Mayor Tom Leppert had scarcely been accused of making “negative personal attacks” against Harlan Crow–the leader of the forces against a city owned convention-center hotel–when darned if the mayor didn’t go and do it again. The anti-hotel effort is “being pushed by an individual who owns the Hilton Anatole, and it’s unfortunate,” Leppert proclaimed today, addressing DowntownDallas’ jam-packed, 50th Anniversary luncheon at the Hyatt Regency here. He also ripped a union proposal to curb developer incentives–both issues will be on the city ballot May 9–and said “the combination of these two referendums can’t go forward.” After the mayor talked, keynote speaker Catherine Crier scolded everybody for contributing to the economic meltdown, but said good things can come out of it, like growing vegetable gardens and moving back in with your parents. Yeah, meltdown!!!
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Now that Mayor Leppert has been caught in an A-Rod-esque lie, can we believe anything he says?
Well of course the owner of the Anatole would oppose competition from its own local government. If the city was looking into the ****amamie idea of say, buying a fledgling Florida pro Baseball team, or a fledgling Canadian pro Basketball team, or a fledgelings pro football team; would you not expect Tom hicks, Cubes, or Jerry Jones to lead the anti campaign? The city should not be in the hotel business, especially when its having a rough time being in the road, cop, and education business.
Well put JB. Mayor Tom, this whole hotel thing is an expensive distraction which will never get any better. Just say no! Drop it and turn your focus to the things your government is supposed to do (streets, schools and cops). Look at all the time and money you’ve already wasted. If I were your daddy I’d be out back cuttin me a switch right about now.
If it is so natural and expected that the owner of ANY hotel that benefits from the convention center presently would oppose the proposed convention center hotel, then why is Harlan Crow not joined by Ray Hunt (owner of the Hyatt Regency), or the owners of the Adolphus Hotel, the Sheraton Hotel, and the Magnolia Hotel, four hotels that are in much closer proximity to the convention center? Could it be that they think the new hotel will bring more convention center business overall, and thus benefit all of them?
That speech Crier gave was AWFUL. It would have been bad as a commencement speech at a community college!
Yeah, a convention hotel well done should raise the tide lifting all boats. And, I like Crier. But, would never wish to hear a litigator give a speech on economics. Why do entertainers think they are enlightened and why do people listen to them? And, let’s be honest, journalism is a form of entertainment that rarely enlightens.
Harlan maybe has a stake and is opposed.
I have absolutely no stake (other than someone wasting my tax dollars) and am as much or more so opposed.
Mayor Tom, what’s your agenda? why force this down our throats? Can you give us any reason to believe this is a good idea? Oh, and it had better be really good because even the people who used to believe you have their doubts now…
Actually most of the other downtown hotels are not happy about the new convention center hotel but they also understand that it would not be politic to be too public about it. The average annual occupancy rate of Dallas hotels (before the economic collapse) was approx 62-65%. Now the city wants to go into competition against them? I truly do not understand. And now that the economy has collapsed, the shops, restaurants, etc that were to be adjacent to it, will not even be built. It will be a ghost town most of the year. And do we really need another ghost town with Victory on the other end of downtown?
I am a conventioneer, what is a Dallas?
Mayor Tom, please remember when you became mayor, you agreed to represent the populus and give up your previous job as a developer. The two are not intertwined. Please start doing the things people elected you for and try getting your hands dirty byrepairing the roads and sidewalks and helping to keep our parks open. Walk, heck crawl, before you try to start sprinting to create a Jetson like city of YOUR dreams.
I don’t do many conventions anymore, but back when I did what I wanted in a convention locale was either that it was warm when home was cold, San Antonio, New Orleans, San Diego, or it was cool when home was hot, Denver, San Diego. Here we can’t guarantee not to have ice in winter and of course summers here are summers.
I also liked having bars and dining options being in walking distance, plentiful, and safe, with New Orleans getting a pass on safe just because it is New Orleans.
I think that we are better at business than we are at tourism, lets do business. If I was an out of town conventioner I think I would rather be in Arlington than downtown Dallas.
I understand opposition to the convention hotel, but has anyone discussed the other initiative? It requires voter approval for any city project costing over $1 million, which would paralyze any development in Dallas (since we can only have 2 elections per year). Has anyone done any research about who is behind that proposal? Surely the city pissed somebody off.
Mayor Leppert, may I remind you that you are a public servant — and, in that regard, you work for us. I, for one, shan’t just bend over and let you blast crow in my referenda.
My two referenda.