Nobody Has Counted to 10 Yet in that Lockey/Mackenzie vs. City of Dallas Bout

By Jim Schutze Fri., Nov. 21 2014 at 6:15 AM

It's possible that HUD has only fought its way deeper into the wet paper sack.

Couple weeks ago just before leaving town on vacation, I told you the city of Dallas won big and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Affairs lost big in a settlement of the 5-year-old HUD complaint against the city for racial discrimination. Wouldn't you know, court papers were filed the day after I left town, making the win-lose picture a lot less black and white. So this is catch-up on that.

See also: Dallas Won. HUD lost. Oops

And here is an important hint: remember that Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings went out of his way after the settlement to offer near-blubbery thanks and praise to newly sworn HUD Secretary Julian Castro, up until recently the mayor of San Antonio, for his help getting Dallas off the hook.

Castro's only significant experience with HUD, before becoming head of it, was as the target of a HUD complaint for misspending HUD neighborhood stabilization money in 2012 . Maybe it's unsurprising that he came into office somewhat more favorably disposed toward accused mayors than toward HUD's own enforcement lawyers.

At any rate it's safe to say the Castro/Rawlings deal getting Dallas out of HUD's gun-sights was far more political than it was legal. An indication of that can be found buried in events leading up to the settlement: lawyers at HUD -- people who had spent four to five years preparing the case against Dallas -- caught wind of the fact that Castro was going to throw them under the bus. They discussed that fact with people here friendly to their cause, whom I cannot name. They were not happy.

If this had come down according to the lawyers, Dallas would still have a HUD bull's eye on its back. Instead, as is illustrated so clearly in Rawlings' remarks about Castro's help, Dallas was rescued by the political side of the HUD house. A win for Dallas any way you slice it? That's what I thought before I left. Now I'm less sure we can call this fight quite yet.

The meaning of Rawlings' remarks -- it was political not legal -- is echoed in court papers filed two weeks ago right after I left town by attorneys for Curtis Lockey and Craig McKenzie, the downtown tower developers who kicked this hornet's nest five years ago by accusing the city of deliberate racial segregation. They are back in federal court in Dallas asking Judge Reed O'Connor to let them amend a whistleblower lawsuit against the city.

Both O'Connor and an appeals court have tossed the suit in the past but left the door open for lawyers to amend it or file a brand-new lawsuit. In this new document (see it below), Lockey and McKenzie's lawyers point out that the accusation against Dallas is of racial segregation by intentional policy and conspiracy. That accusation has never been adjudicated on its merits.

There are two separate and distinct processes here: the HUD complaint against Dallas, which is administrative, and Lockey and MacKenzie's lawsuit, which is judicial. The HUD complaint, based on allegations from Lockey and MacKenzie, did get to the merits at one point: HUD lawyers looked at everything HUD's investigators had found in a probe of racial policies at Dallas City Hall and ruled that Dallas was guilty of everything Lockey and MacKenzie said it was. But those merits went in the toilet when Rawlings and Castro struck a political deal.

Lockey and MacKenzie's lawsuit was tossed out on technicalities before a judge or jury could even look at the merits. So this new filing is arguing that Lockey and MacKenzie's lawyers have fixed all the technical problems with the lawsuit. Now, they say, it would "further the ends of justice" to let the suit proceed on the merits.

O'Connor, who is leaving the Dallas bench to go to the federal bench in Fort Worth, can say no, in which case Lockey and MacKenzie will file a new suit and begin again with a new judge. Who might also toss them.

All I'm saying here is that so far Lockey and MacKenzie are still alive with their lawsuit; the only time anybody did look hard at the merits of their complaints, lawyers at HUD found Dallas overwhelmingly guilty; and we don't know yet if a jury may hear arguments on those same merits.

By the by and as a footnote: everybody seems all focused now on President Obama's high-stakes high-visibility tilt toward Hispanics on immigration issues. That's all cool, but this Dallas racial discrimination matter is another smaller less visible straw in the wind, too.

There's no way the new secretary of HUD made his own enforcement division look like chumps without some kind of review from over his head, and there ain't too many people over the heads of cabinet secretaries. I don't know what that means. That's over my own head. Maybe it just means the man picks his battles.

Lockey Motion Amend Response to City by Schutze

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db90

"At any rate it's safe to say the Castro/Rawlings deal getting Dallas out of HUD's gun-sights was far more political than it was legal. An indication of that can be found buried in events leading up to the settlement: lawyers at HUD -- people who had spent four to five years preparing the case against Dallas -- caught wind of the fact that Castro was going to throw them under the bus. They discussed that fact with people here friendly to their cause, whom I cannot name. They were not happy."

No, this says it all. Castro and Bryan Greene ( http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/about/principal_staff/bryan_greene ) have done more to hurt the fair housing cause than anyone in the past two decades, in my opinion. This act was selfish and disgusting as another commenter stated below.

As Schutze commented: Elizabeth Julian said Fair Housing was the last frontier for civil rights, and these two sell-outs did more to damage it than anyone.

