Red Light Cameras

Richardson green lights red lights for 10 years

The Texas legislature is debating a bill to outlaw red light cameras, but may grandfather existing contracts cities have with red light camera manufacturers and operators. That's led to a rush of cities to extend their current contracts, stretching out the time they can operate these safety devices in case the legislature goes through with the ban.

Ian McCann, in The Dallas Morning News Richardson blog, reports that Richardson joined other cities in extending its contract by ten years. McCann offered no editorial position on the decision, but others did.

McCann reports that "Former City Council candidate Tom Bache-Wiig called on the council to let the current contract expire, citing privacy concerns and a 'slippery slope' that using the cameras puts the city on." Thankfully, Bache-Wiig was speaking from the public microphone, not from a seat on the city council. The city's voters exercised good judgment when Bache-Wiig came in third in a three candidate race for a seat on city council.

One commenter gives a more common argument against red light cameras: "This is ALL ABOUT GREED and has absolutely NOTHING to do with safety." Another commenter supplies anecdotal evidence, saying he was rear-ended once when he stopped at a red light.

In fact, revenue from red light camera programs are hardly a windfall for city coffers. Over time, as drivers quit running red lights with impunity, revenue drops off, in some cases forcing cities to either halt the programs or subsidize them with revenues from other sources.

As for safety, studies are mixed, but a majority show red light camera programs are correlated with a reduction in serious injuries and deaths. Some studies show a temporary increase in rear-end accidents, which are less likely to be fatal. Other studies don't show even this undesired consequence.

Richardson is doing the right thing in trying to preserve this safety tool, but it really ought to be more proactive in getting the facts out regarding the costs and revenues of Richardson's program and the resulting improvement in safety in Richardson's intersections. There's too much misinformation being disseminated on this topic by people who let their suspicion of government, all government, cloud their better judgment.

Richardson Council Quotes

The winners write the history

Ian McCann, in The Dallas Morning News Richardson blog, publishes his analysis of the recent city council. It largely conforms to what's been published here, crediting the Richardson Coalition PAC with having a major influence in the outcome of the election and subsequent re-election of Gary Slagel as mayor by the new council.

What's new in McCann's report are the quotes from members of the PAC and from election winners. John Murphy, re-elected to his Place 3 seat, says, "You can't deny that all the winners benefited from [the Richardson Coalition PAC]." Just recognizing the obvious, that.

Murphy goes on to explain his vote to replace Steve Michell as mayor with Gary Slagel. McCann reports, "Mitchell was good, [Murphy] said, but spent too much time responding to less consequential issues." I don't recall Murphy bringing up any such criticism of the mayor or the city council's business management during the campaign.

Gary Slagel, a big beneficiary of the Richardson Coalition, says, more than a little improbably, "I didn't know how active the coalition was going to be when I put my [campaign] committee together."

Bob Nusser, a former council member and PAC contributor, says revealingly, "We got bent out of shape when the rookies two years ago ... changed things." He also says brazenly, "One of our prime criteria is we ain't going to go negative, and we ain't going to contribute to candidates."

A fact check refutes Nusser's two claims. The Richardson Coalition PAC's "voter's guide" was a contribution in kind to candidates supported by the PAC, as admitted by the PAC itself in a required filing with the Texas Ethics Commission. As for not going negative, consider these passages from the so-called "voter's guide" the PAC mailed to Richardson voters.

• "[Chris] Davis has resorted to unethical, mean-spirited and untrue negative attacks against opponents."
• "[C]o-workers say [Diane Wardrup] is 'very hard on people who work with her, especially women volunteers.'
• "The Coalition strongly considered Mrs. Wardrup for an 'Honorable Mention,' but her recent untrue, negative attacks using illegal flyers at a recent candidate forum caused us to withdraw that distinction."
• "In the opinion of the Coalition, [Dennis] Stewart has disqualified himself from serving on the City Council. He seems appalled that anyone would challenge his election and has run probably the most untrue, negative campaign in recent Richardson history against Mr. [Amir] Omar."

In the end, defeated incumbent Dennis Stewart summed up the election, saying "A handful of people with a lot of money can get things done." Yes, they can.

Richardson Council Election Lessons Learned

More money, more partisan, more politics

Now that the Richardson City Council election is history, it's time to draw some history lessons.

• Money Talks

  This was probably the most expensive election in Richardson history. Campaign yard signs bloomed like spring wildflowers. Campaign flyers stuffed mailboxes. Campaign robocalls kept home phones ringing. Political action committees spent freely. The Richardson Fire Fighters Association PAC reported $12,885 in political expenditures this year, mostly in a losing effort. The Richardson Coalition PAC reported $8,317 in political expenditures, in a winning effort, as all of its endorsements prevailed in their races.

  Those same reports suggest that the Richardson Coalition PAC's efforts were significantly more than that. Since the last election, the PAC has reported contributions of over $39,000, political expenditures of $8,400, and cash on hand as of April 29 of $131.09. In other words, this PAC is spending a lot of money on things that the PAC doesn't consider political expenditures. Things like surveys that the PAC used to imply that the council members it opposed weren't sufficiently guarding Richardson against an imagined invasion of adult-oriented businesses or were being unduly influenced by union PACs (i.e, Richardson fire fighters). Total up all expenditures and the Richardson Coalition PAC's monetary influence on Richardson politics greatly exceeds its reported "political expenditures".

