The gloves are off in the Trinity fight; Miller pulls Hunt from DCVB board

Things are getting serious in the Trinity Parkway/Tollroad battle: On Friday the 13th, Laura Miller sent a letter to Phillip Jones, president of the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau, immediately removing Angela Hunt from her position as vice chairman of the board. True, Miller as mayor has the right to make and remove city appointees as she in all of her wisdom sees fit. But as Hunt pointed out in a letter to Miller later Friday, Miller has now stooped to the same tactics that she accused then Mayor Ron Kirk of pulling when Kirk (according to Miller) reneged on plans to appoint her to a regional transportation commission after Miller and Kirk disagreed over the city's role in what ultimately became the Victory development and American Airlines Center. I'm a member of the DCVB board myself, as an appointee of the Dallas Northeast Chamber of Commerce, and Hunt has played an active and supportive role on the board and in supporting the DCVB. And I just don't see where it's written that everyone has to agree on everything all of the time in order to work together for the common goal of improving this city. It's unfortunate now that Miller has literally become exactly what she railed against all those years of writing for the Dallas Observer: She is nothing more than a political hack who seems more interested in her longterm political ambitions and keeping future donors happy than representing those of us who sent her to the city council in the first place.

Comments

[DK]

Laura Miller has now created fire where there had only been smoke. Angela Hunt has locked in my vote next election and I'm definitely going to sign her petition!

[Rick Wamre]

You're right, and you know who should have been the first person to think of this? Laura Miller. It just shows how far away from her journalism days she has moved. But remember one other thing: Angela's sacking rated a relatively buried story on page 7 of Sunday's Morning News metro section (at least Angela's mug shot wound up on the front of the metro page). The Sunday Morning News is so crammed with ads and inserts that if a story isn't on a section front, it stands a good chance of being missed by a reader. So it's not like the News is doing anything to fan the flames of this deal, which maybe Laura was already banking on...

[Michael Davis-Dallas Progress]

LM has always been awful at measuring the temperature and direction of political winds (Strong Mayor, the Cowboys, etc). I wonder how her fan club feels about her now?

[Travel Guy]

The American Airlines Center? How could you disagree with the city's role in that?

[Rick Wamre]

I think the American Airlines Center has worked out great for the Stars, Mavericks, Tom Hicks and Ross Perot Jr. I think it has worked out OK for Dallas - it did revitalize an area of the city that didn't have anything going for it. But the only reason the AAC is sitting where it is is that the old TXU land is probably the only place in/near downtown where Hicks/Perot could put together that much land they could own so they could really cash in for themselves. Think about how different downtown Dallas and the convention center area would be if the Victory development/AAC was over by the Farmers Market and connecting toward the convention center instead of where it is? We wouldn't need a huge city subsidy for a convention center hotel; the W would probably do nicely, and with no city subsidy. And we'd have all kinds of great restaurants and activities within walking distance of the convention center and the rest of downtown, instead of sequestered off in a far corner of the downtown area. Sure, the Victory development is great; but it was far greater for Hicks/Perot than it is for downtown and for Dallas. And simply put, that's why there was so much political pressure for it to go where it did.