Dallas City Council District 7 candidates face off

by Patrice J. Holmes of Dallas Weekly , Gordon Jackson of Dallas Weekly

Incumbent Carolyn Davis and Ron Price answer questions about the future of South Dallas.

Incumbent Carolyn Davis will run against Dallas ISD trustee Ron Price for the Dallas city council District 7 seat on June 13. The district covers South Dallas, Fair Park and fringes of East Dallas and downtown. The Dallas Weekly conducted a questionnaire for both candidates, their responses are enclosed.

Davis captured 34.11 percent of the vote on May 9, followed by Price’s 24.80 percent. Donald Parish (20.00), John Jay Myers (8.96) and Tony Rios (8.52) garnered another 37 percent of the vote collectively, in the eight-candidate race. Seeing which way those votes go appears to be a strong factor in the run-off election.

Early voting will be from June 1 to June 8. For times and location, visit www.dalcoelections.org.

Carolyn Davis

Dallas Weekly: What overall criticism does the public have of you? What will you do to correct them?

Davis: The public has not come to me with any criticism. As a second term council person you can always improve and do things a little differently than the first time.

Once back in office, I’m going to hold more of my meetings by precinct rather than trying to do them all district-wide. I think this will reach people more closely. I will be inviting them to neighborhood meetings and continue to work with them and deal with high priority issues such as codes, which pertain to quality of life for the individuals living in District 7.

Dallas Weekly: What steps will you take to ensure that District 7 is on par with the rest of Dallas? What specific initiatives or ideas do you have for creating a safer and more prosperous District 7?

Davis: Crime is down 44% in District 7 especially in South Dallas proper. It hasn’t been like that in 40 years. I have to commend the police department for working with the neighborhood associated and myself as a councilmember for reaching this goal.

I want to continue to stay on top of codes, making sure we continue to give people the quality of life that is needed. I also want to continue to deal with the abandoned homes and other structures. We have about 437 houses that are up for demolition.

I will work with the 2010 bond program, making sure we can identify all the things that need improvement like streets, sidewalks and gutters. We all have to work on getting neighborhoods more engaged in loving their community, taking pride in it and standing up for it.

Dallas Weekly: What are your top three most important issues you want to tackle in District 7?

Davis: My number one priority is codes, right now. My next priority is the DART Station, making sure it’s running properly. And also to finish out the Juanita Craft Diabetes Center and to finish out the Bexar Street Corridor.

As a part of my long-term plan, I will be working on the Martin Luther King Corridor to see how we can make MLK a gateway to South Dallas, making sure we have adequate lighting, more greenery, and building up businesses.

Dallas Weekly Like Maynard Jackson of Atlanta, can you get African Americans involved in the economic development of Fair Park to produce African American millionaires? What will you do to ensure that African Americans are involved at all phases of Fair Park’s development?

Davis: The first step is for people to step up and want to be in Fair Park; we have to love it. If you’re already living there and you want to be a small business owner, then start the necessary tools to working on that. There is the Business Assistance Center in Spring Ave., the Economic Development Department Downtown, so we have to start prepping ourselves to become small business owners. I think that once we start engaging small business owners, I think that’s the first step for South Dallas.

Dallas Weekly: Do you think the DART and Toll Road projects will hurt or help South Dallas? Why?

Davis: With the DART station that’s coming, we started the Coalition to Keep DART Accountable and we got on the train extremely early knowing what we wanted in the community. We hired our own consultant; we raised about $50,000 to make sure that person could speak on our behalf. We also engaged the community to understand what they wanted to see in a light rail, it was not DART telling us what we needed. We wanted people to feel good about that rail. Anytime you have a mass transit system like you’re about to see in September, it will help a community like South Dallas.

We have to think long-term. So we are starting business development now.

On the Trinity Toll Road: The voters have spoken, and I am just moving forward on what the voters have asked us to do. Let’s get it started and get it finished.

One of the reasons I support it is because the Moore and Rochester Park areas will be enhanced. We’re talking about parks and transportation: not only will it be a plus for the city, but it will be a plus for South Dallas as well.

Ron Price

Dallas Weekly: What overall criticism does the public have of you? What will you do to correct them?