  Those reports also reveal a bit of disingenuousness on the part of the Richardson Coalition PAC. In an earlier "editorial", ironically having "regarding transparency" in the title, the PAC claimed to have not contributed a single dollar to political candidates. As the following correction included in the PAC's filing with the Texas Ethics Commission makes clear, there is more than one way to contribute to political candidates.

  "Since Richardson City Council member Mr. Steve Mitchell ran unopposed we incorrectly assumed we did not need to show a portion of the expense for the voter's guide as a donation since he would have won without our support. Our voter's guide did support Mr. Mitchell so therefore we are considering a portion of the expense for the voter's guide to be an in-kind donation to his campaign."

  By the way, that footnote appeared in the PAC's "8 Day Before Election" report, due May 1, but not filed until May 18, more than a week after the election, too late for voters to take into account this PAC's spending before voters had to make their choices at the polls.

• Ebby Halliday Has No Coattails

  If we learned that money talks, we also learned that having Ebby Halliday in your corner doesn't. Sheryl Miller and Chris Davis, the two candidates for Place 3 who each claimed to have been endorsed by Ebby Halliday, lost handily to John Murphy, who made no such claim.

• Elections Have Consequences

  As expected, Gary Slagel, the former mayor endorsed by the Richardson Coalition PAC, was restored to that office by the new council, all of whom were elected with the support of the PAC.

• The Perpetual Campaign Is With Us

  After the election, the Richardson Coalition PAC " gloated about sweeping the field" (The Dallas Morning News' Jeffrey Weiss' characterization, not mine). The PAC takes credit for the increased turnout at the polls. By one estimate, turnout increased from 11% to just over 12%, a questionable return for the money spent on the election. Somehow, I agree with Jeffrey Weiss' implication that the PAC is happier with who won than with how many voters turned out. In any case, the real reason for the PAC's editorial is revealed in this sentence near the end:

  "In an effort to achieve [increased voter turnout in future], we would like to invite you to help us increase citizen awareness and involvement by inviting your friends and neighbors to join the Richardson Coalition e-mail community."

  In other words, the Richardson Coalition PAC intends to run a perpetual campaign. Just don't expect it to call it that. Expect the PAC to continue to claim to be about "policy and principles," not partisan politics.

• If You Can't Beat 'em, Copy 'em

  Some of the opponents of the Richardson Coalition PAC, so vocally upset with the influence this PAC had on the recent election, have decided to adopt the same playbook. Destiny, of the Conserve & Protect blog, hints broadly that efforts are underway to establish a new political action committee, presumably to counteract the influence of the Richardson Coalition PAC. If this effort succeeds, expect the next election to be even more expensive than the last.

Sonia Sotomayor is one "Wise Latina"

... and Rod Dreher is sometimes one wise Cajun

I have my differences with Rod Dreher of The Dallas Morning News (actually, lots of differences), so I feel it's only fair to recognize instances where Dreher gets it right. Like many conservatives, Dreher jumped on some out-of-context remarks by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor to suggest she is guilty of racism and sexism. Today, Rod Dreher supplies the context of the remarks and admits that, in fact, the judge's remarks were "both idealistic and realistic" instead of racist or sexist. Says Dreher:

"Taken in context, the speech was about how the context in which we were raised affects how judges see the world, and that it's unrealistic to pretend otherwise. Yet -- and this is a key point -- she admits that as a jurist, one is obligated to strive for neutrality."

Kudos to Rod Dreher for putting the sound bite into context, for putting journalistic integrity above partisan political advantage. Dreher does mean well, even if his own upbringing sometimes warps the way he sees the world. ;-)

Cotton Belt rail line; Voter ID

The Nightly Build

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Public-Private Partnership is Key to Rail

The Dallas Morning News reports that DART and Fort Worth's The T are exploring partnering with private companies to accelerate the construction of the Cotton Belt commuter rail line by as much as 15 years. The line would run from DART's Red Line station at George Bush Turnpike in Richardson to the DFW airport and on to Fort Worth. The first section could open as early as 2013.

Key to the project would be a public-private partnership that would exchange private funding for the rights to operate the line. Given that fare revenue alone is not expected to make the project profitable, DART and The T are exploring the possibility of sharing in the increased property tax revenue expected to be generated by developments along the line.

Given that DART board member John Danish just estimated that funding for DART's Orange Line to Irving might be short as much as $190 million, some kind of creative public-private partnership may be the only way the Cotton Belt line can ever get built.

Railroad history in America has always involved a public-private partnership, much more so than highways. DART should be commended for exploring just such a partnership to make a reality a long-planned and much-desired east-west line between the northern suburbs and DFW airport.

