Here’s an interesting neighborhood conundrum: Jerry Allen essentially controls all zoning decisions in the Lake Highlands district he represents not because of any legal mandate but because of a gentlemen’s agreement that has been in place for years downtown. That’s the point Laura Miller was griping about yesterday in response to the indictments related to the low-income housing scandal in the southern sector. Miller’s solution: have the council adopt a requirement that multiple councilmen be responsible for zoning requests in multiple areas of the city, rather than just having one councilman in the affected district as the point man. That all sounds great until you consider one thing: There’s no law right now that prevents that from happening, just as there is no law making Jerry the final word on neighborhood zoning. That’s just the way it has been done for quite awhile.
Jerry has relatively absolutely authority over zoning issues here because that allows Sheffie Kadane to have absolute authority over Lakewood/East Dallas zoning issues, and so on in every council district. And it makes sense on one level — ultimately, we elect these guys to keep an eye on their districts for us, so they should be the experts. But because of the gentlemen’s agreement downtown, if Jerry says a zoning request should be spiked, everyone else will fall in line without must questioning.
If that’s the real culprit here, as Miller suggests, there’s a simple, non-legislative solution: Just Say No! Other councilmen aren’t legally obligated to follow Jerry’s lead, so why can’t they just tell him to stuff it if they want to? It doesn’t seem that difficult, and there’s clearly a precedent: No one downtown seems to have had a problem telling Angela Hunt to stuff it. They’ve taken the first step; the next one should be easy.