I’m only aware of this because I work in downtown Dallas. But as I live in the ‘burbs, I won’t actually get a vote on it. Yet still. This kind of crap just bugs the snot out of me.
There’s an issue coming up about a hotel that the city wants bond money to build a convention hotel. Some people say that if we’re ever going to get the big conventions, we have to have an adequate hotel. Others say that if we even had a shot at the big conventions, a big venture firm would have come in and done it themselves, without using any taxpayer money. Personally, I my partially informed opinion is that it's a lousy idea. But as I say, I’m not a resident of Dallas, and even if I went out and did the research and came up with a fully informed opinion, what I think wouldn’t matter a hill of beans. I’ll just have to rely on Dallas residents to make a fair and judicious decision.
But here’s the thing: this is one of those sneaky ballot issues where no means yes and yes means no. If you vote “no”, you are saying build the hotel. If you vote “yes”, you’re saying don’t build the hotel. Not exactly intuitive, no? Or yes. So unless they do a staggeringly good campaign to let people know which way the vote runs (and that ain't likely), I would hazard to guess that many people will vote against their own opinion, on accident. And if only 10% of voters don’t quite get it, that’s a huge margin for error. I don’t see any way that this vote isn’t a huge waste of time, and thus the snot bugging.
Not the first time this has happened. Or the only town where it happens. And I’m sure there’s some sort of politicianny, convoluted rationalization for the whole backasswards way that issue is proposed. But it’s wrong. They know it’s wrong. Leave it to a politician not to be able to ask a simple question. Especially when they don’t want the simple answer.
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5 comments:
THANK YOU for talking about this! Irritates the crapola out of me when they try to confuse the voters with the yeah is neah ballot. Like making an informed vote isn't challenging enough. Damn politicans!
There ARE laws about clarity lanuage - but it is a greay area.
As someone who did their share of conventioning in Dallas - you all do need a big, better hotel downtown. HOWEVER, I would never say the citizens should pay for it! I hate those projects - that rip off the taxpayers - like Nationals stadiums hrre - promising tons oflocal jobs and surrounding development and profiting PRIVATE enterprise - then so NOT delivering on their promises. "Oops, our bad, we'll just keep those profits and promise to do better next time."
We definitely could use the hotel. But they basically jock-blocked any attempt by a private investor so long that no one else would touch the area with a 10-foot pole.
This is just one in a long line of projects where Dallas taxpayers are getting pimped out by the city council and the mayor. The yes-means-no tactic is just one in a long list of dirty tricks the city has in their hip pocket.
Here's an idea ... they could renovate the Grand Hotel and reopen that parking garage next to it. Must be at least 500 rooms in that thing. Now that is something I would vote YES on that one, or would it be NO?!
I'd love to see something done with the Grand. But it's too far from the convention center to be of any help in that regard. Conventioneers want to be close, if not IN the same facility. I know we get passed up for some big events because of the lousy hotel accommodations.
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