Price: How can you say that he has been non-productive when that individual has produced over $500 million in bond programs for his area, has the No. 1-ranked area for urban education in the United States, has been selected president of three national school board organization and one state school board organization, and has been recognized by Mayor Bloomberg and the mayor in Baltimore and others around the country? It’s been historical, as far as the mainstream press is concerned, about being critical about the leadership in our district.

Dallas Weekly: What steps will you take to ensure that District 7 is on par with the rest of Dallas? What specific initiatives or ideas do you have for creating a safer and more prosperous District 7?

Price: We’ve developed a safety team and plan made up of Dallas police officer organizations, as well as members of the community, to come up with a strategic plan to make sure that the neighborhoods are clean and safe. I’ve worked with several business developers the last several months to organize to try and attain up to $1.5 billion to be invested in South Dallas and Fair Park in regards to starting to revitalize and renovate the community.

We shouldn’t have to wait on the city government to give us money that we haven’t received in forty to fifty years. This is one of the wealthiest cities in the United States, but a lot of folks who always wanted to come over and help redevelop South Dallas has been turned away. I’m asking several of these people to step back up to the plate and let’s try to renovate certain parts of our community that will reflect what you already have at West Village, the legacy in Plano and all of the other developments in North Texas.

Something is wrong when all of North Texas has been redeveloped and South Dallas, which is in the heart of the city, has been overlooked for the past 30 to 40 years. When 99 percent of the kids from Madison and Lincoln (High Schools) have to leave their own community to find a job, something is wrong with that picture.

Dallas Weekly: What are your top three most important issues you want to tackle in District 7?

Price: No. 1 is the HOPE Initiative, led by many of our pastors in our community. They have an initiative to revitalize, restore and beautify the community.

The second thing is that I want to host an annual job fair. Jobs will help eliminate crime, most of our folks commit crime because they’re unemployed. There’s approximately over 25,000 people in District 7 that are unemployed. Once we produce jobs for the people, in and out of the community, that will reduce crime.

The third thing is that we must have a strong economic revitalization plan. I will ask all of the stakeholders to participate in revitalizing the community soon. We have a four-plan, we don’t have a 30-year plan, to start revitalizing our community with an infusion of over a billion dollars to get the community fixed.

Dallas Weekly Like Maynard Jackson of Atlanta, can you get African Americans involved in the economic development of Fair Park to produce African American millionaires? What will you do to ensure that African Americans are involved at all phases of Fair Park’s development?

Price: I would use the same formula I used when I was Finance and Budget Chair for DISD, when my program ran from 2003 to 2005. When I took over the chairmanship, we were at 19 percent minority participation. When I left the chairmanship, we were at 43 percent minority participation and I received the Chairman’s Award from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for setting the national record. It has not been broken anywhere in the nation for any government of body. I will use the same philosophy and apply it to the city to ensure that almost 50 percent of all work must be done by minorities.

Dallas Weekly: Do you think the DART and Toll Road projects will hurt or help South Dallas? Why?

Price: The Trinity project is one we have to revisit, because of what happened in New Orleans with (Hurricane) Katrina. We have to make sure, first and foremost, that the levees are going to be strong enough to handle the water. Because water goes downstream, it’s coming from the north, we don’t want it to wipe out the south. We want to make sure that the Army Corps of Engineers and local engineers have determined that the levees are safe. It’s okay to build a toll road. I’m more concerned of what will happen in the southern end of the river, which travels into the forest.

I think the DART Light Rail is an excellent opportunity, however, we just don’t want to have a rail system that just transports people in and out; we need to have an opportunity for people to come in and spend their money. That’s why I’m proposing to build on Grand Avenue a “Blues Alley,” similar to what they have in Memphis, Tennessee, so that people from North Texas and surrounding areas would come to South Dallas and Fair Park and spend their money and leave their money in the community, thus revitalizing the community. Where it would be located, the DART Rail System would cut right through.

When you have an area that has been blighted for so long, that has no other attraction besides Fair Park, people don’t have a legitimate reason to come over and spend any money. We don’t want the rail line to be used only for 30 days, in the months of September and October just for folks to hop on and off the train for the State Fair.

We also have a plan to build state-of-the art brick homes. People want better housing opportunities. We have an aggressive plan. We’ve spoken to over five to six major developers. They’re all ready and hungry to build new homes in South Dallas, so that they’ll be able to move back to South Dallas, to their home community.