(Gus note: This 19-year old article contains a lot of useful historical background information that probably describes some of the befuddling social occurrences encountered during our rush toward adulthood a half-century ago. Credit: D Magazine November 1995)
EDWARD P. BASS IS A MAN WHO CONSTANTLY
reinvents himself. Since he also is a billionaire with an abiding fascination
with the dynamics of cities, this means he occasionally reinvents entire
sections of Fort Worth.
Other people may build castles in the air with their
daydreams. But the daydreams of billionaires have a tendency to turn into
plans, plans into projects, and projects into entire blocks of, not castles,
but apartment buildings, nightclubs, restaurants, movie houses, parks on (op of
below-ground parking), and performing arts centers.
That’s how Ed Bass’ dream of living in a downtown bachelor’s
apartment resulted in the transformation of a key part of downtown Fort
Worth. It happened like this: When Ed moved back home
in 1979 from Santa Fe, there was no
living space in downtown. So he rented a suite by the month at the Blackstone
Hotel.
"It was such a bad address that not only would people
not come visit me there, some people wouldn’t even phone me there," he
told me a few years ago.
Soon after, though, Bass Brothers Enterprises launched their
Sundance Square project in
the north end of downtown. Ed Bass looked at all the Sundance buildings with an
eye to putting an apartment in one, but "none of [the spaces] really
jelled."
"Then, my brother Sid suggested that if I went across Houston
Street from Sundance, I might find something where I might be able to put an apartment on an upper floor and put something
else downstairs."
That "something else" eventually became the
Caravan of Dreams, which not only included an apartment for Ed Bass, but also
apartments for other Caravan staff members. But even though he now had a place
for himself, he didn’t slop thinking about a larger downtown residential
development. Bass explored several possible locations, but found nothing that
was both structurally and economically feasible.
And there things sat until one night in 1986, when someone
removed a section of flexible natural gas line leading to a hamburger grill
inside Santini’s Sub Shop that backed up to the
Caravan of Dreams. At 3:26 a.m. on Dec. 7, the leaking gas
encountered a spark. The result was an explosion that leveled much of the block
directly behind the Caravan and nearly knocked Ed Bass out of his bed. Later,
the owner of a sandwich shop next door to Santini’s was convicted of arson. The
Caravan ended up with a great big empty space right behind it, and Ed Bass had
an opportunity that was literally blasted into being.
"I figured anything that dramatic was trying to tell me
something." he told me. He had the Houston
Street Bakery moved to Main Street
and tore down the building it had occupied at the corner of Houston
and Second. That, coupled with the space cleared by the explosion, gave him a
development that was on the verge of being economically feasible.
So he went to the City Council with a proposal for a tax
abatement that would ensure that for 10 years. Bass would pay taxes as though
no improvements had occurred on the property. The Council agreed. The result
was the Sundance West development, which includes the Sundance Cinema with 11
screens, a 12-story apartment building, and several restaurants and shops. This
was among the first of many public-private partnerships that continue to
transform Fort Worth.
All this, because Ed Bass wanted to live downtown.
This is part of the reason why, when one asks, "Who
runs Fort Worth?" the answer
is nearly always, "The Basses," or a variation on that theme,
"The Basses and Dee Kelly [the Basses’ attorney]." But as with so
much else in Fort Worth, unless one
understands the historical nuances of that answer, one risks missing the point.
"The Basses" are not some monolithic entity moving
through Fort Worth in mental
lockstep. There is a family named Bass, composed of Perry Bass; his wife, Nancy
Lee; and their four sons, Sid, Edward, Robert, and Lee, and their various wives
and children (Ed is still a bachelor).
Perry Bass is the nephew of Fort Worth oilman
Sid
Richardson, who, with his buddy
Clint Murchison (onetime owner of the
Dallas Cowboys), rode the boom-and-bust cycle of the early days of Texas oil
drilling, making and losing fortunes almost overnight, Both men ended up
enormously wealthy.
Richardson
drilled 385 wells with only 17 dry holes. In 1957, Fortune magazine called him the wealthiest man in America.
He died in 1959, having worked all his life.
