News Addition Features; News Addition -- updub edit master 11

The current district one board member, Lynette Clegg, is resigning. The May 6 election will decide who will serve out the remaining two years of Clegg's term. The three candidates running for the seat are Don Oliver, a real estate investor who lives in Dallas and has two children attending public schools. Harold Martin, a tool store owner who says he's frustrated by young job applicants who can't read. He lives in Carrollton and two of his three children attend Dallas schools. And John Rogers, a lawyer and former assistant district attorney who also runs a fruit juice company. He lives in Dallas and his four children attend Catholic schools. You know, the late last night I understand that the Dallas school board finally decided to vote on unitary status and in fact did vote to petition the federal courts to declare Dallas unitary that is having no vestiges of a dual system. Mr. Martin, had you been on that board last night, how would you vote it?

I was there last night. I want to see the end results of it. And I'll tell you, I have not made a decision on it. The board is in the turmoil. There is no agreement upon any of the members there. I would not make a decision unless I did an investigation and spoke to people. You found out exactly the reasons for wanting or not wanting the unitary system. Okay. You've been out there running for election. Surely you've spoken to a lot of people in the district. No, that's true. But I did not plan on running for election until Mr. Kleeg's turn was up, which is two years on the road. This came out very suddenly. Okay. So you haven't made up your mind. No, sir. I have not. What about you, Mr. Rogers? You know, I think it's time that we get out of court. I'm a lawyer. I've been in courtrooms all my life. And I have yet to see a court be able to resolve social conflict. If that were the case, all of the domestic relations court would resolve every domestic relations problem we have. Bob Bryant just doesn't happen. All that is saying is let's let the board run the DISD. I'm all for unitary status.

And you, Mr. Oliver? I'm also for unitary status. The way I understand the definition of unitary status, it's basically, is Dallas operating a dual school system? Do we have one for whites and one for blacks? And I don't believe we have a dual system now. And I believe the board was correct in asking for unitary status last night. And while you say, Mr. Rogers, that indeed the board ought to be able to run the school district. Some people wonder if it can. And as we look at how that decision was reached last night, it was divided along racial lines. What can you do once you get on the board, gentlemen, to ease the tension and help unite this board? I've seen too many decisions where it was all black on this side and all white on this side. How do you run a district that way? Mr. Sanders, let me say something if I may. My observations over the years, employing kids from the Dallas Independent School District of my businesses, I have found that the children and the Oakland area where we're in business have, do not have a quality education. We have a school district, a school board that is run by a few people with lots of depockets

picking their own people for a board rather than having the people run the school board and the school district. OK. Well, what would you do to unite them, though? I mean, you're going to be on there. You're going to be there voting, you know, hopefully voting after you get information, as you say. Of course. I'm going to vote to be voting. Yeah. Well, what can you do to unite that board, though? Anything? Yes. There's a lot things to be done. First of all, let's get some conversation going. There is no conversation. As Mr. Jones said last night, he doesn't trust anyone on the board, though. The Anglo members of the board, he has no trust for him. There is no communication between any of the people on the board, except the whites with the whites and the blacks with the blacks. And this is not the way to run a school board or a school district. See, Barbara, I think that's the real strength I bring in this election is one of my real strengths. I've been committed to education and committed to the Dallas Independent School District education. My daughter, who lives in my house, I helped buy her car. I helped send her through school, taught in the Marseille School.

Those children, all minority children, were children that she taught. I have no axe to grind. I have nobody in the school system that I'm trying to do better for this school or that. My whole objective is quality education. And believe me, I have made my commitment and the people of Dallas know that I've made my commitment. And yet, while you have a daughter who taught your own children, don't go to public school. I mean, some people may not think you should be on the board. And let me explain that. The question is not where my children go to school or any other candidates children go to school. The question is, where do the children of Dallas go to school? Because the issue is, what kind of schools do we have? What kind of education do we have? Barbara, religion is an important part of my life as I know it is of yours. And my children went to Catholic, Prokyl schools because I believe they needed a religious education. Had nothing to do with the Dallas Independent School District. If you want to start counting cousins, relatives, and friends, I'm married to an Italian gal. You don't have that much time. Let me see what Mr. Oliver would do to unite this well.

