By Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 Reporter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-465483.mp3
Dallas Mayor Miller Forms Blackwood Plan Support Group
Dallas, TX –
Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: More than 100,000 letters went out a few weeks ago, titled "From the desk of Laura Miller." The two-page mailer and response card not only argued for the Blackwood strong mayor proposal, but prompted nearly a thousand replies from respondents who want to help with the campaign. Some volunteers will show up at this Industrial Boulevard warehouse this weekend. Barbara Morris, president of the direct mail operation Laser Image, provided the 25,000 foot space. She works with Allyn and Company, who's running Laura Miller's Strong Mayor campaign.
Barbara Morris, co-owner, Laser Image: This weekend we'll be staging volunteers who'll manually put together yard signs with hammers, nails, and a lot of strength.
Zeeble: And has Morris herself decided on the Blackwood measure vote?
Morris: Undecided, but I'm swaying in the direction of the vote.
Zeeble: The Stronger Mayor, Stronger Dallas committee officially formed one day after the Coalition for Open Government's creation. While it seemed Miller was reacting to the anti-Blackwood group, she actually began working on it months ago. Miller enlisted 30 committee members reflecting the city's broad ethnic, economic, artistic and political diversity. They include the former county health director, a millionaire businessman and philanthropist, and an international rock star. Not included are former council members, who seem to universally oppose the Blackwood measure. But there's also a former mayor who says a change in city government is past due.
Steve Bartlett, former Dallas Mayor: The council/manager system by definition has very diffused power. It's kind of everybody's business is nobody's business.
Zeeble: Steve Bartlett was Dallas mayor in the early '90s. Now the president of a business trade group in Washington D.C., he says the city's council/manager form of government stopped working back in the '70s. It's time, he says, for the city to catch up with the nation's other big cities.
Bartlett: Council's kind of in charge, mayor's kind of not in charge, city manager is kind of in charge - All players must do a dance to see who sets goals. It becomes confusing, and you lose accountability.
Zeeble: Attorney and former Congressional candidate Regina Montoya says you also lose the ability to compete for businesses that drive the economy.
Regina Montoya, attorney; member, Stronger Mayor committee: If the council/manager system were working, then Dallas should be able to - say we are successful in competing against Phoenix, Houston and others. That's not happening. I'm looking for "what kind of change do we need." This may not be the perfect answer, but at least it gets people thinking about what it is that makes Dallas competitive.
Zeeble: Laura Miller sees herself as the person who can bring more businesses to the city, when she has the power that's equivalent to the chairman of the board - or in this case, city council. As the only city-wide elected official, she would lead the 14 members each elected from their own district.
Miller: You can have 14-1 and be inclusive, make sure everyone all around the city is at the table. But you need one person who's held accountable, to make sure things are running efficiently.
Zeeble: Political science professor Keith Fitzgerald, in Sarasota, Florida, has heard that argument before in his own town. Make the Sarasota mayor stronger, urged business leaders a few years ago, so the city can run like a business. They forgot, he says, city managers were first installed seven or eight decades ago to do just that.
Keith Fitzgerald, Political Science Professor, New College, Sarasota: The whole idea behind it in essence was that politics is bad. They especially were concerned in those days with the corrupt machines that doled out a lot of patronage - toadied up to big interests and delivered what people thought - even when it wasn't formally illegal as a corrupt form of government.
Zeeble: These days, say backers of the Stronger Mayor, Stronger Dallas committee, only the mayor - not a city manager - can effectively run a city as big as Dallas. Miller says, however, she would still keep someone to fill the daily role of city manager. The chance that a majority of Dallas voters will agree with her, says SMU political science professor Cal Jillson, depends in part on money and organization. It helps, he says, that Miller's using the seasoned and successful Allyn and Company.
Cal Jillson, Political Science Professor, Southern Methodist University: I think Laura Miller can raise the money. Rob Allyn will produce the commercials that favor Blackwood.
Marc Stanley, Treasurer, Stronger Mayor, Stronger Dallas Committee: We need several hundred thousand dollars, and we're well on our way to achieving our financial goal.
Zeeble: Marc Stanley is the Treasurer of the Stronger Mayor committee.
Stanley: I would say people have been very generous so far to responding to my phone calls and other committee members' phone calls to raise money.
Zeeble: Stanley says the committee will reveal specific donor names and dollar amounts, but not yet. What's unknown at this point, says Cal Jillson, is how much money the Blackwood proposal opponents have raised and whom they'll hire to produce ads. Then, the city council must come up with an alternative to strengthen the mayor's office, as promised.
Jillson: Voters now are skeptical, and rightly so, if the council to be able to come up with alternative that's thoughtful and balanced. But if they defy public opinion and do come up with a proposal that, say, Ron Kirk lauds as thoughtful, and that Elaine Agather and the Dallas Citizen's Council are willing to get behind, then I think they will have defied skepticism and people will turn to them with willingness to look and listen.
Zeeble: That's what the Citizen's Council, a long-standing, influential business organization has just done. Elaine Agather is the chair.
Elaine Agather, chair, Dallas Citizen's Council: The Dallas Citizen's Council is making an initial financial commitment of $200,000 today to support the defeat of the Blackwood amendment. We are throwing our support into the city council efforts to find a solution that offers a stronger mayor and sufficient checks and balances.
Zeeble: At the moment, though, the Citizen's Council is operating a bit on blind faith. The city council still must come up with its alternative to the Blackwood plan. Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, along with Agather, isn't worried.
Ron Kirk, attorney; former Dallas Mayor: We have been equally clear with the council that we, the people of Dallas, expect for them to come forth with a real substantive alternative and to take a public vote on that. If you're asking, "Do we trust the council?," we do.
Zeeble: Mayor Miller, meanwhile, remains undeterred in her efforts to see the Blackwood proposal approved by voters in May. She's confident it'll pass. For KERA 90.1, I'm Bill Zeeble.
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