The city of Dallas has a lot of work ahead of it before it can untangle the contractual complications at Fair Park. The arrangement between the private operator and the nonprofit manager has led to $5.7 million in donor funds being misallocated, somewhere. The City Council met earlier this month to take in a show of finger-pointing between the two parties over who is at fault. One guy saw this coming in 2018, when the City Council approved privatizing Fair Park.
Bobby Abtahi was the Park Board president at the time. He’s a board member of the Dallas Zoo and a former community prosecutor. He knows public-private partnerships. Which is why it was distressing to him, six years ago, that the city wasn’t a party in the sub-management contract that effectively created a nonprofit called Fair Park First to oversee the operations of a for-profit global enterprise, which was then known as Spectra. I’ve written about his concerns in 2018 and how they’ve come to life in recent months. Spectra—which has since been acquired by a company called Oak View Group—was contractually obligated to run the daily operations of Fair Park and rent out its venues. Fair Park First is its overseer and the park’s fundraiser, and donor dollars are not meant to be spent on daily operations.
Because the city isn’t a party to that contract, its power is presently limited. It’s essentially a landlord to Fair Park’s 377 acres, and it’s not clear how it will get to the bottom of where that money was spent. The Dallas Morning News is calling for a new contract on its editorial page while columnist Sharon Grigsby explores whether the parties involved will be able to transform empty parking lots that once held homes into a new community park for South Dallas. The whole deal is a sad mess.
In our latest EarBurner podcast, Abtahi talks about the history of privatizing Fair Park, his concerns about the contract agreement, and the best path forward for what he views as a public good that may never be able to make the kind of money the city hoped it could. Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts.
Author
