Whose city is it, anyway?

Maybe on Monday--the last day of a formal records request, after all Pounders' attempts to make the problem go away had failed.

In truth, such scare tactics have worked before--they've successfully bamboozled the city council since February. Because the fact is that our elected officials (who are supposed to be in charge) believe, they swallow whole, just about anything the staff serves up. And if they don't believe it, they rarely, if ever, have the guts to say so.

This is the same council that became absolutely terrified last January at the thought of voting against a movie theatre company--never mind Ray Hunt--when it wanted to put an enormous multiplex in North Dallas. City Attorney Sam Lindsay told the councilmembers (in private session, of course) that they could be held personally liable--have their personal assets seized, for heaven's sake--if they voted against Cinemark Corp. and were later proved wrong in court.

The council did, finally, vote against Cinemark, but only after half of North Dallas came down to city hall and threatened to tear the place apart.

Unfortunately, no one's screaming at them on this issue. There are no homeowners--the backbone of potential grassroots opposition--in downtown Dallas, no taxpayers who feel threatened yet by this project. In large part, that's because the city staff and consultants have refused to say how we're going to pay for this $170 million arena--not to mention what it would cost to run it and pay off the debt on Reunion after we tear it down. The council doesn't know that either--but it somehow, irresponsibly, last week approved negotiations with the teams and Hunt anyway.

That approval, by the way, took place without even an on-the-record council vote. After emerging from executive session, Mayor Bartlett announced that the council had unanimously agreed to authorize the negotiations--"informally," behind closed doors.

Is this any way to handle the public's business?
The bottom line is that the city staff, from the top guy, Ware, to the little guys, like Pounders, are in control here.

Because our bad elected officials are more indebted to the people promoting a new arena than the citizens who voted them into office. And our good elected officials are either too lazy or too scared to get in the path of the train.

Says one scared councilmember: "I'm not convinced we need it, but we are getting a new sports arena.