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EDITOR’S PAGE

By Rowland Stiteler |

DISD DELIRIUM

BY NOW you must be sick of it, our unending litany of charges against the Dallas Independent School District and the men and women who are entrusted with running it. DISD stinks. And you know it. That’s why you are choosing, in ever-increasing numbers, to keep your children out of the public schools and fork over whatever it takes to buy them a private education. So what else is new?

The fact remains that there are still too many unanswered questions about the school system you pay your hard-earned tax dollars to support. Many of the most serious unanswered questions go back two years to when Nolan Estes (who, fortunately, has departed) was superintendent and the current board of education (which, unfortunately, has not departed) ran the show. The board of education, of course, would like to simply forget the Nolan Estes era. That’s why we can’t. And you shouldn’t.

One of the most basic questions that has yet to be answered is just how much profiteering at the public expense occurred in the DISD administration. We know that Kedric Couch, DISD assistant director of athletics, was buying land and then selling it back to the school district. But just how widespread was the land dealing by DISD officials? Did it go to the top levels of the administration? More importantly, has the practice continued? These are questions to which you deserve an answer. But these are questions on which very little light has been shed since the scandals of the Nolan Estes era. And these are questions for which the board of education, with its head-in-the-sand attitude, has never had the requisite fortitude to demand an answer.

It is because these questions still dangle unanswered that political writer Philip Seib set out to probe the land ownership of Nolan Estes. Seib turned up records showing land ownership by Estes in 20 pieces of property in the neighborhoods of two public schools in Oak Cliff. Interestingly enough, the land Estes purchased is close to the holdings of another DISD official: Kedric Couch.

What Seib turned up does not indicate a pattern of purchases with the intent of selling the land to the DISD at a profit. But what Seib’s research does show is that the land owned by Estes and Couch increased in value after renovations were made at nearby schools. These renovations, of course, were performed by the DISD administration and financed by a bond package that was drawn up when Estes was at the reins of the DISD, and the board of education rubber-stamped many of his plans as if they were a group of notaries public. One has to wonder whether Estes used his insider’s knowledge as the top official of the school district to make informed decisions as a real estate investor. The question is also raised as to whether Estes used his position as superintendent to influence the type and the amount of renovations performed on schools near his properties. Just how much money Estes has made or will make on these real estate deals isn’t easy to determine, since the deeds on many of the properties merely indicate “all cash” as the form of payment.

“If reporters only had subpoena power,” Seib said when he completed his story, “we could really get to the bottom of all this.” Reporters, of course, don’t have subpoena power. But district attorneys do have the power of the courts behind them. Based on the information Seib uncovered about Estes’ and Couch’s land ownership, the board of education should take the sensible step to clear up the situation once and for all: Ask the district attorney to investigate the matter. Are DISD officials making real estate profits for themselves through their public offices? That question should be definitively answered. As Superintendent Linus Wright told Seib, when school administrators are involved in land dealings around school sites, it simply looks bad. We agree. For Seib’s report, turn to page 167.



’FEVERISH’ PHOTOGRAPHY

Sometimes it’s difficult to come up with the right photographic concept to illustrate our cover story. This time it was easy. When we set out to cast the model who would look like the stereotypical disc jockey, it became obvious that the simplest way to do it would be to get a model who looks like “Dr. Johnny Fever” of television’s WKRP in Cincinnati, Howard Hesseman. Art Director Fred Woodward arrived at the conclusion that the person who would best fit that bill would be Hesseman himself. Brilliant logic. “Fine,” I told Fred, “Why don’t you just get on the phone to Hollywood, ring up Howard Hesseman, and see if he’ll drop what he’s doing and fly out to Dallas for a modeling session?” So he did. And much to my surprise, Hesseman did. I later learned that as inducement to come to Texas, our staff bribed Hesseman by offering him his favorite refreshments: trail mix, apple juice (no preservatives), and lightly spotted bananas from a health food store. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? Strange people, those Californians.



NEW STAFF MEMBERS

Nothing is more gratifying to an editor than to find and hire good writers. I’m happy to announce that with this issue two new good writers will join our staff.

Joining us as an associate editor is Michael Berryhill, 36, who will be responsible for our coverage of the arts in Dallas as well as numerous other topics. Michael came to us from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he was the art critic, and in the course of his job covered the art community in both Fort Worth and Dallas. Michael has a varied background including teaching poetry writing at Vassar College and spending one year as a Junior Fulbright lecturer in American literature in Lyon. France.

Joining us as an associate editor next month will be George Rodrigue, 25, who is coming to us from the Atlanta Constitution where he was the city hall reporter. At the Constitution, George developed a reputation as a tenacious reporter and as a young man whose répertoriai skills included being as comfortble with a calculator and a city budget as he was with a pencil and a notebook.

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