Well, I would bring to the board a new face with new ideas. I'm not a hand-picked candidate or a hand-picked successor by the resigning board member. Is anybody here? Yes. Yes, Mr. Rogers, yes. Okay, I thought you were trying to make a point. I just wanted to make sure you're here. And I'll get to answer that. And I won't be bringing anybody else's thoughts. You've got to have communication. And the board's example to our children is just awful. The board votes strictly along race lines. Six, three, six, three, six, three. The whole time. And what kind of example does that set for any child in the Dallas School system? The board is polarized by itself. I guess that was my point. How do you deal with the big issues facing this district when the board can't deal with itself? You've got to talk and you've got to listen to each other. You've got to be willing to make some compromises.

You've got to work together. And you're willing to do all that? Absolutely. Let me let him ask this charge of being hand-picked by the retiring board member. Bob Brace, some of the members of the City Council that approached me about running for office, a civic commitment. And I looked at the positions that were available and I said, you know, I would be glad to volunteer my time. I have some time to volunteer. I have an extensive background. I've lived here in Dallas all my life. And in looking at my background, somebody said, well, you know, you would really be good for the school board. And I said the school board and I said, yes, they said Leonard Clegg is thinking about resigning. I said, one Leonard Clegg hand-picking. It was me volunteering to do civic work and then finding out what it is that Leonard Clegg does. Well, that Leonard Clegg then came and did a great job. Leonard Clegg tells a different story himself. Leonard Clegg will be the first to stand up and say that he talked to John Rogers and guiding the run. Okay. But first of all, Mr. Clegg is not here, so we can't ask him, but what, so what? I mean, he thought he was the best man.

First of all, I think the man is, Mr. Ryze gave us a cop out as far as his Catholic school situation is concerned. The public school system in Dallas is extremely important. The reason I'm sure he's sending his children to Catholic school is for a better education because it's not available in the Dallas and the Minnesota School District. If he wants his children to learn Catholicism, they have Catholicism classes, they could go to church on Sunday, just like the Baptists and other people do for their church reasons. The man, as I say, is a six-foot parrot of Mr. Clegg. Well, what's one other Mr. Clegg and on the board, then you vote for John Rogers? Okay, but what's one of the one-year kids that go to a better school? If that's the case. But we have to have a better school for the public. If we don't, this is a way of segregation. Okay. If we do not have better schools, financially you're going to segregate the people in the Dallas and the Minnesota School District financially. It's going to be running out of time. I think, Mr. Oliver, you've said that you wanted to raise teacher pay by high much, and how do you get the money? Quickly, I want everybody to answer that question. I would go to the budget and start looking through item by item, especially where we're buying in large quantities, and nickels and dimes add up real quick when you're buying

large quantities of anything. Now I would start, I would really make sure that we're getting the best competitive bids on all items that the school system is buying. Okay, let me let you answer that too. I mean, I assume you want to raise teachers pay you a deal. Well, you've got to have good teachers. We've been losing five of our best teachers the last five years, the best ones go to other districts. We have to have better pay. The problem is analyzing how you make the wage scale, and the big problem is everybody says, well, teachers only work part-time. That's not a part-time job. That's a seven-day or a week full-time job. That's what you've got to address. Let's do some more economies of scale. Let's look at the legal fees in there, and I'm familiar with that, Barbara. Okay, let me let us on have the last word. You for a teacher pay raise? I am. I think quality education is the most important, and the way to get there is like quality teachers. All right. Thank you all very much. This was too short, but I appreciate your being here. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll take this week's event. Next week will be unusual. carries front-page stories on City Councilman William Garrison. The story is alleged that Garrison had been voting in favor of real estate deals that would benefit him personally. This was the first in a series of articles questioning the ethics of four Fort Worth City Councilmen. April 13th, the private business dealings of Councilman Louis Zapata made the front page of the morning and evening papers. That issue was a consulting job Zapata had taken with a garbage disposal company that services his district and whether that posed a conflict of interest with his public job as a councilman. City Attorney Wade Atkins had advised Zapata not to take the job. But Louis Zapata wasn't the only subject of this April 13th news story.

Inside the article states, Zapata is one of four council members who have come under scrutiny over alleged conflicts between their city positions and private concerns. City Attorney Atkins is writing separate opinions about allegations involving Zapata and Councilman William Garrison, Gary Gilly and Steve Murron. Five days later on April 18th, this hit the news stands. Four big front-page pictures with a big headline. City Attorney Atkins announces that the four in fact had violated the city ethics code and one, Steve Murron, had violated the city charter. The next day, April 19th, another big front-page spread and two full pages on the inside devoted entirely to the ethics story. Yet, in the same issue, the Star Telegram editorializes, ethics report, harsh punishment is not appropriate. On April 20th, there was another story.

