Tom Leppert who?

The now-former Dallas mayor, to riff on an old spoof movie, "J Men Forever," "should die his underwear and learn to live within his (political) limitations" rather than seek the GOP U.S. Senate nomination.

Really? Zero big name recognition outside DFW. No political favors to cash in. No special schtick other than now pandering and turning hard right.

Dallas Mayor Leppert is Schwarzenegger or Rick Perry on Zoo

Really, Tom Leppert? Privatizing the Dallas Zoo?

Other than taking a page from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on privatizing popular recreational services, both Leppert and Dallas Zoological Society President Michael Meadows appear to have been drinking Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s Kool-Aid, claiming the zoo can be run both more cheaply and better in private hands.

Whatever happened to the old idea of getting Dallas County to help with expenses? And, in privatizations of this sort, salaries get whacked. Given Dallas’ gorilla and elephant problems in the past, do you want to downgrade staffing even more by chasing people off?

To compare this to the privatization of Houston’s zoo, which has more land, and is in a larger park system, somewhat comparable to Fair Park in Dallas, is ridiculous, too.

At Dallas City Hall, Leppert groans while Hunt smiles?

Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert said a few days ago he was unhappy with the Army Corps of Engineering for its allegedly slow pace on checking the quality of Trinity River levees.

Well, now that the Corps has found major levee problems, ones too big for even Perot money, or John Wiley Price shakedown best buddies, to fix, he’s probably wishing he’d kept his big mouth shut.

The report also found recent stupidities, like the new Dallas County Jail’s basement being dug into a levee.

Leppert tried to spin the findings vis-à-vis the Trinity toll road, but even supporters aren’t buying:

Michael Morris, director of transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments and one of the road's top supporters, said the news could eventually mean a halt to the toll-road work.

“It's a big deal,” he said.

And critics of the roadway, including Dallas City Council member Angela Hunt, who in late 2007 led an unsuccessful ballot initiative to take the four-and-six-lane toll road out of the Trinity River Corridor, say the findings ought to be red flags.
“What’s it going to take to get them to give up on this road?” Hunt said. “We already have an unsafe levee system, even without pouring tens of millions of tons of concrete into our floodway.”

More than this, Angela, more than this.

You were around a decade ago. You know the lies by deception of not mentioning a toll road in the original bond vote.

And, Tom? I’d just drop that idea of taking over DISD until you get your own house in more order.

Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert on Perot dime? What about Royce West and JWP?

Over at the Dallas Observer, Jim Schutze has the goods to expose has Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert is essentially the Perot family’s whipping boy and stalking horse to do about anything he can to stall, delay or damage the prospects of the Dallas Logistics Hub, the centerpiec of trying to get a federal government-sanctioned “inland port,” with trade advantages, established in southeast Dallas, Lancaster, Wilmer and Hutchins.

That includes Leppert’s latest idea, a “master plan” covering the entire area and cutting across government boundaries.

But, why now, Tom? Because your other efforts on behalf of the Perots (who own Alliance Airport and control all the logistics ventures facilities there), have failed? The Logistics Hub has been in the air for a few years by now. You could have proposed a master plan three or more years ago. Instead, Perot tools went to the Lege instead, and lost.

Where then does long-time Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price come in?

Well, his past head-butting with Hutchins Mayor Artis Johnson over bridge-building money says that with JWP, it can at times, many times, be about access, friends and money. An off-the-cuff guess would be that the Perots might be throwing some friends of his some construction work bones. Just a guess. If that's not the correct guess, let's just say that JWP isn't all hot about a master plan because he's got a sudden worry about uncontrolled development.

Besides, like Leppart, where was he four years ago? Butting heads with Artis Johnson, but not talking about a master plan for the logistics hub, that's where.