In Fort Worth, The Civilized West, Caleb Pirtle III tells
how Richardson, when asked about the size of his bank account, smiled and said,
"Well, after the first hundred million, what the hell?" Richardson
left his fortune to his nephew, Perry Bass, who also has been named by Fortune
as one of the richest men in America,
as have each of his four sons.
So everything the Basses do looms very large in this city.
And whether or not they realize it, as they reshape Fort
Worth’s physical landscape, they are inevitably
reshaping Fort Worth’s emotional
landscape as well.
To understand why this matters, it helps to have some
history. Fort Worth used to be run
by a group of men called the Seventh Street Gang. These were Amon Carter, Sid
Richardson, the big bankers, the utility company heads, and a few selected
CEOs, most of whom had offices on Seventh Street.
The history of the Seventh Street Gang is the story of the men who started Fort
Worth - the Terrells, Daggetts, Van Zandts, and such-who
came as bold young men in the late 1850s, ready to take on the frontier.
Mary Rogers, social
columnist of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is a long-lime keen observer of Fort
Worth and something of a historian. She has a theory
about what happened when these bold young men began to get old. They wanted to
ensure that their children and grandchildren would have a safe, secure, and
economically healthy place to live after they were gone. "They invest
everything they’ve got, every scrap of their soul and their fortune is invested
in this little podunk community. They don’t want it to dry up and blow away.
But they’re getting old. They see they’ve got to have new blood," Rogers
says.
She believes they did what old men have done since the
beginning of time-they found the best and brightest of the next generation in
the late 1800s and they mentored them. One of the young men they put their arms around was feisty
young Amon G. Carter, who arrived in Fort Worth in 1905 with nothing much except
energy, exuberance, and ego, all married to a canny salesman’s mind, Carter
understood the power of mentorship.
So in the 1940s and 1950s, Carter and the second generation
of the Seventh Street Gang mentored the next group, which in turn mentored men
such as Bayard Friedman (1926-1998), who became the last true Seventh Street
Gang mayor from 1963 to 1965.
But the Friedman generation became afraid to mentor in the ’60s and 70s, when many
middle-aged people viewed the next generation as a threat, not an opportunity. Because of political chasms and cultural divides,
it was harder for the older men to recognize themselves in the younger men and
their aspirations. In the past, the older men would say to the young, "Let me tell you what I’ve learned." In
return, they would get respect and a guaranteed place at the table where
decisions were being made. They would be revered elder statesmen. That was the
deal.
But by the time the Bayard Friedman generation came along, Fort
Worth had grown and become more diverse. There were
too many people out there, especially minorities and women, who didn’t even
know a deal existed.
So where once the power structure turned on strength of
character and community roots in a commitment to the community’s future
well-being-and, of course, wealth - it now began to turn on wealth alone. When
the mentoring stopped, an us-and-them mentality set in. Us were the common folk
who weren’t here in 1850. Them were the descendants of those who were here in
1850.
That us-and-them mind-set was first manifested in the
1975 vote to approve single-member districts. It caught many of the West
Side, Seventh Street Gang power brokers by surprise. Once it
passed, they had the grace not to challenge it in court. They did, however, set
about to find ways to manage this new development. So a pyramid of power was
put firmly into place that has shaped Fort Worth’s emotional and civic
landscape ever since.
This pyramid of power has
four layers. The first tier at the top is the smallest, made
up of the ruling families of Fort Worth.
These are the "old" families, people with deep roots in the city and,
usually, deeper pockets.
They include, but are not limited to, Kay Carter Kimbell
Fortson, niece of the people who established the Kimbell Museum; Josephine
Terrell Smith Hudson (who has city founders on both sides of her family), Ruth
Carter Stevenson (Amon Carter’s daughter), and Anne Windfohr Marion
(daughter of Anne Burnett Tandy, who was the wife of Charles Tandy and the
granddaughter of cattleman Burk Burnett, who owned the legendary 6666 Ranch); John
Justin of Justin Boots; other descendants of founding families and the
husbands, wives, children, and sometimes grandchildren of these people.
These people live in Westover
Hills or Rivercrest, and
usually belong to River Crest and Shady Oaks country clubs, the Fort Worth Club, the Petroleum Club, and the Jewel Charity Ball. They attend the most
prestigious of the benefit galas, and sometimes act as honorary chairs of such
events. The women make their debuts at the Assembly
Ball. The men usually are members of the Exchange
Club.
