Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway has been sort of on my case ever since I wrote an article this article in the paper version of Unfair Park in March. He says I made him out to be a grandstander and a flim-flam man, which I don’t think I did at all. Maybe a stander and, well, a flim. But I never said flam.
I have always felt that Caraway and his wife, former Dallas city council member-turned-State Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway, have accomplished solid and important goals for their constituency. Let’s just say I think the way Dwaine goes at it is sometimes flamboyant and a bit show-bizzy. But being a promoter and a producer can be a good thing too. Here’s an example.
Councilman Caraway has put together a deal for Dallas teenagers that demonstrates the very best of his abilities as a political impresario: Next Saturday at 4 a.m. five chartered buses will leave Dallas City Hall loaded with kids who have been attending Caraway’s “teen summits,” designed to engage inner-city kids and expose them to new ways of thinking.
The buses will drive to the Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake in Houston, where 225 kids and chaperons will tour the center. From there they’ll go on down I-45 to Galveston and have lunch on the beach.
“Some of these are kids who have never seen the ocean and may never see it again,” Caraway told me.
He said the trip is so tightly planned that the buses will even be provided with tubs that can be filled with water so the young people can clean the sand off their feet before reentering the buses.
From Galveston they will come back up the road for bus tours of the campuses at the University of Houston and Texas Southern. The plan is to be back at City Hall about 5 p.m.
“This will not cost the children 15 cents,” he said, “and it will not cost the taxpayers one dime.”
He even said the Observer could send some people. I asked what end of the bus we would be in. He said he’d get back to me. “This is not a show,” he said.
Well, I don’t know. I think it sounds like a really, really good show. --Jim Schutze