Mayor Bob Bowling. I think if you look back at the amount of pages, total pages dedicated and directed to this one issue, you know, you've got many, many items that don't get anywhere near that kind of press that are, in my opinion, far more important and serious for this community. Three of the four council members involved have challengers in the May 6th City election. Councilman Gary Gilly is unopposed. The stories that have been written in the Star Telegram in no way will change an election. Sensation was themselves papers, and that's what the media is in business for, except public television primarily, and it's in there, it's a business, and I understand that. I thought the stories were very truthful and very factual. I would be less than candid if I didn't share with you that I was upset by some of the comments made by the columnist, as well as perhaps some of the editorials, when they were repeating what they thought I said, when none of them individually ever talked to me.

Then on Sunday, April 23rd, the paper endorsed three of the four council members accused of the ethics violations. Councilman Lewis Zapata was not endorsed because of, quote, the seriousness of the conflict of interest allegations. The first Fort Worth City Council was sworn into office on the steps of City Hall in 1925, and nine men, including Mayor H. C. Meacham, were paid $10 a week for their part-time service.

Council service is still supposed to be a part-time job, and the pay is still $10 a week. It hasn't changed in 64 years. Amendment 1 would increase council pay to $75, which is what $10 in 1925 would be worth today considering inflation. Retiring council member Russell Lancaster supports the pay hike. Some of the thoughts that went into it was, well, a housewife could hire babysitters to sit with her children for the $75. She can't for the $10. A business person could hire a person to answer the phone for a half a day while he's at City Council. I see it as a step to having a more representative council, rather than having only people who can afford to serve and pay their own expenses. This will be the third time in eight years that the council has asked voters to increase

its pay. Voters have twice said no. There's never been any organized opposition except from the 125 member taxpayer group headed by homeowner Ed Moore. $75 a day is not the point. I mean, that has nothing to do with it. Any city could afford $75 a day for their councilman. But we don't think they deserve to be paid even the $10 a day when you compare it to the benefits that they give us. Moore is also concerned that the new law would allow council members to collect their pay even if they miss a meeting, if they were attending another city function instead. If a city councilman is off on some other duty, it could be anything. Then they go down and apply for their $75 and they say, well, we were on official business, city business. So our question is, the reason we don't concur, our question is, who's going to police

it? This probably should be defined in the ordinance. I know we have people that serve on our legislative liaison committee. They have to be in Austin quite often to testify on laws that affect the city and its operations. I consider that just as important as being at the city council meeting. Well, if they're at that meeting, we feel that they should be compensated for attending a meeting. Landcaster doesn't think the new pay provisions will be abused because the law puts an annual cap on council pay at $3,900. It also allows council members to decline any payment if they choose. Under Amendment 7 would allow the city manager to make changes in public works projects without city council approval. The current charter allows him to make only $3,000 worth of change orders, no matter how big the project. The problem is, once you reach $3,000, he doesn't have authority to do the next $3,000.

He doesn't have authority. He doesn't have authority to do even the next $10. So once he reaches out $3,000, he has to come to the council on a $10 change order or $50 change order. So it's quite cumbersome. We would not oppose raising that limit. But as we see it right now, there's no limit. And that's what we're opposed to. Texas law allows city managers to make up to $15,000 worth of construction changes on their own. That's five times the current Fort Worth limit. Under Amendment 7 passes, city officials plan to ask the council for the full $15,000 ceiling. Mayor Pro Tem, Bert Williams, is against that. I think that we need to be able to look at the change order. I think it's really important because what we've tried to do was try to get the bidders to bid what they felt like the project will on the call for. Therefore, you don't have that many change orders.

Amendment 7 is the only proposition on the ballot without the endorsement of the 11 member citizens committee that drafted the charter changes. The panel passed along the proposal without a recommendation. Amendment 11 would change who controls the city audit department. It stirred up the most concern at City Hall. Auditor Costa Trientafilides inspects the city books, suggests ways to save money and looks out for fraud or embezzlement. He reports to the city manager. Amendment 11 would give the department greater independence by having Trientafilides report directly to the city council. In case management was doing something wrong, then I would have greater latitudes to then report to the council without fear of my job, my position. I've seen a lot of reports that the auditors made that criticize deportments and criticize with something that things were happening in the city.