When any of these people say they want something to happen,
it’s going to happen. When any of these people say they don’t want something to
happen, it’s not going to happen.
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The
second tier includes the corporate, professional,
and political elite of the city: Mayor
Kay Granger (EHHS '61) and some, but
not all, of the City Council;
Ross Perot Jr.,
whose Alliance Airport is transforming the area north of Fort Worth;
Kenneth Devero of Downtown Fort Worth Inc.; corporate
CEOs, such as
John Roach of Tandy Corporation,
Clark Johnson of Pier I Imports,
Ed Schollmaier of Alcon Laboratories Inc.,
Jack L. Messman of Union Pacific Resources Company,
and
Gerald Grinstein of Burlington Northern
Inc.; the publisher of the Star-Telegram, who is Rich Connor now; high-profile
artists such as Van Cliburn; and, when they are interested, most of the rest of
"social" Fort Worth. When these people want something to happen, it will nearly
always happen-unless it contradicts something the top tier wants. These people
are nearly always allowed to act as if they were top tier.
The only civic interest
for many of the "social" people is the Fort Worth Zoo. They support
the symphony, ballet, opera, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition,
and all the museums. They attend all the benefit galas. The women often are in
charge of such galas. These people hangout at the Fort Worth Club, City
Club, River Crest Country Club, and Ridglea Country Club.
Some, but not all, of the men belong to the Exchange Club, Some of the
women made their debuts at the Steeplechase Ball, and a few older
families belong to the Assembly. Nearly all the women are or were
members of the Junior League. Both rabbis are in the second tier, but
only a couple of ministers rank, this high.
Barry Bailey,
formerly of First United
Methodist Church,
was in this group until he resigned his ministry this year in the wake of
multiple sexual harassment charges. Even though he has become an embarrassment,
Bailey is still treated with courtesy when he shows up at second-tier events.
Some Bass family members were among Bailey’s congregation, and Bailey performed
the wedding of Sid and Mercedes Bass. This connection is one reason the
accusations against Bailey were not reported in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
until nearly everyone in town knew about them and the national media were about
to break the story.
However, there is politeness,
and there is politeness. Fort Worth’s
elite have honed politeness to an art that would make Chinese Mandarins look
crass. There is the friendly, even affectionate, politeness with which one
listens to one s peers. Then there is the mannerly politeness that is the
hallmark of social and civic interaction in Fort Worth.
So far, Ross Perot Jr. is being treated
with the first type of politeness. But people with his wealth and influence who
do business in Fort Worth are
expected to contribute both talent and money in Fort Worth.
People are beginning to notice that his name is conspicuously absent from donor
lists of certain causes. If this continues, he may find the chill factor
increasing.
And then there is the mildly patronizing politeness that
makes many of the people on the third layer think they are in the second
layer-they always are listened to with great politeness. But as someone once
said of this kind of civility, "Politeness is just organized
indifference." Many of Fort Worth’s
professional African-Americans and Hispanics are well-acquainted with this type
of polite indifference, as are nearly all female professionals.
The third tier includes the professional and the
employed body of people who live and work in Fort Worth,
people who often have their jobs because of what the top two layers do. This
fact is never far from their minds, and it often governs just how far they are
willing to push the top two tiers. Only those with independent means can afford
to be really uppity.
This tier includes the school superintendent and the school
board members; the county commissioners; board members of social service
agencies, especially those where Junior League members do volunteer work; most
of the churches; most of the business community; and the more affluent
African-American and Hispanic professionals.
These people frequently act as both a goad and a brake for
the top two layers. These are the people who run up flags to call attention to
needs in the community and make proposals for programs, developments, etc. to
tend to those needs. Usually these ideas are stopped at the second level, where
they either are acted on or dismissed. Too many of the ideas from the minority
community are greeted with that mildly patronizing politeness. But enough get
through all the way to the top tier to keep this third level from getting too
unhappy.
