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Rad Field
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3/14/9 - Nothing good
comes from Lies or Bad Deals!!
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When Mayor Con Jerk was out there stumping
for Our Downtown Betters to convince Dallas residents to vote against
our own best interest by slapping a sales tax on our hotels/motels and
daily car rentals to fund a new sports arena, we warned voters the sales
taxes would kill our convention business. We were right! |
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When Mayor Con Jerk stumped for the Trinity
River Project claiming it would bring all sorts of new development and
property tax revenue for the city, we warned voters there was not enough
information and the plans were not only impractical but dangerous.
We were right! |
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When current Mayor Tom Leppert and all of the
council but Angela Hunt told voters last year that a toll road could
safely be built inside the levees in a river floodway, we warned voters
it was not funded and had not been approved by the Corps of Engineers.
We were right! |
It's a lot more fun to be a
"Rah! Rah!" than being an "Aginner". The Rah! Rah!'s are said to have
vision and optimism. The Aginners are branded as simple minded naysayers.
Rah! Rah!'s usually have a lot of money to spend to get out their propaganda.
Aginners have to actually work to get out their message.
The past few weeks have been very satisfying for me and other like minded
Aginners.
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We were promised a renaissance Downtown with
the development of Ross, Jr.'s Victory Park around the arena.
We said it would only drain more life out of Downtown. It has. |
The West End Association
(restaurants and businesses) ignored our warnings and endorsed the sales tax
with the dumb reasoning that they would go under without the Mavericks and Stars
playing in the new arena. The Stars and Mavericks were not going anywhere
because none of our neighbor cities were interested in making a play for them.
Do you think the West End has prospered since the new Arena was built?
Not only has the West End not benefited from trade with game attendees, it has
lost the business that used to come from our convention bookings. The
arena sales tax on our hotel and motel rooms did just what we said it would --
killed our convention business. Dallas was a convention destination in the
past because we had cheap room rates, including all related taxes. We
never had a lot of amenities to offer conventioneers after hours.
We had the chance to convert Reunion Arena to a fabulous casino within walking
distance of the convention center, but we are going to tear it down. Just
like we told voters would happen, and just what Con Jerk and the pro-sales tax
liars told the voters would not happen. So, we will tear down Reunion at
taxpayer expense. In a year or two, if not a few months, we will start
hearing how that benevolent son of a bigamist Ray Hunt is going to take that
worthless land (where Reunion was) off our hands for pennies on the dollar of
its true worth. Of course, we will have to give him a tax abatement for
his project, which will mean no new tax revenue from the property. No gain
there.
Despite the glitz and money out of Joe Taxpayer's pocket, Victory Park is a
failure.
No amount of tax subsidies, tax
abatements or government intrusion can make a bad deal a good one. Maybe
it's just bad karma generated by all the lies told by Con Jerk and the two
Billionaires he was shilling for. Maybe it's just the basic common sense
rule that if something's a good idea, private business will do it.
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We were right about the Arena sales tax.
We were promised hundreds of new jobs with the new arena, but we lost
hundreds of jobs in the restaurants that failed because they could not
compete with the subsidized businesses in Victory Park. Then we
lost the subsidized businesses because they were too high end for Joe
Taxpayer's pocket book. |
Not only were we right about
the arena sales tax, but we were right about the stupid Trinity River Project,
the dumb String Thing Bridges and the dumber Trinity River Toll Road planned for
inside the floodway. It's another basic common sense position. Where
other cities have channeled or "levied" up their rivers, there have been
catastrophes. Rather than learn from other cities' mistakes, Our Downtown
Betters (the ODB) repeat those mistakes on grander scales.
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The original plans for the Trinity that Con
Jerk promoted in 1998 would have wiped out our viaducts across the
river, which is how we got stuck with the cockamamie idea of giant
multi-million dollar suspension bridges across a sewer trough that
occasionally looks like a river. |
Now, we may have one giant
multi-million dollar suspension bridge across a sewer trough that cars can't get
on because there may be no way to build access ramps over the levees, because
the ODB forgot to do soil samples, or didn't do because they knew what the
results would be. It is a colossal waste of taxpayer money, but it is
colossally funny anyway.
