Report on Trinity Levees Shows A Failure of Dallas' Leadership

Get together all the money you can. Probably create a special taxing district. Rebuild the entire levee system, maybe with some kind of hard-sided (concrete or steel) levee system.

Fine. Call me Cassandra. Maybe there's a less radical solution. But in order to find out what that solution is, don't we have to go back to the basic drawing board? The only person at City Hall who has even called for a fundamental re-examination is council member Angela Hunt.

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Memo to City Council re Trinity River project: It’s not working. Everything is turning to soup.

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More About

• Tom Leppert
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• Santiago Calatrava
• Weather
• Floods

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Mayor Leppert, at the end of the council briefing on the Corps report, said: "I want to be very clear. The toll road, the manmade lakes, the whitewater rafting...I think it's very clear from the conversations we have had today that this is going forward. It's going forward aggressively, and everybody is absolutely in agreement on that."

Everybody who? Leppert actually believes the city cares more about whitewater rafting than a catastrophic flood of downtown?

Former Mayor Ron Kirk, speaking to the Morning News at the end of last week, said, "I just find it remarkable that you would wait until you've gotten that far along with bridge construction and now raise a concern about the integrity of the levees."

Yeah. It is remarkable that the bridge went this far. But, Mr. Kirk, what about the safety of the levees?

Leppert has told the Morning News he sees no reason the city should slow down on the toll road or the eye-candy bridges. But the city has no idea where it's going to get the money for the levee repairs.

Are these people mentally unbalanced?

What you are not hearing from them is this: Oh...my...God. We can't believe we missed this. We are so ashamed. We have endangered the heart, the soul, the life of the city. Whatever months we may have left in public service we must devote to redressing this terrible dereliction of duty.

Should we hold our breath?