Back Talk Far North Dallas

Plastic grocery bags: No tax on them by city hall

Those ubiquitous plastic grocery bags drew some discussion at City Hall Monday, with the city's environmental guy squaring off with a bag maker about how toxic (or not) the bags are, according to a DMN story. Eric Griffin, the city's interim Office of Environmental Quality director, asked the council to consider eliminating the use of plastic grocery-type bags over a five-year period, primarily by levying a five-cent fee to discourage use and banning them completely if the fee didn't work. But councilman Linda Koop, chair of the council committee discussing the issue, flat-out told Griffin she didn't favor taxing the bags. Meanwhile, Griffin and a Hilex vice president (Hilex is one of the world's largest bag producers) argued about whether the bags are toxic and how quickly they break down in the environment. One interesting tidbit: Those of us who are putting the plastic bags in the city's blue recycling bags apparently are creating work for city employees. Since the grocery bags aren't recyclable, they're being sorted out of the blue bags and shipped to the landfill instead. In the end, Koop and omni-present councilman Ron Natinsky agreed that something needs to be done, perhaps requiring that a certain percentage of the grocery bags be manufactured from recycled material.

City Hall's new plasma HDTV: Would you believe $69,995 retail?

If you were running the city and had $500,000 or so jangling around in your pocket, courtesy of city taxpayers, would you fill a bunch of potholes around town or spend $500,000 sprucing up City Hall — including spending "tens of thousands of dollars" on a 103-inch Panasonic plasma screen HD television that retails for $69,995?

Do I need to tell you what at least some of our council members did? Dave Levinthal does on the DMN website, where he details some interesting expenditures downtown that not only the powers that be aren't apologizing for, they actually seem kind of proud of. In the story, Levinthal gently questions whether — given the city's oft-stated comment that money is too tight to give employees much of a raise, not to mention all of the basic city functions that aren't being done — maybe $500,000 to spruce up City Hall or lots and lots of money on a monster TV isn't a little questionable. But city manager Mary Suhm was having none of that, explaining to Levinthal: "When people come into City Hall, we want it to look and feel welcoming."

The stock market crash, municipal bonds, and city projects

This story in Dallas’ Only Daily newspaper, which details how the North Texas Tollway Authority has had to borrow money from a bank -- at a variable interest rate! -- to make a debt payment deadline because it can’t sell its bonds in the wake of the implosion of the world’s credit markets, is incredibly important. It’s also very difficult to understand, so bear with me.

There are a couple of key points:

First, the tollway authority bet on the come a year ago, and didn’t sell $3.5 billion in long-term bonds to finance its Highway 121 deal. It figured it could get a better deal by selling the bonds piecemeal over the next 12 months, instead of being forced to do it when it made the agreement to take over the 121 project. This is apparently very unusual for agencies like the tollway authority, and may be about as close as they can come to creative financing. (Interestingly, the story doesn’t say if the tollway authority got a good deal on that $3 billion-plus or what the variable rate is on the bank loan.)

Second, the story notes that the tollway authority was stuck with $225 million of the $3.5 billion it couldn’t finance via bonds because of the credit market collapse.

So here’s what we need to ask, given that an agency that is “cash rich and credit worthy” can’t sell municipal bonds to finance a current project:

No-hotel petition group turns in 60,000 signatures

If you've been watching the presidential debates this campaign season, you know one of the issues that keeps popping up is the strategy for whether to breach other countries' borders in our search for terrorists. One candidate says we should do it if we have to; the other candidate believes basically the same thing but says: Why telegraph what we're going to do; that just cuts down on our options.

That's the same thing I keep thinking every time Ron Natinsky opens his mouth about the convention center hotel "vote no" petition: Just yesterday, he told the Morning News yet again that "I’m not a lawyer, but I still don’t understand how they intend to enact a law in May 2009 to stop construction of a building that’s going to start going up in a couple of months.”

