doubling the price of parking in the Arts District garage (from $5 to $10)

Oh great, so add another $5 to the cost of a DSO ticket, which goes up every year already. First the Wyly Theater ticket priority scam and now this -- they must be awfully proud of the Arts District to think they can get away with reaming patrons this way.

hmm..here is a "crazy" idea. How about the city not spend as much money for ALOT of things? I mean, ok cut back on 311 operators, fine, shut the aquarium down, (I think it should only be open during the summer anyway) check, but other than that, umm, lets spend money on the roads and not much else right now. Whadda ya say? 200 more men in black..err blue. Will they be actually working to police the county or spend most of their time issuing tickets for minor traffic violations? (I wonder if the lower crime statistics are directly related to the price of gasoline. It seems the poor/criminal can't go anywhere lately. )

Well since the city is mostly Democratically run right now, here is a wonderfully creative socialist idea for you. Install GPS trackers (big gov contract there for some lucky souless bastard) in every residents cars. Charge a phat new tax for every single mile driven in Dallas County, and if one of our fine citizens break the speed limit, or run a red light/ stop sign, or heaven forbid flee the scene of a crime, you automatically have the amount of the ticket yanked from their debit card by computer! Ok well at least bill them like the toll road does. Heck, think of the surcharges!!! $50 ticket, $25 administrative fee, $35 county assessment fee $5.73 processing fee..well you get my drift, the sky is the limit!! That way you can get rid of all the inefficient clerks in that "white hole" you have on payrolls and think of the pension money you would save! Police can concentrate on solving and preventing crimes instead of acting as revenue agents. Extreme? I see the future IMO. That and having Starbucks sponsor the Police Dept. Ever watch Reno 911? It's all doable. We have the technology. We can rebuild, faster, better, stronger than before. nanananananananana..

roads and not much else, eh?

you gonna pick up my garbage? mow the medians? check for code compliance on my neighbors who hold endless yard sales? run the jail? filtrate my water? be my dog catcher? inspect our restaurants?

if you want to live somewhere that has no city services outside of maybe a cop and a road repair team, pick any town in texas with a population under 1,000. plus, it'll double as your ultra-conservative dreamland.

remember:

ultra conservative = houton, atlanta, oklahoma city, topeka

ultra liberal = nyc, san francisco, austin, seattle, chicago

take a guess at which cities most people would rather live, work, and play...honestly...think reeeeeeeaaal hard about that.

With all the fees, who is running the City? American Airlines?

Actually, that list of cities are a mixed bag. NYC is the last place I'd want to live (okay, possibly New Orleans would be below it), but Houston, Atlanta and Chicago are not far beyond.

nyc

Great place to visit, terrible place to live.

san francisco, austin, seattle

Location, location, location. Last time I checked, geographic features were neither liberal nor conservative.

Well, and for Austin there's the music scene and that it's in Texas, but if Austin were suddenly transplanted to a flat, boring part of the panhandle, I think the appeal would drop off considerably.

Scattershooting...by what stretch of imagination is Chicago ultra-liberal?...
SF is also a terrible place to live, for 90% of folks there...think of how much money they could save closing the Dallas Zoo the other six days per week?

Every year the Council and Manager say no tax increase but last year water and sanitation went up 10%, this year she says 6.3% plus sanitation if that is not a tax increase what is it? They are not dedicating the increase to water or related expense it goes to the General fund.Why not just raise property tax so low income and senior citizen won't be hit so hard with their water bills.

think really think..

Obviously I realize basic services must continue. I am not advocating shutting down our garbage system. I think the additional police force would be helpful, I was simply being cynical that they won't actually improve our crime numbers, that they would be used to generate more funds thru ticketing instead. I am sure if you had an outside committee audit the City of Dallas ..I am willing to bet there are HUGE amounts of money that could be saved. It's become too easy to keep upping taxes. Hey, just because my credit card company raises my limit does not automatically give me a pay raise if you catch my meaning. I just picked the roads as an issue because I am tired of needing a 4x4 to get around this cities potholes. I thought St. Laura was gonna fix all dem nasty holes? What happened?

My point was every year, more this more that more this more that. It's just got to stop. We have to reach a point where we cut back and save, not spend. Encourage the private sector to take on some of the load. I stated in another blog about the Ross renaming that the city should ask them to take over sponsorship of Ross, have it fixed, and keep it looking great if they are so concerned about renaming it. Just like the Starplex currently named Superpages.com. Sponsor it. Dallas' limited financial wisdom, to raise taxes every year with not much in the way of accountability, is a dead end road IMO. Well, if you can drive down it in the end.

