Boy! And I thought Houston had problems....

So we are supposed to let some folks continue to take advantage of practices that are illegal but have been historically practiced?

http://www.slate.com/id/2202955/

The slate link above provides a good description of how street-money works. In most cases it is not illegal.

Well, now these Yankees don’t even know what a birthday party is. They’re going over and over a birthday party for Don Hill (I’m not sure what date we’re talking about) in which invitations went out pretty much exclusively to developers and builders who had zoning matters pending at City Hall, according to the FBI.
One of them was developer Bill Fisher, who eventually went to the FBI and is now one of the government’s main witnesses against Hill.
The birthday consultant handling the Hill fete was Tanya Medlock Lee, wife of Hill’s appointee to the Plan Commission, D’Angelo Lee. Ms. Lee’s invitation thoughtfully provided the builder/developers with suggested guidelines for gift-giving in the invitation, from $2500 to $7000.
Presumably you could be a “sponsor” of the councilman’s birthday party or a founder of his birthday or maybe a “pillar” of his birthday: the only level they talked about in court today was sponsor.
Fisher got the invitation a few days before his own deal for an affordable housing development was to be green-lighted or killed at City Hall, either by the city council or plan commission, I’m not sure.
Fisher sent an email to Lee saying he couldn’t give the councilman any money right that day, because he had a matter pending before Hill and Lee, and it would look like a conflict of interest. He said his firm always tried to support local officials, but, “We avoid doing so when there are matters pending in the districts they represent.”
The feds already have introduced telephone transcripts and other recordings to show that Fisher caught holy hell for failing to chip in. Medlock Lee’s husband, D’Angelo Lee, the plan commissioner with total say-so over Fisher’s deals, told Fisher that Hill had been personally wounded by Fisher’s callous stinginess in failing to participate in the birthday party.
Fisher’s project, by the way, was delayed at city council and continued to have problems over zoning and other approvals.
Well, I think we here in Dallas can understand how deeply wounding it would be to have someone you have invited to be a sponsor or founder of your birthday party just shoot you down. In Dallas, you can do whatever you want in business or romance, but do not … I repeat, DO NOT … mess with people’s parties.
I think the defense should raise a states’ rights argument about this.

JimS -

1. What is the difference b/w "Walk Around Money" and "Sugar"? I've heard both terms.

2. What are you hearing about the flow of money to the churches now vs. the last mayor's term?

DV makes a fair point above. A lot of grassroots campaigning in poor neighborhoods is about paying pepole to hand out push-cards, giving people rides, etc. It's not only legal: it's a good way to get poor eople to vote. If you don't want them to vote, then it's bad. The kind of walking around money Lorlee was talking about in '87, however, doesn't walk around. It goes right into pockets and stays there. That's a somewhat different kettle of fish.

Bob: the current mayor is a man of great energy and drive. He doesn't walk. He runs.

A few years ago the Sheriff in Atlanta got busted for accepting bribes. Seems he was also a preacher and every year his church had a party for his retirement fund. If you were a vendor to the jail, you were expected to contribute to the "preacher's retirement". Feds saw through that one too.

There was also a Senator who had an old overcoat on a coatrack at his birthday parties. Throughout the party, people would put their "cards" in the pockets. He got popped also.

SCamps: proof that the feds are anti-social.

JimS -

That's consistent with what I've heard. His supporters in Southern Dallas are very passionate.

Bit of an explanation here for the breadth of the subpenas and searches in this case. Feds had recorded a call in which Hill instructed his then girl-friend, now wife, Sheila Farrington, to tell anybody who might ask that the Mercedes she gave him was a retainer for his services as a lawyer. Feds searched his car, her car, his dwelling, her dwelling, his office at City Hall and his office at Burt Barr, the law firm he worked for, in addition to interviewing John Barr, to see if they could find any evidence of Hill's having served as her lawyer. Zip, nada, nothing. So now I guess the defense will have to come up with something.

EQUITY, EQUITY, AND MO' EQUITY!

If they put an end to this practice [funneling chump change to chumps], how will south Dallas leaders keep constituents in their “place”? Feds need to back off.

The Big Guy's recollection of "White Metropolis" is that the practice of providing resources to leaders in the African American community in Dallas in return for support has been around for as long as people in South Dallas have been able to vote.

http://www.whitemetropolis.com/

Ray Jackson, Hill's lawyer, tried to get Agent Wilson to concede that he had reported evidence of Hill working for Farrington as her lawyer on an FBI Form FD-302, which is a summary of an interview that agents have to keep after they grill somebody. Wilson just kept saying he never had reported such a thing on a 302. Jackson wanted to read the 302 to the jury. THe judge called them all up for a sidebar. The 302 never got read.

Lawyers are showing that City Hall staff, espeially in the housimng department, raised objections to Fisher's projects based on finances. This gives the jury another reason why Fisher's projects might have ben delayed, other than failing to kick in fr the birthday party. Maybe we need to get some of them city officials down here on the stand.