National Night Out: Estates West

I went to the Estates West National Night Out celebration last night, as I'm sure a lot of you did in your own neighborhoods. Mayor Tom Leppert, councilman Ron Natinsky, and Advocate's own Ask A Cop columnist Deputy Chief Elliston were all guest speakers. I got to visit with several neighbors, many of whom have graced the pages of Advocate magazine. I snapped some photos throughout the night, which you can see online now. Thanks to all the Estates West neighbors for the lovely dinner, good conversation, and for making me feel so welcome, as always.

Trinity Corridor: The latest news about the project

For those of you interested in a Trinity River fix, check out the Trinity River Corridor Project's latest newsletter, which has a lot of information about what's happening with the big project. Although most of the update has to do with the Audubon Center's opening Oct. 18-19, there's an update about form-based zoning (which impacts building everywhere in the city), along with a list of public meetings about various aspects of the project. It's worth signing up for the periodic enewsletter, too, if you don't want to wait for Back Talk to bring you up do date.

City council priorities: a curfew, a promoter and a trans-fat ban?

DMN city council reporter Dave Levinthal apparently spent some time at the city council's retreat this week, and he highlights a few ideas that council members are considering pushing later this year ... here's a sneak peak at what might come up during the next council term:

• "A daytime curfew for school-aged children in an effort to curb truancy," this idea courtesy of mayor pro tem Elba Garcia.

• Additional crime-monitoring cameras in troubled neighborhoods.

Trinity toll road update

The big news is the last four of paragraphs in the story, courtesy of Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper:

The price of the road, though still uncertain, appears to keep getting higher. Meanwhile, NTTA’s ability to fund projects like the Trinity is getting smaller.

Last April, Mr. Figueredo said NTTA’s current revenues would support some $3.5 billion or so in additional financing for new projects. A month ago, he said, that number had sunk below $3 billion as the credit market tightened.

In addition, he said, revenues for the toll roads already open are falling, thanks to a nationwide trend of Americans — in a historic shift — choosing to drive less.

“So with everything else going on, our revenues are flat,” Mr. Figueredo said. “Now, our experts say that’s just temporary and they will come back. But we don’t really know if that is the case.”

In the old days, we called it burying the lede; that is, putting the most important stuff at the end of the story. And yes, there is some interesting information in the first couple of dozen paragraphs. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Highway Administation may not be able to approve the project to make Mayor Park Cities' "Dallas is a vision and you must support it" goal of building the road by 2013.

Which is all made irrelevant by the last four paragraphs. There may not be enough money to build it, not only because of the credit crunch, but because the road is designed to be self-financing. If not enough people use it, it won't pay for itself. And Americans, thanks to high gas prices, are driving less.

Could someone explain to me, again, why we're building this thing?

Technorati Tags: Trinity toll road,Dallas,Tom Leppert

Convention center hotel: Another perspective

Shawn Williams at Dallas South, which I read almost every day, offers an interesting take on the convention center hotel and potential referendum. One of the most intriguing parts is his assessment of Mayor Park Cities and the city council: “But to think that a majority of citizens will vote against their councilpersons on this particular issue is … arrogant. The fact of the matter is that this is a popular mayor and even a (gulp ) popular council.”

Technorati Tags: Shawn Williams,Dallas South,convention center hotel

Convention center hotel talk — who will be right in 10 years?

Another day, another story about the taxpayer-owned convention center hotel being planned for downtown. This time, the Morning News is talking about the two sides of the equation — for and against the mammoth $550 million-plus project — and points out one of those frustrating aspects of politics these days: There's really no way to now which side is correct.

It's not as if either side is lying or twisting the truth (although you can be sure that each side's opponents are taking that tact). It's more a case of wading through the projections put together by the city's consultants, who have the unenviable task of looking into the future 10 years and projecting average room and occupancy rates. Think about that: We won't know whether the hotel actually meets projections for 10 years, and then most of us will have forgotten what the projections were anyway.