NTTA Minority Business Director

Anthony Coleman has been named the new Minority and Women Owned Business Director for the North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA). The agency made a good choice. Mr. Coleman has a long history of working with Minority and Women Owned Business Programs and he is a person who will attempt to open the doors for all eligible minority and women business owners. He will not be one that will try to hand carry a few and leave others behind.

Good choice NTTA.

African American Business Participation at The City of Dallas

While gathering information on minority participation on contracts, and particularly African American business participation with public agencies, it was striking that Councilman Dwaine Caraway, Tennell Adkins and Mayor Tom Leppert are interested in how well other agencies are utilizing African American contractors and businesses. They appear to want to tell other agencies that they should do a better job at utilizing African American businesses ,but when you look at the city of Dallas's record, you can only wonder why aren't they trying to make sure that equity is spreading within the arena that they have some control over instead of going to other agencies making demands. The city's African American business participation:

FY 2005-2006

African American $14,828,786.............. 5.1%

Expenditures $289,385,589

FY 2006-2007

African American $22,443,183............... 5.9%

Expenditures $377,702,706


FY 2007-2008

African Americans $25,287,511................ 5.4%

Total Expenditures $468,578,222



Total 3 years African American Participation ............. $62,559,480
Total 3 year Expenditures ................................$1.135 Billion
Total 3 year percentage ..................................... 5.5%


Mayor Leppert,Dwaine Caraway, and Tennell Adkins need to make sure that the city of Dallas is doing everything it can to ensure that their is inclusion on the city's contracts instead of going to other agencies telling them what to do. Make sure that your house is in order before going to others to tell them what to do.

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.

Convention Center Hotel

Yesterday at the Dallas County Courthouse there was a young man passing out these fliers . The interesting thing to me was this issue was not on the ballot and from all that I could see, most people were focused on the current election.

On one side of the flyer there was a caption "What OUR LEADERS are saying". The first thing that I noticed was the people on the flyer and their ethnicity. I wondered if they were passing these out in North Dallas?

I Early Voted and encourage everyone to exercise their right to VOTE.

Dallas Logistics Hub (Inland Port)

The development of the Dallas Logistics Hub (Inland Port) is very important to the citizens of Dallas, but the most affected are the citizens that live in the southern sector of Dallas. We have been waiting for years for the job creation that has been promised by our elected officials. We were told that the Logistics Hub could create at least 30,000 jobs and the development around the area could add an additional 30,000 jobs. It does not matter how you analyze the job creation numbers this would be a win for the cities of Dallas, Wilmer, Lancaster, Hutchins, Duncanville, DeSoto and Cedar Hill.

The creation of jobs and business opportunities in the southern sector will help create a greater tax base, and our elected officials have talked about making sure that the Dallas Logistics Hub is the catalyst for growth in the southern sector. At one point this project was pushed so hard by the previous council that the DART Board made it the number one priority of the Long Range Plan (2030 Plan) for light rail. The council wanted to make sure that there was mass transportation servicing this project.

Mayor Leppert, Dwaine (Dewayne,Dwayne) Caraway, Tennell Adkins and Ron Natinsky seem to be stalling. You have to ask yourself, why? Mayor Leppert has constantly expressed to the community that he wanted to create jobs in the southern sector, but now all the community sees is the mayor and his group of seven on the council holding up progress. Could it have anything to do with the competition that the Dallas Logistics Hub will have with Alliance in Fort Worth? It has been said that Alliance is only 25% built out and the development of the Dallas Logistics Hub (Inland Port) would be serious competition for Alliance. As we all know, Alliance is owned by Ross Perot, Jr. and he has significant ties in the Dallas community. In fact, at one time Mayor Leppert, Dwaine (Dewayne,Dwayne) Caraway and Tennell Adkins supported a person for the DART Board that was an employee of Perot Systems, and that had serious implications because of the need for the Dallas Logistics Hub (Inland Port) to use DART tracks (TRE) to transport goods. That appointment did not happen.

The project still has great value and merit, but the question is who will be in control? The citizens are tired of the political jocking. We want the development to take place now.

