It’s been a downhill slide for Dallas Mayor Laura Miller since her Strong Mayor initiative died at the ballot box last May. That slide continued this week with her battle against the rest of the city council on a proposed tax break for Dallas oilman Ray Hunt.
As she has been in an increasing number of battles, she was alone. Miller is right on a lot of things, and Ed Board feels she was right on this issue, too.
There is no way in hell that Ray Hunt was going to pluck his headquarters from Fountain Place and put them in the middle of Irving. Seriously, no one willingly goes to Irving.
But the City Council took the bait and gave him a nearly $7 million tax break to build a new headquarters downtown.
Downtown already has one of the lowest office occupancy rates in the nation, so what good is going to come of Hunt leaving an existing building just to move into a new one?
Unfortunately, any good points against this tax break were lost in the way Miller handled the situation. During her presentations, she attacked the city negotiators, attorneys and council members for going along with the project.
She needs to shed her journalistic bravado and be willing to form coalitions with fellow council members if she ever wants to get things done.
Even if the weakened Strong Mayor passes this November, Miller will still need to get other council members in her corner. It’s hard to win votes if the only person with you is the cantankerous Mitchell Rasansky.
The mayor has done a lot of things right for Dallas. Getting rid of the joke of a police chief that Terrell Bolton was can only be described as a positive.
Ed Board feels her continued dealings with code enforcement and getting blighted areas of Dallas cleaned up are admirable and welcome.
Miller is committed to getting downtown going again, and displayed that this summer when she and a few council members flew to Cleveland to get the Mercantile project saved. But her shortcomings are vastly overshadowing the positives – in the media, at least.
As far as Miller’s future, she is running for reelection in one year. As of now, though, there is no credible candidate running against her.
Ed Board thinks it is ironic that we have a mayor who wants to change Dallas for the better but is trapped in a City Hall that won’t work with her to achieve her vision.
