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Leppert Colony: can the new mayor of America's ninth-largest city put the pieces back together?

Article Excerpt
The first time t he words "mayor" and "Tom Leppert" were uttered in the same breath was in an interview in the business section of the Dallas Morning News. It was in August 2006, and the occasion was Leppert's retirement as the CEO of the Turner Corporation. During his seven-year tenure, the nation's largest commercial builder--whose projects have included Madison Square Garden, in New York, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, in Cleveland, Ohio--had earned more money than in its previous 97 years combined, with revenues of $7.5 billion in 2005 alone. Leppert spoke with pride about his decision to move the company's headquarters from Manhattan to Dallas in 1999, his desire to spend more time with his family, and his interest in one day returning to the business world. At the end of the interview, the reporter offhandedly mentioned that Mayor Laura Miller wasn't running for another term. "I think I'll pass on that," Leppert replied bluntly.

Only three months later, however, he announced his intention to run, and with the backing of big-brand business leaders--including Dallas-Cowboys-quarterback-turned-real-estate-mogul Roger Staubach and former TXU chief Erle Nye--he soon outraised and outspent every other candidate in a crowded field. He ran on reliable if predictable issues: decreasing the city's staggering crime rate, which has been the highest in the nation for eight of the past ten years; improving its struggling school district, which was recently under federal investigation for money laundering and an employee credit card scandal; and increasing economic opportunity, particularly in mostly poor, mostly black South Dallas. To telegraph his political philosophy in a non-partisan race, he promised to achieve all of those ends without raising taxes. (One of his mailers depicted the massive, angular exterior wall of city hall as an ATM--"Automatic Taxing Machine.")

Perhaps the biggest--if unspoken--issue was Miller herself. Before she got into politics, she had been a newspaper columnist who gleefully feuded with the business community, elected officials, and South Dallas activists. As mayor, she did the same,...

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