So I don't think that has eliminated that. So he doesn't have to be independent to be able to write a critical role? No, he does not. Mayor Pro Tem Williams is worried that an independent department would give the auditor too much power and would be a step toward a full-time city council form of government. It's the form of government that we have. You don't have the time to take on all the responsibilities. I will roll this to set policy. I will roll this not to manage. But that doesn't necessarily serve the public best. Our bounding fathers felt that checks and balances were very important to government. And this is a check and balance in city government. There's many entities, government entities, as well as corporate that have an independent auditor and that includes our neighbors to the East and Dallas who have had a city auditor for many years, the general accounting office, the federal level that reports to Congress, all state auditors that I know, including Texas, reports to the legislature.

Triant the Felidae says he can function under either system, reporting to the council or reporting to the city manager. He's not supporting or opposing amendment 11. Add no matter what happens at the polls, the city will still have an outside accounting firm go over the books once a year. Dallas School Board District 6 is in the southwestern part of the city. It runs from the RL Thornton Expressway to the city limits. The neighborhoods of Winwood, Westwood Park, Kenwood, and parts of South Oak Cliff are in District 6. It's a racially diverse area of primarily middle income families. Carter and South Oak Cliff High Schools, the Oak Cliff Special Education Center, and

the Science and Engineering Magnet School are in District 6. There are two candidates running for the District 6 seat. The challenger is Jerlene Hollens, who is making her second run for the school board. She received 29 votes in her first bid for the office two years ago. Thomas Jones, the incumbent, has served on the school board since 1987, when he was elected to fill the unexpired term of Orley Watson, who resigned from the board. Let me turn to you first Ms. Hollens, you'd first signed up for two public offices, the City Council, and the school board, which of course you didn't get on the city council because they said your signatures are invalid, but I'm wondering, what would possess anybody to run for two offices at the same time, and what would you have done if you had won? If I had won both, what possessed me was the problems in the city and on the school board. The asbestos dope cover up, as I call it, had I won mayor. I would have chosen to be mayor.

Had not, I would have, you know, school board. But what really possessed me, as you said, was the need in the city for issues to rise on the agenda that have not been addressed by any of the candidates. Okay, and specifically why are you running against the incumbent here, Mr. Jones? Mr. Jones, because Mr. Jones is running himself again. Oh yeah, okay, but I mean, why don't you send him? I mean, he's not doing a good job. I don't think he is, as far as the caste system, as I call it, we have a caste system within DISD where poor black children, not just race, but poor black children within the black communities are discriminated against by their own blacks. Okay, let me go to you. I mean, do you understand that you haven't been representing, well, the poor black children? No, I don't understand that.

And we feel that although we are doing a good job, there's always more that you can do. We have the concern about how all students have been treated within DISD and a particular concern as it relates to ethnic minorities students, that's African-American students as well as Hispanic students. And we have raised the issue because we pointed out that in 1987, there were more than 4,937 disadvantaged students that were not served under Chapter 1. We also pointed out in a matter of public record in the Dallas Times hurl and in the morning news that in 1988, there were 3,904 disadvantaged students that were not served under Chapter 1. We have since 1987 been on the right side of every issue. Okay, but still, I mean, there are some things you think he's not covering in there. I think they're not the school board, the entire school board. On some issues, Mr. Jones and the school board, they agree, for instance, not funding

and its bestest relief program for children. I put in court in a federal court case which would give children relief for being exposed as best as in their schools. Mr. Jones is being defended by the school board attorney, and obviously he feels they're in the right position on it that children should not receive any type of compensation. Whether the children have asbestosis or any scarring of the lungs or anything, just the fact they've been in school that has asbestos, you want them. It wouldn't be just that simple. There are non-cancerous effects to asbestos. And I'm saying to set the fund up so that children in the future as they become older can come back if something does occur. But evidently, Mr. Jones is not agreeing with me. Some fund to compensate the kids who have been exposed to asbestos.

As president, we don't have such a fund. I think it would be very difficult to administer because we're looking at 50, 15 to 20 years from now. And we would have a problem in trying to make a determination where the person would come in contact with the substance that would cause them to have this medical problem. But what we have done with the situation at HS Thompson, we had a medical team, we had psychologists that talked with the parents, that talked with the students. They ran tests on the students to give some type of assurance. I have no problem with setting up a fund, but the difficulty would come and try to administer that. That was one school. How many? Two hundred and how many? One hundred and eighty three. One hundred and eighty three. One school, Mr. Jones. Okay. Well, I think the point is maybe, let me move on to, how would you have voted with the board last week when they voted to ask the court to declare Dallas a unitary system that is free of all messages of segregated and dual systems?

