The Death of Deep Ellum

[Jemini]

Here again is another attempt at Dallas trying to shut down its historic entertainment district. This time, a charter school wants to move into the neighborhood. Why does this matter? "According to Dallas city code, a bar or night club can not operate within 300 feet of a school unless it was in business prior to the school’s opening. This means that existing bars near the proposed charter school will be grandfathered in. However, if a nearby bar goes out of business and the building remains vacant some time, city code is likely to prevent a new bar from opening in the vacant building" (see link below for reference). If that happens, all of the revitalization efforts will be a wasted effort. Click on the link below for more information.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/01/30/b...of-deep-ellum/

[iceberg]

Here again is another attempt at Dallas trying to shut down its historic entertainment district. This time, a charter school wants to move into the neighborhood. If that happens, all of the revitalization efforts will be a wasted effort. Click on the link below for more information.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/01/30/b...of-deep-ellum/

time to dive in and fix this shit.

[iceberg]

as braveheart once said to those who believed in making our own destiny -

are you ready for a war???

i am.

[Jemini]

bring it on!

[iceberg]

we need to set up a petition and i'll look into details tomorrow. right now what i need to know is the charter group -

who are they? do they do this in other cities?
the previous mayor who tried to sell us out - who was she? (research for cool detailed story here)
why does dallas seem to keep wanting to kill the arts district?
our mayor seems to be replying - jem, when you get a chance write him and ask him about it and see if you get a form letter back. how serious is he?
who is behind the charter group?

that's some base stuff. in the meantime we need to organize. all of us. past problems / issues aside. you're either in this for the music or get the fuck out of the way.

we need a lot more info / past history on this before we just cry out in anger.

[Jemini]

sounds like a great plan of action. I will get started on writing the mayor and helping with the researching end of things. we also need to get a contact list together (all the owners of the bars in the area, musicians, people involved with the deep ellum foundation, etc.) and get the ball rolling on the petition.

[iceberg]

yep. we're on the same page. i'm not gonna wait and see who leads this -

we are.

[Jemini]

The weekly DEEP meeting will be taking place Tuesday, Feb. 7th at La Bella Cakes & Cupcakes from 8:30pm - 10pm to discuss the charter school, the arts festival, and more. For those of you in the Dallas area, it would be worth you going to this meeting to be informed on who is taking what action on the charter school. The Facebook event page link is provided below.

http://www.facebook.com/TheProphetBar#!/events/245945148816773/

Deep Ellum Radio has also put up a Community page called "Fairness for Deep Ellum" that serves as a news reel on all of the latest developments for this charter school. The link is provided below. Go give it a "like" and read what all has been posted so far.

http://www.facebook.com/FAIRFORDEEP?sk=info#!/FAIRFORDEEP

[shadowenttexas]

Ok time for me to put my two cents in here. I've got a lot of thoughts and ideas on this. You have the people who think that this problem can be solved "alone" and then the ones who've already thrown their hands up saying not much we can do.

The only way everyone is going to defeat this is joining together, losing the egos and cooperatively working together. This "Charter school" Is not an accident or a fluke. It's something the city has been trying to do for over a decade. It started in the mid-late 90's with Laura Miller. I remember being 14-15. And watching channel 27 when they had the live show on weekends where camera crews followed party goers out and about deep ellum. You got to see an eclectic mix of crazy wigged girls, eccentric musicians and fans and party goers of all sorts. Back then they tried to close it due to it was full of "drug addicted,sex addicted miscreants. When that didn't work Laura Miller again tried, this time with it was an unsafe, unfit location. The justification for these allegations was "everyone was getting raped,murdered and robbed out there." I'll tell you this, I've been going to Deep Ellum since I was a teen. Never once have I been even near raped,robbed or murdered. Quite the opposite. There are some strange people out there, but all of us are strange in our own way.

Also, Clint Barlow is not the first person to attempt re-opening Trees after it closed. Once it closed, everyone knows it set vacant for a while. What a lot of people DO NOT know is that it WAS leased out again. I know this personally as I was going to help donate my time helping to renovate it. Anyone who knows of Lewisville knows of Fat Daddy's Sound Shack. The owners of FDSS leased out Trees with the intention to re-open it. They got denied opening and their necessary licensing due to the city saying the spot was in poor shape and needed repaired. Well what did FDSS do about that? Asked for volunteers who came to help with plumbing electrical etc. When the city found out Trees was going to get fixed up, they then refused to let it reopen due to the city saying it didn't have adequate parking space for the capacity of people it could fit. Well the owners of FDSS wanted to rent excess parking spaces from other venues in which the city of Dallas refused and said it would not allow it. The cost of just taxes,etc for Tree's finally got too much and they had to leave the project when they realized the city would not let them. Which surprised me when the city actually let clint open it up.

So this has been an on going affair the city of Dallas has been doing. No idea why they have such a boner for Deep Ellum. The Charter school going in would make new regulations,restrictions and fines go into place which would systematically put the businesses out of business. And not allow new ones of the this kind in...So in other ways the city is trying to put this "parasite" into the mix to kill off what it has as of yet been unable to do so far.

[iceberg]

bad to the bone input.

no reply has to be made today or tomorrow. but we MUST understand our goal to win

i'm in. 100%.