A Changing Dallas Hosts The Observer
October 31st, 2007 at 3:52 pm
The atmosphere was just right for a visit by The Texas Observer to Dallas this week.
The streets were dotted with signs about the Trinity River Project. Commercials were on air saying things like “Vote Yes on Proposition One. Keep their toll road out of our park!” I swear some of the signs said, “Vote No! Pave the Trinity!” (but that doesn’t quite sound right), and at least one local weekly, the Dallas Observer (no relation), was recommending that voters “Vote Yes”, loudly, on its cover. Politics and policy were in the air.
As staffers, board members, writers, and fans of the Observer and Jimmie Dale Gilmore came together at the Lakewood Theater just northeast of Downtown, there was plenty of reminiscing about Dallas of the past and discussion of Dallas of the present and future. Gilmore kicked it off with a great version of his classic song “Dallas.” Gilmore described the song as a love-hate serenade to the city that over time has become more love than hate.
Wade Goodwyn, whose sonorous voice many will recognize from his day job as a reporter with NPR read a piece by his father, Larry Goodwyn, a former Observer editor and noted scholar of the populist movement. The piece from 1958, titled “Dallas: the personal and impersonal,” detailed the civic boosterism of a racially segregated town in love with efficiency and the notion of progress, up to a point. Dallas Morning News Columnist Macarena Hernandez read from Dagoberto Gilb’s masterful introduction to Hecho en Tejas, reminding the audience of the demographic shift underway. Former state Rep. Jesse Oliver had the crowd laughing with a deadpan reading of “The great Dallas weed trial,” by Bob Cochran and Molly Ivins. The story detailed the struggle of one Dallasite who wanted to grow his backyard so it resembled a prairie of old and the overzealous city inspector who couldn’t tolerate it. Executive Editor Jake Bernstein read Allen Pusey’s recent story on the knavish local Congressman Pete Sessions and Lou Dubose finished the readings off with Molly Ivins’ lament for the death of the Dallas Times Herald. Attendees were also treated to a showing of Paul Stekler’s “The Texas Observer at 50.” And in the end, Gilmore closed the show with a raucous rendition of “The Deep Ellum Blues.”
While driving around Dallas after the show, I couldn’t stop repeating an Ivins quote Dubose had recalled — one that I have heard before, but never really appreciated until now: Dallas is the kind of town “that would have rooted for Goliath to beat David.”
You see, Dallas has this reputation as a mean place — a place where Republicans rule. As the 2006 election showed, that’s not the case anymore. A Democratic precinct chair who is also one of Dallas’ many lawyers and a friend of mine advised me recently that more lawyers are voting in Democratic primaries in Dallas now, because the once all-GOP Dallas judiciary (district court judges and the like) has turned Democratic. This, according to Martin Frost, is part of a recent Democratic sweep in Big D:
In 2004, Bush-Cheney only won Dallas County 51 percent to 49 percent. Democrats that year won the sheriff’s office and several countywide judgeships. This year (2006), the Democratic Party swept all 42 contested judicial positions (elected county-wide) and all five contested county offices including county judge (the presiding officer of the county commissioner’s court), district attorney, county clerk and county treasurer.
Molly’s comment may still hold water in a lot of ways, but politically, this place is changing, and that’s big news for Texas and the state’s teetering, all-GOP political structure.
October 31st, 2007 at 10:26 pm
You wrote, “some of the signs said, “Vote No! Pave the Trinity!” (but that doesn’t quite sound right).”
How is it that does not sound right? Does running a toll road for over 7 miles parallel to the river and within the flood way sound like you are “saving” the river? How is such a road “saving the river” when 80% the traffic involved is not originating or going to Dallas but just driving through? “Paving” is certainly more accurate! Just google the three words, Trinity River Vote, to see more details.
Alternatives to such intense downtown traffic must be explored. Now that toll tag technology has been perfected within the past 10 years it could be used to form a protective circle around Dallas at the 635/Loop 12 loop around Dallas such that only traffic driving quickly through Dallas is charged a toll, unless they take the 635 loop or stop for business or a meal inside Dallas, when no toll will be charged.
We must divert that 80% of traffic that is just driving through Downtown Dallas by working to expand the 635/loop 12 capacity for such a toll tag system to work.