Mr. Jones of course voted against along with the other two black members. How would you have voted? Unitary as related to busing, forced busing. I don't think it's a way to achieve equality for black students. I think what we need is money. Okay. So you would have voted with the majority of the board? I would have voted on that particular issue as related to busing. I would have voted with the majority. Okay. So why did you vote against the unitary, having the system declared unitary? Well, let's say that my vote was won to resist unitary status at this time under the present condition as it relates to the quality of education in our school system. But let me clear up one fact and I believe Mr. Hollings would have voted with the other African-American board members. We only transport 3,984 students for the purposes of desegregation in the school system. We don't have massive busing as it relates to desegregation.

Out of 133,000 students, we only transport 3,984. But I'm going to have to cut you off, because that's settled for you? No. Well, listen, I tell you we're already out of time, so I'm going to have to wish both. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Well, that's our program. Before we go ahead, I'd like to encourage you to exercise your most precious right, Saturday, that is the right to vote. Now for Mia, Terry, and all of us here at News Edition, thanks for joining us. Stallegations. Here to discuss the paper's stories on ethics violations and the decision to endorse council members who were guilty of those violations are two executives of the full or start telegram. Jack Tinsley, the Newspapers Vice President and Editor, and Mark Murphy, Metropolitan Editor for the paper. Mark, let me turn to you first, and I guess I probably agree with the mayor that the sheer volume of the number of inches, the number of pages to vote for this subject made me as a reed to think that this is something very serious that I should be paying attention

to. Is that what you expected me to get out of this? Obviously, we think it is quite serious. We're not talking about people who have committed crimes or done something horrible. I've met most of the men involved, and they're good human beings, they're dedicated to their jobs, but in our society, we hold them to a higher standard. The role of the newspaper is to be a vigilant watchdog, and we felt we were performing our task there, had every reason to bore in and take a look at how they were doing their jobs, how their ethics were, and we portrayed it for what we thought it was worth. I must say, in reflection, and we don't get to do too much of that in the business, I think if I could change anything, it would be maybe to tone things down a little bit, maybe to spread out the columns over several days instead of all at once, but that would be the only way for me.

Okay, but you devoted enough space and time that you thought it deserved. Yes, I do. Okay, now that makes me wonder, Jack, you run the editorial side of it, why did the paper endorse three of these people if they violated the ethics code? Well, we took a very strong look at everything that happened, and we considered each case and each individual on its merits, and we also looked at the people who were running against these incumbents, and in most cases, well, just about all cases, the difference in the quality of the incumbents and their opponents in these races was vast. But mainly we looked to see if what were considered to be violations of the ethics policy or the city charter were important enough, were serious enough to say that we cannot under any circumstances endorse this individual, and it did not come out that way.

I want to get to one of those, but I mean, you know, the average reader looking at this as I was would say, wait, looking at what the news side did and what the editorial side did, either the editorial side went out or the news side was overly sensational. Hey, I've got to tell you, when I saw those endorsements, I spilled a couple of cups of coffee. I couldn't believe it. I wondered why they had to endorse it all. I knew spapers don't have to endorse and all races. So after what we had pointed out, I wondered why they had done that. But that tells you something about our business that my end of the newspaper is extremely independent of Jax. Okay. I mean, did you feel that there must have been some resentment? I mean, I've talked to some reporters and they're really resentful that the paper went out in the editorial part of it. Well, I think that any newspaper to have credibility with its editorial page has to have the independence from the news operation. We have always tried to maintain that independence at the Star Telegram.

There is a division between opinion and news. And the opinion area is composed of people who are veteran journalists who know the scene, who know the subjects, who know the territory, people like Cecil Johnson, Pat Troulee, Bill Youngblood, Roger Summers, who have been in the business and covering the scene here for 20, 25 years. And their judgments, I think, are good. I'll see if they went down. Well, let's go back to the judgment on the news side. I also understand that these stories are really probably ready back in October long before the filing did for Lionel for City Council. No, far from true. We're not that good. OK, but what made you decide to do them in the middle of the campaign? Some people would question that. You know, some people think we run a newspaper the way generals run their armies and we really don't. We're not that smart. We're not that clever. We're much more casual than you can imagine. And I would say over the past year and a half, there's been a growing feeling in my end

of the operation that we should take a look at how the councilmen were doing their jobs. We take a look at the ethics question. We'd heard enough sources of people we trusted to make us want to take that look. And we began with one reporter looking hard and then eventually two reporters. There really was never any thought of, boy, let's run this as part of the campaign and try to affect the campaign. In fact, we wish we could have gone faster and have it distanced from election day even more than it was. And yet I got a call, Jack, from a member of the Full-Earth Human Relations Commission who said, wait a minute, there were four people who violated the rules. You endorsed three people. The only one you did endorse was the list of potta, the only minority member of the council. I got the same call from my good friend, Irma Johnson, who suggested that perhaps racism was involved here. And I assured her as I will assure you that that was not the case.

