There will also be opportunities to walk door-to-door if you have some time to volunteer.

See you tomorrow!

Today the Dallas City Council voted to spend over $10 million to redesign the IH-30 Calatrava bridge.  I was the sole “no” vote. (WFAA; Unfair Park; DMN City Hall Blog)

Transportation dollars are extraordinarily limited right now. In these challenging economic times, it doesn’t make sense for us to spend taxpayer dollars on elaborate architectural designs when we have real infrastructure needs. My fellow councilmembers argued that we must have a second Calatrava bridge “to keep up with the Joneses,” that we can’t be “short-sighted,” that the elaborate bridge is necessary to “create economic development,” and that we must “move forward” in order to be a “world-class city.”

So it got me thinking about what it says about Dallas that we constantly chase after the dream of being a “world-class city.”

Does it reflect an expansive, visionary belief in the future of Dallas? A noble effort to create lasting landmarks so that our fair city may one day be considered in the same breath as London and Paris?

Or does it reveal a pathetic neediness to be noticed by foreign tourists and cited by visiting journalists? Or worse, is it an indictment of egotistical leadership intent on leaving their imprimatur on massive public projects, no matter the cost?

I think it’s a little bit of all of that.

But most residents I talk with aren’t really interested in being a “world-class city.” They just want a great city to call home. Unfortunately, as we heard today, many city leaders dismiss that as too prosaic. They figure even if we could fix all the potholes, mow all the parks, address all the code complaints, pick up all the stray animals — all of those things will just be forgotten in time. But an ornamental bridge, a convention center hotel, a big toll road — those are lasting monuments.

That perspective misses the point. The choice isn’t “either, or” — either we clink our champagne glasses as one unnecessary boondoggle after another drains our city coffers while our basic infrastructure falls apart or we myopically fill every pothole but live in a city bereft of beauty and grandeur.

We can have the best of both. We should do big projects. But not because they might finally be big enough to be seen from space or because they may (hopefully!) pique the interest of a writer at some obscure architecture journal. We should do big projects because they enhance the everyday lives of our residents. We should do big projects that are useful.

Massive parks are useful. Museums and theaters are useful. Trails, bike lanes, cycle tracks — useful, useful, useful. These are visionary projects, expensive projects, that are meaningful, lasting, and make it nicer to live in our city.

Coincidentally, these are just the kinds of things that make people and businesses want to call a city home.

About halfway through the film, the focus turns to New Orleans’ disasterous Mississippi River Gulf Outlet project, which was responsible for much of the destruction during Katrina.  There are unsettling parallels between the ill-fated “Mr. Go” project and our very own Trinity Toll Road debacle:  the primary purpose of the Corps’ Mr. Go project was not flood control and public safety, but transportation/economic development (sound familiar?).  Only in their case, instead of a massive toll road, they were creating a massive river channel.

Jim Schutze has two great articles on the documentary and its cautionary tale for Dallas:  Documentary About New Orleans’ Killer Floods Draws Uneasy Parallels to Dallas and If There’s One Film About the Corps of Engineers You See All Week …

I got to spend some time talking with the man behind the movie, Harry Shearer (who is not only an amazing comedian/actor, but an astute documentarian).  He was incredibly cool, and his passion for New Orleans and its people and history permeates the film.  I particularly loved his focus on the courageous whistle-blowers (engineers inside and outside the Corps) who risked their careers to do what was right.

This is a terrific film, and a timely one for our city.  Watch it.

This morning, the Dallas City Council joined service men and women to celebrate Veterans Day with a parade in Downtown.  We also got to enjoy fighter jet fly over in honor of our military personnel and their sacrifices.

My dad who passed away two years ago was a Marine during the Korean War, and he was famous for his “war stories” — some were funny, some were sad, but all of them revealed my dad’s love for his country and his brother Marines.  There was nothing he was more proud of than his service in the United States Marine Corps.

We lost my step-dad Leon earlier this year, and he was a veteran of WWII.  At barely seventeen, he lied about his age so he could join the Navy the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  He would tear up telling me about his battleship, the U.S.S. Henley, which sank after being attacked by Japanese bombers.  In the black of night, that young man tread water slicked with oil while several of his friends lost their lives around him.  I can’t imagine experiencing that, much less at such a young age.

We are indebted to these men and women who have put their lives at risk for our liberty.  Today, please let a veteran know how much you appreciate their service.