All those assurances being made last year about certainty of COE approval for
the Trinity toll roads was just a bunch of Pelosi.
What makes big shots lie? A bigger question is what makes seemingly
intelligent people believe political lies that don't make sense?
With all the wonderful rain we have had this week, the Trinity actually looked
like a river for a few days. Now, that we know the levees have layers of
sand in them, the levees don't look like much protection.
Sand finding in Dallas
levees raises bridge questions
(by Michael
Lindenberger and Rudolph Bush, DallasNews.com, 3/11/9).
Corps Warns that
Trinity River Levees
Pose a Flood
(by Jim Schutze, DallasObserver.com, 3/4/9).
Councilwoman Angela
Hunt, former Councilmembers Donna Blumer, Sandy Greyson and John Loza, County
Judge Candidate Sam Coates and Jim Schutze are looking very smart the last
several days.
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Angela went against the entire
council to oppose the Trinity Toll Road, but she was right! |
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Donna Blumer went against Councilman
Mitch Ransanksy to oppose the Trinity Toll Road, but she was right!
Now, Councilman Rasansky has been man enough to admit he was wrong to
have supported the toll roads, and now he's right! |
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John Loza went against the three
Hispanic council members to oppose the Trinity Toll Road, and it cost
him his seat on the DFW Board, but he was right. |
It takes courage to speak the
truth when the ODB don't want the voters to hear it. They come after you
in so many vicious ways.
Apparently, the ODB are afraid of District 13 candidate Ann Margolin being a
truth speaker in the tradition of Donna Blumer and Mitch Rasansky. They
scoured around to find Brint Ryan to run against her -- unfortunately, they did
not scour around his background first. Not only does the guy have no
regard for speed signs on Dallas roads and streets, but he knows even less about
his district's respect and affection for former Councilwoman Blumer and current
Councilman Rasansky. At a recent campaign coffee, he bragged he was no
Donna Blumer or Mitch Rasansky. Silly man.
Had he ever been to a District 13 townhall meeting where the usual three
hundred or more people show up, he would have seen for himself how beloved both
are to the attendees. Since Ryan hasn't bothered to vote in Dallas city
elections, you can't expect him to have ever attended a townhall meeting about
city budgets or other boring municipal stuff.
We have council elections coming up in May and two big referendums. One
referendum will amend the city charter to prohibit the city from owning a hotel.
Again, the language will be confusing. A "yes" vote will mean you do not
want the city to own a hotel. The other referendum will amend the city
charter to prohibit the city council from granting tax abatements exceeding $1
million to developers without a vote by Dallas taxpayers. A "yes" vote
will mean you agree. Pay attention to the debates. Here is a link to
the hotel debate sponsored by WFAA,
Leppert, opposition debate Convention Center hotel.
It's very informative.
See
Council Races
Heating Up
for DallasArena.com
endorsements/comments in the 14 council races. District 13 is going to be
a battle, but Ann Margolin will win big. District 5 and 7 will be crazies
with lots of candidates. DallasArena.com is co-endorsing in District 7,
Charles Redd and Tony Rios. Either will be ten times better than the
incumbent or anyone else running in that district.
District 8 will have Al Lipscomb's grandson Levar Thomas running against
Councilman Tennell Atkins. Remember Levar Thomas calling Donna Blumer and
Laura Miller the "b" word at the council? Apparently, Mr. Thomas doesn't
like uppity White women. Haven't we had enough of that family's racist
games at City Hall?
If you don't vote, you can't complain about how things are going in this town.
Don't be afraid to take a stand on matters that impact you and our city.
There may be repercussions when you step up and speak the truth, but it's always
the right path to be walking. If you do no more than slow down a train
heading a wrong track (like the Trinity boondoggle), that's still a good thing.
Truth takes time to come out. Last year Angela Hunt and her posse got in
the way of the ODB's Trinity River toll road. She lost an election, but
her posse has won the war. They slowed down that wrong-way train enough to
shine light on the Corps of Engineers and force them to be more diligent than
they or the ODB wanted.
We can handle the truth.
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