We felt, in looking at each individual case, that the case involving Luisa Potta was clearly the most serious of all of them because he had made a contract to take money in the garbage area where as a city council member he voted on such, or he was in a position to vote on such issues involving the city, although he never did vote on that. We just felt this was clearly way out of line and much more serious than any of the other conflicts that any of the other candidates had. Any of the other incumbent councilmen had. With a news side agreement with that, I mean, you didn't place a judgment on which was more serious or no. I mean, when you rob the bank of ten bucks, it's as bad as a hundred, still robbing the bank. It does occur to me that this, we were talking about city officials violating rules. And even though you have separate departments, it was seemed to me that the editorial side would know what the news side was doing all the way and that the publisher would be involved in these kinds of decisions.

I mean, do you? I don't know. Maybe the start telegram stops at the Metropolitan Editor of the Editor and you do whatever you want to do. It certainly doesn't. I think what you're talking about here is really a fine free atmosphere in our news operation. We're fortunate to have a publisher who has a news background and he understands efforts like the one we took on and doesn't interfere. Well, let me ask you, Jack, in a few seconds we have left because of your editorial endorsement and because of your widespread coverage, is the City Hall reported going to have a tough time down there trying to cover the news now? Well, I think the City Hall people know that the editorial judgments are made independently of the news side coverage. And I really don't think that the City Hall reporter is going to have any tougher time than he would otherwise. Would you agree? Mark? Well, they're not too popular there right now. You know, we have an ethic that might be worth discussing just five seconds. In the newsroom.

Oh, okay. Well, I'm sorry we had a time, but I appreciate both of you being here. Thank you. 5 days a week, homeless folks and Dallas gather downtown at the stuport for food, friendship,

and a little entertainment. The entertainment is courtesy of a donated piano that seemed better days, and PJ or piano gym. He's also seen better days. About two months ago, I guess, when the lunch was late coming down and Reverend Bruce asked if anybody here played piano, and I looked around and I said, yeah, well, I do, so I did. PJ landed on the street of Dallas last Christmas when he drove into town looking for a job. He didn't find a job. He just found a lot of bad luck when his car broke down, and he heard his back at a local

mission. It didn't take him long to figure out how homeless people survive. You can't walk into a restaurant, so you have to find where these places are. And if you're new to a city or town, like I was here, I have no idea where they were. Who do you go to see? You go stop the man on the street? No, you don't go stop the man on the street. You look and you watch for a person who is down in their mind, like a bag lady or something like that, and they have a world of information for you. They can tell you every place that will feed, and every place where you go for free. The thing I think that annoys most of the boys here is that people look at them as if they are dirt, and believe me, they are not.

But the average public sees them on the street, and they as if they want to walk around, like a detour, or put on surgical drugs, if you have to shake hands, you know why? We got some disease, it's the attitude. P.J. doesn't see much of that attitude these days. He's working in North Dallas, doing what he's been doing for 20 years, entertaining people during happy hour. He plays three hours a night, five nights a week. He doesn't make much, but he does make enough to have his own place and pleasant grove. He's saving up for a car. When he gets one, he'll head out again, looking for other piano jobs in other cities. If I can make people happy, he was what I'm doing, then I'll do it. P.J. just doesn't care much of his customers or people doing all right in North Dallas,

or people down on their luck in the streets of downtown Dallas. He just keeps on playing. Now he has somewhere to go when he's done. They arrive by Teddy Bear Air, some by ground transportation. Most walk through the doors, a few are wheeled along corridors.

But these young patients share is the bond of childhood. What they need is medical attention. They will receive it here. Here is Cook Fort Worth Children's Medical Center, a new facility that opens its doors at the end of the month. It represents a merger between two hospitals, old competitors with a long history between them. Fort Worth Children's Hospital and Cook Memorial Hospital began talking about a merger back in the 40s. It didn't work out, and the two went their separate ways, but the seed was planted. In 1980, it flowered when the two hospital boards came together to form Cook Fort Worth Children's. Much has changed over 40 years. This building is part of the change. Much has also remained constant, like the children who will be treated here over the next 12 months, some 51,000. Their treatment may last a couple of hours in emergency, or it may take months.

