MR-T reporter and apparent member of the Chamber of Commerce steno pool D. Lance Lunsford offers up another probing article (no link yet) regarding the MDDD....or the MDMD....or the Municipal Management District or whatever they choose to call the latest venture to convert public monies into private assets. It seems a committee is to be formed from the directors of various interested groups including Downtown Midland, Inc., the newly created MDDD, the not-so-new MDC, the TIRZ, and no doubt the Chamber to oversee and coordinate efforts downtown.

Coordination is always a good thing but a separate committee would almost certainly be redundant in that all five of the above mentioned entities are essentially being operated by the same eleven people. Five groups, one Board. Now that's coordination!

I was glad to see the inclusion of this quote from Councilman Perry last February:

"We go to downtown property owners and say 'Let's chip in some money for what we'll call an assessment."

It serves to remind us all that they can't even call a tax a tax. They call it an "assessment". Really? Try not paying this assessment and all of the usual machinery will begin grinding away in order to remove your downtown property from you.

No, this is nothing like going to downtown property owners and "asking them to chip in". This isn't even about "Hey, let's vote on it!"

This is about a handful of guys going to Austin and having a custom law written that forces these downtown owners to chip in.