Video interview: Dallas City Council Member Carolyn Davis, up for re-election in District 7

by Mike Bullock , John P. Meyer

Shame on whoever planted the Don Parish sign in front of Carolyn Davis' campaign HQ.

Dallas City Council District 7 incumbent Carolyn Davis, who is up for re-election on May 9, was kind enough to meet us at her Fair Park-area campaign HQ last Thursday morning (April 23) so we could sit down and converse about her first term in office.

We also wanted to get her thoughts about what makes a good city council member, what's going on in her district, and what she thinks about the confusingly-worded Proposition 1 on the May 9 ballot.

Mike Bullock and I arrived at the storefront office - situated on Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. adjacent to an under-construction DART rail thoroughfare - to find that someone had planted an opponent's yard sign in a spot right right next to her headquarters' front door. That errant item was quickly removed by council member Davis (after we photographed it), who did not seem too surprised to find it there - apparently, it's been that sort of campaign.

Carolyn Davis and Mike Bullock discuss camera angles; "wall of shame" in background

Just a few doors down and across MLK stands James Madison High School, from which Carolyn Davis graduated.

It was a working day for Davis, who came straight from a 9 a.m. meeting elsewhere to open the doors and allow our cameras inside (the office doesn't open for campaign business until 5 p.m. in the evenings). Even though we had the place to ourselves, you'll hear the occasional squawk from a cell phone on a nearby desk, along with odds and ends of other ambient noise coming from outside on the street. (I *think* we edited out the part where the car alarm goes off...)

One section of the office - described by Davis as the "wall of shame" - included clippings detailing the goings-on of several of her opponents for the District 7 seat (including a story on Chazz Redd, who we interviewed a couple of weeks ago).

Being no kind of vegans, Mike and I dropped into Two Podner's Bar-B-Q for an early lunch after packing up the camera and bidding Council Member Davis farewell.

Best sliced brisket sandwich I've had in a long, long time.

Podner.

Carolyn Davis interview, part 1

In this segment of our interview, Council Member Davis gives us some background on herself and her accomplishments.

Carolyn Davis interview, part 2

In the second part of our interview, Council Member Davis addresses questions about the issues facing her district in particular, and the City of Dallas in general.