DART Made a Billion-Dollar Goof

But I have information on my desk showing that the so-called "trigger" conditions that would obligate DART to start the second line, according to DART's "inter-local agreement" with Dallas, have already taken place. I have DART's own document showing that train traffic trying to get through downtown on the existing Pacific Avenue tracks will be way over the capacity of those tracks by 2010.

After the hearing at which Hunt took Thomas to task, DART announced it was no longer thinking of delaying or borrowing money from Dallas' projects. Instead DART offered a menu of ideas, all of which seem to involve moving its operations and finances farther away from public scrutiny or voter control.

I honestly think many members of the board think their problem is mainly that darned public.

That brings us to another Leppert-related problem. Soon after Leppert took office he and his new best buddy, council member Dwaine Caraway, orchestrated the ousting of former DART board member Joyce Foreman, whom they said was too confrontational. Foreman almost certainly was slated to become DART board chairman, until Leppert and Caraway got her sacked from the board.

Instead the chairman's job went to Leppert ally Lynn Flint Shaw, chairman of "Friends of Tom Leppert," a fund-raising committee. Shaw is part of a tight-knit group of southern Dallas leaders who helped put Leppert in office.

Another of that group is radio personality Willis Johnson, a key consultant on Leppert's southern Dallas campaign. Johnson has sizable contracts with DART as a provider of telephone services and security equipment.

Johnson, Shaw and a small coterie of southern Dallas preachers have been rubbing people in southern Dallas raw ever since Leppert took office by insisting that Johnson, Shaw and the preachers are the official gatekeepers for all conversations between Leppert and anybody in southern Dallas.

Multiple sources have told me that Shaw in particular tells people Willis Johnson is the "go-to person" for anybody black or from the southern sector in Dallas. She has said that no one should usurp Johnson's authority, including elected officials and longtime leaders such as Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and state Senator Royce West.

Willis who?

Leppert, remember, campaigned for southern Dallas support by promising people lots of government contracts.

Shaw, you may know, has been in the news recently over an accusation that she forged the signature of the Dallas County district attorney on a document as part of a scam to defraud a creditor.

I also have raised questions on our blog, Unfair Park, about how she can serve as treasurer of "Friends of Tom Leppert" when the city's ethics code prohibits city appointees from being treasurers of political committees. The city ethics code specifically covers people appointed by the city council to "entities that were not created by the city council," such as DART, which is a semi-autonomous regional agency.

City Attorney Tom Perkins says I'm wrong. He says Friends of Tom Leppert is not a political committee. I note that in its most recent campaign finance statement filed with the city, Friends of Tom Leppert reported it had raised $78,500 in a 12-week period, of which it paid $32,543.67 to Carol Reed, Leppert's political consultant.

Also on Unfair Park last week I raised questions about Shaw's own campaign finance statements for an aborted city council race last year. Her reports show her paying $19,225 to lawyer Michael Sorrell as a campaign consultant. Sorrell told me he had received less than $2,000 from Shaw.

Taken together, I think this is what all of this means. You, the taxpayer, have a huge investment in DART. It costs you lots of money.

In order to protect your interests, somebody needs to stop the wheel. No more brainstorms. No more exciting new ways to pluck the goose.

We need an outside audit of DART. But it won't be easy to set one up that's truly outside. At the end of last week, DART's usual "outside" auditor, Deloitte and Touche, informed DART it had just rescinded some kind of separate contract it had with Shaw, who apparently was providing Deloitte with services of some sort. I am working on getting more detail. But that web already seems a bit tangled. Maybe this needs to be a WAY, WAY outside audit.

At a meeting of the DART board executive committee Tuesday morning, Shaw and top board members worked with DART's top lawyer, Hyattye O. Simmons, to find a way to promise that DART will meet all of its rail-building commitments on time but not have to promise anything specific about where the money will come from.

Park Cities board member Raymond Noah balked, saying he thought the board should be open about whether it has enough money to meet its promises. But Noah got nowhere.

Lynn Flint Shaw's big new plan? Promise the moon, schmooze the money. Hey, I could do that. I could promise to build the whole railroad by myself if I didn't have to tell about the money. Sheesh.

And, uh, by the way, this is the businesslike mayor?