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McCloud: 'This was one of the fairest processes I've seen.'

All of the critical ones, she said, were omitted from the final package.

But when she and McBee realized that more than $6 million in the bond package would go to public art, while there was no money to tear down a longstanding public health hazard and eyesore in Handley, and that $5.9 million was allocated, under vaguely worded headings, to the development of the Trinity River Vision, they decided to take action. (Money for the downtown lake project was spread around untitled under categories like "enhancement to trails" or the even vaguer "unspecified projects" in the street and storm sewer section categories. In the official package published on the city's web site, no reference to the Trinity River Vision by name could be found. A later educational booklet on the bond proposal, available at city hall, mentions the project twice.)

"We began to wonder," Conlin said, what else might be hidden in the bond package or was being withheld from the public debate in order to push the proposal through. They began to dig.

"I am not opposed to public art, far from it," said Conlin, pointing to her years of volunteer work with the Neighborhood Arts Program, Shakespeare in the Park, and her generous contribution to Bass Hall, as examples. "I just don't believe we should make public art a priority over the needs of children, community centers, libraries, or the health and safety of our neighborhoods."

But first and foremost, she said, the promoters of the bond program should have been truthful about this program. The city, she said, already has a funding source for public art that has generated more than $500,000 in the last year. And from the unlikeliest of sources -- the water department.

She's right, assistant city manager Charles Boswell said. When the council established the public arts program a couple of years ago, he said, the water department, which issues its own capital improvement bonds, opted to set aside two percent of its operating budget to pay for capital-improvement art projects. The program, Boswell said, generated a half million dollars last year and is expected to produce the same this year. Some of the money has been used for public art at the Fort Worth Convention Center and will fund a statue of a vaquero on the North Side. (If the bond package passes in toto, over $6 million will be added to the arts fund. The money will be used to integrate the design work of artists into various capital improvement projects, Boswell said.)

With so much that they felt was hidden from view, and what they saw as facts left out, Conlin and McBee began to organize.

On Jan. 2, Conlin sent an e-mail to about 50 of her colleagues and a couple of reporters setting out her objections to the bond proposal:

"[I]n my household we address needs first and then we think about the fun stuff like art, changing the landscape ... or a dog park," she wrote, after ticking off a list of the projects for the Eastside that were left out.

"I cannot vote for a ... public art program," she wrote, "when the 'art' in Handley is a city-owned and abandoned motel (the Cowtown Inn) ... [nor] for the 121 tollway when [Precinct Line Road and Randol Mill] residents ... place their lives in jeopardy on a daily basis traveling their streets ... [nor] for the Trinity River Vision when my Eastern Hills neighbors must don wading boots and build berms to keep their houses from flooding because of drainage problems that should have been addressed years ago ... [nor] for a new library in [John] Stephenson's district when the Meadowbrook branch struggles with overcrowding, obsolescence, and second-rate materials ... ."

"These are not frivolous requests," she said. "We pared them down considerably so that there were only those that we felt were absolutely necessary, needs that have been long neglected or ignored by the city.

"These are about health, safety, and children. How could they be ignored for so long? How could it be possible that a town lake is more important than stopping the flooding that is ruining people's lives? And why did other sectors get libraries and community centers and we sit out here with deteriorating libraries and no place for 3,000 school children to play?"

The children she is referring to live in the Woodhaven area, in apartments originally built for young, upwardly mobile singles or childless couples, she said. Over the years, the apartments have morphed into residences for single moms and middle-to-lower-income families, and the child population is growing exponentially. For years, the residents and their advocates like Conlin have been trying to get a community center built there, she said, with a place for the children to go after school for tutoring, to study or play, with a basketball court and some green space. The nearest park is not within walking distance, and their only playgrounds, she said, are the concrete parking lots. "No wonder we're having problems with these kids," Conlin said.

"There is no doubt," that the kids in Woodhaven need the center, said Ralph McCloud, representative of District 8. "We don't even have a good count on how many kids there are, but we know they are in the thousands." Many of them, he said, now come to a community center in his district, but only those who can find transportation. Sad as it is, he said, other priorities rose to the top in the discussions of where the money would be spent. "We were bound by promises to our constituents that we would do this package without raising taxes."

More than $7 million of the bond money was allocated for community centers in the far Southwest section of the city, the far Northeast and the South Side. The East Side got nada.

Over in Handley, the issue is an abandoned motel. The Cowtown Inn on East Lancaster (old Hwy. 80) was once a fine example of the independent motels that lined the nation's highways before freeways and golden arches redefined America. The two-story, brick-and-stone faŤade units covered three city blocks, and its Pardner's Restaurant -- open all night -- was a favorite stop for travelers and city dwellers alike. Now, about all that's left of its past glories is the "Breakfast served anytime" sign over the abandoned restaurant. Its deteriorating buildings have been empty for 15 years, home only to rats and transients and a hell of a lot of asbestos. In 2000, the city took possession through a tax foreclosure that it had begun 15 years earlier when the owner went broke and abandoned the property. The dilapidated property is close to a private religious school, and its side units face a street of well-kept 1940s-era family homes.

For years, Handley residents have begged the city for relief; school kids even made tearful pleas to the council. Finally the city filled in the pool and fenced off the property, but that did little to keep the wayward out. The city claims to have no money for demolition, which, because of the huge amounts of asbestos, could run between $500,000 and $1 million, unless the EPA approves a less expensive and experimental method developed by the city's environmental staff. So far, the EPA is dragging its feet. The city says it can't move until EPA does, and the Handley residents continue to be the losers. They asked that funds for the demolition be added to the bond package. They were not.

Residents of the hilly, heavily wooded Eastern Hills neighborhood between Meadowbrook and Brentwood Stair live in some of the city's loveliest older homes on some of its lowest-lying land. With such hill-and-valley terrain, the streets that snake through the area resemble roller coasters. When the rains come, the low areas flood so badly that streets close and residents are surrounded by water for days. "This has been going on forever," Conlin said. "We thought, surely this time, there will be real money put in [the bond package] for drainage and flood control out there. But no."

"We're just saying that when these critical needs are met, we can have all the public art or Trinity River Visions we want."

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