A few will spend their lives here. This story and this building are about the children. What's your favorite? When I was first diagnosed, I just had my 10th birthday. I just didn't know what to feel, I was just scared, and I just didn't know what to expect. They told me I was going to have to go under a chemotherapy and everything for about three years, and I was pretty scared. You panic more or less, and you think the worst originally, and it takes a little bit of time and getting adjusted and used to before. You realize and you can see that you have to look at the best, instead of at the worst, because if you lose your hope, then everything's gone. I missed a lot of school. I missed about half of the fourth grade year, and fifth grade. I missed almost all of it.

I missed the whole sixth grade. Do you ever get angry? Yeah. What's it do with that anger? I usually like to pull it out when I'm a sister or whatever. Chad had a form of leukemia that did not respond very well to chemotherapy. He did have a remission, that is, his disease was controlled for a period of a little over one year, and then he suffered a relapse. It came back in his bone marrow. We went into Dr. Bowman's office, and he told us that I had it again. I was at a remission, and we started talking about it, and they decided we had to get a bone marrow transplant. They told us that that was not the only thing that would work, and so I just agreed with it, because that was the only thing. There really wasn't any choices to it, because there really wasn't any good alternative.

That was the best chance we had, and whenever it's your child's life, you just take the best shot you got. In Chad's case, the marrow would be harvested from his sister, Carmen, whose tissue and blood type were a perfect match. Two-thirds of transplant patients have no match, and like this child who has come here from out of state must serve as their own donors. This is where we take a fairly large, bore needle and enter the hip bone. We go right into the bone, the child's asleep and doesn't feel it, and harvest or pull five CCs of bone marrow off. We only want a good count, Lucy. No bad counts today. We then advance the needle carefully and draw another five CC sample, and what we try to do through a single little hole in the back, by the hip bone, we go in about four different directions.

Lucy, could you send word out to mother that the line's gone fine and he's doing good? After sufficient bone marrow is removed, aggressive combinations of medicine and radiation are applied to the patient, and doses so high that they would, in effect, have destroyed the marrow itself. As microscopic cancer cells may remain in the harvested marrow, it too is treated. Monoclonal antibodies, synthetic proteins designed to attach themselves only to the cancer cells, are incubated with the marrow. These antibodies have little tiny magnetized beads attached to them, little beads that are so small you can't see them with a naked eye. The bone marrow that has been incubated with these magnetized antibodies is passed through a chamber that selectively removes with magnets, the magnetized beads, and once again, depletes the marrow of the cancer cells, leaving the normal cells behind. Once bone marrow and child are treated, the marrow is reintroduced into the patient's blood

stream, where it finds its way back into the bone cavities, in graphs, and begins producing white blood cells, vital to the body's immunity. The patient is isolated for as long as the process takes. It is a simple, but high-risk procedure, a rescue operation. All the parents know when they go into this, that the chances of their survival is approximately three out of ten, so we see a lot of children die around here, but we have a whole lot of happy moments with them. And the parents snatch every minute that they can snatch with that child. And there are the success stories. Are you ever likely to use the word cure with Chad? Yes, not just yet, but soon, I think. When you look ahead, Chad, at your future, what do you think it's going to be like? I think everybody is successful.

I want to, I can't figure out what I'm going to be yet, like, I was saying it maybe as a wall of just or something. I'm not sure. Do you ever get it all scared about the future? Not usually. I think I got everything pretty well whipped. When you need to help me. Vanna is six years old, and he has been in this room for three and a half years. This is his life. Yes, this is Vanna's life. Vanna Bun was born prematurely in a West Texas town. He spent the first two and a half years of his life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Cook Fort Worth Children's. Years later, he remains in the hospital. Vanna was born very prematurely, and in order to keep him alive after he was born, he had to be placed on a mechanical ventilator to help him breathe and give him enough oxygen. That's necessary to keep him alive, but unfortunately, the ventilator also scars the lungs, and

then leads to damage, which repairs itself very, very slowly, and in some children doesn't repair itself as well as others. Throw it back to me. Come on. Do you hear it? Vanna's days are filled with treatments and therapy and classes. He is learning functional and social skills. Things that can help him express what he wants. His wants and needs, being able to sign those things. Some of his signs are a little bit immature, and we're working on developing those better. Stuff has to be meaningful to him for us to work with him on it. His environment has been so limited that you bring something in from the outside world, a picture or something that he's never seen, and it may not mean anything to him. Not only is it difficult for Vanna to relate to things he has never seen, it is hard for him to relate to experiences, which as a newborn, he seldom knew.

