On the City of Dallas's Tax Revenue, White Rock's "Red Water" and Other Memos of Note

By Robert Wilonsky Sun., Nov. 8 2009 at 9:33 AM

Categories: News

Flickr user: Kent Wang

Every Friday night, Frank J. Librio, managing director of the Public Information Office at Dallas City Hall, sends to the media a collection of memos distributed late in the week to Mayor Tom Leppert and the Dallas City Council. (And, most of the time, they never seem to land in the Unfair Park in-box, which, perhaps, has the good sense to file them as spam.) Seems a waste not to share them -- especially since Dallas city government does do a rather good job of providing a peek at the sausage-making process. And so, after the jump, this week's batch, a surprisingly interesting read filled with dispiriting stats (according to City Manager Mary Suhm, Dallas's FY 2008-2009 sales tax revenue was ultimately $29 million less than the amount originally budgeted), notification of a Dallas Floodway Project public meeting starring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and evidence that the council's interested in hearing from Dallas police about how they count murders and car burglaries.

Also: First Assistant City Manager Ryan Evans responds to a story this week about rust in East Dallas's water: "In an effort to abate the 'Red Water' issue," Evans writes, "the City of Dallas has launched an aggressive program to replace aging cast iron pipelines in the White Rock area with new non-corroding, poly-vinyl chloride (PVC) pipelines. ... To date, we have replaced over 12 miles of old cast iron water mains in the White Rock area at a cost of over $30 million as part of the water department's capital budget." And, at the end of the document dump, one man's crusade against code violations in southern Dallas. So jump for something far more interesting than this morning's Metro section. Memos 11-6-09