Mayor Leppert Feels South Dallas's Pain

Last month, Unify South Dallas -- a relatively new coalition of community "grassroots organizations and nonprofits," in the words of The Rev. Gerald Britt Jr., vice president of public policy at Central Dallas Ministries -- asked Mayor Tom Leppert to address just hat kind of economic redevelopment folks living near...

By Robert Wilonsky

December 18, 2009

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Last month, Unify South Dallas -- a relatively new coalition of community "grassroots organizations and nonprofits," in the words of The Rev. Gerald Britt Jr., vice president of public policy at Central Dallas Ministries -- asked Mayor Tom Leppert to address just hat kind of economic redevelopment folks living near Fair Park can expect in the future. Said Britt at that November 5 discussion, South Dallas residents have lived, for decades, with "a lot of pain." Mayor Leppert could not disagree.

"The redevelopment of Southern Dallas has continued to neglect South Dallas," Britt told the mayor by way of introducing several issues of concern, among them the South Dallas/Fair Park Trust fund, the impact of proposed transportation projects and the proliferation of liquor stores in South Dallas. "What we're concerned about is ... South Dallas itself has undergone decades of neglect, decades of blight, decades of having to suffer with urban nuisance and the difficulty of underdevelopment and disinvestment."

This week, in advance of tomorrow's 10 a.m. meeting at Eban Village Community Room on Park Row, Unity South Dallas posted three videos from that discussion. All are after the jump.

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