BTW..my GPS taxation initiative will generate multi millions of dollars in revenue. And think how much safer our roadways would be. Are you opposed to such drastic measures? Think of the efficiency. It would encourage drivers to drive less, thereby improving the air, cut down on teen violence, road rage, drunk driving. Eliminate what has been pointed out to be a severely overtaxed and underperforming office. I would think it would be right up your alley. Gov imposed safety for all thru the Skynet.

I am willing to bet San Fran, Seattle, and NY will be the first places such a system will be implemented. It will happen eventually. Mark my words. There is too much money to be made.

All of Mr. Thinks liberal cities have one thing in common: They're great when you're 23 an don't mind living with 3 roommates. But all of them (and Dallas is slowly going this way too) have almost no middle class families actually living in the city.

You either have the rich, who do their best to avoid taxes, or the poor who don't pay anything, but add a lot of expense.

I loved NYC, sort of. It's great if you're rich, can afford the private schools, have a driver and a modest $4MM+ condo. You can afford the $300/month parking for your personal car which you only use to escape on the weekends. And don't worry about the outrageous income tax rates, you have WEALTH, and don't need to recognize income (US based anyway). Only the workerbees pay income taxes.

If you're middle class (ie $100k in salary), you can look forward to spending $475k for a very modest 600 sq-ft studio. oh, and $700 per month in maintenance fees, plus the $300 spot for your car. But most of us couldn't afford the luxury of a Kia. Because, oh yeah, we're paying NYC and NY State and Fed and Social Security taxes, probably AMT.

If you're poor, well the services are good, the tax rates don't matter (you get paid under the table anyway) and hey, it's better than that shithole country you just left.

The middle class? Out in the 'burbs. Near a commuter line if you can afford it. Or maybe some awful place like Topeka.

I'm a liberal Democrat who thinks Dallas should get out of the zoo business altogether. I took my toddler who adores animals to the Fort Worth Zoo and we all loved it. It's well maintained, the animal enclosures are all quite nice, and it was so crowded that we couldn't go on the day we orginally wanted to go because the parking was full. We had to go back at opening time the next day. The city of Fort Worth doesn't run the zoo. A private nonprofit does and they do a great job of it.

The Dallas Zoo and Aquarium on the other hand are antiquated, depressing, and embarassing. We went with some friends to the Aquarium last weekend with some friends and not only was the place almost empty on a weekend summer morning but it was dark, depressing, poorly maintained and full of empty tanks. Yes the admission to the aquarium is cheap but I'd rather spend more and go to a well maintained one with a better selection of sealife and maybe even a gift shop where I could buy my son a book about the animals he saw and maybe even a t-shirt.

Perhaps if the city looked more to Fort Worth for ideas on how to run cultural entities then not only would my tax $$ be spent on essential city services instead of a crumbling aquarium and a zoo that can't keep it's animals from escaping but I could stay in Dallas instead of driving to Fort Worth so my son could see the animals.

Dallas Native wrote:
"Perhaps if the city looked more to Fort Worth for ideas on how to run cultural entities ..."

Or the City can look at FW and not raise parking fees. Parking in downtown FW is free on evenings and weekends and downtown is crowded. Dallas believes in meter and parking violations revenue and downtown & Deep Ellum are dead. Think there is a correlation?

I dunno about that last one. Let's ask Avi.

Save tons of money by firing over-paid crooked cops in the Dallas Police Dept.. Many Dallas Police could be replaced by minimum wage Scouts. At least, Scouts are pledged to HONESTY and SERVICE.
I called 911 while observing a copper thief in the act. Waited 20 minutes, then called back. 911 says the call was cleared; dirty lying officers reported arriving at the scene but didn't find me or the thief. I complained to some patrol sgt., but he just kept bragging about what a great above-average response time I had gotten on my call. What good is a great response time when it is a completely fabricated lie by an officer to lazy to hang up his cell and get back to work?
Not only are the officers crooked, their leaders lie and cover for them.
Same thing happened to me when I saw thieves stripping metal off the old Lancaster-Kiest library. Waited 30 minutes, no police came. The police officially reported that they responded and found nothing.
I see the Dallas Morning News last week again reported that "crime is down" according to police statistics. Why ask a bunch of liars if they are doing their job?
Remember the Love Field video of DPD officers sleeping, etc, when they are supposed to guard our airport?
Our country is at war!! You know what we do to sleeping guards in the military during wartime?
How many lazy veteran crooked officers lost jobs and fat pensions for sleeping on the job?
Most Dallas taxpayers don't know that those uneducated lying thieves, a.k.a. Dallas Police officers, get starting salaries of over $40K without even having a college degree!
Seriously, Dallas could save much by firing their overpaid Chief and his staff of official liars.
I am very surprised that the Observer doesn't seem interested in reporting more on the corruption of the Dallas Police.