“Gasland” is a cautionary tale about gas drilling that is particularly relevant to Dallas citizens as Barnett Shale drilling moves east into our city.  I’ll be there to welcome Josh and discuss what our city should do to ensure gas drilling doesn’t endanger Dallas neighborhoods or the health of our citizens.  The film and a short Q&A with the filmmaker starts at 7pm and ends around 9:30pm.

Downwinders at Risk is hosting a post-screening reception for Josh from 9:30 to 11 pm where the audience can continue the conversation about the local impact of gas drilling.

Saturday, Oct. 30 – Rally to Restore Sanity, Dallas Edition
Tired of crazy political hyperbole, outlandish fear-mongering, and all the nutty rallies that drown out civil political discourse?  Then this rally is for you!

Join me at the Rally to Restore Sanity (Dallas Edition) tomorrow at 11am at Lee Harvey’s (1807 Gould St.) where they’ll be simulcasting the Washington, D.C. rally featuring Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert.  After the broadcast at 2pm, I’ll be joining Human Rights Initiative Award winner Bill Holston and intellectual satirist Rawlins Gilliland for a few words.  (And leave your crazy signs at home.  Unless they’re really crazy.  Then bring ‘em.)

You may have already heard, but in case you haven’t, I wanted to share the good news:  my husband and I are expecting our first child — a baby girl — in late April.

Paul and I started dating in high school — in 1987 — so we figured after 22 years it was about time to bring a little one into our family.

We’ve already received several very… creative suggestions for baby names (“Jimette” tops the list so far), and as always, I welcome your input.

As for how my pregnancy will affect my service to the City of Dallas:  I will continue to actively serve on the council and do all that I can to make Dallas a better, safer city in which to live and raise a family.

We are very excited about our little girl’s impending arrival and are deeply appreciative of all the well wishes, thoughts, and prayers we have received.

Today I sent the following suggestions to my council colleagues on how we can put some real teeth in the Mayor’s proposal to regulate lobbyists and limit campaign contributions:

The purpose of creating a lobbyist registration system is to reduce the likelihood of corruption at City Hall.  But for this system to be effective, we must focus on the nature of the problem, then develop a system that will, to the fullest extent possible, create a climate hostile to such corruption. 

What corrupt activity are we trying to prevent?

Buying influence from the mayor and councilmembers.  Trading money for a favorable vote. 

Who would have incentive to bribe an elected official?  Who would a corrupt elected official think they could extract a bribe from? 

Someone who’s got a financial stake in a decision by the council.

Are paid lobbyists the problem? 

No.  But like smoke denotes fire, paid lobbyists indicate there’s somebody who has such a significant financial stake in a council decision that they would expend money on a professional to fight on their behalf.

How do we keep a “financial stakeholder” from paying off the mayor or a councilmember? 

We can’t.  People who are corrupt will find a way around any rule we create.  But we can shed so much light on the relationship between a financial stakeholder and city officials that we make it very difficult for them to trade money for influence.

So how do we shed light on the relationship between financial stakeholders and city officials? 

By requiring them to disclose the same information we are requiring paid lobbyists to provide.  And by requiring both lobbyists and financial stakeholders to disclose information that illuminates and gives context to the extent of their relationships with city officials.

The following changes to the proposed ordinance attempt to accomplish just that. 

 Proposed Changes to Lobbyist Registration Ordinance

Require “Financial Stakeholders” who lobby city officials to register and disclose their meetings with city officials.

A “Financial Stakeholder” is a person or business that stands to receive a direct, material benefit resulting from a vote by the City Council.  This includes, but is not limited to, applicants, real property owners, and real property purchasers, as well as their employees, agents and assigns, who are seeking from the city:

• Tax abatements;
• Housing tax credits;
• Historic tax credits;
• Federal grants administered by the city;
• Tax increment financing projects;
• Re-zoning requests;
• Anyone who hires or employs a lobbyist to meet with city officials on their behalf in regard to an issue pending before the city council

Prohibit gifts from lobbyists and financial stakeholders.

Prohibit a lobbyist or financial stakeholder from giving money or goods to any business that a city official has an economic interest in.

Require monthly (rather than quarterly) filing of disclosure forms.

