Philosophically: I don’t think government should ever do what private business is supposed to. If the market won’t support a development or business, government shouldn’t provide it. Full stop. I oppose socialism and I despise government trying to compete against private enterprise no matter how noble some think the undertaking is. The city had an option to build a hotel with developers footing most of the bill, and it chose to go the route of a North Korean business model. No sale, comrade. Corporate welfare is socialism.
Practicality: The numbers provided by the pro-Hoteliers tell the story. To work, the People’s Hotel would require occupancy that the market doesn’t support (68 percent, while current occupancy is 55 percent) and at a rate far above the market rate. The latest RIP Dallas ad says explicitly they do not care about the bottom line. I’m sorry, when you’re putting taxpayers on the hook for half a billion (with a B) dollars and your own studies show that the hotel will lose money barring the most impossible perfect factors, the bottom line is the bottom line.
Transparency: The pro-Hoteliers have withheld information from voters — both the revised feasibility study that, according to leaks, prove the city would make more money from conventions if the hotel were not built, and whatever it is the city is suing the Texas Attorney General to prevent from releasing to the public.
Tactically:
1) I don’t care who wants to back the hotel, and I won’t engage in the “rich kids” name calling that appeals to the kind of class envy I despise. But I do care when people form a group claiming to have no financial interest in the hotel or connections to the mayor, and it turns out their leadership is employed by companies that will profit, and is comprised of people who sit on the mayor’s task force.
2) I interviewed Harlan Crow for a profile in D CEO back in February 2008 before I knew much about the issue or had a position. His very first words in the interview were to say that yes, he has a financial interest in preventing the city from building a government hotel. Crow has been honest about this from word one. Meanwhile, groups like Enough is Enough, Vote No! and RIP Dallas haven’t gone to great lengths to pretend they were disinterested and have no financial stake, when a cursory examination has proven that is a falsehood.
3) Any player in politics is fair game, but the demonization of Harlan Crow is laughable and stupid. He has never hidden his personal interest. Yes, he is a resident of Highland Park, but his company does tens of millions in business in Dallas, and he and his family have done more for the city of Dallas in business and philanthropy than most all the Vote No’ers combined. To suggest he or any other anti-Hotelier doesn’t love Dallas is as insulting as it is untrue. How much do you love Dallas if you believe the city won’t prosper if we don’t build a 1,100 room dormitory that will sit empty three-quarters of the year?
Fear: I look askance at any campaign driven by fear. When you play to people’s worst instinct, you lose any standing you have.
Dishonesty: Conflating Prop 1 (vote yes) with Prop 2 (vote no) is cheap. Claiming Prop 1 will prevent the city from providing incentives to hotel developers is a lie that got started with Ron Natinsky. Claiming a vote against the hotel is proof of racism is the worst sort of theatrical stunt, and the pro-Hoteliers have not disavowed this tactic. Sending out press releases quoting paid contractors and claiming they’re disinterested citizens is bush league.
Bottom Line: If the demand isn’t there that a business could meet, it won’t be there for a government project. If something will make money, a moneymaker will come along and make it happen. Let the city government focus on city government duties, let taxpayer dollars pay for taxpayer services, and leave business alone to handle business.
(Disclosure: I live in West Plano, and consequently have no vote. But I work in and write about Dallas, and I love the city. If that disqualifies in your mind, fine, but my arguments stand on their own merit.)
UPDATE AND CORRECTION: Regarding the email flap in the comments section about CATOH only having volunteers “north of I-30″ I just received word: “It was a mistake — we will be covering all early voting and election day locations.
You have been denigrating a bunch of kids for offering their opinions–and NOT BEING PROPERTY OWNERS–and yet you don’t even live in Dallas?
You make a big point about full disclosure. Are you being paid to blog against the hotel?
1) I made the point only after it was revealed that after attacking Crow for not being a resident of Dallas, it turns out most of the folks in the RIP Dallas ad aren’t Dallas property owners.