Jim, how about using this trial as a spring board to bring The Accomodation up to date?

Regardless of the outcome of the case, the arcane practices of Dallas politics have been put under the microscope. Sadly, most of the citizenry won't know/bother to look.

Wasn't it Paul who famously sang, "In the end, the city we take is equal to the city we make", or something to that effect?

In New York believe its called Key Money and there are no black preachers on that take..so the idea is not all that foreign to the Feds.

Has JWP shown up to ask where his 15% is?

I'm outta there. Rode down on the elevator at lunch with most of the defense team, who were in very high spirits. D'Angelo Lee was shadow-boxing with some guy, also congratulating a young woman for being the one who came up with the 302 evidence mentioned above. I get the impression they think they ripped up old Agent Wilson on the stand.
Maybe. I thought Wilson was pretty rock-solid.
I'm a terrible judge of these things. I had just the opposite feeling, like it's beginning to pile up. Maybe you can nit-pick the government on why a project was delayed or whether an event was a political event or a birthday party. But you can't nit-pick the pattern, which is what the government is gradually pulling out.
Maybe those jurors go in the room and tell each other the government's case has too many holes. BUt they could just as easily go in there and say, "Birthday party???!!!! And there's a schedule of gifts from $2500 to $7000? Do they think people are stupid?"
Tell you what: there's a reason I'm not the judge. Well, possibly several reasons.
The birthday party, man. It's gonna be real hard to get the stink off that dead elephant in the room.

These clowns don't realize they're not Al Lipscomb or John Wiley Price, they think because they got away with bribery, they can.

They don't realize they didn't take money from the "right" people (aka DMN, Highland Park, etc.). They are soo SOL.

Funny how Dallas corruption always begins with cars: Lipscomb's "free" car in his driveway; Hill's BMW he "earned"; today DMN John Wiley Prices half dozen cars with dirty titles.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-pricecars_20met.ART.State.Edition2.4bca671.html

This story was cute, in a DMN "I don't want to report this but" kinda way, reminds me of how they covered Chief Bolton

The sooner that paper goes out of business the better for Dallas.

Speaking of Terrell "Boo Hoo" Bolton, he's been saying plenty of wacky stuff at the hearings about his excessive comp time, e.g.:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17421087/Testimony-of-Terrell-Bolton-Day-42

I am greatly saddened to see Jim Schutze calling himself a journalist. As many have said before, the true journalists are the ones in the courtroom, reporting on the entire day's events. Not someone who halfway pays attention to a simulcast in another room, and then leaves shortly after lunch. I hereby request that the Dallas Observer report Schutze to the Dallas Police for theft by false pretenses.

@ROB,
Thanks for the link. That's some quality reading that brings back such fond memories!

I dunno... I used to get birthday fundraiser invitations for Ed Oakley. So what?

I hope they have more than this on Hill, I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, he was targeted b/c he's black. I just don't remember anyone from the FBI raiding offices and going to these great links over a friggin car that someone was driving. We need more info please Jim.

Bob, Be careful you're going to tell on yourself. Sugar is a termed coined by a local yocal. Were you in the brotherhood at some time to learn of the term.

cp Sounds like you may be from Oak Cliff. Before there were county wide black elected officials, everybody in Oak Cliff got invited to the former State Senator Oscar Mauzy's birthday party fundraisers. Didn't the Mayor just have a birthday party fundraiser at the Zoo. cp Be careful dropping these white elected officials invites, you might make white people's blood boil when black people respond with "see there white people do it all the time." you Rat. ( See schultze's "you can't pin corruption on Laura Miller in where politics ends and bribery begins

Sandra- I live in South Dallas.

Sandra -

No, ma'am. Not in the brotherhood.

bob , Today was not a good day for the brotherhood. At one point, I was ready to call in the lynch squad, especially when Brian said that 12 computers and lumber were stolen from his company on Fantroy's security company watch. We looked like scoundrels. Then I realized that Brian was lying when he said that Fantroy told him that the business belonged soley to his son. But everybody knows that son is blood and so it was wrong for Brian to hire his son's company. He also said that Hill and Fantroy were the only ones who pressured him, but Chaney's colleague at DISD and his appointee to the Plan Commission Melvin Traylor was hired by Southwest Housing. Brian said that Don pressured him into hiring Shelia and that she did no work for him. He first told the FBI that she did. So was Brian lying before the trial or is he lying on the stand to save himself. There is at least enough evidence to show that she at least thought she was doing something for the money. Brian also said that had he known that Sheila had interests in other nonprofits that he was dealing with, he would have not contracted with her. But his wife, Cheryl has a nonprofit that he does business with. So what is wrong with companies have contracts with more than one company. More tommorrow.

I would like to communicate directly with "The Big Guy." My e-mail address is on my website. By the way, Jim Schutze is one of the few real journalists in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Michael Phillips