And what about state Sen. Royce West, who is now also reportedly pushing harder for a master plan for the Dallas inland port area? If he were involved …

Well, we know that Royce’s baby is UNT-Dallas. Maybe a Perot-endowed chair of business management? Hmm, just a guess. Or, maybe he's looking at a run for higher office in two years. But…

Marcus Knight? The Lancaster mayor may just have some sincere concerns. Or, he may be under JWP’s spell, wing or tutelage. Or, maybe his family’s business gets some Perot bones. A Google search on his name + Perot didn't turn up any links, but you never know what can fly beneath the radar.

Time to tax international food shipping costs?

Why are those Chilean grapes so cheap in our supermarkets? Why is Italy now ahead of New Zealand as the world’s largest kiwi-growing country? Why are Argentine lemons going to Spain’s Citrus Coast while local ones rot in groves?

Because a Bretton Woods-era agreement keeps international fuel for food shipping from being taxed. And, today, we pay the environmental costs for that, in the above and even greater food absurdities, like Britain both importing and exporting 15,000 tons of waffles a year or 20 tons of bottled water.

Under a little-known international treaty called the Convention on International Civil Aviation, signed in Chicago in 1944 to help the fledgling airline industry, fuel for international travel and transport of goods, including food, is exempt from taxes, unlike trucks, cars and buses. There is also no tax on fuel used by ocean freighters.

But the European Commission, once again light-years ahead of the U.S. in 21st-century insight, is going to change that. As the story notes, all freight-carrying flights into and out of the E.C. are supposed to be included in its emissions-trading program by 2012, meaning shippers will have to purchase permits for the pollution they generate.

The commission is negotiating with the International Maritime Organization, over various alternatives to reduce greenhouse gases on sea freight as well. If they don’t craft a solution by the end of the year, sea freight will also be included in the emissions-trading program.

Meanwhile, European grocers are also ahead of American ones.

Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket chain, known as a vocal promoter of green initiatives, is introducing a labeling system that will let consumers assess a product’s carbon footprint.

Some foods that travel long distances may actually have an environmental advantage over local products, like flowers grown in the tropics instead of in energy-hungry European greenhouses.

“This may be as radical for environmental consuming as putting a calorie count on the side of packages to help people who want to lose weight,” a spokesman for Tesco, Trevor Datson, said. …

The problem is measuring the emissions. The fact that food travels farther does not necessarily mean more energy is used. Some studies have shown that shipping fresh apples, onions and lamb from New Zealand might produce lower emissions than producing the goods in Europe, where — for example — storing apples for months would require refrigeration.

But those studies were done in New Zealand, and the food travel debate is inevitably intertwined with economic interests.

The story also notes that Europe has a situation a bit analogous to the U.S. one with Mexico. But in Europe, the labor isn’t being imported. Instead, the labor costs of African countries is being used to get more cheap food into European groceries. Especially given historic contacts all around the Mediterranean Rim, this is only going to increase, even with an emissions tax.

Here in the U.S. it would be another way for cities, counties or regions to get beyond BushCo’s inaction on environmental issues. It would be tough for a central city to do it without suburbs also being involved, or would it?

It might give suburbs incentive to preserve more farmland if produce in their own supermarket didn’t have a carbon tax.

For instance, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert is moving beyond his predecessor, Laura Miller, in trying to make Dallas a green city. A carbon tax on produce would help this, with sliding scales for local/regional, outstate, national and international food.

It’s too late to save much farmland on the north side, but here in the Best Southwest, there’s still time.

Tom Leppert, regional meddler

Hey, I would love for the various Dallas suburbs to tighten their ordinances on smoking in restaurants and similar places.

But, first of all, this is a purely local matter for each suburb. It’s no business of Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert. Where’s he get off on that?

Second, it’s not like Leppert doesn’t have enough to do in Dallas itself anyway, between schmoozing, fluffing and smoke-and-mirroring the Corps of Engineers to get a grade-A environmental review on the Trinity Tollway, continuing to smack around Councilwoman Angela Hunt for the effrontery to try to hold Dallas civic leaders to the intent of an original vote, and playing CYA for DART’s financial flim-flam.

Tom, I’m sure that smoking ordinances in Dallas suburbs is soooo much more important than all that. Not!