2) I have not been paid a penny to blog against the hotel. I was offered the job of press secretary for the anti-Hotel group and I turned it down. I was paid my standard column rate by the Dallas Morning News for my column Wednesday, the same rate they pay me for any column I write that’s good enough to make the Op-Ed pages.
Well, nobody but a full-throated Communist does. The question is where you draw that line. I’ve heard you, for instance, opine against computer labs in public schools, which strikes me as an absurd objection.
But as for the government entering the hospitality industry … well, now, there’s a dependent clause that speaks several paragraphs. I’m with the One Billionaire and a California Advertising Agency (as if they are full of passionate opinion on the matter) on this one.
“I’ve heard you, for instance, opine against computer labs in public schools, which strikes me as an absurd objection.”
Pretty sure that wasn’t me.
Great column. I cant predict the RIP blog response. Either nothing, or “you are being negative and don’t believe in Dallas!”
After this election cycle I’d like to offer you the press secretary position for my new grassroots organization TACLIPS, Texans Against Computer Labs In Public Schools.
Trey,
You pretty much nailed it. I don’t buy into the whole out of towner BS. If it is good for Dallas, it is good for the region. I don’t complain when I go to Frisco to watch soccer, Grand Prairie to watch Airhogs and horses, or to North Fort Worth to watch racing. I think it is what makes this area great to live in. I am an advocate for smart government that helps the people who want to make the city and region better. I don’t have time for race baiting poverty pimps or developers with their own agenda$. Good article!
Dude, it was you, albeit not in the form of a well-thought-out, carefully presented opinion. It was a mere quip on FB.
BTW, smart government does not mean sketchy taxpayer funded projects. It means working with the community to encourage business. If a developer or the city wants a new bridge/building/park/hotel, it better have a quantifiable and well-researched benefit to the community.
*Deleted at poster’s request and for complete and total dumbassery*
“The Vote No group/RIP Dallas has bent over backwards to make people like me in the southern sector feel like an important part of this election”
lol…much better to feel important than to do something for the good of the community…..wow can’t remember when I read something quite that narcissistic. They may have bent of backwards…but they want the rest of us to bend over frontwards.
“The Vote No group/RIP Dallas has bent over backwards to make people like me in the southern sector feel like an important part of this election…”
How did you feel when they insulted the intelligence of every Southern Sector voter by suggesting that voting against the hotel is racist?
*Deleted at poster’s request and for complete and total dumbassery*
I’m awaiting response from the CATOH people to see if there’s a larger context for this partial quotation, or if it is as you say.
*Deleted at poster’s request and for complete and total dumbassery*
“Oh, the Vote Yes camp is for certain taxpayers all right — the ones who live on the “right” side of town…the one they want to stay in.”
See what you did?
You just undercut your own point a few posts up. Oh, you didn’t mention race, but you blew the dog whistle.
Actually, it’s not that unusual to concentrate efforts in areas where your opponent has spent a lot of time, or where you have not, on election day.
Chris:
I’m having trouble buying what you posted. Here’s the the link to the call to action on the Citizens Against a Taxpayer Owned Hotel.
Here’s the text:
———–
April 23, 2009 08:35 PM
Volunteer Help Needed
Anne Raymond
Send To A Friend
We need your help!
Starting April 27 – May 5 for early voting and again on Election Day, May 9, we need volunteers willing to work the polls. The shift details are below.
Election Day – polls are open 7am – 7pm. Volunteers will work 4 hour shifts – 7am – 11am, 11am – 3pm, and 3pm – 7pm.
Early voting – polling times vary.
Monday, April 27 – Friday, May 1 – polls are open 8am – 5pm. Volunteers will have two shifts – 8am – 12:30 and 12:30 – 5pm.
Saturday, May 2 – polls are open 8am – 5pm. Vols will have two shifts- 8am – 12:30 and 12:30 – 5pm.
Sunday, May 3 – polls are open 1pm- 6pm. Vols will work 1pm-6pm.
Monday, May 4 – Tuesday, May 5 – polls are open 7am – 7pm. Vols will have three shifts- 7am – 11am, 11am – 3pm, and 3pm – 7pm.