In that previous paragraph, I originally wrote that an east-west rail line was "much-needed." I changed it to "much-desired" and even that might be wishful thinking on my part. A DMN reader commented that Dallas differs from New York or Chicago in that our downtown is small in comparison to those cities, implying that there won't ever be enough demand for public transportation to downtown to make rail lines economically feasible. In that case, east-west lines make even less economic sense. That said, if private investment thinks it's worth the risk, the rest of us should get on board.

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GOP Win By Losing

Michael Landauer, in The Dallas Morning News, suggests that the Texas GOP actually wins by failing to pass their requirement for voters to show a photo ID at the polls. He argues that the issue is popular with voters and easy to cast those opposed to it as wanting to steal elections. According to Landauer, keeping it around as an issue for future elections will help the GOP in rallying the base and fundraising.

The nominal reason why the GOP supports the measure is to prevent voter fraud. But there's so little documented evidence that such fraud exists that passing voter ID will have negligible impact on fraud.

Democrats claim that passing voter ID may inconvenience some voters enough to suppress the voter turnout somewhat. In the battle of public perception, Democrats call the bill a voter suppression bill, not a voter identification bill. The votes suppressed may trend Democratic. Whether there's substance to this claim is debatable.

The real value of voter ID seems to be as a wedge issue to get out the vote. Landauer argues that the issue favors the GOP. But for every conservative convinced of massive voter fraud by illegal immigrants or groups like ACORN, there may be an Hispanic voter who sees this as a GOP effort to disenfranchise Hispanics. The election calculus is difficult to measure. But Landauer's analysis might explain best why a voter ID bill has such a difficult time getting passed. Both parties like the politics of the issue just the way they are now.

Hiatus

Ed Cognoski is on hiatus.

Richardson election analysis

The Nightly Build

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Andrew Laska Explains the Results

Andrew Laska, in The Richardson Echo, analyzes the recent Richardson City Council elections. He identifies Gary Slagel as the main issue in the race, specifically Slagel's replacement as mayor by Steve Mitchell after the 2007 elections. Laska reports the common theory that the defeat of incumbents Pris Hayes and Dennis Stewart was at least in part due to their support of Mitchell in 2007.

But Laska lays out other reasons for their defeats, too. Pris Hayes' strength might have been overstated. She won her seat in 2007 in a run-off for an open seat. She didn't campaign hard in 2009. There might have been a backlash against Dennis Stewart for negative campaigning by his supporters against Amir Omar, questioning his ethnicity and religion.

In the end, Laska, like every other observer, concludes that "the Richardson Coalition clearly played a part in galvanizing the six wins." All seven of the candidates they endorsed won their race. You can't argue with that success.

Paying to blog

The Nightly Build

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Huffington Post Auctions Internship

Colleen McCain Nelson, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, asks the question that earns today's award for unintended irony. She reports that The Huffington Post is auctioning off an internship, with bidding already at $13,000. Asks McCain Nelson, "Suddenly, journalism has become a pay-to-play venture? Whoever has the most money gets to report their version of the news?"

Suddenly? Is McCain Nelson not aware that the newspaper business has always been about money? The deeper the pockets of the publisher, the bigger his voice in the community? What's the old warning to anyone who doesn't like what's being said about him in the press? Don't pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel? From William Randolph Hearst to Rupert Murdoch, hasn't journalism always been a case of whoever has the most money gets to report their version of the news?

But McCain Nelson is probably thinking about the poor ink-stained wretches who work in the newsroom (i.e., herself). She needs the paycheck. She can't afford to keep working for a newspaper if she not only won't get a paycheck anymore but has to pay for the privilege of working there. Not to worry. The Huffington Post gimmick is not likely to be the wave of the future. Blogging might be, but paying to blog? No way. Look at it this way. For years, rich golfers and baseball fans have paid top money to play in pro-am tournaments and attend spring training camps with major leaguers. Journalists now have equal star power, where rich amateurs are willing to pay to rub elbows with the pros!

Recycling campaign signs; DMN blog count

The Nightly Build

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The Indefatigable Pris Hayes

Full disclosure: I endorsed Pris Hayes for re-election to her Richardson City Council seat.

I was taken by the fact that, on election day, Pris Hayes' twittered: "VOTE! & then attend Animal Shelter ADOPTATHON Festivities 10a-4p." Which other candidate, on the most important day of any politician's life, election day, would give equal time to the animal shelter?

Now, after her close loss to Bob Macy for the Place 5 seat on council, she twitters, "plastic campaign signs often no. 5's, so those local candidates who did not want them returned, asked me to recycle (over 200). The 4 R's!"

Pris Hayes, still concerned about the environment, finds gold in the tailings of a lost election campaign. Or, if not exactly gold, at least something that can be recycled. Pris Hayes brought something unique and necessary to the Richardson City Council. Her defeat leaves a hole on council that I'm not sure who, if anyone, is going to fill.

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Can You Have Too Many Blogs?

Zac Crain, on FrontBurner, has blog size envy. He once joked that The Dallas Morning News had 50 blogs. Someone counted and reported that it was *only* 38. Evidently, someone on FrontBurner has been sneaking peeks at the DMN because Zac Crain tells us today that the blog count over there is now 52.