Third-tier people hang out at the Paris Coffee
Shop. Some belong to the Colonial Country Club, but most play golf
at municipal courses. Nearly all the women have careers, and their families and
kids are important to them. They also support the symphony, ballet, and the
museums. The men and some of the women belong to Rotary and other
service clubs and sometimes get "loaned" to the United
Way campaign. Those lucky few who belong to the prestigious
Downtown Rotary are able to rub shoulders with people from both the second
and first tiers, and even, occasionally, with a Bass or two.
People in this tier belong to the various chambers of
commerce and to their neighborhood associations. They love their neighborhoods,
but for the most part feel helpless to affect changes via City Hall. Occasionally,
this layer will rear up and put the brake on something the top two tiers want,
much to their consternation. They did it when they voted down a 1990 Cultural
District bond issue. Many of them were involved in the infamous 1987 "zoo
fight." They lost the zoo dispute because in fights like that, second-tier
people always win over third-tier people. The only time third-tier people have
a chance to win is in something like that bond issue, where they can vote.
But when second-tier people take on top-tier people, they
can occasionally win. Five years ago, Sid and Mercedes Bass purchased three
already huge lots along Crestline Drive
in the Rivercrest neighborhood to combine into one enormous area on which to
build a house. Fort Worth’s finest
eyebrows were raised when they bought one mansion and tore it down, and
eyebrows nearly met hairlines when they then bought a house across the street
and had it moved, because, word was, Mercedes had learned you could see over
the wall from its second-story window. It was that wall, in fact, that gave
neighbors a chance to express their outrage over such un-Fort-Worth-like
wretched excess. When Sid asked for a zoning variance to build a hugely high
fence around the estate, enough neighbors turned up at City Hall in protest to
force them into agreeing to lower the height of the wall, set it farther back
from the road, and lavishly landscape in front of it. Sid’s Wall is now almost
a neighborhood tourist attraction.
The fourth tier of the triangle, the biggest and the bottommost,
is made up of those with lower incomes, the poor, the uneducated, the
voiceless, and those who not only don’t know who most of the top tier are, they
don’t even know, or care where the Fort Worth Club is. These are the people
whom the third tier is frequently trying to get the second and first tier to
help, if only out of enlightened self interest.
You will have noticed one glaring omission in this
structure. Where are the Basses? Well, the Bass families are the
nuclear-powered light on the top of the pyramid-beaming enormous power, light,
energy and, yes, beauty over the entire structure. And like most grand pieces
of art, some people like them and some people don’t, but very few ignore them.
WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO THOSE BILLIONAIRES’
DREAMS.
Perry and Nancy Lee Bass and
their four sons all are distinct, separate individuals with distinct and often
separate interests and dreams. These interests and dreams move and shape nearly
every part of their city in very different ways.
Sid Bass is credited with continuing the revitalization of
downtown Fort Worth that began when
Charles Tandy built the Tandy Center
in 1977. Tandy was viewed by many as the visionary successor to Amon Carter
Sr., who had died in 1955. After Tandy’s death in 1978, Sid Bass seemed poised
to step into that role as he spearheaded Sundance
Square in 1980.
At that time, Ed Bass was regarded as the arty or quirky
Bass, what with his Caravan of Dreams nightclub and the controversial Biosphere
II in Arizona. Robert Bass has
his own separate wide-ranging investments, and he and his wife, Anne T. Bass,
are keenly interested in human service issues. They are deeply involved in
historical preservation, both locally and nationally. A former president of the
National Trust for Historic Preservation, Bob Bass brought that organization to Fort Worth for its 49th National Preservation Conference last month. The
youngest son, Lee, and his wife Ramona have a particular interest in the Fort
Worth Zoo. And all the Basses are involved in the latest project Ed Bass is
spearheading--the new Nancy Lee and Perry Bass Performing Arts Hall, scheduled
to open in early 1998. Dallas may
have "The Mort," but Fort Worth
will soon have "The Bass."
In addition, the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, which the
Basses control, gives enormous sums of money to the community each year. In
1993, it handed out $14.9 million. Along with the Amon G. Carter Foundation and
the Anne Burnett and Charles D. Tandy Foundation, it is one of the Big Three in
Fort Worth. (In 1993, the Burnett Tandy
Foundation gave $10.5 million and the Carter Foundation gave $8 million.)
