NO TRESPASSING IN DOWNTOWN DALLAS

Yesterday while sitting in my office in Downtown Dallas,one of Dallas's finest (Police Officers) came in with a document that he wanted me to sign. It was a NO Trespassing form that would virtually allow the police to pickup Homeless people who were in front of my business for trespassing. I was shocked. Why would I sign a blanket order for homeless people to be picked up if they were in front of my business? No way would I even consider such a thing.

My office has been in downtown Dallas for almost 30 years and I have come to know many homeless people. Some experiences have been bad, but for the most part, I understand many of their plights and I believe that the city of Dallas is trying to harass the homeless so that they will not be in downtown for the new people who are moving in their lofts,condos,and expensive apartments.

The homeless problem is so complicated, but the city seems to be attempting to make the case that they are all drunks and drug users who are harassing people. They do not seem to care that there are working homeless, women, children, veterans, mentally ill,alcohol and drug addicted homeless people. How can you possibly solve all of the problems that they are facing by using a cookie cutter approach to resolutions? This council does not seem to have the heart or the will to address many needs for the homeless,other than the new facility that they have built,which was on the drawing board before many on the current council was elected. I believe that a facility is not the only answer, and that is why you have over a hundred people sleeping outside each night.

I ask the officer several questions about the initiative that they were working on and he explained everything that he could to me. He was very courteous and listened to my concerns, while not agreeing with my assessment of the problem.

I did not sign the form and hope that other merchants will not blindly sign a form that would automatically give the police the right to accuse the homeless of trespassing and take them straight to jail.

Criminalizing the act of homelessness will not solve the problem.

DART and The "T"

I just learned over the weekend that DART and The "T" (Fort Worth Public Transportation) are having heated discussions about The "T" buying DART's trackage rights on the portion of the Cotton Belt line that is in Tarrent County. This should be interesting because over 2 years ago The "T" presented a plan to the DART board which showed that it would get to DFW Airport quicker than DART using those tracks.

Thank you Mayor Tom Leppert, Dwaine Caraway, Jerry Allen, Tennell Adkins, Ron Natinsky, Dave Newmann, Sheffie Kadane,Elba Garcia and Mitchell Rasansky for having such insight and putting people on the DART board who do not have a clue what is going on. Let's see what happens to the second downtown alignment, Monroe Shops and the extensions in Southern Dallas. Dallas is going to loose again.

Stay tuned for the Regional FIREWORKS!!!!!!!!!!

DART's new Rail Corridor Ad Hoc Negotiation Committee

DART is doing just what I expected. They have formed a special committee of DART Board members to discuss the Cotton Belt rail line. Suburban cities have begun work on funding options to speed the process up of building the rail line. This Ad Hoc committee will have a set of recommendations to give to the full DART board in August. They want to move this along quickly.

The makeup of the Ad Hoc committee members make me wonder what is going on? Robert Strauss who is the appointee of Dallas Councilman Ron Natinsky (the representative of the North Dallas area where the Cotton Belt line will enter and exit Dallas) is not on the committee and none of the African American Southern Dallas representatives (Jerry Christian,Pamela Gates or Claude Williams) are on the committee either. The absence of some representation speaks volumes about what is going to happen with the Southern Dallas proposed extensions.

The suburban members of the DART Board are outsmarting the Dallas members on every issue. Remember the suburban members rallied to help Gary Thomas keep his job after several missteps last year.

Housing Subsidy Downtown To Be Voted On

The City of Dallas wants to subsidize downtown mortgages. They say the reasoning is to create more affordable housing in downtown Dallas, so the City Council's housing committee voted to unanimously back a plan to subsidize downtown dwellers' mortgage payments. The new program, which would replace an existing downtown homeowner loan program which not a single resident has used, would provide up to $100,000 in public assistance to low- to moderate-income home buyers seeking to purchase downtown condominiums valued at $200,000 or less ( in this case, 1/2 of the purchase price could be subsidized). This was told to the council members by city housing director Jerry Killingsworth, and he said that home buyers using the program would face certain deed restrictions and liens to ensure its future affordability. There will be a formal vote of the full council on Aug. 13, Mr. Killingsworth said. The program does not apply to apartment renters.

I am sure that some of the home owners north, south, east or west of downtown would like such a good deal. Maybe even affording such a program to the fire department,police department and city worker would make more sense than using the funds to help more people live downtown. And when did $200,000.00 become low -to-moderate housing?

Is the City of Dallas facing a 50 million dollar budget shortfall?