CITYSCOPE

Dallas Mayor Starke Taylor, who’s not going to run for reelection next April after all, and recently departed City Manager Charles Anderson have the same response when asked what each sees as his greatest disappointment while at City Hall: the lack of success of economic development programs for South Dallas. Taylor says he should have made the program a higher priority, and wishes he had personally gotten involved in selling the program. (He says he may do that as a private citizen.) Anderson, who as the new executive director at Dallas Area Rapid Transit is still vitally interested in the area, says South Dallas is the city’s ’new frontier.” but he also calls it a “very difficult landscape in which to work.” According to Mark Sinclair, chairman of the Economic Development Advisory Board charged with overseeing development in South Dallas, ’”a lot of the programs have slowed down because of a reduction in the level of incentives’-meaning limits on the sale of bonds, etc. The program has had some successes, he adds, most notably the marketing of the land at Red Bird Airport and the creation of a program designed to develop and support small businesses. “It’s certainly not a failure in terms of the city’s efforts to relate to and communicate with people in the area and let them know about the city’s determination to be helpful and creative,1’ he says. But the downturn in the Texas economy and the reductions (some at the federal level) of available incentives have indeed caused the program to fall short of expectations and hopes.



Another matter concerning Anderson and race relations has to do with the temporary appointment of Police Chief Billy Prince to an assistant city manager role. Anderson and his interim successor. Richard Knight, agreed that Prince was an inspired choice to call upon while the city council sought a new city manager, if for no other reason than his managerial abilities. Another reason-perhaps a more important one-for making the move was the opportunity it afforded to improve relations between the police department and some council members-specifically, Al Lipscomb and Diane Ragsdale-who have been critical at times of the police. “Not only does the move give the council members a chance to see Billy Prince up close and to get to know him, it works the other way, too.” Knight says. “Our hope is that both sides will come to understand the other a little better.” However, Prince’s temporary assignment got off to a rocky start; it was announced only a few days after a seventy-year-old black woman was shot and killed by a Dallas police officer. Knight says he could have changed his mind about moving Prince over from the police department, but he decided the need for communication was even higher after the incident. So far, the reviews on Prince are good.

And one more item from the Anderson file: the old Dallas City Hall, between Main and Commerce on Harwood, where the police share space with the municipal courts and the fire department, is on its last legs. Anderson says the building is “near the end” of its useful life. “It’s got maybe five years at most before it becomes a real problem.” he says. At the time he resigned as city manager, Anderson was toying with a solution: the city would sell the property (under the condition that the building somehow be preserved) and find a temporary home for the police department while figuring out how and where to build a new police headquarters. As for the courts, there’s still some hope that they can be melded into the county courts* operation.