We run a leadership program called D Academy that is designed to educate our employees (and anyone else who would like to apply) about all matters related to the functions of our city. Yesterday, in a City Hall auditorium, Mayor Mike Rawlings was kind enough to field questions for the current class of fellows, and he said some things about the Trinity toll road and Adrian Peterson that give me pause. Such as:
On the Trinity toll road, the mayor had the following exchange with our Matt Goodman and Krista Nightengale:
Goodman: “What’s already been approved by the Corps of Engineers?”
Rawlings: “The Corps of Engineers has not approved anything yet. But an architectural drawing of the road has been sent to the Corps. They’re reviewing it.”
Goodman: “Anything that changes that?”
Rawlings: “The bones of that, yes. Anything around, above, below, through that whole thing does not need the Corps.”
Goodman: “I was under the impression it does.”
Rawlings: “It does not.”
Nightengale: “The number of lanes can’t change?”
Rawlings: “We’re asking for six lanes, but we can build two lanes if we want. So you’re basically getting a home loan or a credit limit for a million dollars, and you can only spend $200,000 if you want. That’s where I think basically only 30 percent of the whole project has been designed.”
The mayor said that we can build the toll road as small as we’d like. And basically every preposition is under our control. Around, above, below, through. Maybe the Corps still has aboard and against. But we’ve got the rest. That does not square with what the Morning News told us last month in a story titled “Feds Say It’s All or Nothing With Large-Scale Trinity Toll Road.” Here are the first two paragraphs of that story:
Dallas’ planned $1.5 billion Trinity Parkway can’t be significantly different from the massive high-speed toll road submitted for federal approval unless city officials delay the project up to two years or start over, federal officials said this week.
That declaration undercuts suggestions from a dwindling number of project supporters that the road could be scaled down to resemble the narrower thoroughfare with beautiful riverside views imagined more than a decade ago.
That doesn’t sound at all like we’re qualified for a million-dollar loan and we can choose to spend only $200,000 of it. We’ve got a real problem here. Either the mayor doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or the newspaper has misrepresented what federal officials said.
That brings me to another confusing point the mayor made about the toll road. This one has to do with the notion forwarded by toll road supporters that the road is needed so that the working poor in southern Dallas can get to their jobs in the northern half of the city and beyond. The exchange:
Nightengale: “Who’s going to be using the road? Tolls cost $4 to $5, and if you’re saying it’s for single mothers trying to get to their jobs, that’s not economically feasible for them.”
Rawlings: “I think it’s very economically feasible, if you understand what these mothers are. I’m not arguing $4 to $5 is the right price point. Their value for their time is as valuable as my time coming down the toll road. I think it’s terrifically classist to say that people in North Dallas can have tolls and people in southern Dallas aren’t smart enough or don’t have the money to do it.”
This line of reasoning troubles me deeply. It’s like saying that you’re an ignorant rich person if you don’t think the working poor should be given the option of borrowing money from a payday lender (an analogy that, I promise you, I picked completely at random and not because it alludes to any corporate board on which Rawlings once sat). The mayor is saying that it is an injustice that poor people in southern Dallas aren’t taxed to drive their cars the way rich people are in North Dallas. The mayor is attempting to put an Orwellian twist on his words that his future audiences ought to be wary of.
Those are the two important points I wanted to bring to your attention. But the mayor said two silly things that caught my eye (I was reading a transcript and did not attend the session). One was about Councilman Dwaine Caraway. As Zac mentioned yesterday, Caraway has six cellphones. This prompted someone in the audience to ask how many Rawlings carries.
Rawlings: “I do two. I’ve got my iPhone and I’ve got a Blackberry. My assistant told me she’s getting me off of it this next year, so I’ll be to one. Yeah. Dwaine. Dwaine’s kind of — it’s a little shady at times. Dwaine, what are we doing? I was watching The Wire, and they have those portable things they throw in the — what do they call them? Burner phones. Dwaine, what are you doing?”
The line got a lot of laughs. It would be too politically correct to jump on the mayor for making a joke about Caraway being a shady character in The Wire. But what if he made a joke about domestic violence — especially given that he has made domestic violence one of his pet issues?
Rawlings: “Psychologically what I see is this economic gap in our city which is caused by an education gap, but I dug deeper and I realized there’s an expectation gap. When I was in third grade, I remember telling my mother — I still remember this — that I’m not sure I was college material. My mother opened a can of Adrian Peterson on me that I will never forget. K? That doesn’t happen with moms and dads that are just trying to make ends meet, and some of them can’t even speak the language, and they just want to stay away from everybody. There’s not that expectation gap, and I think that’s what we need.”
I bring up these last two quotes because I think they illustrate that sometimes the mayor’s mouth outruns his brain. That’s not really a big deal when it produces laughs (the Caraway remark) or even when it produces cringes (the Peterson remark). But when it produces untruths and disinformation about a $1.5 billion toll road, that’s a real problem for the city and the people who live here — both rich and poor.
