If someone had told me, after the Trinity River referendum was defeated 18 months ago, that this month’s city council and charter elections could well change the course of the city’s future, I would have laughed at them.
The Trinity victory did more than allow the toll road to be built. It was nothing less than a coronation for Mayor Park Cities and a resounding vote of approval for his way of doing things: The focus on Downtown, the emphasis on big-money projects, and the wink, wink, nudge, nudge toward the city’s business community — the acknowledgement they would get plenty of chances to make plenty of money if they went along with Leppert’s plans.
And those of us in the neighborhoods? Maybe, if we were lucky, Leppert’s rising tide would float our boats, and we’d eventually get our potholes fixed. Regardless, we’d better keep our mouths shut and do as we were told, because the mayor has never been much interested in working with his opponents to fashion some sort of compromise.
Maybe he should have. I do not know what will happen in the elections on Mother’s Day weekend, and I would not be surprised if Leppert gets his candidates elected to the city council and wins both charter votes — to allow the convention center hotel to be built, and to deny voters a chance to approve council subsidies of $1 million or more to private developers of hotels, condominiums and retail facilities.
But possibilities exist today that didn’t exist 18 months ago.
Leppert’s side may well lose the hotel vote, and that’s something even the mayor apparently recognizes. First, the city tried desperately — and failed — to get construction started before the election, which would have made the result irrelevant. Second, his campaigning is becoming more shrill and more panicked — a marked contrast to his calm, cool and collected approach to the Trinity vote. The attacks this time are a little more personal and a little less polished, and there is fear-mongering that wasn’t there before: “[W]ill we choose the path that will cause our tax base to wither and ruin our reputation as a ‘can do’ city?”
Less noticeable, but probably even more important, is what happens in four key council races. Two of them feature key Leppert allies, Lakewood’s Sheffie Kadane and Lake Highlands’ Jerry Allen, who are facing reasonably significant opposition. John Yourse, an educator and colonel in the Texas Air Guard, is running against Kadane. Allen’s opponent is retired bank executive Don Sanders, who may be able to tap into an undercurrent of discontent with Allen’s approach to development.
The third involves Vonciel Jones Hill, a council member who has every once in a while voted against the mayor and is apparently caught in some sort of local grudge match in her South Oak Cliff district. The fourth is the open contest in Preston Hollow between Ann Margolin and Brint Ryan. Margolin, endorsed by incumbent Mitch Rasansky, says she is independent of the mayor. Ryan, who opposes the hotel, may even be more of a gadfly than Rasansky, who has reached his term limit.
Currently, Leppert has 13 votes on the council for almost anything he wants to do. Let’s assume he loses the hotel vote, and Yourse, Sanders, Hill and Ryan all win — unlikely but possible. I don’t know that they would instantly be anti-Leppert votes, but the possibility is there. Which means the mayor’s 13 votes become 8, and if he is wounded enough by the hotel defeat, some of his other support may waver.
Then we’ll find out if Leppert is really a leader who can work with all sides, or just a CEO used to getting his own way.
