Dallas (WBAP/KLIF News) – Plans to turn over the day-to-day management of Dallas’ Fair Park are on hold…possibly for a few months, so the city can take competitive bids from other interested parties. Council member Philip Kingston says it’s the law, just like any other business the city conducts.
“The City Attorney says the local government code provisions that requires competitive bidding for city services, that means for everything, down to pencils, applies also if we want to privatize Fair Park,” said Kingston.
Kingston said there are other groups who have expressed an interest in managing the park, and it could end up saving taxpayers money.
The process could be on hold for four to six months, while the City puts out Requests for Proposals, and takes bids.
But City Attorney Larry Casto’s announcement that the Fair Park process would be put on hold may have even deeper implications. Kingston said he’s not sure competitive bids were taken when the Zoo and the Arboretum were turned over to private management groups, and therefore those contracts might not be legal, either.
“The reason those may have been legal, but in retrospect, maybe they weren’t,” said Kingston, “is that there were existing non-profit organizations who had already contributed substantial resources.”
WBAP has reached out to the Fair Park Texas Foundation to get its side of the story.
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