I applaud the DMN on its latest additions to its blog roll, including a blog devoted to Richardson. Every town should have a blog. Every newspaper should blog about the communities it hopes to sell product into. The Dallas Morning News is late. Let's hope it's not too little, too late.

By the way, FrontBurner itself used to be a blog. Not any more. Real blogs have reader comments.

Cornyn, Perry, Sessions; Richardson trash

The Nightly Build

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Cornyn, Perry and Sessions: Who Is Most Conservative?

Republican politicians in Texas have been competing recently to claim the most conservative wingnut talking point. First, it was Senator John Cornyn Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) saying that the Republicans had to become more like the Taliban to regain power. Then, it was Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) offering secession as an option in the face of a Democratic administration in Washington. This week, it's Richardson's own Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) wearing the tin foil hat. According to Todd Gillman in The Dallas Morning News Trailblazers blog, Sessions sees a conspiracy in Washington to "diminish employment and diminish stock prices" as part of a 'divide and conquer' strategy on the part of Democrats. What would be the point of such a self-defeating strategy? Sessions says President Obama intends "to inflict damage and hardship on the free enterprise system, if not to kill it."

As Ray Teixeira, author of The Emerging Democratic Majority says of Republicans, "Their biggest problem is that they really believe what they believe."

Correction: Max Edison and Alex Rotenberry tell me that it was Pete Sessions, not John Cornyn, who said the GOP should model itself after the Taliban. They are correct. I shouldn't have relied on memory and instead should have done some fact-checking.

How about this for Cornyn? Remember Inauguration Day when he used a parliamentary maneuver to delay Hillary Clinton's Senate confirmation by one day, just to embarrass Clinton and Obama on Inauguration Day?

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Trash: Not In My Back Yard

It might seem like this next story about trash is related to the previous item about Cornyn, Perry and Sessions, but I assure you the juxtaposition is merely coincidental.

The Dallas Morning News reports that some Richardson residents who live near the Lookout Drive trash transfer station aren't happy that they built or bought houses near the Lookout Drive trash transfer station. Now that the North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD), who owns and operates the station, has plans to renovate the 35 year old building, expanding its size and fully enclosing it for the first time, nearby residents see an opportunity to correct their fundamental mistake in ignoring the first rule of real estate: location, location, location. The residents say they just want to limit the size of the station. NTMWD argues that the larger capacity is needed to add flexibility to the system, allowing load shifting during temporary shutdowns of other transfer stations.

Residents want NTMWD to add capacity for flexibility somewhere else, anywhere else, just not Richardson, at least not in their neighborhood. So far, the residents haven't offered an alternative that doesn't just shift the burden to someone else's neighborhood. As long as it remains a classic NIMBY argument, the local residents are not likely to prevail. All the city council candidates, who are elected by the city as a whole, support the plans to renovate and expand the Lookout transfer station.

Richardson council election wrapup

The Nightly Build

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How the Winners Did It

Like most, I was surprised that, with three places with three or four candidates, there were no run-offs. Mark Solomon won his four-way race by 26%. John Murphy won his three-way race by 24%. Gary Slagel won his three-way race by 21%.

Like most, I was surprised that the candidates endorsed by the Richardson Coalition PAC swept the election, winning all seven places. The candidates endorsed by the other PAC who spent significantly on the election, the Richardson Fire Fighters Association (RFFA), went one for seven. Steve Mitchell, running unopposed in Place 6, was endorsed by both the Richardson Coalition and the RFFA.

Reactions were somewhat predictable. Supporters of the losing candidates credit (blame?) the influence of the Richardson Coalition, especially the "voters guide" it mailed to Richardson voters, in determining the outcome. Defeated Place 7 candidate Dennis Stewart, was quoted in The Dallas Morning News as saying, "A handful of people with a lot of money can get things done." Reader "Destiny" put it more bluntly: "The only answer I can come up with is we had a bunch of mindless sheep voting with the coalition flyer in hand."

John Murphy campaign worker William J. 'Bill' McCalpin had a different explanation.

"I can tell you that the John Murphy campaign won a three-way race outright because of sheer hard work. Yes, I am sure that the naysayers are already muttering about the election being bought by the Richardson Coalition, but the fact is the Coalition is not some monolithic monster that rules Richardson - the Murphy campaign actually didn't have much to do with the Coalition because we were running our own race."

My own view? There's a grain of truth in each of the explanations. Without professional polling of the electorate, it's impossible to say how much weight each explanation carried.

With a population of 100,000, only 7,100 people voted. Maybe 10-20% of those attended even one of the candidate forums. That says there's a lot of either contentment or apathy among the electorate and not that many fully informed voters. Unless something is done to change the dynamics, the incumbents are going to win in such an environment. And, in four of the six races with an incumbent, the incumbent did win.

Into that environment, drop a professionally done "voters guide" into everyone's mailbox and expect the Richardson Coalition PAC, who endorsed those four incumbents, to have a big impact. Big endorsements by everyone from Congressman Pete Sessions, former Police Chief Larry Zacharias, and Richardson benefactor Charles Eisemann for former mayor Gary Slagel was bound to rub off on the other candidates also endorsed by the Richardson Coalition PAC, whether incumbent or challenger. In this reading of the returns, Gary Slagel not only had strong support, he had long coattails.

