On the other side you'll find the stack of memos City Hall sent Saturday morning, and, as usual, it's a mixed grab bag of goodies covering some familiar topics. As in: Assistant City Manager Forest Turner kicks things off by telling Mayor Mike and the city council that we're gonna be exceptionally droughty till at least the end of October, if not long after that, and, sure, voluntary water restrictions are nice for now, but if we don't get real wet real soon, "it is estimated that Dallas could implement Stage I of the Drought Management Plan as early as Spring 2012."
Speaking of getting wet: One week ago today Dwaine Caraway gave Park and Rec head Paul Dyer an exceptionally hard time about the five pool closures as proposed in the FY2011-12 budget, with the former mayor insisting the city's done nothing to promote the pools, especially those in his district. Dyer insisted otherwise and provides proof in the packet, including fliers he says were sent to 175,000 Dallas ISD kiddos. He also says the new Dallas Aquatics Plan, mentioned last week, will be presented to the council on August 22 -- except, look, he's not sure how it'll be paid for. "The implementation of the plan is contingent on funding," he writes, "which could include future bond programs and/or the sale of Elgin B. Robertson Park." Which the city already tried to sell last year, till voters shot it down.
City Manager Mary Suhm includes some other budget info concerning her decision to reduce the number of furlough days for city employees, from eight to five. Which restores some money to city workers, but not a lot:
"While this proposal restores 1.17% of civilian employee pay, it leaves civilian employees' pay between 1.91% and 4.91% less than in FY 2009-10. The cost to restore each Mandatory City Leave day is $727,000 for the General Fund and $429,000 for the enterprise and internal services funds. The cost to restore the 5 remaining Mandatory City Leave days is $3.6m for the General Fund and $2.l m for the enterprise and internal service funds."You know who will get a nice hunk of change? Priority Fulfillment Service, an e-commerce company looking to take over 75,000 square feet of the 1,729,294 square feet in Renaissance Tower at 1201 Elm Street. Which is why the city's proposing giving the company $300,000 in an economic development grant if it meets certain conditions, including "the substantial completion of a minimum of $2,000,000 in tenant improvements, receipt of their Certificate of Occupancy and verification of the creation of 600 jobs to the site by April 15, 2014."
Oh, just look down.Friday, August 12, 2011 Memos
