Tonight's Toll Road Discussion Offers Something Impossible in 2007. Discussion.

By Jim Schutze Wed., Dec. 3 2014 at 7:08 AM

Wikipedia

Amazing how out of date this 7-year-old picture is of the supporters of the Trinity toll road. They're all wearing Tommy Hilfiger now.

When a panel discussion of the proposed Trinity toll road begins this evening at 6:30 pm at Rosemont Elementary, something will be quite different about it compared with the same kind of events during the run-up to an anti-Trinity road referendum seven years ago. Everything.

Seven years ago the supporters of the road were a lockstep army that included all of the establishment media and pretty much the entire elected and business leadership of the city. They painted any and all opponents as heretics, loons and embezzlers, saving their special venom for City Council member Angela Hunt, who organized the referendum. She was accused of being a ... referendum organizer. How she escaped being burned at the stake we still do not know.

Now it's almost as if we could have a conversation. Just take a look at The Dallas Morning News. Yesterday Brandon Formby had a piece in the paper providing a balanced and informative portrait of the issues. In recent months Formby has given readers key information about the search for funding for the unbuilt 16-year-old project -- insights readers wouldn't have had without his work. Rudy Bush on the paper's editorial has been tough on efforts by the mayor to do a last minute rescue of the project's failing political prospects.

In the meantime D Magazine publisher Wick Allison has become much more than an outspoken critic of the project; he is now a born-again advocate for an entirely other school of thought on urban design, one that views big freeways as anathema to urban development.

Does that mean everybody hates the toll road now? Of course not. Rodger Jones on the News' editorial page keeps a good drumbeat going for it. Our mayor, who announced yesterday he'll run for re-election in May, has made it plain he'll make getting it built a top priority, and I even wonder if that's why he's running.

The point is that between 2007 and the eve of 2015, something very noticeable has happened to us as a city. We can now talk about things like this without immediately going for the throat. I don't want to get totally hysterical about it, but I have to say I almost wonder if Dallas has grown up. A little.

If we have -- if we have gained the ability to countenance disagreement without going straight into the worst kind of character assassination -- then that ability carries with it certain obligations. It means -- and believe me, I still hate this -- that now we may have to actually listen to each other.

I'm not going to dredge back through everything that was said seven years ago -- the lies, exaggerations and expressions of sheer stupidity -- nor am I going to give you any hints about which side said them (begins with, "not us"). It's all hot water over the dam and a waving of the bloody shirt by now.

Things have changed. Something has happened. I'm not sure I can put my finger on it. It's not only the toll road. I sense a new and wholly unaccustomed ability to engage in reasonable debate on a variety of topics, from school reform to Ebola, and everybody hates Ebola. This just isn't the way things used to be in Dallas.

In 1998, not long after my former colleague, Laura Miller, was elected to the Dallas City Council, she said to me (I paraphrase) that the most important thing in Dallas is to never talk about anything ever. I knew immediately exactly what she meant.

It's how people feel in small towns where everyone lives in a fishbowl. You mustn't talk about stuff in a small town, because if you talk about stuff, stuff might happen. People who talk about stuff are either bad people or crazy.

People don't line up on issues anyway in a small town. They line up on the basis of social acceptance. You're in with the good people, or you're out with the bad people. The good people sing from the Good People Hymnal. If you want to be one of them, all you need is the correct hymn number and page.

Cities are different. People engage in public argument in cities, and it's not personal or at least not quite so personal. They can argue for a long time about whose turn it is to take the open stool at the bar without getting mad. Then they get mad. But it's amazing how long they can go. It's a sign of cityhood.

I don't think we've got it yet, but I believe we're getting there. We should be able to go to that thing this evening and hear each other out with hardly any catcalls, groans or angry shouting. Hardly. Any. Unless they bring up bogus traffic projections. Then of course we'll have to go back to our cars and get the baseball bats. The most important thing in a city is to never bring up bogus traffic projections. They never do that in Paris. I bet. It's interesting how the man-made environment shapes us and how we shape the man-made environment.

Rosemont Elementary is at 1919 Stevens Forest Drive near West Davis and North Hampton in North Oak Cliff. Bring a whoopee cushion.

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ozonelarryb topcommenter

Patrick Kennedy bon mot:

Dallas, visions of Vancouver, infrastructure of Detroit.

ozonelarryb topcommenter

Ok gang. Who's here?

RTGolden1 topcommenter

Well, this story establishes one thing; you don't know jack about small town life. Everybody talks about everything and everyone in small towns. They debate everything under the sun, sometimes they even debate the sun.

Corruption in small towns is every bit as avaricious as that in big cities. Sometimes even more so, as the pie is much smaller, the fighting over each crumb is more intense. In the big city, when the city awards a juicy contract to some no-neck in a John Deere hat, you simply have to find out who in the City is related to the no-neck. In the same scenario, but in a small town, you have find out which relation in the City has something to hide that only the no-neck knows about; because 1/2 the city is related to no-neck in some way.

everlastingphelps topcommenter

I won't sit here and be lectured a baby eating libtard kayaker who smells like Lenin.

wcvemail topcommenter

If literary sleuths were to analyze Jim's word usage over the years on this issue, there is one term that would pop up more frequently than any other for these many years. Ahead of "reckless/crazy/illogical/wasteful" at No. 1 in his Trinity Tollway stories is...