All this is why many people in Fort
Worth give thanks daily that the Basses have pretty
good taste. After all, we could have ended up with a city full of ugly, bland
Tandy Centers.
Ten years ago, if you had asked people to pinpoint one Bass
brother who would run Fort Worth
for the foreseeable future, almost everyone would have pointed to Sid. Almost
everyone would have been wrong. The Bass brother who has emerged as the
visionary leader is Ed....Ed, the flaky one; Ed, the hippie one; Ed, the arty one.
It turns out that Ed also is an astute businessman with good instincts, an
eclectic group of friends, and a sense of humor and generosity. On his 50th
birthday in mid-September, he surprised friends who had given him a surprise
party by announcing that he is giving $6 million to civic and arts
organizations with which his family is associated - a million for every decade
of his life, with one to grow on.
If Ed’s bachelor dreams transformed downtown Fort
Worth between Throckmorton and Houston, other Bass
dreams have transformed other parts of the city. Ramona Bass’ dream has
transformed the Fort Worth Zoo. Bob and Anne T. Bass dreams for healthy children
caused them to be the leading force in building the new Cook-Fort Worth
Children’s Medical Center
in 1989. The dansant dreams of Anne H. Bass, Sid’s first wife, transformed the
Fort Worth Ballet in the early 1980s. And as early as 1980, Sid Bass’
discussions about Sundance Square
included dreams of a downtown symphony hall.
This dream was temporarily delayed when Bob Bass became
convinced that the perfect place for a new symphony hall already existed in the
Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium in the Cultural Distria. The art deco
auditorium was built in the Depression, but had deteriorated badly, Bob Bass
believed that putting the symphony hall there would not only provide a great
new performing arts venue, but also save part of the city’s heritage.
An elaborate public planning process was set up, The result
was a bond issue in which the taxpayers would put up $20 million to be matched
by $30 million in private dollars. It was resoundingly defeated in July 1990,
because of long-festering resentments about tax dollars being used to subsidize
projects seen as benefiting only the most affluent of the city.
But billionaires’ dreams rarely die. So it was no surprise
to anyone when, nearly five years later, plans were announced for a new Fort
Worth Performing Arts Center within walking distance of Sundance Square. Only
this time, Sid, Ed, and Lee clearly had learned a lesson from Bob’s experience.
This hall is to be built entirely with private money-$60 million worth of
private money, with Ed Bass heading up the fund-raising effort.
Ed Bass’ dream of how a library should look is responsible
for the classically styled building covering the downtown Fort Worth Public
Library, which was built underground in the early 1970s and had leaked ever
since. It is adjacent to the area of downtown being most heavily affected by
the Bass developments. In 1992. looking for an affordable solution to the
leakage problem, Mayor Kay Granger (EHHS '61) invited Ed Bass in for consultation. He
provided a design and helped raise the money to build the shell, but it was up
to the city to furnish it. It remains entirely empty. It’s essentially a very
expensive umbrella. But it looks so good next to all those Bass buildings.
Mayor Granger saw inviting Ed Bass in as a sensible use of a
valuable city resource. But this is one more reason why. these days, if you ask
who runs Fort Worth, the first name
on everyone’s lips is Ed Bass. The second name is the Basses’ attorney, Dee
Kelly.
Of course it’s a
tremendous resource to have four billionaires in your city who care about it
and want to do good things," Kelly says matter of factly. Add the fact
that the Bass "boys" have inherited their great-uncles well-developed
work ethic, and you’ve got a source of tremendous power and influence. Ed Bass is not above walking the muddy grounds
of some public-private construction project with a City Council member as they
discuss problems that have cropped up. When
asked by a city official for help, he shows up himself, instead of sending some
assistant.
Kelly is unabashedly frank about his power and influence,
and very-realistic about the source of that power. "I represent the Basses, the city of Fort
Worth, American Airlines, the airport. I’ve been
around a long time. I have connections, both politically and financially, not
only here, but in Austin and Washington,
I can get to the people who can get things done," he says, in a very
concise description of power. This is a man simply explaining how the world
works. He’s a "gatekeeper."
In Kelly’s view, in addition to the Basses, there are 25 or
50 other people, nearly all men, who run Fort Worth.
