John Wiley Price looks at ‘shakedown’ suit

Price, the dean, or the class clown at times, of the Dallas County Commissioners Court wants to depose Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and Dallas County Judge Jim Foster, to determine whether or not to press a libel suit against the two of them.

And, if they didn’t? Will he go after the Dallas Observer, whose gadfly reporter, Jim Schutze, has been kicking Price in the testimacles on a regular basis the last couple of months over his…

(alleged)

Shakedown attempts on The Allen Group, which is developing a 6,000-acre transportation/warehousing megasite in south central Dallas, Wilmer, Hutchins and Lancaster.

The “shakedown” allegations come from comments Johnson, in particular, reportedly made to Schutze.

Price says the two fellow Democrats accused him of unethical if not illegal behavior and therefore may have:

“Therefore may have seriously damaged his reputation.”

Ahh, JWP.

You have to have a reputation in the first place. Well, you have to have a good reputation.

Friends of mine both white and black report that your (alleged) shakedowns, which began with African-American Hutchins Mayor Artis Johnson three years ago, over the Wintergreen Road bridge over the Union Pacific intermodal facility, note that the “people” you’re trying to help aren’t Dallas County blacks but Dallas County FOJWP who also happen to be black.

EB&J claims she never used the word “shakedown.”

Here’s what Schutze writes her up as saying in his initial story:

Johnson told me last week she views Commissioner Price’s role, in particular, as part of a long, bad history: “I see all of these different deals that he’s trying to do over the years, shaking people down and all that kind of stuff.”

And further on:

“John was making sure he put a cork in there to stop everything until they did what he wanted them to do.”

OK, she uses the verb form, not the noun, in the first quote.

Oh, per the Observer’s Unfair Park blog, Schutze’s got EB&J on tape, too. (And, the Snooze never did, according to the Observer, try to contact Jimbo.)

AND, and… at the Unfair Park link, there’s MP3s of all those conversations.

Also, asking to do depositions before filing a suit, even if for the purpose of determining who to sue, is basically a judicial fishing expedition.

That said, I'd love to see this suit go forward.

Maybe we can get Royce West on the stand, too, and figure out how Royce was either dumb enough or tacky enough to get mixed up with JWP's business on this issue.