Dallas Mayor Proposes New Public-private Partnership to Build Trinity River Park

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings wants a new group with a "single-minded focus" to make a long-awaited park along the Trinity River a reality.Next week, officials will brief the City Council on a plan to create a "local government corporation" to take on the Trinity River park project. The public-private partnership would be responsible for working out the details of planning and building the new park, which would span 200 acres between the Margaret McDermott Bridge and the Ron Kirk Bridge.But the move would also mean the park planning would be removed from City Hall. And that's sure to raise some hackles of the mayor's critics who are still smarting from his attempt to hand over Fair Park's operations to a nonprofit. Rawlings said a local government corporation is needed to take the politics out of the road and keep the park from getting bogged down in bureaucracy."You can't build something this big or this quick with that sort of restraint on you," he said. "I'm just very excited about this. We're going to get this park done. We've got the organization in place. Everybody wants the park. Let's just kind of grab each other's arms and let's get it done."  Continue reading...