• The real check and balance in this entire system is the public.  This system gives the public and the media some measure of access to what is going on behind closed doors at city hall.  But this information is most meaningful before a matter is voted on by the council.  That is when questions of influence are most pertinent and (perhaps) damning:  Councilmember X met a lobbyist at a country club twice a week for a month?  Councilmember Y’s meetings with a lobbyist included a major campaign contributor/powerful Dallasite?
• Monthly reports will give the public access to important information when it is most relevant.  If reports are filed only every three months, the public won’t have the opportunity to bring to light arguably compromising information before a matter is voted on by the city council.  Quarterly disclosures may make the disclosed information moot and blunt the goal of this disclosure system.

Include more information about each meeting a lobbyist or financial stakeholder has with city officials: 

• Name of city official(s)
• Date of meeting
• Length of meeting
• Location of meeting
• Attendees, identifying lobbyist staff, financial stakeholders, and other attendees

This information is critical to addressing the purpose of this disclosure system:  to illuminate the extent of relationships between lobbyists and city officials.  Simply listing the city officials that a lobbyist met with (the proposed standard) does not distinguish between those city officials who met with a lobbyists two hours every week from those who simply received a single, two minute phone call.  By providing the public with access to information outlining the depth of a relationship between a lobbyist and city official, we reduce the likelihood of corruption.

Prohibit campaign consultants for the mayor or councilmembers from also serving as lobbyists on issues that will be decided by the city council or a board appointed by the city council.

Campaign consultants for powerful members of the council may exert too much influence over other councilmembers when that consultant is also working as a paid lobbyists on matters pending before the council.

Flat annual fee for registrants (not graduated based on number of clients).

If a paid lobbyist and her client both lobby city officials, only the paid lobbyist has to register (assuming the filing form will include information that would name the client).  If the financial stakeholder does not hire a lobbyist, but nonetheless lobbies city officials on his own, he must register and file disclosures as a lobbyist.

Require registrants to disclose only the following in relation to lobbying on a pending matter:

• Compensation to other than full-time employees
• Reimbursement to other than full-time employees

This information can reveal if community leaders (or others) are being paid to drum up support for a particular matter or if their support is genuine.

The other proposed disclosures – amounts expended on office expenses, advertising, personal sustenance, lodging, and travel – are unnecessary.  Why do we need this information and how will it help prevent corruption?  Lobbyists are not the problem; the problem is corrupt city officials.  So unless the required information helps us root out or prevent corruption, we shouldn’t burden lobbyists with disclosing irrelevant, insignificant private business information.

Eliminate requirement for lobbyists to disclose emails or other written communications to city officials.

How does requiring a lobbyist to list whom they’ve sent emails illuminate the relationship between lobbyists and city officials?  It doesn’t give a sense of which city officials they’ve had protracted and frequent email correspondence with – it’s just a list of email recipients.  A smart lobbyist will simply send a short email to the entire council so they can claim each on their disclosure form, thus camouflaging those with whom they’ve been in regular email contact.

This requirement sheds no real light on the relationship between a lobbyist and city official and is ineffectual.  Moreover, since emails to city officials are subject to open records requests, this requirement is superfluous.

Eliminate from definition of “lobbyist” someone who “expends $200 or more in a calendar quarter” on lobbying efforts

Why is it significant to track lobbyists who expend funds, but who are not paid for their efforts?  A neighborhood attorney might volunteer his or her time to assist a neighborhood in fighting a nearby development, and might personally pay for $200 worth of photocopies.  In all likelihood, neither the neighborhood nor the volunteer attorney has such a significant financial stake that in the outcome of the city council’s decision that they would try to bribe a city official.  So there is no need to require them to participate in this disclosure process.

We should be focused on requiring disclosures from lobbyists who receive compensation from their clients.  Such payment indicates that the clients have such a significant, real financial stake in the outcome of a city council decision that they would hire someone to try to persuade city officials.  Those are the people who would have an incentive to bribe city officials, or who would be vulnerable to being extorted by corrupt city officials. 

Eliminate prohibition on lobbyists accepting contingency fee cases

How does prohibiting contingency fee cases reduce the likelihood that a lobbyist would try to bribe a city official?  Why do we want to regulate how a private business can be paid by its clients, when the real problem isn’t paid lobbyists but corrupt city officials?

