Back Talk Oak Cliff

West Dallas Community Court now in session

Right now, if someone is sleeping on an Oak Cliff street, publicly urinating, in possession of drug paraphernalia, dumping illegally, violating codes, or committing other non-violent, "quality of life" crimes, he is cited and fined. People who commit such crimes often don't have money to pay fines, so they opt to serve jail time instead. Then they end up back on the streets, committing the same offenses.

Community leaders are hoping to break these types of cycles through the West Dallas Community Court, which celebrated its grand opening today. The new court — the second community court in the city (the first is in South Dallas) — is housed in the West Dallas Community Center at Hampton and SIngleton. After being cited, offenders from the city's southwest sector have seven days to appear in community court. If they enter a plea of guilty or no contest (most do, the court's social services coordinator Sarah Pahl told me), then Judge Daniel Solis will asses a punishment to fit the crime — some sort of community service activity in the neighborhood in which the defendant committed the offense.

Council subcommittee considers a smoking ban in bars, billiard halls

A city council subcommittee is considering expanding the city's current smoking ban from restaurants and workplaces to bars, billiard halls and within 15 feet of entrances to publicly accessible villages, according to the DMN. A majority of the six councilmen on the subcommittee seem to be leaning in favor of the proposal, according to the News story and more comments on its blog.

I have to admit that when the city council first decided to restrict smoking in restaurants and other public places a few years ago, I had my doubts: It seemed like a draconian measure, and it seemed likely to drive business out of Dallas. Today, though, I haven't seen a single study indicating that significant business was lost to the more smoking-friendly suburbs, and the air in most places I go these days is cleaner and clearer.

City budget: So much for the sales tax

The sales tax projections in the city budget, which seemed wildly optimistic in August, apparently are. The city has collected less in sales tax than it budgeted for three months in a row (and a tip o’ the reporting hat to Dave Levinthal at Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper). Sales tax receipts account for about 21.5 percent of city spending.

Levinthal notes that September’s collections were off almost 9 percent; the city has projected a 1.75 percent increase for the fiscal year. He doesn’t detail which other months missed projections, and I haven’t been able to locate month-by-month numbers in the city budget. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there, though, and I will keep looking.

However, in trying to find trends, some numbers from the state comptroller’s office could be useful. They show that Dallas got 8.7 percent more in August 2008 than it got in August 2007, before the stock market collapsed. But after the market meltdown, the city took 1 percent less in October 2008 than it received in October 2007.

Technorati Tags: Dallas city budget,sales tax

Bikefaire on Bishop leads to Oak Cliff debate

True to his word, Jason Roberts along with the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce Alternative Transportation Committee are hosting Bikefaire this Sunday in Bishop Arts District, noon to 4 p.m., because $1,500 was raised for new bike racks around North Oak Cliff businesses.

The initiative and the celebratory party are getting quite a bit of press, both from traditional media like the DMN and on blogs like Cycle Dallas, where Roberts (as his blogger pseudonym mannytmoto) has a long and interesting exchange with PM Summer, the City of Dallas Bike Coordinator. Summer calls Roberts and others "neo-urban hipsters" and states:

Easing credit crunch puts the convention center hotel back on track

Good news for fans of the taxpayer-owned downtown convention center hotel, as well as for the pending DISD bond issue: The credit market, at least for public works projects, appears to be easing enough to allow AA-rated and above public entities to obtain financing. A DMN story indicates the city of Dallas intends to close on $253.3 million in water improvement project bonds this week; a few weeks ago, this and just about every other bond project in the country were frozen due to lack of capital or political will or lenders — take your pick. The $550 million convention center hotel, which Mayor Tom Leppert and many city councilmen have vowed to fund in January, requires issuance of municipal revenue bonds to generate the cash, so now that the market is coming back, lack of available funding shouldn't hold back Leppert or the council. I guess we'll see if the May referendum on the project causes the council members any heartburn when it comes time to approve the bonds in January.

