Psst, Hey Buddy, Wanna Buy Fair Park?

Dallas looking to sell off public properties

Municipal budget problems continue to vex the best and brightest in Dallas. Ya know, those people not on City Council or city staff.

Another budgetary shortfall for fiscal year 2010-11 created proposals such as slashed library hours, closed rec centers and pools, and furloughs for city employees, including police, and don’t you feel safer already?

The latest consideration, according to a Wall Street Journal report, could result in the privatization of Fair Park and the Farmers Market. The city already turned over the Dallas Zoo's operations to a private company, so why not?

It’s not like the city would sell the real estate, just the operations and management of the properties. Then again, "We're willing to look at anything and everything right now,” city Manager Mary Suhm said in a piece published by Unfair Park.

And it’s not unprecedented. California is looking to shed state office buildings. Milwaukee has proposed selling its water supply; in Chicago and New Haven, Conn., it's parking meters. In Louisiana and Georgia, airports are up for grabs, according to the WSJ.

And New York’s sold the Brooklyn Bridge how many times?

Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. He wonders how much they’d take for White Rock Lake. Gotta be fortune to be made out there on park admissions alone.
 

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