Oak Cliff

These newbies to Oak Cliff make me laugh. It's like they moved in yesterday and have all of the answers to what is needed in the area. I say they should take time and learn from people who have been working in the black community for years and then pick up the baton and run. You know, I see it as passing the baton, not dropping it and loosing because you did not practice and learn how to pass and then run. The idea is to win each leg of the race to be the ultimate winner. The last leg of the race can not run without successfully grabbing the baton and running to the finish.

Are we even in the race?

Dallas Housing Authority

Looks like the dirty work of getting rid of Ann Lott has been done and now Mayor Tom Leppert is going to rid himself of Betty Culbreath. So sad, but that's the way it works. Betty should know that once you are used to do the dirt, your service is no longer needed.

Where is Dwaine (Dewayne,Dwayne)Caraway who is one of Mayor Tom Leppert's gatekeepers? I think he is close to Betty and he is Leppert's head Negro watcher at Dallas city hall. Will he take a stand for Betty? I think that Betty also has a good relationship with Willis Johnson (another gatekeeper for Leppert), and I do not know if he will help his friend. Don't forget that Betty also has a good relationship with Tennell Adkins another disappointment to the African American community. With all of those connections, you would think that she would have very few problems getting reappointed.

I can not help but remember my situation on reappointment to the DART board and the role that this same cast of characters played.

What goes around comes around.

Are the Southern Sector Suburbs ready to jump on DART's bus offer?

It looks like a presentation was made to the DART Board of Directors about cities like Grand Prairie, Duncanville and DeSoto ready to contribute 1/4 of a cent to join the agency for bus service only. Wait a minute,that might not be quite the truth. It was stated in The Dallas Morning News that Duncanville City Manager Kent Cagle said his city, Cedar Hill and DeSoto have approached DART together about the possibility of the agency providing on-demand bus rides for senior citizens. He also said that his city never expressed any interest in paying for a commuter bus service along the lines that animated the discussion at Tuesday' DART board meeting. And in Grand Prairie, City Manager Tom Hart said his city has had no conversations with DART officials about contracting for DART bus service.

So what is the real story? Did DART President Gary Thomas and his staff have the conversations or not? Is this another one of those steps to mislead the Board?

All types (bus,rail,para transit and HOV) of public transportation are subsidized. That means if new service is added there is a strong possibility that the 1/4 cent will not pay for the service and additional dollars will come out of the operating fund which could have an impact on future DART service plans. That is what Ray Noah was implying with his comments.

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.

Gary Thomas Has New Contract

Gary Thomas sailed through his performance evaluation without a hitch. Remember he owes the suburban members for keeping his job and will be obligated to put their agenda first.

GOOD LUCK DALLAS ON ANY EXTENSIONS TO LIGHT RAIL.

Smart DART Board Appointments

There were nine not so smart Dallas City Council members who appointed a preacher -Jerry Christian and a dentist-Claude Williams who both bought no experience on such a board appointment and zero experience in transportation. The city of Plano appointed Loretta Ellerbe a former council member who was involved in transportation through the Regional Transportation Council (RTC) where she was a member.

The city of Garland appointed Tracy Whitaker who's experience includes Vice President of Xerox and manager of the Dallas offices. He has also worked in strategic positions for FEDEX/Kinko.

Compare Dallas appointees to suburban appointees and you quickly see why the citizens of Dallas will loose. Mayor Tom Leppert, Dwaine Caraway, Elba Garcia and Tennel Adkins we thank you for your poor judgement. The other council members who voted for Jerry Christian and Claude Williams were following their leaders.

TOO BAD DALLAS CANNOT GET IT RIGHT AT DART, ON THE TRINITY AND OTHER IMPORTANT ISSUES IN OUR CITY.

TAX INCREASE FOR THE CITY OF DALLAS

Councilman Tennell Adkins is pushing for a tax increase to balance the budget for the city of Dallas and Dwaine (Dewayne,Dwayne) Caraway is saying he can not see what else they can do without raising taxes. Thank God for Councilwoman Angela Hunt who has not drank the water at Dallas City Hall.

The two councilpersons that are saying there should be a tax increase are not taking into consideration that there are fee (tax) increases that are already figured into the budget. Maybe they just do not get it. We are tired of tax increases. Citizens will soon not be able to own homes because they can not pay the taxes.

