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SweetCharity reports on Limbs For Life’s Co-founder Craig Gavras‘ admission last night to years of living a lie and puts in her two cents’ worth.

Yesterday it was the Wall Street Journal. Today it’s the New York Times. And this story has more teeth when it comes to analyzing Energy Future Holdings’ (EFH) enormous debt:

Today, the TXU deal is unwieldy and unpredictable. The buyout was, in effect, a gargantuan bet that natural gas prices would keep climbing; instead, plunging prices coupled with a hobbled national economy have cut into the cash the company generates. …

TXU, rechristened as Energy Future Holdings when the deal closed in October 2007, is hardly the only private equity bet suffering these days. Many other deals from the height of the buyout boom are mired in problems, as companies buffeted by the weak economy or overwhelmed by once-plentiful and oh-so-cheap debt are struggling to stay upright.

“There is no doubt that these are good companies with bad balance sheets,” says Colin C. Blaydon, a professor at Dartmouth’s business school who specializes in private equity. But some of the companies, he says, are so deeply buried that an economic rebound might not be enough to let them pay their debt.

“The cash flows are not going to be strong enough to let them fully recover and dig their way out,” he says.

It mentions other private equity bets. But this story is all about EFH, and it can’t make the company or its owners happy.

On the front page of the Wall Street Journal‘s Money & Investing section today, you’ll find a story about Energy Future Holdings (EFH). The piece has a look at the company’s finances (“debt heavy”), its penchant for hiring former Bush administration bigwigs, an its increasing spending on lobbyists. It’s an interesting read.

Tonight’s Limbs for Life gala has had a new item added to its program. LfL executive director/co-founder Craig Gavras (pictured) will address his years of lying about his being a law enforcement office officer and losing his leg at the hands of a mob.

UPDATE: SweetCharity is reporting that the Limbs for Life foundation issued a statement regarding Craig’s deception yesterday. Evidently they knew the Morning News‘ Tanya Eiserer was hot on the trail.

As Tim mentioned earlier, Dallas was the place for protesters today, and the Planned Parenthood of North Texas luncheon at the Hilton Anatole was no exception (Dallas Dirt’s Candy Evans and I made it through the back entrance and avoided abortion protesters). Once inside, guests were treated to a charming introduction by Elaine Agather of JPMorgan Chase; the Kay Bailey Hutchison supporter seemed a bit surprised to be there herself–she quipped that last year someone asked her to write a check, and this year she was the emcee. Conservative politics aside, Agather said she recognized the need for Planned Parenthood when she realized that more than 50 percent of her company’s employees were women, many of whom needed access to basic health services. Keynote speaker Anna Quindlen gave a heartwarming speech with one sour note that offended a few of the well-heeled ladies: She asked attendees to take a look at the lovely suits they were wearing, consider how much the ensembles cost, and donate at least that much to the nonprofit.

Our good, close, dear friend Bryan Garner will guest author the New York Times‘ “On Language” column in this Sunday’s paper. Get excited.

…where we pretend that we’re professional curlers on the shuffleboard table at the Elbow Room.

Same rules apply as last week, perhaps I won’t stump the masses this time.

If you are a piece of land and you happen to have a deep water port, coal reserves, and killer surf, chances are that you will find a human settlement nearby as soon as humans figure out steam power, combustion, and some rockin’ board wax bro’.

You might not be too familiar with this city, but as mentioned above, it has been one of the industrial and shipping hearts of its particular country. Like many similar cities state-side, economies moving away from such enterprises has not made for a smooth transition. However, like many places, once it hits a rock bottom, the local citizenry eventually finds a way to reorganize and begin structure building again. And, by this, I don’t mean physical structures so much, as a more diversified economy.

[edit: apparently had a wrong pic in here.]

Below, I love the sign of feet walking. Combined with a sight of nobody walking behind, I suppose reinforces the need to warn drivers that the unexpected just might occur. Ghasp, somebody could cross the street.

Centralized planning has led to some growth and development of transitioning industrial waterfront lands…

…but the historic downtown still languished on the somewhat isolated point on which it sat, until a few creative individuals ideas took off via internet-fed organization.

…not exactly all the way back yet.

…but it is rarely a bad sign when people with cameras show up to capture what you have.

Oh, look. A Kookaburra.

“Sweet hair bra.”