Like most premature babies who spend months lying and monitored crids while their tiny bodies continue to develop, Vanna is touched negative. It is hard for him to touch or to be touched. He wouldn't touch my face when I started working with him, and even still he'll pluck it a little bit and then he'll still draw back. Each day after class, Vanna works with a physical therapist. The biggest thing that I see for Vanna as a role in physical therapy is just to teach him some functional skills. He's confined to a small area for his living capacity, and he needs to be functional in that area, learning how to climb in and out of his bed, onto the body chair and off, to get around the room, to maneuver without someone having to be there with him. It is intensive care and expensive care. The question of the cost of this kind of care and the ethics of it, you know, of spending

approximately $50,000 a month on a child like Vanna, when there are children in many communities who don't even have enough money to get their immunizations, is an extremely difficult ethical question to answer. These made people stop and think about things that they don't want to stop and think about, death and dying, the ethics of technology, which these are technology dependent children. That's how I justified. It took me a long time working with these kids to say, why? Why do we have children living on machines in a one little room, and then when you stop and you look at all the different lives that Vanna has touched, when this child is up and living and walking around and playing and reading books and wanting you to kiss him and rock him, it's very difficult to come in and say, take him off the ladder. The reality of the existence of these children who are technology dependent has to be recognized

by the political community, and so far really most of these children are being taken care of by hospital charity. The best case scenario for Vanna, I feel at the current point, would be if there were funding available for home care for this child. In many states, there is funding available for what we call medical foster care or medical placement in the home. That is not the case in Texas, and it's unlikely Vanna will ever return home. But awaits him as a new hospital with more room, a corridor to explore and outdoor deck. Perhaps from there, for the very first time, Vanna will experience the brush of a night breeze on his cheek and see the stars. Where's your house? Can you show me your new house? Where he's headed for, I don't know, because his hall horizons are going to be so broad

that I believe in miracles, and I hope and pray for a miracle. The Dallas-Arboretum and Botanical Society could have just gone out and bought a piece of art to

This is the entry hall to the garden with the dipping well and a continual display of flowers behind, as you would do a bouquet and an entry hall. The garden is not just to be a show place for flowers, but to show in an organic way how plants develop. A perennial garden is a garden that has something happening in every season of the year. In flowers, shrub, berry, deciduous leaves, so even in the winter, it tells a story about life, actually, life and death.

And to help tell this story, Hydric turned to sculptors Jim Sinkamani, Lynne Glad, and Brad Goldberg. Their contributions all created as a team in collaboration with the Landscape Architect show a unique partnership between nature and art. This story of the life cycle begins with the sensations and the sounds of the source. We wanted something that was very solid, something that would present the source of water for the garden, that would reveal itself in different areas of the garden. And we wanted the dipping well to be sort of the source of a source of water, a source of refreshment, a place that you could come and actually touch the water and be refreshed by it, be refreshed by the sound that you hear. That other source of life, the Sun,

has its tribute paid at the Paragola, a vine-covered gathering place. Well, a Paragola is the primary architectural structure here on the site, and we created the metal grids and vines as a trellis for Wisteria to grow into eventually in the future. It will also be a staging area for certain events that will take place weddings and other activities. But right now, it creates a nice pleasant drawing on the wall, and the light from the Sun goes through the piece and casts shadows on the floor in the mornings, and then in the afternoon, the Sun comes down low and sweeps those shadows up across the walls. The last element in the story, the Earth, is seen emerging from the site itself and the treasures of its past. This is the Hidden Garden, which is essentially a fern garden that's somewhat modeled upon an ancient or abandoned stone quarter. And all of the limestone was taken from an existing quarry

in the Hill Country, which was the source for all the other stone elements in the garden. The Hidden Garden is somewhat of an excavation, it's sort of an unearthed thing of the history of the site. And what we've done is we've taken things that we've gathered and cast them into browns. This particular bird existed on this site, and we're paying homage to the fact that this site is a piece of nature and natural processes take place on this site. And I think the nature of a botanical garden extends way beyond flowers but to sensitize people towards nature. Art at its very best is not something that is merely aesthetically pleasing to look at, it challenges, it confronts, it asks the question, it demands an answer. So that is to say that art isn't just about having a pleasant experience

but having a rewarding experience that makes one think about life on other levels. Thank you.