Money for Nothing

"You had to look at the spirit the commercial loans were set up for," says architect Todd Howard, who resigned as the trust fund's co-chair in April 2003, as did co-chair Harold Woods, South Dallas business owner John Radovich and Delphine Ganious, who was in charge of overseeing the grant applications. The quartet left after a run-in with Chaney, who didn't approve of the grant recipients they'd chosen and wanted them to "start from scratch," according to one of the four former board members. This, coupled with a community forum at Charles Rice Elementary that spring that turned into a shouting match between some board members and community leaders, caused the foursome to walk out the door, believing their time had been wasted and efforts taken for granted. Chaney says only that they resigned because of a "misunderstanding," and that he was trying to fix the trust fund by eliminating red tape that, he says, held up the dispensing of loan and grant money.

"The loans were to encourage economic development within the census tract," Howard says. "You looked at that, at the application and you interviewed them. Were they running 700-plus credit scores? No. Most were 400 or so, but there was a story presented...and they worked. They worked to concur with the spirit and purpose of the loan committee and why it was there. If they were businesses that had been supported, they would have worked. I think part of the challenge was, could these businesses go into an area where it's challenging for businesses to grow and thrive and succeed?"

The answer, in most cases, was no.

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Which brings us back, for a moment, to Ronnie Crayton. When his loan came before the trust fund, no one on the board considered it a bad loan--far from it, in fact. He was a legit businessman wanting to make a go of it in a part of town that could only benefit from having a black-owned supper club, and not only that, but his restaurant is perched not in the bleakest parts of South Dallas, but on the bright and shiny corner of Exposition and Parry avenues, near bars and hangouts populated by urban hipsters and their wannabe suburban brethren. And it was a place where, on any given day, diners might bump into Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price or former Mayor Ron Kirk.

Crayton applied for his loan in August 2003, and though he now says the loan of $50,000 was too small, and that it took too long to get it, he received the maximum amount allowable, the most macro of the fund's so-called "micro loans." When he took the money from the city on December 11, 2003, Crayton agreed to begin paying back the city $898.43 for 60 months, beginning February 2004; his final payment is due January 1, 2009.

Problem is, Crayton is about $12,000 behind on his payments to the trust fund, with hundreds of dollars in interest and fees accruing every day. He has not made a payment toward his loan since August 9, 2005, when he cut the trust fund a check for $200. A few weeks ago, his loan documents were handed over to the City Attorney's Office, which will try to collect from Crayton--even if it means filing suit against the restaurant owner.

Even so, says trust fund administrator Leo Hicks, "Crayton's Restaurant was a grand experience. Heretofore, to the best of my knowledge, there was not a supper club that provided an upscale dining experience for the residents of South Dallas. Crayton's filled that niche, and he did a good job of filling that niche, and the trust fund still looks forward to working with Crayton's. We want that to be successful. It does provide a valuable service. We're working to do so. I don't think that the last chapter has been told about Crayton's. We still have high hopes with that, and we will work with them to the best of our ability."

Hicks is reminded that during this interview he said he didn't even know if Crayton's was still open for business.

"I don't know what I'm gonna eat for dinner tomorrow," he says, smiling, "but I do know that I'm going to eat something tomorrow."

The man is nothing if not eloquently cryptic.

Fact is, the South Dallas/Fair Park Trust Fund might be a moot point by year's end: Assistant City Manager Ryan Evans, who readily acknowledges the trust fund doesn't work, has proposed turning some 300 acres around the Fair Park area into yet another of the city's tax increment financing reinvestment zones, to be called the Grand Park South TIF. A September 2005 feasibility study, conducted in part by former City Manager George Schrader, acknowledged the city's lousy history of proposing solutions for South Dallas and then abandoning them, including a 1995 Fair Park Gateway Revitalization Concept Plan, which led to the building of one successful housing development, Eban Village, but little else of change-making substance.

"The area still lacks the necessary public amenities, upgraded infrastructure, enhanced image and critical mass needed to create an environment that will stimulate private development" in the area, the study concludes. In short, the neighborhood needs not only quality and affordable housing, but the basics--"significant office, retail and service facilities," which means more than one decent Subway sandwich store on Grand Avenue. And one way to achieve all that, the report insists, is through a TIF that would reinvest tax money paid by businesses within the 300 acres back into the neighborhood.

In short, no longer will the city be in the business of loaning money to businesses that probably won't be around long enough to pay the city back.