"We all know one another, we trust one another. We know
who gets things done. We are accessible, and I think we’re diverse. We’ll help
anyone who comes along. We look for good people no matter their race," he
says.
Ed Bass echoes Kelly’s observation. "In Fort Worth,
we have an unparalleled spirit of cooperation amongst all sectors of our
community, and a very good working relationship between our public and private
sectors,"’ he says. One key to Fort Worth’
s successful revitalization of its downtown, as he sees it, lies in the success
of public-private partnerships, which combine the efforts of private investors
with taxpayer money, in the form of tax abatements, infrastructure, or
expenditure of bond money-and sometimes all three.
These work "mostly because we share vision and
goals," Ed Bass says. "We have a good idea of what we want Fort
Worth to be, and that, first and foremost, is a good
place to live."
But what Ed Bass, Dee Kelly, Mayor Granger, and other civic
leaders see as an unparalleled spirit of cooperation is seen by many
neighborhood activists as giving the store away to rich developers. They think
the "private" part of the public-private partnerships reaps many more
benefits than do the "public" parts.
"I don’t believe taxpayers ought to help private
developers," says City Councilman Chuck Silcox, who represents far west Fort
Worth’s District 3. "I voted for Ed’s deal
because I thought he’d bring a lot of people downtown who had lots of
disposable income, which would bring more businesses in downtown. But
generally, if a project is a good project, then that developer should be able
to get enough money for it instead of coming to the taxpayers."
Silcox thinks a not-so-subtle change happened at City Hall
during Bob Bolen’s long reign as mayor (1982-1991).
"Bolen started moving from the city manager/council
form of government to what I call a quasi-strong mayor system. Kay operates in
much the same way," he says. Silcox isn’t the only person to make this
observation. Neighborhood activists see Bob Bolen’s tenure as marked by a
precipitous decline in real public participation, a gutting of the City
Planning Department, and what is seen as an almost complete capitulation to
developers such as the Basses and Ross Perot Jr. They don’t see the Basses
demanding such power as much as they see the city leaders simply giving it to
them. However, they see Perot as much more heavy-handed.
"I put the Basses and the Perots in two different
boats," Silcox says, in remarks typical of others’ observations. "I
think Ed Bass is good for Fort Worth.
He’s not demanding, The Perots are more demanding. I don’t think Ed looks at it
that way. If he felt the city didn’t want something, or thought it would not be
good for the city, I don’t think he’d do it. The Perots wouldn’t care if it was
good for Fort Worth or not. All
they’d care about is what they want."
Given that, most people are simply grateful that Ed Bass’
views of how a city should work have been shaped by the works of thinkers and
urban visionaries like William H. Whyte and Jane Jacobs. Ed Bass likes to think
that Fort Worth is a city Jane
Jacobs would love.
"Fort Worth
has warmth, friendliness, and quality of life coupled with vitality,
sophistication, and other advantages of a true metropolitan city," he
says. And, he’s very clear that all the pretty buildings in the
world are not enough to pull people downtown.
"More than one formula can work in a downtown, but no
matter what, downtowns must have a critical mass of people, it is people that
make cities work. It is people that make cities sate and interesting and fun.
"We are also very lucky...because our downtown is a
workable size. We’re big enough to have a certain critical mass of activities
and an audience to draw from. On the other hand, we’re small enough that each
thing we do makes a perceptible difference," he says.
Anything any of the Basses do anywhere in the city has a
perceptible impact. How that impact is viewed is determined largely by where
one sits on the pyramid of power. And here is a fact that is key to
understanding how Fort Worth works:
The pyramid itself is invisible to those on the top of it, just as a chair is
not visible to the person sitting in it. These people sincerely see leadership
in Fort Worth as encouraging and
cultivating leadership, nurturing up out of all that diversity. They say they
don’t "manage" diversity but "celebrate" it.
"One secret of why Fort Worth
works is that we go about long-term planning with a broad base of community
interaction. People feel ownership in both the vision and the process, and that
makes the planning become reality." says Ed Bass.
"I think the people run Fort Worth,"
says Mayor Kay Granger. "We don’t have a Seventh Street Gang anymore. What
we have is that we are really learning that all those smaller pieces matter.