Townhall Meeting

It seems that Townhall meetings are the new buss words. If you are wondering why so many meetings these days, its because an election for council districts will be in May, 2009 and this is the smoke screen that is being put out for you the public.

It's amazing that on another site, someone "Thanks" the seniors on walkers and canes for attending a Townhall meeting. I just wonder what trick they pulled for that. I want the public not to be fooled by these people and I am wishing for new leadership in the African American community. District 4 and 8 need new leadership and I hope that people will come forth in those districts and run for council. I know that we can do better and we must do better to make sure that we do not have suck ups to Mayor Leppert and the Citizens Council. If you do not believe what I am saying just check their voting records. Talk is cheap but votes speak loudly.

Greater Dallas Planning Council's proposed Transportation Policy Statement

The Greater Dallas Planning Council will be meeting on June 19th to discuss a proposed Transportation Policy Statement which includes consolidating and streamlining regional transportation organizations and agencies (DART,The T, and Denton County Transit Authority). It also is proposing to have a balanced approach of reallocating existing local sales tax authority (Dallas pays more in to DART than the other 12 member cities combined). The T only collects 1/2 of 1 cent and Denton County have only two cities paying into their system. That would make DART the cash cow of public transportation in this region.

While we should be working from a regional approach, Dallas will find itself the looser in this consolidation. If all will remember, after the Green line, Orange line and the extension to Rowlett, all other light rail projects are in the city of Dallas and they are in the southern sector which would include West Dallas. I worked very hard to make sure that in the DART long range plan (2030) the Southern Sector would get more light rail so that the residents would not have access to buses only.

Where is the city of Dallas on this issue? Where are the Dallas elected officials on this issue? Who on the DART board will question the wisdom of such a move by the suburbs?

Watch this very closely and remember that the region is looking at commuter rail not light rail. There are cities that are growing fast in the northern area like McKinney, Allen and Frisco who would benefit from such a strategy. The DART northern member cities like Plano, would also benefit from this consolidation. How does this benefit Lancaster, Cedar Hill and Duncanville?

Watch what happens in Arlington, a city who consistently said they did not want public transportation, but now that the Cowboy stadium is there, they want to jump pass other cities that have been paying in to the system over 20 years (reallocating of sales tax revenue). Who is going to pay for that?

Please keep your eye on this and watch what position Dallas will take.

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?

2008

Dallas is a city that struggles to get it together and 2007 was not different from the previous years. There have been some interesting factors in Dallas this year and they will truly be something to watch in 2008.

1. Downtown: While millions of TIF (Tax Increment Financing) dollars have been poured into downtown, there is still little life in the heart of the city (Main Street,Commerce St. and Elm Street). All you find are non-affordable apartments and townhouses being constructed and virtually no retail. There are restaurants, but as soon as the TIF money goes, they go out of business or move. It will be interesting to see how Mayor Leppert will make a difference in Retail Downtown.
2. DART: The fact that DART is 1 billion over budget on the Orange Line and nobody understands why DART is in this mess is amazing. Let's see if Mayor Leppert,Dwaine (Dwayne,Dewayne) Caraway, Tennell Adkins and Jerry Allen will make a public statement since there is the possibility of rail lines in Dallas being delayed to keep Irving quiet.
3. DISD: As I wrote a month ago, DISD is not deserving of the publics trust for a new bond program. There are too many holes in the system and they are not being plugged. Where is Mayor Leppert on this? Do you suggest that we have a new superintendent?
4. Trinity: Mayor Leppert made the public many promises on the Trinity vote and we are going to hold him accountable along with all of the council members who supported the Trinity Toll Road.
5. Southern Dallas Development: I have noticed that some people are not using southern sector as much as they have in the past and are now talking about southern Dallas development, and that is where I have an interest. I want to see southern Dallas developed so that jobs will be in the are and so that Dallas can grow its tax base.
6. Dallas Housing Authority: Mayor Leppert made it public that his intent was to do something different with Ann Lott if she could not fix the accounting problems at Dallas Housing Authority. Why? His pension for the camera showed itself during this time.

