Dear Tom: I know that you and I don’t usually see eye-to-eye. We disagreed about the Trinity toll road referendum, and our views on city government — you’re a big box kind of guy, favoring the downtown business interests, while I’m a neighborhood retail type who wants his potholes fixed — are quite different. And I’m sure that you would prefer that I not call you Mayor Park Cities.
But I still believe, as I wrote when you took office last year, that we want the same things: “economic growth, a city that serves all of its citizens fairly, and a police department that is as honest as it is competent.” But I don’t see that happening, Tom.
What I see, once we look past the shiny wrapping on the package that has been your first year in office, is more of the same. Yes, your personal magnetism almost single-handedly convinced voters to build the toll road, and you can keep the city council in line in a way that your predecessors couldn’t. And you look really good in all those sound bites talking about bringing business to town, whether you’re standing in south Dallas or China.
What you’re not doing, though, is addressing the issues that you talked about during your campaign, things like fiscal responsibility and improving services for the average resident. But they need your attention now.
First, I don’t know if you noticed this when you were in China, but the city budget is in a bit of trouble. Actually, it may be in a lot of trouble, but no one downtown seems to be paying much attention. The projected 2008-09 budget looks to be $50 million off track, and the current budget doesn’t look like it’s going to meet revenue projections, either. I don’t know if you were here the last time this happened at the beginning of the decade (living in Hawaii, maybe?), but it was not good.
The funny thing about this is, Tom, that I deciphered the shortage using basic figures from the city and state comptroller web sites. And math is not my best subject. So why doesn’t anyone downtown seem especially concerned? The quote I saw was: “Everything is still very preliminary,” which did not inspire me with confidence. Let me put it to you this way: If someone at your old construction business said the budget looked $50 million short, how loudly would you scream at them if they said “Don’t worry — everything is still very preliminary”?
Yeah, I thought so.
Which brings us to the hotel convention center, which you want to build in some sort of public-private partnership with a developer — if the city doesn’t own the hotel outright. As our publisher, Rick Wamre, noted on our Back Talk blog, this is not a very business-savvy decision. Cities collect garbage and fill potholes and run libraries. Cities do not operate hotels in competition with Hilton, an $8.1 billion company with 105,000 employees, or Marriott, a $12.9 billion company with 151,000 employees. If your predecessor had suggested this, you would have used it as a club against her. So why does it make sense when you say it?
Yeah, I’m confused, too.
The other thing, Tom, is that you have managed to keep the council in line, but you have not been an effective manager of the council. Punishing Angela Hunt for ramrodding the Trinity vote might show everyone that you had cojones, but fear is not the way to instill loyalty. And double-crossing councilman Mitch Rasansky, who backed you on the Trinity but opposes the convention center hotel, wasn’t very leader-like, either. It’s going to make other members of the council wonder if you can be trusted, or if you will turn on them the first time they disagree with you. These short-term fixes are not long-term solutions, Tom.
Again, I offer this advice because we want the same things for the city. I just hope you realize that.
Yours truly, Jeff
