Urban Renewal

Lucano Transports, the Oak Cliff bus company that stirred up such a fuss for Mayor Laura Miller last summer, is gone. Neighborhood homeowners, whose complaints about congestion and the stink of bus fumes prompted then-City Councilwoman Miller to try to shut down the Davis Street bus depot, should be happy.

This is progress.

Lucano’s former owner, Alma Vazquez, whom Miller rebuffed when Vazquez pleaded for more time to keep the business open just weeks after her husband committed suicide–thus the fuss–says she has buried the hatchet. “I changed my mind,” Vazquez says. She’s a Miller-ite now. She should be happy. She has a friend in the mayor’s office.

This, too, is progress.

So there’s a happy ending to the nasty little political story first reported in the Dallas Observer (“Vamoose,” August 30). Yes indeedy, everybody’s happy. In fact, there’s a new business at the former Lucano depot, one presumably more befitting the residential neighborhood that so opposed a bus station.

Lucano Transports is now the San Luis Tire Shop. It’s open 24 hours.

This is progress?

The new shop received a city “motor-vehicle repair license” listing on February 22. Vazquez, who owns the property, says she is renting it to Hugo Loera, who is running the shop.

Buzz wishes him luck. The tire and rim trade is pretty competitive down on Davis Street, with at least a half-dozen competing shops located within a few blocks of the new business.

The bus station had been made over last fall into a ticket depot after the Miller incident, says Vazquez, who made some kind of peace with Her Honor last year. The shop, which has been freshly painted in bright orange and dark green, still has stacks of Miller yard signs inside and a Miller for Mayor sticker in the window.

That’s the same window that formerly hosted a sign that included a profane quote from Miller that was published in the Observer‘s story. It would be rude of Buzz to break the peace and repeat the quote now. Let’s just say that Miller appeared less than pleased with the character and code-compliance records of certain businesses in the neighborhood. Tire shops, mainly, but hey, that was then. This is now.

“I need some money to raise my family,” Vazquez says, explaining her actions.

Perfectly understandable, though Buzz, being a mean-spirited sumbitch, couldn’t help ourselves. We checked the license plate of the 2002 Cadillac Escalade parked in one of the shop’s bays. (MSRP starting at $49,480.) It came back registered to Vazquez.

Yeah, well, this is America. Everyone has the right to earn a living, pursue happiness, etc. Speaking of which, are the neighbors happy now? Maybe not. Buzz got a letter from one telling us about the new tire shop. She closed it with two simple words: “I’m sick.”

Some people just don’t know how to be happy.