Inertia at the jail
It’s no surprise that the Dallas County jail has once again failed state inspection.
In December 2023, a formerly homeless man I was helping was arrested for a nonviolent crime, and I didn’t know if he had a visitation list, as required. When I called the jail, requesting I be allowed to visit as his friend and benefactor, an “Officer Mayes” (who refused to give her first name) told me I had to make the request in writing. When I asked for an email address, she insisted I hand deliver it to her in person. Unmoved by the obvious inefficiency, she agreed to see me the following day at 9 a.m.
Standing in the jail lobby the next morning, I watched the receptionist call Officer Mayes to let her know of my arrival. Officer Mayes responded that she was too busy to see me and hung up. I stood my ground. Officer Mayes did too, and hung up again. When I was finally buzzed through to the administrative office, the inertia was palpable: no phones ringing, no visitors present, employees sunk in chairs. The only sign of life was Officer Mayes’ icy, derisive stare.
Opinion
If Sheriff Marian Brown and her team are this intent on mistreating people who want to help their inmates, it’s not hard to imagine what they’re doing to the inmates themselves.
Laura Miller, Dallas
Dallas, where’s the money?
Dallas is talking of closing community pools, closing libraries and eliminating alleyway trash pickup. In every case, the reason given is that there is no room in the budget for these services. Yet, these have all been provided for many decades, and Dallas’s revenue is now higher than it has ever been.
Our government owes us an explanation as to where on earth our money is going if they have to eliminate amenities the city has always provided while taking in record taxes.
Stephen McKeown, Northwest Dallas
Review wasteful spending
The city of Dallas is going through the budget process. Might I suggest that the city council and staff spend some time reviewing the long history of the city’s wasteful spending? Perhaps if we didn’t spend millions due to neglect, incompetence, fraud, etc., we could pay for the services we actually need.
A few reminders: 1. The building purchased for $14 million to house city permit staff that needed extensive work. Did anyone get fired for that fiasco? 2. The hospital purchased for $6.5 million to house the homeless — no public discussion/involvement and it finally went to auction.
3. The police and fire pension shortfall. Now we pay for that. What a joke! 4. The building permit fee error which cost over $8 million due to a staffing error in calculations. Are those staff gone? Not in Dallas!
5. Remember the Dallas Wave? Millions spent on a dangerous Trinity River feature finally removed for millions more. 6. No records of where over $6 million HUD funds went that were supposed to go to housing.
The above are just a few examples of how the city of Dallas continues to fail. Very sad.
Cindy Burr, Dallas/Casa View
In search of conservatives
I consider myself a liberal. However, I’m pretty sure that what this country really needs right now is a viable conservative party — President Donald Trump’s GOP is anything but.
In the past month or two, he has: 1. Negotiated a “golden share” of U.S. Steel. As a result, the board (and the owners of the company) are free to do whatever the president wants. 2. Enabled the Department of Defense to buy a 15% stake in the rare earth metals company MP Materials (becoming the largest shareholder).
3.After telling chipmakers Nvidia and AMD that they could not export their chips to China, he negotiated a 15% export tax (hey, who needs Congress for these things) on their now legal exports to China. 4. On Aug. 22, after tweeting that the CEO of Intel was “highly conflicted” because of his investments in China, they met, and somehow the U.S. is now a 10% owner of Intel (the largest shareholder). Oh, and the CEO is now “the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company.”
A lot of this feels like Fidel Castro in Cuba or Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. But some of it also feels like, “Hey, you’ve got a nice business here — I’d hate to see it burn down.”
Both Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater are spinning in their graves.
Brian MacKay, Coppell
Doing the voting for us
Thank heaven I have been living in Texas for nearly 60 years now. I want to let Gov. Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton and all their loyal followers know that without them and their friend in D.C., I would not know how I vote, who I voted for, why I voted and how my vote came out and how successful it was.
Thank you, Gov. Abbott for dictating (bad choice of words) all my fondest wishes and the time you saved me because like yourself, I am in a wheelchair and mail-in-voting is such a hassle. You make things so easy for disabled persons like myself.
And you saved the state the cost of postage. Guess you can use for other worthwhile causes such as your re-election campaign.
David Mclintock, Dallas/Lake Highlands
More revisions for Paxton
Re: “Is there a revision pending?” by Bill Devitt, Monday Letters.
I think Devitt is a little short in assessing how many commandments Ken Paxton could post in schools. There are several more he would have to worry about. Besides adultery, false witness, stealing and worshipping Donald Trump ahead of all others come to mind.
David Barber, Arlington