How to pick a winner

Trinity Park is the canary in the Dallas City Council coalmine

Mark your calendars for May 6. Dallas City Council elections are just around the corner.

Only a handful of people vote in our local elections. I’ve got a theory about why that is and it boils down to this: People are busy. They don’t know whom to vote for. They don’t know all the issues, they don’t know all the candidates, they may not even know their current council member. They don’t have time to figure it all out. And I don’t begrudge anyone, nor do I want them to feel guilty for not voting.

But you need to vote. Really. It’s important. So let’s make this easy.

A couple of years ago, I helpfully suggested that knowing a candidate’s position on the Trinity Toll Road could illuminate a whole host of other issues. If candidates were madly enamored with the road, if they truly and deeply loved that damned road, well then, you could count on them to fall in line with the mayor and Citizens Council on most other things, to not look too deeply into complex issues, to prefer big shiny objects over boring old things like streets and police, to eschew transparency for opacity, and so on.

Well, I’ve got a new litmus test for all you time-constrained, would-be voters, and it has nothing to do with the Trinity Toll Road.

This time it’s the Trinity Park.

Now before you disregard this sage advice as the ravings of an obsessive, let me say this: I readily acknowledge I have a certain “fascination” with the Trinity. Possibly unhealthy. Setting that aside, let me also say that I recognize that there is a large population of Dallasites who doesn’t give one whit about what happens to the Trinity. Toll road, no toll road; park, no park. Whatever. It’s about streets and public safety and schools (which even this obsessive prioritizes over the Trinity). I agree that the Trinity is not the most important issue in our city, nor should it be. It’s just that no other debate gets to the fundamental ethos of a council candidate like the Trinity.

Here’s what you need to know about d’etre. But they’ve suddenly decided the approved park design isn’t good enough; they want a brand new park design, one which will cost another $10 million and conveniently take another 10 years to get designed and approved. Perhaps just enough time to get the toll road started. the Trinity Park: It took 12 long years and $14 million to get the park designed, engineered and approved by the feds. We’ve got the money to start building it (and no, the funds can’t be used to fix the police pension, house the homeless or pave the streets). We can start building the park right now — today — with a focus on creating park access and “re-wilding” the natural habitat. We would have a 2,300-acre nature preserve on the edge of our downtown. It could be amazing.

The mayor is trying to “Fair Park” the Trinity, attempting to hand the project off to a friend of his and form a private “local government corporation” to construct and manage the park. He claims it takes the politics out of the issue, but it’s really about taking the public out of it. The local government corporation would be the supreme rulers of the Trinity. There would be no debate when they start building the toll road, no elected officials to turn to, no one answerable to the people.

You’d think the Trinity nonprofits would be whooping and hollering about getting started on the park, the one they’ve claimed for years as their raison

So, in this round of council elections, ask your candidates: Will you vote to oppose a local government corporation and start building the approved Trinity Park, right now, without equivocation? If they say no, that will tell you that generally, they like it when things are done behind closed doors, with no pesky windows to let in the light, and no boisterous public knocking on the door. If they say yes, then grab a yard sign and slap a bumper sticker on the minivan. You’ve found yourself a winner.

Angela Hunt is a neighborhood resident and former Dallas city councilwoman in East Dallas. She writes a monthly opinion column about neighborhood issues. Her opinions are not necessarily those of the Advocate or its management. Send comments and ideas to her ahunt@advocatemag.com.

2016

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