Mr. Mellow

The mayor responded by telling a Dallas Morning News reporter that the demonstration was "the most distasteful thing that's happened to me the last two years." He added: "I thought the invasion of my family's privacy and the needless endangerment of them was certainly the low point of this particular experience...and I still find that to be a fairly unconscionable, reckless act."

For Kirk, the bitterness still lingers.
"Unquestionably, the decision to picket my house has inalterably changed the nature of our relationship," he says of Price.

But the mayor also concedes he was getting pressured by black leaders to get along with the commissioner. "Not getting into who was vindicated and all that, he got criticism and I got criticism, but the message to both of us was, 'Look, each of you is too important to the African-American community to put your personal issues before the public,'" Kirk says.

These days, Price essentially claims victory for his picket at the mayor's house. At the time, he complained that Kirk was ignoring African-American concerns while working as a front man for white business interests. He now claims, however, that the picketing was all about DISD. "He and I crossed sabers regarding the school district," Price says.

The mayor had initially supported embattled schools superintendent Yvonne Gonzalez, a Hispanic woman to whom Price, Alcorn, and other black leaders objected. Now that Gonzalez is sitting in federal prison on an embezzlement charge, Price says he's been "vindicated with DISD."

On the wall of his county office, Price keeps a picture of Mayor Kirk and himself, smiling. "That's a church member," Price jokes about the photograph. Both men do attend services at St. Luke, but their relationship is much more complex.

The two, indeed, have hugely different backgrounds. Price never finished his stint at a community college because he ran out of money, and got his start in politics at the grassroots level. Kirk attended the University of Texas law school, practiced at one of Dallas' most successful law firms, and was encouraged to run for public office by Ray Hunt, the oil man.

"Kirk got his job from the top down; Price came from the bottom up," says the lawyer Daniel.

It is Ron Kirk's rapid ascension that has challenged Price's standing as the presumed leader of black Dallas.

During the Trinity River debate, Price would end up in an odd position--as the mayor's protector. Kirk's pro-Trinity camp had dispatched Kathy Nealy, Price's former consulting partner, to secure the endorsement of black leaders, including Price's.

Carol Reed, the political advisor who steered the pro-Trinity group and managed Kirk's mayoral campaign, says, "Nealy is always part of our deal. She goes out and gets all the black officials." According to documents filed with the city secretary's office, the pro-Trinity group paid Nealy more than $47,000 for her efforts and expenses. (Contacted by phone for this story, Nealy promised to call back but never did.)

She did bring home results, rounding up endorsements from 12 prominent black ministers representing more than 300 congregations, and enlisting support from state Sen. Royce West, U.S. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, and the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce.

Price admits Nealy called to try to persuade him to get behind the mayor's Trinity plan, but he didn't make up his mind right away. He claims he began to establish his position a few hours later after talking to Demetrious Sampson, one of the few African-American managing partners at a large Dallas law firm and a major contributor to Price's campaigns. (Sampson's law firm earns a good part of its revenues by collecting taxes for Dallas County.) Price won't say he changed his mind about the Trinity when Sampson called--after all, he maintains he was never opposed to it. He will acknowledge that he came on board the campaign after the lawyer's call.

One week before the bond election, Price invited Kirk to one of the Tuesday lunches at St. Luke. The mayor's remarks were forceful and convincing, and a heated debate ensued between Trinity backers and detractors. Kirk talked about 30 years of delays in getting flood protection for neighborhoods along the Trinity, and the support the river proposal had finally managed to generate. "As our friends in Louisiana say, 'If you get on the train, you don't get run over,'" Kirk told the crowd. "This train is moving. Dallas is going to the next millennium."

Decorum broke down during the question-and-answer session. Activist Roy Williams asked the mayor why he always "seemed to be castrating black men," and began rattling off a list of African-American men he thought Kirk had belittled. Before he could get very far, though, Price stepped in as moderator and told Williams, who'd stood vigil outside the jail when Price was incarcerated a few years ago, to pose a question to the mayor or move away from the podium. Price's prodding prompted a self-described environmental activist from Louisiana to refer to the commissioner as the mayor's "henchman."

Kirk shot back, "I don't know where you live, but you haven't been in Dallas too long if you think that."