The letter below was submitted to the Dallas Morning
News on August 17, 2010:
On Wednesday, the City Council will be presented with four options for Love
Field concessions, only one of which (Option 2) has been recommended by city
staff and adequately reviewed. Furthermore, this plan has been unanimously
approved by the City Council’s Transportation Committee, which included council
members Koop, Kadane, Allen, Adkins, Davis, Hunt, Jasso, Medrano, Natinsky, and
Hill. Option 1 was
presented by city staff in June, 2007, without the benefit of national
consultants, and was never approved by the transportation committee. Options 3 and 4 were devised by
our mayor and City Councilman Ron Natinsky, not the City’s professional staff. If the mayor can arbitrarily
discard the work of city staff and its consultants, Dallas has evolved into a
strong mayor form of government, which voters rejected because Dallas doesn’t want a
political “boss” to
control the business of the city. Why
is the mayor so personally invested in the contract process? It’s not the “no-bid” issue,
because the mayor has been a proponent of many true no-bid contracts during his
tenure. It’s not the quality of services,
because the current concessionaires have
won national quality awards, and the mayor’s newest plan (Option 4) involves
keeping the current providers at the airport for the next thirteen or fourteen
years. Dallas citizens
should be more concerned with the mayor’s motives, conflicts of interest,
oppression and coercion of council members, backroom offers, and other unsavory
tactics. With respect to those contracts, maybe Wick Allison at D Magazine has it right: “I say the deal on the table is
good for both parties. .
. . it will serve the traveling public during a difficult time and stake out the
principle that competitive bidding is the only way to go.”
Gilbert Aranza
President and CEO
Star Concessions