STREET TALK

On the political front, a few more pieces have fallen together this month on the City Council elections. Mayoral candidate Starke Taylor has named community activist Ida Papert as one of his co-campaign managers. He’s still looking for the other half of the management duo, however. Word has it that he’s scouting for a male from Oak Cliff. Annette Strauss has been hanging around the City Council meetings quite regularly and has decided to run for an at-large seat. At this point, she’s not sure which one. And Peter Johnson, a South Dallas political activist is getting loads of pressure to take on Councilwoman Elsie Faye Heggins. Johnson came to Dallas with work on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.



It’s head-butting time again in North Dallas -one of those neighbor-against-neighbor feuds. This time the battle is between heavyweight Texas Instruments (TI) and a small neighborhood group. The problem started back in October when TI placed an announcement in the local papers stating that the company planned to increase its Forest Lane plant’s hydrocarbon emmission level to over 25 tons per year.

Charlie Harden is a concerned homeowner in the neighborhood, called Hamilton Park, and he plans to fight the level increase along with a number of other homeowners. He has been granted a public hearing by the Texas Air Control Board and has appealed to the Dallas City Council. TI’s Dick Perdue claims his company wants to be a good neighbor and that “a ton of anything sounds like a lot.” To this, Harden replies, “Today’s safe limits are tomorrow’s tragedies.”