Proposed Changes to Contribution Restrictions 

Zoning cases aren’t the only matters where significant financial interests are at stake.  Tax abatements, TIF project requests, housing tax credits, contracts with the City of Dallas — all of these matters have very serious monetary consequences for the applicant.  So why not expand the proposed contribution limitations to include these matters as well?

Proposed Changes:
Expand matters to include pending:

• Tax abatements;
• Housing tax credits;
• Historic tax credits;
• Federal grants administered by the city;
• Tax increment financing projects;
• Re-zoning requests

Contributions are prohibited 60 days prior to application for any of these matters and six months after the matter has been decided by the council or withdrawn.

I know what you’re thinking. “Wow, Angela, you must be psychic. How else to explain your eerily accurate prediction one year ago that the impending economic recession would reduce revenue to the city, reveal the city’s budget forecast as overly optimistic, and necessitate mid-year service cuts?”

Indeed, how else to explain it other than telepathy?

I began dabbling in the clairvoyant arts last year around this time in an effort to see into our city’s financial future. I started out by reading tea leaves (and by “tea leaves” I mean “newspapers”), which foretold ominous fiscal tidings: Lehman Brothers would file for Chapter 11. AIG would go down in flames. Bank of America would take over Merrill Lynch.

And that wasn’t all. My crystal ball/television revealed more otherworldly insights: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be placed in conservatorship. Congress would plunge $700 billion into Wall Street to try to stop the hemorrhaging. And Washington Mutual would become the largest bank failure in American history. Ahem.

All of these things came to pass just days before the City Council approved last year’s budget. I shared these mystical insights with my colleagues and urged them to reconsider the budget before them — a budget that relied on optimistic revenue projections.  I, along with Councilmember Rasansky (who himself often evidenced an uncanny prescience in financial matters), suggested a more conservative budget and proposed $45 million in cuts.

I warned my colleagues that if we failed to read the signs and portents and Dow Jones, if we failed to make the tough cuts now, we would be forced to make even more difficult budget cuts in six months due to lower than expected revenue. We could either plan for the crisis or let the crisis overtake us. It would mean the difference between thoughtful, targeted reductions that spared core services, versus reactionary, hacking cuts to any program or office with unspent funds.

Unfortunately, the rest of the council and the mayor scoffed at my and Mitchell’s grave prognostications and passed the unrealistic budget over our protests.

Six months later, sales tax revenue had dropped so far below budget projections that City Manager Mary Suhm instituted a hiring freeze and began cutting the budget.  That’s tough to do mid-year, especially under such exigent circumstances. And by the end of the year, it turned out that the city had overestimated revenue by about $45 million.  Too bad nobody saw it coming.

So here we are, a year later, about to approve next year’s budget, and I’ve got some new predictions.

I’ve been staring into this budget for weeks, and here’s what I see:  The city is going to get into too much debt in the coming year — borrowing $355 million.  That won’t hurt too much next year, but it could devastate us the following year when our debt repayment goes up by $24 million.  (To put that in perspective, that’s the entire budget for our streets department or our code department.)

Where will we get this money?  That’s when my powers of insight fail me.  Short of raising taxes, I can’t foresee any way to cobble together the additional millions of dollars that will be needed to repay our debt.  We’ve already cut our budget to the bone; cutting another $24 million would reduce city services to an unacceptable level and might actually threaten our infrastructure.  Since there’s no reason to believe we’ll be getting additional revenue, where is this money going to come from?

We can avert this crisis by paring down our debt as we weather this recession.  Let’s borrow $140 million next year instead of $355 million.  We’ll still be able to complete plenty of bond projects, but we won’t increase our debt repayment the following year.  We can extend our bond program by a couple of years, and make it through these tough times without saddling our citizens with crippling debt.

Unfortunately, I don’t see that in the cards. Instead, I have a vision of our mayor and City Council making a grave mistake in passing a budget we can’t afford, and Dallas taxpayers suffering the consequences.

On a totally unrelated note, this came to me in a dream last night:

The harbinger of mutual destruction will wear a spotted cloak
and plunge a great city into dark indenture.
Caution will be rewarded as treachery.
Vassals shall wither under false levies.

No idea what it means.

Take next year’s proposed city budget.  I’ve been through this thing line by line, with a fine-toothed comb, ever since we got the “final draft” in early August.  It’s a lot to digest.  Lots of numbers and all.  But some numbers are more important than others, and right now I want to focus on debt and its effect on our bottom line.

