In a column I wrote during the runoff campaign, I questioned Tom Leppert’s message. It didn’t seem like he really had one. He threw out some vague ideas like reduce crime, improve the southern sector, improve education, blah, blah, blah. When it came to giving any kind of a plan, he provided nada.

Everyone said not to worry. Tom Leppert is a smart man. And at the end of the election, he benefited mostly from two things: Oakley’s self destruction and being smart. Smart in what way you ask? Smart to keep it vague. If you don’t have specific ideas, there is nothing for people to criticize.

Then, use your money to put pressure on the other guy to make a mistake and poof, you’re the mayor. A genius plan constructed by his campaign manager, Carol Reed. That’s why she gets paid the big bucks.

Despite Leppert’s vague message, after all, this was a smart man. A Harvard grad. CEO of the largest construction company in the U.S. How could you not know? That was the drumbeat of his campaign. So once Leppert took office, we’d see how smart he was and everything would be OK.

In my wrap-up of the May 12 election, I questioned Leppert’s desire to be mayor.

Does he want to pull strings for all his business buddies here in Dallas? How much does he really care about the southern sector? What does he really want to accomplish as mayor?

I think those were fair questions and after a month of recess -- only a few days into the real start to his term in office -- more questions surround the new mayor.

Leppert had the month of July to think about how he was going to handle the Trinity Parkway referendum. He basically had three options.

1. Keep saying what he’s been saying, which is the toll road needs to stay in the park. Then fight Hunt and TrinityVote all the way until the November vote.

2. Keep saying what he’s been saying, which is the toll road needs to stay in the park. Then acknowledge if enough people signed the petition, that means people want to have a vote. And since he works for the people, he should let them vote since democracy is well, a good thing.

3. Refuse to accept that there was any way in hell that Hunt would get enough signatures. Then when she gets enough signatures validated, hit the panic button.

Obviously we were all hoping for option 2 and planning for option 1, but Leppert went ahead with option 3.

Whether you are for, against or don’t care about the November referendum, Leppert’s decision to send 47 of the more than 10,000 pages of signatures submitted by TrinityVote to the district attorney’s office is one that should be questioned. The allegation is that there was voter fraud involved in the gathering of these signatures. However, none of the signatures on the 47 pages are among the more than 52,500 certified by the city secretary’s office.

Jim Schutze’s post on Unfair Park does an excellent job summarizing the insignificance of the 47 pages in question. At 10 signatures per page, the maximum amount of so-called illegal signatures would be 470. That’s 470 out of more than 91,000 signatures -- roughly half of one percent of the total amount.

So Leppert, along with City Attorney Tom Perkins and other city officials, decided to send this tiny fraction of the overall signatures and signatures that weren’t even part of the verified signatures over to District Attorney Craig Watkins. Why make such a stink about this?

The obvious answer is to make Hunt look bad and give the perception that TrinityVote’s efforts were less than by the book. It’s curious that the media became aware of this before Watkins knew about it and Watkins appeared to question Leppert’s motives.

"This to me, on the outset, looks like someone is trying to determine the outcome of this election. It's unfair," Watkins said.

Once he made a spectacle out of the whole thing, there was an executive session on legal matters regarding the Trinity scheduled for the August 1 council meeting. However, Leppert canceled the session, telling council members there wasn’t anything to talk about.

This tidbit from the council meeting didn’t get much play in the media. In fact, I think Dallas Blog was the only one to point this out, yet it seems incredibly irresponsible for him to start up this investigation into the signatures and then refuse to discuss it among the council.

One thing from the meeting that did get mentioned was Leppert’s support of a downtown convention center hotel, which would require public financing. Harlan Crow sent a letter to Leppert, urging him to leave the hotel business to the private sector, which I happen to agree with. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not dumb enough to think Crow is trying to be a Good Samaritan here. He owns the Anatole Hotel, after all. However, his letter casts doubts on the wisdom of using public funds to support a convention center hotel.

“The reason Dallas does not have a convention center hotel today is simple -- IT IS NOT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE,” Crow wrote.

Crow told Leppert the city will have to do some or all of the following in order for Dallas to be able to have a convention center hotel.

1. Guarantee all or a portion of the debt on a $300+ million project.

2. Pay the operating losses that are likely for many years.

3. Own the hotel outright because it is not a viable investment for the private sector.

“The voters would agree that the City of Dallas should not be in the hotel business -- that it should be left to the private sector,” Crow wrote. “The voters would also agree there are higher priorities for the city’s tax dollars and funding commitments.”

I’m not sure how the voters feel about Crow as their spokesman, but you can’t argue with what he’s saying. If it made sense to build such a hotel in Dallas, then someone would have already done it. A big real estate developer like Crow or someone else wouldn’t pass on the opportunity if one was there.

I find it funny how when people criticize Angela Hunt for not giving an alternate plan for the location of the toll road and the idea of putting it down Industrial is given as an option, the answer is that it would cost too much money. Where are we going to come up with the extra $300-400 million? However, finding $300 million to pour into a convention center hotel that (let’s face it) is being built simply for the Super Bowl makes sense? I just don’t get it.

Finally, Leppert had the month of July to sort out council committee appointments with meetings beginning Monday. Then Leppert canceled all committee meetings for the month of August. Why? Because he hasn’t made committee appointments yet.

A lot gets accomplished in these meetings and with so many new council members, the faster they can get started, the quicker things can start getting done.

Obviously it’s way too early to totally freak out about Leppert, but he’s clearly not making informed decisions. It appears as though he’s too busy doing the work of the people who paid to get him elected, not the ones actually casting the votes.

The last line of Leppert’s first television ad was “I may not always do what’s popular, but I’ll always do what’s right.” So far, he seems to be trying to do what’s popular with the people who bankrolled his campaign and as a result, he’s doing Dallas citizens wrong.

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