’s staff has the fortitude to even suggest such a plan.

But, as studies prove and Austin knows, such a ban is necessary. Plastic bags last for years and consume valuable landfill space. They have been discovered in the stomachs of marine animals. It takes 12 million barrels of oil a year to produce the number of plastic bags used in America every year. The manufacture of paper bags wastes energy and emits gases that contribute to global warning.

I love taking my dog to Moss Park because it contains fields and forests where she can romp around to her heart’s content. But I have been terribly saddened recently to see hundreds of plastic bags dangling from the branches of trees in that forest. Is that how we "Beautify Dallas?"

I would love to see the City of Dallas prove me wrong. I would also love to see world peace, Rush Limbaugh banished to a women’s prison and never hear another word about the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. The odds on all of those happening are just about the same.

Dallas has been, still is and probably always will be a city of bigots

It is a bigotry I like to call "Tolerant Bigotry." I vividly remember the first time I ran across it, back in the early 1960s. "I have nothing against colored people. I just don’t want one moving in next door to me."

When I first moved to Dallas in 1968 to go to work for UPI I had hair down to my waist. I worked the overnight shift at UPI and usually around 2 or 3 in the morning I would make the short drive from our Patterson Street offices to the Dallas Morning News to pick up a paper as it was coming off the press. I could not drive three blocks without being stopped by a Dallas cop, told to get out of my car and being frisked. Back then we had press cards issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety and it go so that I would wear it as a badge when I had to go out at night. The cops would see that badge and back off a little bit after they stopped me and told me to get out of the car. I know if I had been black with an Afro back then, I wouldn’t have dared to go out at that time of night.

Dallas bigotry is well documented, back from when the white establishment created black residential neighborhoods in the Trinity River floodplains and divided the city between the white north and black south. It carefully crafted an electoral system that made sure blacks had no voice in city government.

Of course, much of that overt racism is gone, but it didn’t go without a fight or a series of lawsuits. But it still exists. I remember in early 1990s when Cinemark wanted to build its very first movie theater in Dallas — on Inwood Road just north of Forest Lane. The neighborhood rose up in fury and forced the city council (illegally, it turned out) to deny Cinemark the zoning it needed to build the theater. Why was the neighborhood so outspoken? Because blacks go to movies and they didn’t want "those kind of people," as one resident told me, roaming around their streets and homes.

This same kind of bigotry was out in full force Wednesday at City Hall when the subject of supportive housing was being discussed. It was another example of that same old tired form of Tolerant Bigotry. "I have nothing against homeless people. I just don’t want one moving in next door to me."

It was an absolutely disgusting display, one that made me ashamed of the people who live in Dallas, particularly those who live in the area immediately surrounding the Farmers Market. Back in the ‘60s, the argument bigots used was all black people wanted to rape white women. These days, it’s all homeless people are habitual criminals who want to ransack your homes and cause you bodily harm. This in spite of reports that show in 100 percent of cases, crime has been reduced in areas where supportive housing is created. 100 freakin’ percent!!! But bigotry, by definition, always flies in the face of facts.

It’s really a simple proposition. The only way to solve the homeless situation — to even make a dent in it — is to find homes for as many of them as possible. In Dallas, the majority of the homeless congregate downtown. So it makes sense to find housing for them downtown and the area around the Farmers Market offers the most available property for the construction of this supportive housing.

Off course, it’s not a Farmer’s Market issue. If someone wanted to construct a project in just about any area of Dallas, especially any area north of I30 and east of I35, the same Tolerant Bigtory would raise its ugly face. It would simply be Tolerant Bigots with different names. But the message would be exactly the same. "I have nothing against homeless people. I just don’t want one moving in next door to me."

The only bright spot in all this, although it was a significant bright spot, was that the Dallas City Council, in a rare display of enlightenment and acceptance, voted to support providing tax credits for two of the proposed projects. That doesn't mean they're a done deal because it's the state, not the city, that hands out the credits, and the city can still vote to block the projects as the political process continues to unfold.

Homeowners association president is freakin' out of his mind

I need to tread carefully with this because My Hero lives in Bryan Place. But then so does Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm. However, I don’t know if either of them realize Eric Williamson, the president of their Bryan Place Neighborhood Association, needs to be removed from his position of authority and it should be done before he embarrasses the residents of his neighborhood any further.

This man went before the Dallas City Council yesterday and said his association would rather have bars in their neighborhood than good schools. Howz zat? Yep, that’s what the lame brain said. Obviously he is a product of a bar and not a good school.

His statements came when he spoke during the debate of whether the City should help charter schools have the ability to sell low-interest bonds. The geographically challenged Williamson changed the subject to the totally irrelevant argument of whether these schools should be able to locate in his neighborhood. He is against the idea. Here is his statement as transcribed by Rudolph Bush of The Dallas Morning News:

"Deep Ellum is an entertainment district just north (of Bryan Place [actually it is south, as shown in the map above]) separated only by the Meadows Foundation and areas along Swiss Avenue (along with a number of apartments and condominiums along Live Oak, the Baylor Hospital complex, and the DART Green Line, but I guess he doesn’t count those). We value that Deep Ellum is close to us and allows us entertainment options. We have people in our neighborhood who own businesses in Deep Ellum."

So, according to Williamson, if children in his hood want an education they should go to bartending school and if those in the neighborhood who own businesses in Deep Ellum want an educated work force, they will have to find them elsewhere.

It’s thinking like Williamson’s that will keep Dallas from being a first-class, perhaps even a second-class, city.

Mayor Mike’s finest moment

Mayor Mike

I was not a big fan of Mike Rawlings when he was running for mayor. He didn’t stand out as "a leader" to me. But how that has changed since he’s been in office! I can’t remember the last time I was this proud of someone sitting at the apex of the Dallas City Council horseshoe. First it was his impassioned, reasoned plea for the passage of the Flow Control Ordinance. Then there was his speech, which I made reference to yesterday, on behalf of charter schools in the City of Dallas.

If you missed it, you can see it in its entirety here, courtesy Dallas Morning News city hall reporter Steve Thompson. Trust me, it is well worth the eight to 10 minutes it takes to view the entire clip.

GOP politics plays role in Flow Control ruling

Judge Reed O'Connor

I didn’t really have to confirm the fact that U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor was appointed to the bench by 43. I could tell that by his ruling yesterday granting an injunction to put a halt, at least temporarily, to the city’s ambitious plan to convert the McCommas Bluff Landfill into an environmental center.

According to Judge Reed, using reasoning that comes directly from the Bush economic script that plunged this country into its current recession, increasing the profits of a private business at the expense of Dallas property tax payers "is in the public interest."

Yes, the 1 per cent wins again. The poor and the middle class get screwed again. And you wonder why those Occupy Wall Streeters are grumbling.