In my view, the negative campaigning by both sides hurt their respective candidates about equally. The Richardson Coalition PAC's heavy-handed "voters guide" discredited the PAC in my eyes. But the anti-Coalition forces' demonization of the PAC and Charles Eisemann and Gary Slagel turned me off as much or even more. In the voters' view, I guess that both sides had more success driving up the negatives of their opponents than they themselves suffered by going negative, with the Richardson Coalition PAC coming out ahead simply because their direct mailing reached more voters.

With such a small turnout, it's plausible that an active candidate with enthusiastic volunteers can turn out enough vote to tip an election, or at least get over that 50% level needed to avoid a run-off. Testimony about some of the lesser-financed candidates that they were knocking on doors is no doubt true. But it's impossible to measure just how much "shoe leather" effort was put into each candidate's campaign and how receptive the voters were to such efforts. It's one thing to talk to a voter. It's something else again to get them to go to the polls for you. I have no doubt that, in local elections, just like in national elections, in the end, get-out-the-vote efforts are critically important. The winning candidates, even if they didn't exceed the efforts of the losing candidates, must have put enough effort into this part of the campaign to get several thousand voters out to mark their ballots for the winners.

In the end, the numbers tell the story. Four incumbents won. Two lost. There was one open seat with four candidates. What all the winners had in common was that they were endorsed by the Richardson Coalition PAC. No matter the individual candidates, no matter the uniqueness of each campaign and campaign staff, the common trait of being endorsed by the PAC is hard to overlook. Given that the PAC's most visible effort in this campaign was that one mailer that everyone was talking about, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the Richardson Coalition PAC had the names, the money, and the skill to win themselves an election. The PAC may have united the council. Whether they've irreparably divided the city in the process remains to be seen.

Richardson election results

The Nightly Build

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Richardson Coalition PAC's Endorsements Sweep

Richardson City Council election results are in and according to Ian McCann of The Dallas Morning News Richardson blog, "the results are pretty clear: If you were endorsed by the Richardson Coalition, you'll be sleeping well tonight."

There were no hot issues in Richardson this election. Instead, some tried to make the Richardson Coalition PAC itself an issue. It looks like that campaign strategy backfired.

That there were no hot issues in Richardson this election is good news. All the candidates had similar views on virtually every issue raised during their series of candidate forums. No matter who won, the next Richardson City Council was going to be focused on neighborhood revitalization, attracting new business and retail, promoting regional transit, and even streaming council meetings on the Internet. And that's as it should be.

Richardson PACs

The Nightly Build

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Richardson Coalition and Firefighters: Not BFF

The Richardson City Council election has two visible political action committees (PACs) busily trying to influence the outcome. The Richardson Coalition PAC has mailed a flier with its candidate recommendations. The Richardson FireFighters Association (RFFA) has done the same and also has made direct contributions to candidates' campaigns. This is normal. This is democracy. This is good.

What's also normal, but not so good, is for one PAC to claim the other PAC's involvement in politics is dangerous. The Richardson Coalition PAC published an editorial to that effect:

"While we voice no position about unions themselves, the view of the Richardson Coalition is that unions should not have a voice in the governance of our city. Further, we believe that unions attempting to represent local municipal workers should not attempt to unduly influence city elections."

In short: "Shut up and get back to work. Leave politics to us."

Interestingly, the list of financial contributors to the Richardson Coalition PAC is dominated by people listing their own employment as "retired." Surely, the Richardson Coalition PAC doesn't think that the only people who should have a voice in Richardson politics are people who don't work.

Today, the Richardson Coalition PAC attempts to reinforce its point with an email citing two recent stories in the media. The first, by Theodore Kim in The Dallas Morning News, reports on the involvement of the Plano Firefighters Association in Plano elections. The Richardson Coalition PAC says the story is about "concerns" but it's hard to find anything negative about the PFFA's actions in the story itself, except a quote from one candidate who didn't win the PFFA's endorsement. According to the story, the PFFA does not have collective bargaining power; most of its members "earn relatively modest salaries" although "more than 50 make more than $90,000"; its involvement in elections is financed from donations, not dues; and the reward for residents of Plano is living in "one of only a handful of North Texas cities to claim a top fire-suppression rating from the Insurance Services Office. The rating keeps insurance premiums lower citywide."

Sounds benign, maybe something Plano residents should feel good about, right? So why would the Richardson Coalition PAC want the firefighters not to express their opinion in local elections? Perhaps this sentence in the story holds the key:

"The rise of Plano's association is a reflection of a city undergoing political change. Long dominated by real estate interests, new constituencies have risen as growth has slowed."

Richardson is a decade ahead of Plano along this road of change. Richardson is landlocked. It's built out. The easy days of grading cotton fields and erecting new housing developments are over. Now the need is for neighborhood revitalization and attracting new businesses to go into decaying shopping centers. The political power base in Richardson is shifting accordingly. The Richardson Coalition PAC can't like what it sees ahead.