This City Council will listen to the League of Neighborhoods on equal status
with the Chamber of Commerce, That’s what your interlocking pieces are
about."
"I think there are some well-developed linkages between
the variety of communities that make up this city. I think one of the successes
that you can point to historically has been a result of the different elements
of the community maintaining, cultivating those relationships, those
linkages," says City Councilman Bill Meadows, who represents District 7,
within which lie Rivercrest, one of the richest neighborhoods in the city, and
Como, one of the least prosperous neighborhoods.
All of these people are telling the truth, as they see it
from where they sit. However, the perspective is different for those who are on
the lower tiers looking up. Many who don’t live in or work downtown believe the
pyramid’s shadow has stunted the growth and vision that have tried to emerge in
other parts of town. To these people, it seems as if both elected officials and
the press abdicate their responsibilities to the larger public whenever anyone
named Bass, Kelly, or Carter walks into the room.
"What I. sense now is a group of
people who’ve always had money, who, at the right time, also exercise power.
But they try to do it in a way so that the exercising of power is not so
obvious," says Star-Telegram columnist Bob Ray Sanders.
"Right now, the political leadership is responding to
business dollars and business powers-with the idea that it’s going to benefit
the whole community, unlike in many cities where it’s just to benefit a handful
of business people. The political side is going along with what the business
community wants."
In Sanders’ view, this is a fairly benign process. But
others disagree. They see a great deal of residual anger and cynicism from all
those decades of being shut out that surface almost every rime any of the
top-tier families are involved even peripherally in anything involving the
city. This, and a very real fear of retaliation, means that what the top-tier
sees as an open participatory process is constantly being distorted by a lack
of trust and an unwillingness on the part of third, and often even second
tier people to speak the truth in public forums.
"The power brokers have evolved a process that is
impressive, a process that has the appearance of participation, and even more
so, the appearance of some personal stake in the outcome, but it’s
illusory," says one African-American professional who requested
anonymity-as did many others-white, African-American and Hispanic-who were
interviewed for this story.
"My assessment is that the powers-that-be, whoever they
are, who run this city, they have their lieutenants-I don’t mean to paint them
in any kind of sinister way, but I believe they are the persons who
essentially, and for all practical purposes, write the script for the
city."
But the script doesn’t always get followed, as witness the
1990 Cultural District bond issue. Many people attributed its decisive defeat
to the fact that the much-vaunted public planning process was a sham. Community
activists had wanted to build satellite performing arts centers that would take
the arts out of a Cultural District, widely perceived as a toy of West
Side rich people. This would have given tangible evidence that the
city really meant what it says about including everyone. But their plan was
totally ignored. A second big factor in the Cultural District’s defeat was the
lingering rancor over the bitter 1987 zoo fight.
The zoo fight marked perhaps the only-time a Bass family
member has thrown his or her weight around in a public forum involving tax
dollars. The Fort Worth Zoological Association’s most high-profile member was
then and is now Ramona Bass, wife of the youngest Bass brother, Lee. This not
only gives the Zoological Association incredible social cachet, it also has had
a direct impact on the power it wields. The Zoo Association runs the zoo under
contract with the city of Fort Worth, When it came up with a master plan for
enlarging the zoo by fencing in more Forest Park acreage, and getting more
parking by paving some heavily used public ball fields, a savage fight ensued
between the wealthy members of the Zoological Association and the homeowners
who live in the neighborhoods surrounding Forest Park.
Everyone knew the fight was over when, in the council
chambers after a meeting. Ramona Bass announced to everyone within earshot that
either the Zoological Association got what it wanted or "it’s going to be
a long time before I give anything else to the city of Fort
Worth." This open threat was so shockingly
uncharacteristic of usual Bass behavior that visible shivers ran through City
Mall, and the most vocal opponents of the arrangement were symbolically
crushed. The Zoological Association got, and still gets, everything it wants.