Stupid.

casiepierce

Jim, I really wish you would "dredge back through everything that was said seven years ago", and more.

Wyly H has been posting a lot of stuff on his Kill The Trinity Tollroad Facebook page and there are a lot of questions that seem to be coming up from what appear to be relatively newer people who have no grasp of the long history of this project. I keep posting things like "Schutze has covered this".

It would be a nice if you could take a moment and devote one post with links to past articles in order from beginning to now. I realize that it may take a little longer than "a moment" but could make for a nice little primer for all the young'uns.....

mavdog topcommenter

An interesting viewpoint Jim. Does the Mayor's "invitation" to discuss the Trinity Parkway project signify a maturity of our city and how we deal with differing views on issues, or does it reflect a Mayor who understands marketing?

I want to get a seat on your bus and believe the former, but being the cynic that I am that's difficult to do.

I will say this, Rawlings doesn't seem to be the combative, push it down your throat type we've dealt with previously in our city, he knows how to "massage the message" to gain consensus. He likes consensus.

The Mayor may also understand the delpth of opposition to this specific project and, while he clearly wants it done, isn't willing to have it dictate how his term in offfice is judged. Pushing too hard will set how his capability as a Mayor, as a politican, is determined.

He has hopes of being more than a Mayor. This bodes well for your being correct.

Catbird

It'll still be a sales pitch. Watch out for the Delphi plants in the audience.

MargaretHuntHill

The word for the day is "credulous."

holmantx topcommenter

Put A.C. Gonzales on the Mayoral ballot. Kill two birds with one stone.

Hell, knock down the entire system.

JimSX topcommenter

@RTGolden1

Exactly. That's why it's so important never to say anything. You're not as slow as you seem, RT.

cityhalljunkie

@everlastingphelps That's totally unfair. Looks like Lenin? Perhaps. But smells like him? Lenin's been dead a long time, and doesn't smell very good. (On the other hand, he probably doesn't look very good, either.)

RTGolden1 topcommenter

@casiepierce It's pretty simple, in the search box at the top of this very page, type 'Trinity Tollroad'. All the links will magically appear.

holmantx topcommenter

@mavdog

Maybe we should have both.

Kind of a 'trust but verify' on the mayor.

Put it back on the next ballot. It's morphed into something far different than originally presented to the people, and the situation surrounding it has changed.

That way when everyone is really acting like the care deeply about what the citizen is saying at the public meetings . . . they really ARE interested in what we are saying because we're going to be polled on the question when we vote for the next mayor. And those six council persons who are termed out.

wilme2

@holmantx Maybe the change Schutze discusses could lead to a change in how Dallas is governed. Do away with Council-Manager and replace with something else. Course the problem isn't really with the structure, it is with the elected councilpersons who keep picking the internal candidate for city manager...

RTGolden1 topcommenter

@JimSX @RTGolden1 I may be slow, but I'm dim enough to make up for it.

JimSX topcommenter

@cityhalljunkie @everlastingphelps

No, it's all true.

casiepierce

@RTGolden1 @casiepierce When I have done that before, the stories all appear out of order. I am asking for a sequential timeline.

holmantx topcommenter

@RTGolden1 @casiepierce

What's intimidating is to paint your italicized verbiage, right click, and search Google.

mavdog topcommenter

@holmantx

We don't need to have another plebiscite on the Trinity Parkway package specifically.

As you point out, there are 6 council persons to be elected this next year.

That council election should be framed as a vote on if the City should go forward on the Trinity Parkway project or if the project should be dropped.

The voters need to make certain that every candidate go on record as either for or against, and not allow any candidate to waffle and straddle the fence on the issue.

I have no doubt that the voters will go with the candidates who are vocal about being against.

That will be how we "put it back on the next ballot". And how it is finally killed.

holmantx topcommenter

@wilme2 @holmantx

That's why we should put him on the ballot.

Then he would have to articulate his position on the Toll Road.

Regarding the Toll Road, the only difference between the City Manager and the Mayor is that the City Manager actually can DO something about the Toll Road (make the Council vote it up or down). The City Manager owns the Council.

That is why it is important to know where the City Manager is on the Toll Road.

On the larger systemic issue, it is the most direct and immediate way of changing the system. In fact, it's the ONLY way since the traditional method has been effectively nullified by those who would lose the most from such a change.

wcvemail topcommenter

@casiepierce

I know a consultant who can sort that for you. Of course, I'll need a facilitation fee.

primi_timpano topcommenter

Unfortunately council elections are marred by low turnouts and bundled absentee/early voting ballots.

holmantx topcommenter

@mavdog

Lie To Me

We are faced off against trained liars. They will look you dead in your right (or dominant) eye, not blink or drop their gaze, and lie to you.

And we are considered to be stupid. Merely an obstacle to be manipulated.

Staff and former staff lied to the neighborhood, the plan commission and the citizens of Dallas by pitching the ForwardDallas plan but inserting two sentences on page 10, and we got a Sam's Club. The Plan Commission said their hands were tied.

There are countless examples. The Public Hotel.

The two East Dallas council slots I think will probably run on 86ing the Trinity Parkway. South Dallas politicians have a history of swapping votes for money/projects to their districts.

In any case, I would not trust the process to the point where the citizen does not have a back up weapon. The vote.

Because no matter how sincere everyone is, HANDS can and will be tied at the moment of truth, typically after there is nothing the citizen can do about it.