“Chill, bro. It’s my new faux-hawk. The chicks dig it.”

Here are some chill broheims about to catch some waves.

eek.

Even some of the suburban centers have begun the process of consolidation and densification…

Count Mayor Tom Leppert among the “victims” of Dallas’ recent record snowstorm. In a talk today to the Dallas Friday Group, the mayor recalled how he was driving his wife, Laura, to dinner that weekend when they encountered a downed tree in the street. Leppert veered sharply to avoid the tree and wound up off the road, mired in the muck and slush. At that, he said, “I did what any guy would do: I started gunning it.” Didn’t work. Then he threw the vehicle in reverse, but that didn’t do it, either.

Just then, Leppert said, a “giant tree” fell on top of the car–“and Laura thinks we’re under attack.” A policeman pulled up next, looked in the window and said, “Oh shoot, it’s the mayor.” (Only he didn’t say “shoot.”) Then a couple of guys in a big truck stopped and tried to pull the car free, to no avail, Leppert said. So they produced a chainsaw to hack at the trees–only to watch the saw’s chain fly off. Finally, though, the samaritans brought out handsaws and proceeded to rescue the mayor and his wife and “the world went on,” Leppert concluded. He added that the experience “was probably easier on us than it was on the poor policeman.”

This is a very strange story. Bill McNutt was arrested on February 15 by SMU police for trespassing. You know McNutt from his famous Collin Street Bakery, which ships fruitcakes all over the world (he’s on the board, and I think it’s his brother Bob who handles the day to day). He is also chairman of the Texas Commission on the Arts. Students had complained about McNutt, and he’d been told not to visit the campus for any reason. SMU officials released a statement saying: “This action was based on SMU’s receipt of multiple student complaints against Mr. McNutt alleging behavior that violates University policy, such as offering alcohol to minors.”

Some questions: first, the Dallas Morning News story says that SMU confirmed on Wednesday that McNutt had been arrested. Why is the story not being reported until Friday? Second, students complained about someone offering them alcohol?

…Before Unleashing the Free Beer Friday Post.

First, I rode a bike down the proposed streetcar line from downtown to Bishop Arts yesterday. Nothing like experiencing space and time at a pace other than at vehicular speed to better get to know a place. Also, often visiting for lunch, I was able to experience Bishop Arts at night for the first time in several years. This recent article at the Observer really gets at what is going on down there. It is emergent urbanism, ummm, emerging, right before our very eyes.

They are getting streetcar because they are ready for it. As Schutze points out the fabric was originally constructed with streetcar in its urban DNA genotype, but they are ready for a rebirth not because of the fabric, but because the people are ready for it. They are active, they are organized, and City Hall would be wise to not only support these efforts but to market the area as it evolves into the eclectic, vibrant place that the residents care deeply about. I became a believer. Their unified vision and organization is guaranteed to make it a success.

Vibrancy and interest is best constructed from the bottom-up, not bestowed upon certain areas. Any top down planning initiatives should focus on fostering such natural and incremental movements.

After speaking with a few people and watching Downtown Dallas limp along for ten years despite countless dollars and extreme efforts, I became convinced. The way to support and reinvigorate Downtown Dallas is an amplified strategy of what I alluded to yesterday. Build around the big project with smaller, simpler projects. In this case, that means supporting, investing, and encouraging more emergence in all of the areas immediately adjacent to downtown into order to build up value and demand for Downtown revitalization that is proving too costly to overcome its considerable barriers.

The adjacent neighborhoods once built upon downtown’s success, but now they provide the opportunity for the foundation for downtown to once again sit upon.
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Perhaps burying the lead here, but Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief recently did the extraordinary. He honestly and unequivocally addressed the transportation crisis that Fort Worth and nearly all cities are facing. We simply can’t afford the car-centric development, not because of the individual mobility, but because of the spin-off and associated costs with supporting diffused infrastructure and its upkeep.

Unfortunately, Fort Worth and other major metropolitan areas are finding out the hard way what a mistake it was to design and build cities around automobiles years ago. Friends, we cannot continue to focus solely on building more roads for more vehicles. That’s counter productive at best…

If this is a mobility crisis—and I believe it is—then it must be treated like one!

In the spirit of the early Fort Worth pioneers who took it upon themselves to pick up shovels and extend the first rail line to our city, it’s time that we took matters in our own hands. It is clear to me that we are not going to get where we need to be by relying only on help from the feds or the state.