The other news story the Richardson Coalition PAC points to is nothing but a rant by Scot Walker of "Collin County Republican" against unions, the Obama administration, California, Berkeley, Michigan, Michael Moore, the Huffington Post, and a host of other evils. About the only thing Walker doesn't do is accuse the Plano firefighters of being a bunch of commies. "I don't care much for unions" he says, in what is an understatement compared to the rest of his diatribe.

That the Richardson Coalition PAC aligns itself with such a partisan rant is disgraceful. This is the latest way the PAC has damaged its own reputation by its actions this election. If there is a PAC that threatens to harm Richardson itself, it's more likely to be the Richardson Coalition PAC than the Richardson FireFighters Association. The best thing the Richardson Coalition PAC can do, for itself and for Richardson, is to stop, reflect, and take a less partisan, divisive attitude going forward.

RISD court supervision; Ebby Halliday; Richardson Council recommendations

The Nightly Build

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Is Racial Discrimination Still A Problem in the RISD?

Like many cities and school districts in the South, the Richardson ISD has been under court supervision, since 1970, to ensure that racial discrimination is not a factor in district policy. On Monday, the school board voted to formally ask the federal courts to end that supervision.

My first reaction to the news was, is that supervision still in place? Richardson's diversity is one of its best features, and I believe that feeling is generally shared. The Richardson ISD is the state's largest "Recognized" school district and has achieved that distinction three years running. That can't be without focusing on the education of all students, in fact, without giving extra attention to the under-achieving students. Racial discrimination is incompatible with such results.

Jeffrey Weiss, in The Dallas Morning News Richardson blog, reports the school board's request to the courts, then asks readers for their opinion. Twenty four hours later, there was no reader comment. That supports what I suspected, that racial discrimination is just not a hot-button issue in Richardson.

I was all set to give resounding support to the school board's request to end federal supervision. Then I read the remaining concerns cited by the chair of the Bi-Racial Advisory Committee. RISD still employs a relatively small percentage of minority teachers. Student discipline still has inequalities. There are still "racially identifiable" schools. And what might happen to the magnet schools if court supervision is removed?

It made me wonder if it's only because court supervision is still in place that the issue is even being discussed. Otherwise would the RISD try to identify opportunities for further progress? What risk is there that Richardson will slip backwards without such oversight? Richardson's diversity is a big plus for the city, in my view, but what the city has achieved probably is due, in part, to the threat of federal court intervention.

Richardson could be proud if federal court supervision is no longer deemed necessary after all these years. On the other hand, I won't mind a bit if it's maintained for now, if only to remind us now and then to continue on that path of a more perfect union.

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How Many Votes Will Ebby Halliday Cast?

Two candidates for Richardson City Council Place 3 both claim to be endorsed by Ebby Halliday. Sheryl Miller's Web site claims "ENDORSED BY REAL ESTATE LEGEND EBBY HALLIDAY." Chris Davis' Web site lists as her first endorsement, "Ebby Halliday-Acres [sic] -- Real Estate Icon." Either Miller or Davis is fibbing or else Ebby Halliday-Acers is having trouble keeping track of her endorsements. Not that it matters. Ebby Halliday lives in Dallas and won't be voting for either Miller or Davis.

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Richardson City Council Recommendations

Election Day is Saturday, May 9. Polls close at 7:00 PM. My recommendations for Richardson City Council are below. Reasons for the recommendations have been discussed at length on the blog over the past month. (There's even a comment where I reveal which way I will be voting in Place 7, although my "no recommendation" here still stands.)

• Place 1: Bob Townsend
• Place 2: Mark Solomon
• Place 3: John Murphy
• Place 4: Gary Slagel
• Place 5: Pris Hayes
• Place 6: Steve Mitchell
• Place 7: No recommendation

Slagel campaign mailer

The Nightly Build

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Watch How the Old Pro Does It

The campaign for Richardson City Council concludes with Saturday's election (barring run-offs). The campaign hasn't been defined by issues. All the candidates pretty much agree on those. The incumbents have been running on a platform of more of the same. So have the challengers, only with different faces in charge. Change is a tricky message to sell when the only change you promise is a change of face. That has led the challengers to make it personal.

The incumbent who has become the focal point of the challengers' call for change is Gary Slagel. He's been on the council for 22 years. He was mayor for much of that time. He faced various conflict of interest charges when he ran for re-election in 2007, but was re-elected anyway. Opponents found little more success with an indirect attack, enacting council term limits but failing to get the term limits made retroactive. Slagel could serve for another twelve years. This year, Slagel is again the focal point, drawing charges of ethics violations, conflicts of interest, violation of Texas open meetings laws, and conspiracy with Richardson's business community elites.

So, how does the old pro deal with such attacks? The mailer his campaign sent out this week is a model of how it's done. It's masterful on several fronts:

1. Turn your weakness into strength.

   The front of the mailer has a large photo of Gary Slagel with the caption, "Who can you Trust to lead Richardson through tough economic times? Gary A. Slagel". The two biggest words are "Trust" and "Slagel." And the subject is not personal ethics, but competence. In a skillful tactical maneuver, Slagel changes the subject and makes what some see as his greatest weakness into his greatest strength.