The city borrows money to make major infrastructure improvements, like constructing new libraries and police stations, building new roads, putting in new playgrounds in our parks.  These are bond projects approved by voters.  When we borrow money for these projects, we’re essentially putting them on the city’s credit card.

As with any credit card, the city has to make regular payments.  Next year, our credit card bill will be about 22% of our entire operating budget.  It’s the largest expense after police.  Take a look:

Next year, the city manager proposes to charge an additional $314 million to our credit card.  The critical question is: How will that affect our credit card payment? Well, it won’t make much of a difference next year.  It’s the following year we have to worry about.

See, if we decide to borrow $314 million next year, then the following budget year we’re going to be up a creek without a paddle.  Our credit card payment will jump by $24 million.  TWENTY-FOUR MILLION DOLLARS.

Why am I shouting?  Because I’m worried about this.  Really worried.  Because if we have to spend $24 million more on debt repayment, that means $24 million less that we’ll have for all our other city services:  police, streets, parks, libraries, code, the arts, etc.

It’s just like your household budget:  The more stuff you buy with your credit card, the higher your monthly credit card payment.  In this economy, you probably aren’t going to be getting a raise. So assuming your income stays the same, a higher credit card payment means less money you can spend on groceries, gasoline, the light bill, etc.

The same is true for the city. The more debt we incur, the higher our debt payment and the less we have to spend on the basics (assuming we’re not rolling in more money in two years, which I doubt).

So my question is pretty simple:  Where is this additional $24 million supposed to come from?  Property and sales tax revenue is likely to remain down, so more money won’t be flowing into the city coffers.  And we’re already cutting muscle and bone in the upcoming budget — laying off 840 city employees, cutting back library and rec center hours, combining city departments, dipping into the city’s rainy day fund.  Seriously, where are we supposed to get $24 million in 2010-11?  Look at the pie chart again.  Where are we going to get $24 million?

There’s a simple solution.  If we just cut our credit card purchases down to a “modest” $125 million next year, our credit card payment the following year will stay level.  Makes sense, right?  Don’t increase your credit card bill when money’s tight.

I brought this up at last week’s council meeting when we were discussing the budget:  We’re about to dig ourselves into a bigger hole, I said.  A $24 million hole at a time when we’re looking for pennies in the couch.  Bad idea.  Only Councilmember Ann Margolin shared my concern.

I went over to the mayor, thinking, “He’s a business guy.  Surely, he gets this.”  Instead, he did that thing he does when he wants to dismiss any opposition.  You know the thing I’m talking about.  It goes something like this:

“We must do [X] to make Dallas a great city.  If you oppose [X], you don’t want Dallas to be a great city.”

It’s a hell of a syllogism, and it’s worked for him through the Trinity Toll Road and Convention Center Hotel campaigns, so why not go back to the same well?

So when I told him my concerns, he just shook his head.  “We can’t just throw up our hands and not invest in our city.”   (As if I were proposing to eliminate bond projects altogether and let Dallas devolve into a third-world country.)  I asked him where he thought he was going to get $24 million.  “We’ll find it.”  Are you planning on raising taxes?  “Absolutely not.”

So I guess the mayor is saying, “Spend, baby, spend!  Who cares if we don’t have the money!  We’ll tell everyone that we have to do it, or else Dallas won’t be a world-class city!”  I guess he thinks there are buckets of money we can dip into.  But that would be silly.

City Manager Mary Suhm had the same response.  “We’ll find it.”  Where?  “It’s not that hard to find $24 million.”  Really?  Can you find me $24 million in the upcoming budget so we don’t have to cut our parks, libraries, streets, health services, police, and everything else?  And if we’re so flush with money, why are we planning to take $11 million out of the city’s rainy day fund?

Now, keep in mind, this time last year when we were debating the budget, Mitchell Rasansky and I were the only two people on the council saying the city’s revenue projections were overly optimistic.  We suggested cutting the budget by $40-$50 million or risk making severe cuts mid-year.  But the mayor and the rest of the council ignored us and passed a bloated budget.  Guess what happened mid-year?  The city had to cut services because it had over-estimated revenue by a cool $44 million.

So I’m raising the alarm again.  At a time when we’re cutting deep into city services and scrounging for every penny, it’s irresponsible to dig ourselves into a deeper hole.