Add Ron Price to the long list of elected officials considering a bid for mayor. As recently as last week, the nine-year South Dallas school board member wasn't even sure he wanted to run for the council seat of Leo Chaney, who is being term-limited out of office next year. He called it a lateral move. But with Mayor Laura Miller announcing she's out of the running, Price is eying the top spot in city government. (Not including city manager, assistant city manager, assistant to the assistant citymanager and Maxine Thornton-Reese's campaign donors, of course. ) Today, Price has a scheduled meeting with local business leaders. He was coy about who that group includes, but one of his closest advisors is Jim Neale, an active Republican from North Dallas.
No matter what seat in city government he chooses, Price, whose various ethical dust-ups have been meticulously chronicled in The Dallas Morning News of late, says that he already is zeroing in on his campaign priorities.
"I want to give the police officers more authority to give citations to people who walk around our city with their underwear showing," he said in a phone interview on Sunday. "It's one thing for your pants to hang off your butt, but when it's underneath your buttocks, that's enough. It's embarrassing."
Maybe that's why Laura Miller dropped out. She knows when she's outmatched.
Check out the paper version of Unfair Park tomorrow that will have an in-depth profile on why Price's �ber-political ways don't fly in the new world of DISD. --Matt Pulle
