Fabricating. Covering up. Dissembling.
Lying.
And almost no one seems to care about it.
That's disturbing--because it's not a lowly clerk or mid-level stiff who's bending the truth. It's city manager John Ware and his top deputies, first assistant Cliff Keheley and assistant city manager Ted Benavides.
The occasion, of course, is the crusade by the city manager's office to bring Dallas a new sports arena. That may or may not be a good idea--it is impossible for the public to know for sure. There have been so many preconceived notions about what to do (yes, build a new arena) and where to do it (downtown, on land owned by billionaire Ray Hunt) that alternative sites and ideas--such as renovating Reunion Arena--have never received honest consideration. Instead, the city manager's office has orchestrated a dishonest process--one that's played out not in the open, where public officials are supposed to discuss spending up to $200 million in taxpayers' money, but in corporate boardrooms, on private jets, and in closed-door meetings at city hall.
It is this corrupt process, in fact, that may ultimately doom plans for a new arena.
As Observer columnist Laura Miller has revealed, the city manager's office secretly organized a rush-rush study group--appropriately known as "ASAP"--in early April to consider a single Reunion-area location. It failed to say a word about the matter to the council, even when it became clear that the study would require outside consultants--consultants whose fees would quickly exceed the $10,000 limit that city administrators can authorize.
Instead of going to the council, city administrators came up with the brainy idea of paying for the consultants with bond money set aside for the convention-center expansion. The feeble rationale: the consultants were examining (albeit as a secondary issue) what impact a new arena would have on the center. Although the consultants would ultimately cost $49,750, the city manager's office didn't want to go through the time-consuming process of submitting the question to the council.
All this remained a secret--until the Observer forced the manager's office to open up city files on the arena. That's when Laura Miller discovered the existence of the ASAP arena study--and the clandestine methods used to pay for it.
How did the powerful men in the city manager's office react upon learning of Miller's inquiries about the matter? Ware, Keheley, and Benavides blamed it all on a scapegoat. They came up with a cover story: A mid-level bureaucrat, eventually identified as public works staffer Louise Elam, had authorized the consultants' work on her own--deciding, without any approval or authorization, to spend almost $50,000 to study a new arena.
Elam's motivation for this wanton act was unclear--a personal passion for arena studies perhaps? Nonetheless, the city manager's office--furiously practicing spin control--turned the secret study over to the city council and offered this tale to the Morning News, which ate it up. "Sports-site study was drafted without OK," read the November 16 News headline. Benavides was quoted calling the ASAP study "an unauthorized report." He said he hadn't known it existed until about two weeks earlier. Ware said he had known nothing about the study until a week earlier, was "upset about it," and considering disciplinary action against the city staffer.
Then Ware and Keheley went before a closed meeting of the city council--and told the councilmembers the same thing. It was all Louise Elam's fault. They had known nothing about the ASAP study, nothing about the spending of $50,000 on outside consultants.
One might have expected the council to ask some tough questions. How could a mid-level city employee spend $50,000 on her own? If true, wasn't that a frightening revelation about the fiscal controls in Ware's administration?
Nonetheless, the majority of this remarkably timid council similarly gobbled up Ware's tale. If it were up to the council, the matter would have been dropped. Louise Elam might even have been disciplined.
Unfortunately for Ware, Keheley, and Benavides, Miller had uncovered documents proving that Elam had not acted on her own. The ASAP committee, in fact, had been assembled at Keheley's direction. Keheley, in turn, had delegated Benavides to keep in close contact with the panel.
The group included several high-level city administrators, including city budget director Pat Parrish and Elam's boss in public works, Ramon Miguez. All had been aware that the consultants had been hired--with full authorization. First assistant city attorney Charles Bierfeld even confirmed to Miller that he had given his legal blessing for the byzantine method of paying the consultants.
The documents combined with an outcry among city employees against the slimy attempt to blame Elam--a public official with an impeccable track record. So despicable was this act, this attempt by city hall's most powerful men to blame an innocent woman, that several stood up and told the Observer that what their bosses had said was a lie. "She hasn't done anything wrong," Bierfeld declared, about Elam. "And everybody knows that."
Keheley, while denying any personal knowledge that the consultants had been hired, told Miller that spending convention center money on an arena study was wrong. "The contracts were to design and build the convention center expansion, not to do an arena study. Even if there were money left in those contracts...the money goes back into the fund that it was initially authorized."
Benavides, informed by the Observer that documents linked him to the ASAP consultants' study, changed his story.
Yes, he had known about the ASAP study and the hiring of outside consultants. Yes, he had known that convention center money had been used to avoid having to seek city council approval. And yes, Benavides said, John Ware knew about it all from the start.
Ware and Keheley both had been fully briefed about the consultants--Austin Industries and JPJ--while the study was going on; Benavides said he had even spoken to Ware (as well as Keheley) about seeking Bierfeld's advice concerning the use of convention center funds. "I tried to keep him informed of what we were doing," Benavides commented.
After the Observer went to press on the evening of November 21, Ware told Miller again that he knew nothing about the consultants' studies.
While the Morning News, incredibly, continued to ignore Miller's revelations--and Benavides' comments--a few more council members finally began demanding an explanation. Ware refused to meet personally with them. Instead, on November 23, before leaving for a month of cancer treatments, Ware issued a five-page memo to the council.
In it, Ware abruptly concluded that "Louise Elam did not act without authorization to engage outside services."
The memo acknowledges that Keheley had fielded arena-consulting proposals from JPJ for $85,000 and $65,000. Ware even acknowledged that sometime after May 18, he had been advised that JPJ had been retained to assist with the arena study. The memo details what the manager claims happened next: "I then asked how did we pay them and was told by Administrative Action (AA). I then asked for a copy of the Administrative Action, and none could be found. I then stated that we should send a memo to Council and stop the work by JPJ. I did not ask about the amount owed. A memo to Council was never sent, and I did not follow-up on making sure that we did."
Nothing gets by this guy.
Ware then professed shock upon learning about the JPJ study in early November. "Actually there was no reason for me to relate the two given the time lapse involved" and his lack of detailed knowledge about the ASAP committee's instructions, the city manager explained.
"So much hot air," declared Mayor Steve Bartlett, about the entire matter. "Much ado about nothing," sniffed councilman Craig McDaniel. But a few others--notably Bob Stimson, Paul Fielding, and Domingo Garcia--expressed dismay at the manager's response. And for good reason.
As things stand, much remains unresolved.
Benavides says Ware knew about everything; Ware--more or less--denies it. Keheley says no convention center funds should have been used for the arena; yet Benavides claims Keheley knew all about it.
The city manager horribly maligned one of his employees, Louise Elam, in the press and to the council; a week later, he said "never mind"--without a word of explanation or apology for his previous comments. The manager had told the council he knew nothing about the ASAP study until two weeks ago; a week later, he suddenly remembers he was told JPJ had been hired in May.
Was John Ware lying before? Or is he lying now? And if he knew so little for so long, why does his assistant, Benavides, swear he kept his boss informed about everything?
Since when is it acceptable for any city employee--much less the city manager--to lie to the council? To casually slander an innocent subordinate? And to refuse to answer questions from his bosses?
The problem is that the city council and John Ware have forgotten who's boss.
It is the council that is supposed to decide the future course of the city: whether to build a new sports arena--and where. The manager is supposed to provide the council with information--not hide it. And studies are supposed to honestly assess alternatives--not merely provide ammunition for bureaucrats with preconceived conclusions.
The process of considering a new arena for the city of Dallas has spun wildly out of control. So has the behavior of the city manager.
It is time for the council to do something about both.
