You’re probably going to think I’m a Kunklehead when I tell you this, but I’m recommending former Dallas police chief David Kunkle for Dallas’ next mayor.
Lord knows, the last person I voted for mayor, Tom Leppert, turned into a major disappointment. He seemed to be a common sense candidate, but he turned into someone who was more interested in wasting taxpayer dollars on toll roads, signature bridges, and unneeded convention center hotels than he was in providing basic city services to Dallas residents. Shortly after he was elected, Washington Mutual turned into the biggest banking failure in history. Leppert was on the board of directors as the bank went spiraling down the toilet and he kept insisting that the bank was in great shape. It would have been nice to know about his management style before electing him as our mayor, but he flew under the radar until he got into office. Leppert left the mayor’s job early because he now wants our votes to elect him to the Senate, and an even bigger chance to misuse our hard-earned tax dollars. Fat chance that he’ll ever get my vote again. When he turned over the keys of the city to political laughingstock Dwaine Caraway, Leppert showed even more reason to keep him on the sidelines as far as politics is concerned. As bad as Leppert was, Caraway is an embarrassment.
There are four candidates for mayor in today’s election, but one of them has lost too many elections to be considered a serious candidate. Therefore, I’ll concentrate on the three most likely contenders: Mike Rawlings, Ron Natinsky, and David Kunkle.
Rawlings is endorsed by local Dallas County Thug/Commissioner John Wiley Price, so there’s no way I’d trust him to put the city’s interests above his own. There have been some questionable decisions with no-bid city contracts that he engineered for a friend. I’m also disturbed that he was on the Dallas Parks Board when they tried to sell land at Samuel Park that had been donated to the city with very strict restrictions prohibiting its sale or use for something other than a park. In addition to giving away the (Samuel) farm, I would expect Rawlings to roll over at every opportunity to provide additional tax breaks to big business or any issue supported by John Wiley Price.
Ron Natinksy is currently serving on the Dallas City Council and he’s another one for giving big tax breaks to big business. He has no business being mayor. Natinksy recently voted to relax ethics standards for elected city officials and has generally supported nearly every suggestion to spend more and more taxpayer money on frivolities. His brother claims that Natinsky has overstated his business experience. I suppose that’s designed to compete with Rawlings for the big business giveaways.
Then we have Kunkle. I admit I didn’t like him as Dallas’ police chief. He was too much of a politician and not enough of a cop, although he performed significantly better than his predecessor, Terrell Bolton, who left Kunkle a mess to clean up. So, why do I prefer Kunkle to the other three mayoral candidates? David Kunkle is the only candidate who seems to prefer spending our tax dollars for city services, rather than high-dollar projects with little public benefit.
I didn’t particularly care for either of my choices for my city council member. My incumbent council member, Jerry Allen, like Tom Leppert, was an executive for a failed bank before learning to wastefully spend taxpayer dollars in our community the same way he helped steer his bank into insolvency. I voted early for the other candidate. She wasn’t very impressive, but at least she wasn’t Jerry Allen. I wish I could have voted to reelect Angela Hunt, but she’s in another district.
If you live in Dallas and haven’t already voted, please vote in today’s election and help stop the insanity. Let’s put some people into office who want to serve, instead of be served.
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