Will ironies never cease in Dallas politics? The latest victim of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and his band of merry men is none other than Mayor Ron Kirk – you remember, the candidate who ran on racial harmony and “stopping the blame game.”
It seems now that Commissioner Price and local NAACP Chief Lee Alcorn want to play the blame game outside Mayor Kirk’s front door. Kirk can now look forward to being serenaded by Price and his Warrior Chorale every morning when he goes to get his newspaper in his jammies.
Price apparently believes that the mayor of Dallas has no business trying to help resolve racial conflicts on the board of his own school district; however, Price must conversely believe that a County Commissioner somehow does. Go figure.
And while a group of able-bodied adults are missing work in order to chant “no justice, no peace” in front of the mayor’s house, Dallas air travelers are chanting “no Wright Amendment repeal, no brains,” while watching Mesa establish new passenger air service out of Fort Worth’s Meacham Field.
Although Mesa is starting with air service to Houston only, materials provided to Mesa’s investors indicate that Mesa plans to expand service beyond Texas and the contiguous states.
In other words, Meacham is not subject to the restrictions of the Wright Amendment, as in Love Field, and we will watch another city pass us by while we continue under the stranglehold of the Wright Amendment.
On the arena front, we have an interesting dichotomy unfolding. On one hand, the Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Stars, and the City of Dallas want the taxpayers to foot the bill for a brand new sports arena.
On the other hand, a private group of citizens in conjunction with a growing list of private sponsors is making substantial progress towards a complete overhaul, expansion and doming of the Cotton Bowl – all with private money.
I know which approach I prefer. (If the Mavericks and Stars get a private sponsor, like McDonald’s, to pick up part of the tab, maybe we could call the new facility the “Macarena” – talking about dancing in the aisles!)
The Dallas City Council is now dealing with how to reword its ordinance regulating sexually-oreinted businesses. Frankly, I often wondered why a strip joint is in the middle of Lake Highlands right next to a retirement community at Northwest Highway and Lawler.
I suppose it might be one of the weekly field trips on the activity schedule for some of the more “active” residents, so perhaps I should not complain too loudly.
And these are only a few of the many ways in which the City of Dallas, of which Lake Highlands is a proud part, is progressing into the 21st century.