The incontestable fact is that the Fort Worth Zoo is light
years better than it was 10 years ago. Another incontestable fact is that this
excellence was achieved at the cost of previously open inner-city parkland and
an ever-increasing entrance fee. Also left in its wake was a wounded,
embittered group of caring, thoughtful people who may never participate in
civic affairs again. Many count that cost as much too high. Worst of all. the
highly public nature of the Zoo fight spread an unhealthy, fearful silence
among other people who love Fort Worth every bit as much as do the Basses and
the rest of the top-tier families.
A perception exists that these families own or control so
much of the city that anyone taking them on and disagreeing with one of their
projects is in very real danger of being declared civic poison, or worse, of
losing their livelihood. That is especially true in the minority community.
"These folks [second-tier people] have been shrewd
enough to come up with these processes that give the appearance of a vested
interest in making an impact in this city, in the fabric and evolution of the
city," the African-American professional says.
"But it isn’t happening. The response to single member
districts is that ’we’re going to do it but change the rules of the game enough
to make sure that even though they are at the table, they won’t have any
impact.’ So, sure, since 1977, we have folks sitting on the council who look
like me, but so what?"
This professional believes some of the fault is that the
African-American community has failed to put its best and brightest in office,
and then failed to support those in office in a financial way.
"These people are a check away from poverty-all of us
are mortgaged to the hilt. There isn’t any place where anybody works, whether
they are self-employed or working for someone else, that these people can’t get
to. That sounds so paranoid, but it’s true, because our community is so small.
The business community that makes up Fort Worth
is such a clique that if a phone call gets made, it’s done. That’s reality. If
you start pushing the right buttons, then those people will get cut off."
As many minorities see it, if a black elected or appointed
official pushes for substantive change that will improve quality of life for
black people, that person will be "cut off"-denied the financial
backing needed to win and hold office. In their view, former state
Representative Reby Cary got cut off. Former
City Councilman Jim Bagsby got cut
off. The minorities who have been embraced most by the top two tiers generally
are the people who have been the least challenging and who are seen as having
some usefulness to the people on the top two tiers. For example, it is not unusual
for minority council candidates’ campaign finance reports filed with the city
to show that they’ve raised, say, $8,300: $300 raised in their districts and
$8,000 from the Bass PAC, which is controlled by Dee Kelly. White council
candidates will get similar sums from the Bass PAC, but generally, it doesn’t
represent such a huge proportion of the total as it does for the minority
candidates.
That doesn’t mean that the minority council member won’t be
able to help the minority community. It just means that helping the minority
community isn’t the priority of die powerful top tiers. The proof? No one in Fort
Worth is ever confused about whether they are in a
white or a black neighborhood, even if no people are visible, because the
contrasts are so stark.
"Until we create an independently supported black
institution, a financial safety net, for those black people we’re going to send
out to fight the battle, nothing will change. [Dallas
County Commissioner] John Wiley
Price is able to do what he does because he keeps drawing his paycheck and his
constituents keep putting him back in office," the African-American
professional says. "They can’t get him, even though they keep trying. This
isn’t new. It takes money. The Basses know that, The reason the Basses are able
to do what they do is because they’ve got money."
But Dee Kelly insists, "The Basses are never bullies.
They will never try to force their point of view. They try to persuade, but
they will never force," he says. "And they are accessible, especially
Ed. And if you can’t reach them, you can always reach me."
Kelly has a point. Ed Bass, especially, tries to make his case, tries to
persuade people with facts and figures and architectural renderings
illustrating his dreams. But in the end, one hard truth remains. It’s his dream,
not theirs.
Even so, the people in Fort Worth
who know and care who runs Fort Worth-and
an astonishingly large number don’t-seem to have generally positive feelings
about the Basses. Not only have they helped make Fort Worth a comfortable city
in which to live, they also are an endless source of speculation and
entertaining conversation, in which everyone can become social and
architectural critics. And unlike some rich families in some cities, the Basses
don’t embarrass Fort Worth. After all, many point out, the city could have had
a family of rich eccentrics burying Cadillacs nose down in Main
Street.
The fact is, every city has powerful rich people. Fort
Worth’s rich people just happen to be among the
richest in the world. So, given that the Basses are too rich for anyone to
effectively take on, most people in Fort Worth
are just thankful they are benevolent rulers.
Is this healthy? Probably not.
Is it realistic? Certainly.
Will it ever change? In your dreams.
Adios
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