If you are interested in volunteering, please call 214-890-0952 or email Jordan@notaxpayerhotel.com.
Thanks again for your support of our effort. I hope you will consider working the polls with our team. We need to make sure YES votes are counted!
Sincerely,
Anne Raymond
—————-
Don’t see anything about “North of I-30″
Explain?
*Deleted at poster’s request and for complete and total dumbassery*
*Deleted at poster’s request and for complete and total dumbassery*
That is not what I got from what you posted. I see nothing about certain votes counting or not. And don’t insult my intelligence, by telling me there’s something there that’s not, either.
Considering, though, that there’s nothing out there remotely resembling what you’ve quoted – if there is, please e-mail Trey (and me, sure) with whatever you actually got.
I can corroborate what Chris is saying. I was at the White People’s Nefarious Consortium where it was decided we would have counterintuitive ballot language and subsequently clarify the matter to white people but not black people. I can’t remember what our plan was vis-a-vis the Hispanic people. Because, face it, it’s black folks we so love to confuse.
According to one Earl Campbell sausage lover, Daniel, hispanics are white.
*Deleted at poster’s request and for complete and total dumbassery*
Re: the efforts of “Vote Yes” north of I30
Anybody who has ever volunteered for a citywide campaign in Dallas knows that early voting predominately occurs in North Dallas locations. Mainly because people early vote near their place of employment, which is more likely to be north of I30. If you go to the MLK Center or the Beckley sub-court house during early voting, you not find near as much activity as what you will find in North Dallas early polling stations.
Chris, my email address is all over this blog — trey@treygarrison.com
my address is all over my blog, as well – bmandersontx@gmail.com
Trey, I agree with you that the taxpayers should not be going into the hotel business to compete against privately-owned, tax-paying hotels that are already struggling. At the same time I have always felt that Dallas could get better conventions if it had a truly world-class convention hotel and that maybe, just maybe, that could end up being good for the other hotels too. A few years ago I wrote in the DBJ that the way to find out for sure was not to have taxpayers build a hotel, but rather to have all the hoteliers in Dallas (or those who wanted to) band together and invest in it themselves, with a third party running it. That way, if a convention hotel did turn out to be good for the city, all the hotels would benefit as investors, if not from the additional customers Dallas supposedly would attract once the convention hotel ushered in full prosperity for all. I even thought that it might be fine for the city of Dallas to be one of the investors, but not the main one. Of course, no one listened to me. Oh well. Enjoy taking the arrows in your back on this issue, my friend. Stand tall.
Great idea, Huntley. Can’t believe no one listened.
And “stand tall?”
You did that on purpose, old man. Grrr.
Somehow this turned….. What was a the most fantastically laid out anti hotel message anyone would need to hear. Got turned into a fight about being north or south of I-30.
So I would like to go back to:
TREY this was a great article!
The Pro-hotelers, can’t compete with it, so they have to try other tactics, to take the focus off your email.
UPDATE and apology posted on the front post, so it’s not buried in the comments.
Trey, I support prop 1 and for the first time in the 13 years I’ve owned my house, my yard is sporting signs that announce my position against the hotel.
I’m on Anne Raymond’s email list and I did get the email (which I just forwarded to you) that includes the “North of I-30″ reference that the argument seems for the moment to have settled on.
The date of the email is April 23 (yesterday): after JW Price called us all racist for opposing the hotel. I would have no problem volunteering in Oak Cliff (S of I-30 and West of I-35), but Mr. Price’s cry of racism is in itself racist. I would have a problem volunteering in South Dallas as a result. That is probably irrational and unfair on my part, as my fear is based on my projecting JWP’s opinions on his constituency, most of whom I doubt share all of his biases.
I can’t speak for Ms. Raymond, but I took the remark about North of I-30 as assurance we wouldn’t be asked to go somewhere that Mr. Price has made the white voters among us feel we are not welcome
PS Policy note:
Given the instant nature of blogs, I’m going to make mistakes. When I make mistakes or wrongful accusations, I put corrections and/or apologies on the post itself and in bold.