Thanks Bryan Greene and Julian Castro. I hope this comes back to haunt you one thousand fold.

cre8

"Castro's only significant experience with HUD, before becoming head of it, was as the target of a HUD complaint for misspending HUD neighborhood stabilization money in 2012 . Maybe it's unsurprising that he came into office somewhat more favorably disposed toward accused mayors than toward HUD's own enforcement lawyers."

Doesn't this say it all? Julian Castro had much sympathy for Dallas' wrongdoings.

PerryMoore

You do understand that nobody in government gets the job because he or she is the best person to do it, right?

ozonelarryb

Castro following Rawlings, Amarillo Cab, Hill, Ragsdale, lipscomb, playbook.

holmantx topcommenter

Curtis Lockey and Craig McKenzie may have kicked the hornet's nest, but the hornets were HUD hornets. Those hornets got hosed, and their nest too. They'll stay hosed.

Without HUD buzzing around, staff doesn't care.

Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably. - Truman Capote (1924–84), U.S. author. In Cold Blood, ch. 4 (1965).

jjlellen

@holmantx

You obviously either work for City Hall or have some infatuation with them. Its always the same old comments from you.

Its also obvious Castro did a deal with Rawlings. A very sad commentary given his mother supposedly cared about Civil Rights. Guess she and Julian only cared about Civil Rights when they were benefitting from it, living in public housing themselves.

holmantx topcommenter

@jjlellen @holmantx

Democrats all, BTW.

jjlellen

@holmantx @jjlellen

Im beginning to believe you about democrats being more guilty than Repubs in all this CR stuff. Democrats can be assured Castro would sell his own mother down the road for political advancement. Liberals and the CR community should take note and act accordingly by not trusting him at all when it comes time to vote for his next office.

RTGolden1 topcommenter

@jjlellen @holmantx It makes it much easier to grasp and understand if you do away with party labels. Elected officials have two main functions, regardless of party: Get re-elected and steer pork to associates. There really is no difference between party democrats and party republicans. Oh sure you have your standout ideologues here and there, and you have the TeaParty herd, but by and large you have publicly elected shills, shoveling the public's treasury into the pockets of the privileged.

holmantx topcommenter

@jjlellen @holmantx

Blackocrats are probably even more culpable in this mess. They are the ones who demanded South Dallas share in the federal monies.

Disparate Impact be damned.

They were loud and clear their constituents were tired of North Dallas getting all the development and infrastructure. HUD financed projects are PORK and the power structure in South Dallas wanted it to come their way, and North Dallas was more than happy to oblige.

But the initial and active force that brought LIHTC projects south was South Dallas.

And that is probably the real reason why Castro backed off - he was told he was pissing off Democrats.

Being from San Antonio, he more than most understands that dynamic - Democrats control SA too and have been doing the same thing down there.

JimSX topcommenter

@holmantx @jjlellen

Not scolding, not even disagreeing totally, I have to weigh in your coinage, "Blackocrats." Dallas/Fort Worth is now home to what may be one of the nation's most diverse black demographics, spread out all over the map and up and down the socio-economic scale, when you take the 'burbs into account. What I think you are really looking at is SouthDallasblackocrats. There you do have a tangible identifiable culture, maybe more of a syndrome than a culture. I don't know if it's any more dysfunctional or weirdly out of touch than ParkCitieswhiteopubs culture. But we're always focused on these two extremes, both of them very anachronous, and we miss what is probably the larger reality, out there in the 'burbs, of upwardly diverse folks. Go out there and look at their faces: it's hard to know from that if you're looking at a Democrat or Republican, but my sense is that they all sneer at the Plantation culture of the city, because they all know from their own experiences that no real good can come of it in the long run for anybody.

cre8

@holmantx @jjlellen

Well, if what you say is true, just shows Castro puts politics over the laws of this country. Laws that congress put in place decades ago, he just dismisses.

Says a lot about him - Disgusting!

holmantx topcommenter

@JimSX @holmantx @jjlellen

Probably why we are bleeding taxpayers to the burbs.

holmantx topcommenter

@cre8 @holmantx @jjlellen

Did you watch the speech last night?

JimSX topcommenter

@holmantx @JimSX @jjlellen

I have to admit, the Lancaster City Council is like the Dallas City Council if you sent them all to MIT for four years.

holmantx topcommenter

@JimSX @holmantx @jjlellen

Maybe we should have had our government plate broke by HUD.

Caraway today is mad at Kroger for cutting off the free turkeys in retaliation for his bag fee.

I was in San Francisco recently and I felt like Gene Wilder's character in Young Frankenstein. I ducked into a local pharmacy to get a few things and as I walked up to the check out an old Asian woman deadpanned, "do you want me to put that in a bag?"

I glanced down and about slightly then, en sotto voce, replied . . . "do I?"

She winced like Frau Blucher and said "10 cents each bag"

a horse whinnied in the background.

She had WAFWOT on the tip of her tongue but held it and transmitted an opinion with a look, as only the inscrutable Asian so deftly can impart.