Mayor Leppert/DART 900 Million Dollar Fiasco

Mayor Leppert is a person who seems to be out looking for the camera for any photo opportunity that he can find and it strikes me as curious that we have not heard a word from him on the DART situation. He was all over the camera's making sure that Ann Lott, President of DHA, understood his position about management of the public's money, and if she did not get her act together, she would be history. DHA, after being audited, was found to have not adequately accounted for about 3.5 million dollars.

We now have a situation where DART is trying to figure out how the current buildout schedule can be meet with the cost that have been allocated to projects. DART has declared that the agency will not have all of the funds that will be needed to stay on current schedule with the Orange Line (Irving) and the extension to Rowlett. DART says that the projections for construction has gone up and that is why the 900 million dollar shortage is shown. Remember the Orange Line is only 20% designed and therefore you can not have a true cost.

I say baloney. If you really want to see where the problem started, look at the contracts that were let in the last 2 years in Project Management. Consider the fact that one contractor has over 1 billion dollars in contacts for construction with little competition. Consider that the chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee was Councilman Jerry Allen and there were numerous changes to the financial plan under his leadership and those adjustment affect the the 20 year financial plan. The 20 year Financial Plan was not sent out to the member cities this year with the Budget as has been done in previous years. There are many 3rd tier relationships that are not being bid by DART. A million hear and a million there, and you soon will have some real money in question.

The public has not heard a peep out of Mayor Leppert, Dwaine(Dwayne,Dewayne) Caraway or Tennell Adkins about this matter which could ultimately affect downtown Dallas,West Dallas,The Cotton Belt, and all of the southern sector extensions that were worked on to ensure that DART did not only relegate Buses to our neighborhoods (Southern Dallas). Mayor Leppert, Dwaine(Dwayne,Dewayne)Caraway and Tennell Adkins seem to be calling the shots with the Dallas appointees on the DART board and I would expect them to be the first on the Dallas City Council to ensure that Dallas will get all that has been promised to Dallas in the same timeframe that was projected by DART. Dallas pays in 55% of all the sales tax revenue to DART and that means if you put the other 12 member cities sales tax revenue together, they do not equal what Dallas is paying to DART. Where are the mayors Negroes on this issue? I can't hear you!!!!!!

State President SCLC/Peter Johnson

James Ragland's article today in the Dallas Morning News "Agree with his policies or not, mayor's been effective so far" really got my attention. The first thing that I thought was successful at what? The Trinity River vote was not an overwhelming demand from the public. Some citizens took a good look at who was voted in as mayor and began to wish for Ed Oakley and his politcial allies on the council are basically Dwaine(Dewayne,Dwayne) Caraway, Tennell Adkins, Jerry Allen and Dave Neumann. All of those council members are freshmen and could be tossed out of office in 2 years (we hope).

Dwaine (Dwayne,Dewayne) Caraway is just pitiful, he was sucking up with every word. I miss Dr. Thornton-Reese, atleast she was independent.

What I loved the most was the comments from Peter Johnson about Mayor Leppert. He started out with "In the civil rights movement, we had what we called SWAB-smart -ass white boys who know more about black people than we know." "In the best sense of the word, that's what he is." Mr. Johnson went on to say that "He is new." "He's a typical rich, North Dallas white man who has lots of money. He's been successful, and he thinks he knows what we need." But Mr. Ragland went on to say that what Mr. Johnson is most concerned with, as he explained it to him, is Dallas patronizing history of accommodation. "We have seen in the past where a mayor... surrounds himself with a chosen few black gatekeepers, and everyone else has to go through them."

I would like to thank Peter Johnson for standing up for our community.

DART's Bus Purchase

The thought of DART's board of directors considering the purchase of 525 new buses at this time should tell the public that something is going wrong at DART. The purchase of new buses could be over 150 million dollars and I am not sure that purchase would include spare parts, additional tires, etc.

With last weeks news of the capitol budget being at least 900 million short, and that there could be delays to the LRT (Light Rail) buildout (Irving, Rowlett and the 2030 Long Range Plan), there should be a serious look at all capital expenditures to ensure that there is not an additional cost to the agency that could push the LRT Buildout further out. The bus purchase and light rail buildout is all part of the 20 year financial plan for DART and should be looked at overall, not as individual items of the budget.