I, too, apologize. But I still don’t see anything nefarious about positioning your volunteers where they are needed.
I mean, unless you’re privy to sector-by-sector polling numbers, how do you know they haven’t already spent a lot of time there, and are trying to make up for lost time elsewhere?
See, you’re still trying to sell this idea of making it a racial issue even though the CATOH folks have said they’ll have people at all polls.
Not seeing that as gaining any traction. Smells of desperation.
*Deleted at poster’s request and for complete and total dumbassery*
The ominous ellipses. Oooh.
So now not only are you implying I, too, am racist, but that you know how I spend my time?
On a completely different tack now – is it misleading to have Angela Hunt’s picture on the front of the Vote No! Web site, used as it is?
http://eleventybillionthblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-it-just-me-or-is-this-misleading.html
Holy crap, Bethany!
Yeah, that was my reaction, only with an F-bomb.
*Deleted at poster’s request and for complete and total dumbassery*
Angela Hunt responded to my blog post about her picture showing up on the Vote No Web site.
*Deleted at poster’s request for complete and total dumbassery*
*Deleted at poster’s request for complete and total dumbassery*
Chris, hop off this thread, and go one up. You’ll see that, indeed, I was correct. Nothing to see here, move along.
Chris, you’re not doing your side any favors. Google blowback and backfire.
People see through this petty race pandering and phony outrage. You’re insulting the intelligence of black, white and brown voters.
Funny thing, Bethany, far as I know, hasn’t taken a position on Prop 1. And while I don’t want to put a label on her, she’s much more liberal than I am, and certainly more sensitive to race issues (I can be a clod, but I’m pretty attuned, too). So if she doesn’t buy into Vote No’s race baiting, I’m betting few will.
IJS.
@ Chris:
Thank you Dr. Phil for the psychology lesson.
Do you have anything to add to the discussion as regards the merit of the taxpayers backing the building of this hotel instead of the private sector funding it?
If the strongest argument you’ve got for your position is that I haven’t read Psychology for Dummies, you’ve absolutely got me on that one! Have you read any others, dear?
As for your inferences from what I wrote they’re definitely yours.
Oh, I almost forgot to ask. You make a six figure salary for….?
Sincerely,
J. F. Kimball 69-er
Everyone who opposes anything government lovers want to do is automatically racist…because if the government wants to do it…it has to be a great thing for people of “those colors other than the one I am.”
Personnally I just think it is stupid to build a big hotel in the middle of a recession to try and bring people to a place as boring as downtown Dallas….when the marketplace in the form of private investment won’t support it…because it is going to lose money. How are the other big hotels downtown doing?
Wow. Just wow. When we can move beyond race to see a bigger unified future, we’ll get a downtown we can all be proud of…until then?
This is a business deal. Period. Black/White/Latino/Other, it is what is, a math equation on paper. The vote basically adresses: Is this an opportunity, or not?
It’s funny that Bethany is painted as a flaming liberal or a cold conservative, depending on the issue. Don’t kill the messenger, folks.
chris
just an fyi.
bethany/amanda/daniel/trey are conjoined quadruplets.
while they are not patting themselves on the back, they are trying to convince readers of various blogs that…..
tim rogers is super jesus.
racism doesn’t exist in dallas.
homophobia is just gay paranoia.
people who sit in cheap seats should keep quiet.
if they refer to someone in a negative way, it is called humor….if you do it..it is called childish.
if you can’t remember…..I after C except after E, then you really serve no purpose on any blog.
in reference to the last line from amanda.
give us some example of your twin sis being painted as a flaming liberal…and then some examples of her being painted as a cold conservative.
i assume that when you say “don’t kill the messenger, folks” that you are talking about you. i sure as hell have seen you and bethany/daniel go after other messengers with a vengence.
just like the gals over at frontbummer, you guys don’t seem capable of taking even a sample of what you dish out.