2. Steal your opponents' issues.

   In most of the candidate forums, the challengers tried to make transparency an issue. One by one, the challengers called for televising city council meetings, putting the city checkbook online, writing council meeting agendas and budgets to make them more understandable. One by one the incumbents said they are for these, too, and, in fact, have been making steady improvements in council transparency for years. Slagel's mailer says he has a plan "to make City Hall as accountable as possible by leveraging new technologies, broadcasting meetings on the Internet, and continuing to produce budgets that win awards for being accessible and easy to understand."

3. Find some coattails to ride.

   Many of Richardson's residents were attracted to the city because of its schools. The Richardson ISD is the largest "Recognized" school district in the state and has earned that distinction three years in a row. The Richardson City Council does not administer the schools, hire teachers, set classroom curricula, raise or spend school taxes. But Gary Slagel doesn't let that stop him from highlighting the RISD and Plano ISD in his campaign mailer. He has a plan to "keep the relationship between City Hall and our school district strong." If voters want to credit him, just a teensy bit, for RISD's success, Slagel doesn't mind.

4. Trump your opponents' endorsements.

   Whereas the other candidates try to impress voters with lists of names that most voters have never heard of (honorable this and honorable that, this commission member, that community volunteer, and that businessman), Gary Slagel goes for quality over quantity. His flier lists three endorsements: Congressman Pete Sessions, retired Richardson Police Chief Larry Zacharias and former Texas Instruments Vice President Shaunna Black. The message Slagel wants to convey is clear: behind him, Slagel has the heavyweights in Congress, law enforcement, and business.

5. Ignore your opponents themselves.

   Because the challengers have so few issues to run on, they've necessarily had to drive up Slagel's negatives in order to have a chance at unseating him. It's tricky to do this without driving up their own negatives in the process. Slagel ignores his opponents in this mailer. He not only doesn't say negative things against his opponents, he doesn't overtly defend himself against their negative charges. His mailer is nothing but positive, from his big smiling mug on the front of the mailer to the praise he heaps on Richardson's "great quality of life and safe environment." Implied is that his 22 years on City Council are, in large part, responsible for what voters like about Richardson. Gosh, he's even too modest to say so.

The challengers are left to cry out, "don't trust him, he's lying; those are our issues; we have experience and endorsements and conservative credentials, too; Richardson under Slagel sucks ... no, it doesn't ... well maybe just a little ... actually, Richardson is great, it's Slagel who sucks ... yeah, that's it." It's a tough charge to make stick. Gary Slagel's mailer illustrates all the reasons why.

Campaign sign cleanup; Early voting confrontation; Pete Sessions in Vegas

The Nightly Build

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Out With the Old (Campaign Signs)

Destiny of the "Conserve and Protect" blog is organizing a yard sign cleanup for after the Richardson City Council election. Do your part to ensure that once the election is over, the yard signs are, too, at least for those races that won't have run-offs (that is, Places 1, 5, 6, 7). So, bring your own yard signs (not your neighbor's) for Bob Townsend, Bill Denton, Bob Macy, Pris Hayes, Steve Mitchell, Amir Omar, and Dennis Stewart to Richardson City Hall from 7-9 pm on Saturday, May 9 to return to the candidates for recycling or reuse for their re-election campaign two years from now!

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Temper Flares at Richardson Early Voting

The new The Dallas Morning News Richardson blog is already proving to be a valuable source of Richardson news. Ian McCann reports that former councilwoman and current Richardson Coalition PAC member Martha Ritter accosted candidates Dennis Stewart and Diane Wardrup at the City Hall early voting site today. The Richardson Coalition did *not* endorse Stewart or Wardrup. Ritter reportedly ripped a copy of the Richardson Coalition voter's guide from a sign advising voters that the voter's guide is not an official city publication. Stay classy, Martha.

The "Conserve and Protect" blog also has the story, including before-and-after photos of the sign allegedly defaced by Ritter.

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Who Cares What Happens In Vegas? Not the DMN

Richardson's own Congressman, Pete Sessions, likes to party in Las Vegas and apparently he doesn't care who knows. In 2007, he held a fundraiser at the Forty Deuce burlesque club and raised a few eyebrows (two at least, mine). But folks back in Texas didn't seem to care that Pete Sessions' straight-laced conservative persona doesn't square with the hard-partying Vegas fundraisers. Pete Sessions was re-elected handily anyway.

So, this year, Pete Sessions learns his lesson and holds his National Republican Congressional Committee fundraiser in ... Las Vegas again, this time at the Tao nightclub and restaurant. The Tao's Web site, according to a story in The Washington Post, "features come-hither looking women scantily clad in lingerie slithering all over each other." So much for Pete Sessions' family values. He knows Texans in his district will elect anyone with an "R" after his name, so why hide the hypocrisy?

How is the story covered in the local news? The Dallas Morning News has a brief item by Gromer Jeffers in the Trailblazers blog, but that focuses more on Jeffers' jealousy that government editor Ryan Rusak was picked to go to Vegas to cover the story and not Jeffers. The jealousy seems well placed, as Rusak himself comments on the blog item, telling us more about the price of a vodka and beer at the Tao than about Pete Session's hypocrisy. Must be nice to have a gig that lets you party with a Congressman you're supposed to be covering and then joke about the price of drinks on the company blog afterwards.