Oak Cliff: Some of the best streets in the city

Attending the summit this morning also reminded me of something Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia told me recently: Dallas City Council District 1's streets rank fourth among all 14 Dallas council districts with a score of 90 percent satisfactory.

Fourth place may not sound like a whole lot to write home about — it earns only a green ribbon, if that, at most competitions. But as Garcia pointed out, when you consider that the highest-rated streets are in northernmost District 12, "which is pretty much new," and that District 1 is "the oldest," then fourth is pretty good.

Councilman Dave Neumann's District 3 had an average ranking, tying for eighth place. You can view this year's ratings as well as past ratings for all 14 districts here.

Ross Avenue: Let's see the council get out of this

First, the City Council considered re-naming Industrial Boulevard to honor Caesar Chavez, the Latino civil rights icon. Then, it was going to re-name Ross Avenue in honor of Chavez, because it had other plans for Industrial. And now, it's not going to re-name Ross, but will find another street to call Chavez.

And people wonder why I call this one of the least sophisticated group of politicians I've seen in my 20-some odd years writing about this stuff.

Bishop/Davis land use study: Thoughts from Val Haskell

Land use study committee member Val Haskell told me a lot of interesting things that I didn't have the space to include in November's story. She's one of 12 neighbors appointed to the committee by either Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia or Councilman Dave Neumann, and she lives in the Kings Highway Conservation District.

What's happening on Davis, Haskell says, is a lot of dynamic, organic change, and the process of the land use study is about trying to get the kind of change Oak Cliff neighbors want. "It's preparation for what we know is coming and making sure what comes is more of what we want instead of less of what we want," she says. "Personally, I would love to be able to walk from my home down to Bishop Arts and have an interesting urban streetscape and one that, if I wanted to run a few errands, I could."

"The neighborhoods have different flavors, too, so there’s an attempt to honor the flavors," Haskell says. "We have to make sure Bishop Arts continues to do really well, and if we can help Davis do well, Bishop Arts will do better and better. I think of it in terms of little nodes and how do we connect these nodes better — Bishop Arts, then Gloria's and Bolsa, then Kavala — how do we make it great in between those pieces, and what do we want as a neighborhood? I hope we are able to facilitate or expedite the kind of change that we want."

Leppert says our votes count. Except for the convention center hotel?

Here's an interesting juxtaposition: Mayor Tom Leppert is circulating an email with the top headline saying "Convention Center Hotel Critical to Dallas' Future", while the second item is headlined "Vote! It's Your Voice!" (Click here to download tom_leppert_email.pdf and see the email.)

The irony: At least one Leppert spokespuppet on the council already has chortled out loud that even if Dallas residents vote in favor of a potential referendum scuttling the $550 million taxpayer-owned convention center hotel downtown, those votes won't stop the council from moving forward to build the hotel.

So whose voice is Leppert talking about?

Tom Leppert: 'Doesn't give a darn about the citizens of Dallas'

So, do you think Mayor Tom Leppert cares about the citizens of Dallas or not? Councilman Mitchell Rasansky tells the Observer Leppert doesn't care — "doesn’t give a darn about the citizens of Dallas". Rasansky goes on to mention that Leppert was on the board of directors of Washington Mutual even as that financial institution bit the dust, saying Leppert's comments about WaMu's financial health a few weeks prior to its bailout — “the feeling is that there's sufficient capital and good things ahead" — is indicative of Leppert's go-for-broke actions with the convention center hotel, regardless of a possible pending referendum on the project and a disintegration of the bond market. It's worth clicking on the post, written by Sam Merten, because it has a whole list of interesting information and story links. As for me, I tend to think that it's not that Leppert doesn't care about the rest of us. I think he just believes he knows better than everyone else what's good for us. Come to think of it, that was the prevailing attitude on Wall Street for a few years, too, and look what happened to those guys...