Whaddya Know, the City Council Decides Legal Businesses Along Trinity Are Still Legal After All

Private property still legal in Dallas! Or should I say, legal again. The Dallas City Council just voted unanimously to approve a plan to keep several businesses on Rock Island Street, right behind the Trinity River levee down by the Corinth Street bridge. Council members Steve Salazar, Pauline Medrano and...

By Jim Schutze

October 13, 2010

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Private property still legal in Dallas! Or should I say, legal again.

The Dallas City Council just voted unanimously to approve a plan to keep several businesses on Rock Island Street, right behind the Trinity River levee down by the Corinth Street bridge. Council members Steve Salazar, Pauline Medrano and Ron Natinsky spoke, urging approval. They talked about the value of the businesses as taxpayers and employers but also about property rights.

This is in direct opposition to and a contradiction of the council's posture over the last several years regarding the Trinity River plan. Up to this moment, the mentality has been very Soviet. Urged on by the intemperate rantings of Dallas Morning News editorial writer Tod Robberson, the council up until today has treated its Five-Year Plan for the Improvement of the People's Riverfront as trumping the property rights of any and all freeholders who suffer the grave misfortune of being in the plan's way.

So, today we heard -- even from Natinsky! -- caution! Caution! Maybe the city should tread more cautiously and respectfully where private property gets in the way of public imperatives.

Ironies could be heaped on ironies here, but I am too mature, measured and, well, sort of scholarly, really, for all of that. So instead I will summarize by saying, quite simply ...

Up yours, Robber Boy!

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Jim Schutze has been the city columnist for the Dallas Observer since 1998. He has been a recipient of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ national award for best commentary and Lincoln University’s national Unity Award for writing on civil rights and racial issues. In 2011 he was admitted to the Texas Institute of Letters.

Contact: Jim Schutze