CITYSCOPE

Dallas city manager Richard Knight Jr. has barely had time to warm his chair since stepping up to the top job in December, and already insiders at City Hall are talking about his successor. No, Knight’s not planning on leaving any time soon. He’s said he would like to stay something like three or four years and then try something else. Knight touched off all the talk himself when he announced in February that he was hiring Grand Prairie’s city manager, Robert Blodgett. to fill the vacancy created when Knight moved up to the top job. It was a popular hire for a couple of reasons. Knight has been urged, in the strongest possible terms, to rebuild the professional staff at City Hall as soon as possible, and with Blodgett he took a giant step in that direction; that reassured a lot of people, both within City Hall and in the community. And Blodgett is a popular, known quantity; he cut his teeth in the profession several years ago as one of the bright, young “whiz-kid” management interns who were gath- ered up by former Dallas city manager George Schrader, and he got high marks from a number of people in the community who had contact with him during his tenure. His career path since leaving Dallas has been steadily upward and fellow pros say he has since matured into a solid professional. As the hiring of Knight reaffirmed, the city council-and the business community’s leadership-prefers to hire the city manager from within the system. Blodgett’s return to Dallas City Hall automatically puts him at the head of the list of likely successors.



Political junkies who are curious about the personality of the new Dallas City Council and wonder who’s going to be in charge won’t have to wait very long for their first clue. It ought to be clear, in fact, before the new council is sworn in on May 4. In its first official session on May 6, the council elects the mayor pro tem and deputy mayor pro tem. Both offices are largely ceremonial- the mayor pro tem presides over the council meetings in the mayor’s absence; if both are absent, then the deputy mayor pro tem presides-but the posts are coveted for the visibility they afford. Since the incumbent mayor pro tem, Annette Strauss, is not a candidate this time around, the incumbent deputy mayor pro tem. Diane Ragsdale, is the logical-but not likely-successor. Ragsdale has been told several times over the last year by some of the more conservative members of the council that she could easily win their support for her election to mayor pro tem if she would just take a more “moderate” and “cooperative” approach to her council service. (She’s too controversial, in other words.) For the most part, though, she’s gone her own way. She can probably count on at least three returning council members for their votes-maybe a fourth if Strauss is elected mayor-and the others will probably let her have it if no one else expresses any interest in the job. But John Evans, a conservative councilman from Southeast Dallas, says he’s interested in the post. “I’m a pretty low-key and uncontroversial type of person.” says Evans, “and I think I could ably represent the city without embarrassing it in those ceremonial appearances that the mayor is unable to make.” If the outcome of the council election in April turns into the “slam dunk” (translation: a solid defeat) of the progressive forces that many business leaders and conservatives are openly predicting, then their candidates may just try to break Ragsdale’s near-lock on the mayor pro tern post as a means of flexing their muscle and showing everyone who’s really the boss.