As promised a couple of days ago, here's an essay by Dallas Observer columnist, Jim Schutze worthy of your consideration. I'd love to hear from anyone who is better informed on this than I. Anyone with a differnt understanding would be welcome to argue with the essay.
City Hall's Desire For A Fancy Downtown (Without Too Many Poor People) Costs Developers $30 Million
By Jim Schutze Thursday, May 6 2010
Don Hill, the Dallas City Council member recently sent to federal prison for 18 years for bribery and corruption, didn't use a baseball bat on people.
He was a lawyer. He used parliamentary procedure.
The table, I call it. Hill knew developers always have a clock ticking—money sifting away like sand in an hourglass—so he tabled their issues at council, and re-tabled, and re-tabled until he got his way.
Hill got sent away. The table is still with us.
Take the curious case of Curtis Lockey, Craig MacKenzie and the LTV Tower 1600 Pacific Avenue building. Lockey and MacKenzie, who have long, serious résumés as commercial developers, tried to do a redevelopment deal that would conform to federal law.
But the people running downtown Dallas don't want developers to comply with federal law. Federal law requires a lot of low-income housing. Dallas wants fancier things downtown.
So Lockey and Mackenzie got tabled. They tell me the table cost them $30 million. Cash. Dead presidents.
To keep reading click here.
2 comments:
Larry,
I follow you on twitter and saw a message that you posted about a gentleman who was homeless becuase of a prison sentence. I tried to leave a message on twitter but i am new to twitter so i don't think it made it to you.
I am a board member of a ministry that house men that have been in prison. We help them get jobs and etc. We're in Conroe, TX (4 1/2 hrs south of Dallas). If you think we would be helpful please let me know. Thanks and God bless.
I just took the time to read the entire article, but most revealing were the comments. I thought Memphis was in trouble. No wonder you can get upset at times over local Dallas politics. How does anyone get anything done for poor working people in Dallas? What a bunch of negative attitudes expressed in those comments.
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