Richardson blog; Even more media blues

The Nightly Build

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Religion's Loss is Richardson's Gain

Last week, Rod Dreher broke the news that The Dallas Morning News was reassigning its last two religion reporters to cover suburban schools. On Saturday, Jeffrey Weiss, one of those religion reporters, told Religion blog readers that "if you live in Richardson... please keep your eyes open for a new blog." His new assignment will focus on covering the Richardson school district. This is great news for the suburbs, which seem to get less and less media attention despite the conventional wisdom that newspapers need to become more local to survive. Just one word of warning to Weiss: whereas the DISD has been a treasure trove of newsworthy stories for The Dallas Morning News, the RISD will not be, unless you're one of those who keeps saying that newspapers ought to cover the good things happening in our communities. There is no end of good news stories to be mined in the RISD.

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You Can't Escape By Going Online

Last week, we heard a raft of bad news from the media business. The publisher of many DFW suburban newspapers, American Community Newspapers, LLC, declared bankruptcy. The Dallas Morning News reassigned its last to religion reporters (see above). And bloggers were getting real touchy about the lengthening list of media jobs on their resumes.

Today, the biggest, baddest news of all was announced. A.H. Belo, publisher of The Dallas Morning News, announced dismal financial results for the last quarter. Even after several rounds of cost reductions, Belo still had a first quarter net loss of $103 million. The DMN's online revenue dropped 8 percent from a year ago. A large part of that is due to vanishing ad revenue. If last week's news from the suburban papers showed there was no shelter from the storm by going local, then this week's news shows that the Internet isn't a solution, either.

Unfair Park's Robert Wilonsky reports all this without a hint of a competitor's gloating, but readers pile on, criticizing the product put out by the DMN, declaring victory for Craigslist, and accusing the DMN of pushing the Trinity parkway and the convention center hotel to drive up the value of downtown real estate that Belo owns. It's no surprise that there would be no sympathy among Unfair Park readers. The DMN does a poor job of covering itself, so if there's a place online where people who do like the DMN are gathering to commiserate and sign electronic get-well-soon cards, I don't know where it is.

Nationally, everyone is watching whether The New York Times will shutter The Boston Globe. How long will it be before the DMN takes the top spot in the newspaper death watch?

If one needs proof that hope springs eternal in the hearts of men, look no farther than the New York Times' report that Amazon is set to introduce a large-size Kindle e-reader this week. Newspapers and magazine publishers are pinning their hopes on the Kindle being the iPod of e-readers, allowing them to start charging for online content, much like Apple's iPod was attractive enough to get music lovers to start paying for music downloads. Only time will tell whether the Kindle has the right technology and newspaper publishers have the right business skills for it to be the salvation of newspapers. Or whether it's simply too late to save newspapers like the DMN. One thing is for sure, it can't be as disastrous as an earlier DMN foray into new technology, :CueCat.

More media blues

The Nightly Build

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Bankruptcies, Cutbacks, and Sensitivity

There was a round of bad news about local media this week. The Dallas Business Journal reported that newspaper publisher American Community Newspapers LLC filed for bankruptcy. ACN publishes the Plano Star Courier, McKinney Courier-Gazette and numerous other DFW suburban newspapers. So much for the theory that the future of newspapers is by going local. It's tough all over out there.

The second bit of bad news comes from Rod Dreher in his Crunchy Con blog on beliefnet. He reports the "very depressing news" (for Dreher, that could mean anything, as he's a depressing kind of guy) that the "last two religion reporters [at The Dallas Morning News] have been reassigned to covering suburban schools." Maybe the DMN hasn't heard the news yet that there's no shelter from the media storm in the suburbs.

What's my pet peeve? It's getting news about The Dallas Morning News from third parties. If the DMN can't even cover itself, why should we trust that it can cover anything else, whether religion or suburban schools? Worse in this case, the news comes from one of the News' own employees blogging on another Web site. I've never understood what kind of contract Rod Dreher has with the DMN that lets him publish on other sites. Why wouldn't the DMN encourage him to blog all he wants, but insist that it be published on the News' own religion blog?

A sign of how all the bad news is wearing down people in the media business can be seen in the reaction to yesterday's blog about Richardson City Council candidate Thomas Bache-Wiig's intemperate response to the Richardson Coalition PAC's voter's guide. The guide mentioned Bache-Wiig's "fourteen jobs in the last twenty eight years." The mailer doesn't mention it, but apparently many of those jobs were in the media business. Bache-Wiig sees the mailer's numeric tally as the equivalent of calling him "a shiftless drifter." Reader "amanda" sees it as an "attack" and relates how she knows of "at least 40 professionals in the last year who have been RIFFED, fired, non-renewed, etc." It appears to me that all the bad news in the media business is making at least some people a bit touchy, reading into even simple factual statements all sorts of implied judgment. When it bleeds over into politics, it can get messy and nasty real quick.