The point he touches upon is that the policy of road construction was a self-perpetuating (and -defeating) force producing a construct that we can no longer sustain. And I don’t mean sustain like in sustainable (although) that applies. I mean that we literally can’t afford it.

Our ability to comprehend the mistakes and adapt to the new world and the time it takes to do so is the process of boom to bust, and back to boom. This time however, the next boom will be in the consolidation. We are shifting from the fission stage of economic development to the fusion stage and the great recession is merely the time it takes to adapt to the new world.

Fort Worth, Dallas, and all of the cities of the Metroplex are going to have to think long and hard about how they want to pay for the infrastructure of individualized mobility. Is it increased gas taxes? New VMT taxes? Increased DMV costs/fees? Is it more toll roads? Frankly, I’m in favor of more toll roads, not new roads that are toll roads, but more roads becoming ‘tolled.’ *

Then taking the revenue from those tolls to increase overall mobility: convert arterials to complete streets with bike lanes, walkable sidewalks, and buildings that can begin to address the streets the shield themselves from; as well as to help pay for the expansion of the streetcar system that will do more to create high quality urban housing in all of the areas adjacent to downtown mentioned above.

Is it possible politically? I don’t know. I do however know that the longer we wait to be honest with ourselves, the bigger hole we begin to dig for ourselves. If in doubt, repeat the phrase “WALKABILITY IS A TAX CUT.”

The full transcript is at FortWorthology.

*In order to prevent the poor from being left at the edges footing the bill at toll roads, I would suggest that all developments accepting “transportation/reinvigoration” revenue as part of a public-private partnership should be required to have a 10% affordable component (and for family-sized units, not the smallest efficiencies like downtown buildings appropriate).

In fact, we might have to structure the affordable housing component with greater gradation of affordability, then a simple inclusionary offering, ie 10% of units at 60% median income, 20% at 80%, etc.)

As you may know, I’m a sucker for the application of biological studies towards urbanism, and as this article points out, biologists are beginning to take on cities and concluding that diversity (including income) is a key component of complexity which is the foundation of resilience.

From a value standpoint, we should realize that affordable components in what otherwise may be seen as an upscale neighborhood have several positive spinoff benefits. First, the wealthy provide a positive example for the children of the poor. Second, the wealthy act as benefactors bringing culture directly to the community (and much more effectively). Third, isolating the poor into enclaves also known as ghettos creates a spirit of despair, which can incite a criminal element.
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Last, I caught a news segment yesterday on Pizza Hut relocating from Addison to Plano, calling it a new, cutting-edge building. I saw the plan. There is nothing cutting edge about it. I don’t care about what kind of wifi or fiberoptics the building might be wired with, the cutting edge is walkable communities.

Cutting edge is defined by academics like UPenn and Johns Hopkins. Cutting edge is defined by businesses like Google. All of which are investing in walkable locations for more interesting atmosphere to attract and retain the best talent. Even AT&T moving to Downtown Dallas (although Golden Boy still needs to be set free!).

Cutting edge would’ve been relocating to Bishop Arts!

The official study contracted by the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee has found that more than $611 million in revenue will come to the region as a result of the game being played on Feb. 6, 2011, in Arlington. That’s far higher even than the more-than-$500 million figures we’ve heard from the event’s organizers in recent months. If accurate, that would indeed be a record–outperforming the $500 million that some credit Super Bowl XLII with generating.

The number was determined by Marketing Information Masters, a La Mesa, Calif.-based firm that has conducted economic impact studies for previous Super Bowls, as well the 2007 NHL All-Star Game and the 2010 NBA All-Star Game in North Texas. Their work was sent to the Texas State Comptroller earlier this month for review.

The report states that $611 million is the estimate of “direct spending” by all non-local residents during a two-month period leading up to game day. That seems high compared to the direct spending figures I’ve seen for previous games (more in the ($125-$300 million range) so I asked the Host Committee about whether that includes any indirect spending or multiplier effect–or to make any comment on the report. Their spokesman said it’s premature to comment on these numbers, since the committee doesn’t consider them final and official until after the Comptroller’s review of the data (due to be complete by March 8). There could be adjustments to this information at that time.

For more tidbits from the report, take the jump. We’ll start with how Dallas may make out better than Arlington in this deal.