For a moment before dawn last January 18, Heath Green toyed with the idea of playing hooky from work. Green, a 25-year-old pipefitter apprentice, considered not showing up at his job installing pipe for a subcontractor hired to help Texas Instruments, Inc. expand its semiconductor manufacturing facilities in North Dallas…
Robert Gessel and his family made some carefully calculated choices in buying a home in east Plano in 1991. They wanted a neighborhood with hills and trees. They wanted minimal noise and traffic. And they wanted as much green space as possible, which they found in Bob Woodruff Park, a…
Go down Moses Paul Fielding, the former Dallas City Council member headed to the federal pen on charges of fraud and extortion, persuaded a judge last week to postpone his scheduled prison-entrance date. His excuse for delaying his trip to the pokey? Fielding wanted to be a free man to…
Not content to let Dallas school trustees corner the market on racial skirmishing, Dallas City Hall seems ready to reclaim a bit of its old territory, even if it needs a largely symbolic issue to do it. The subject: a proposal to rename Oakland Avenue, which runs from Deep Ellum…
Dr. Death As the proud owner of a cat, I was deeply upset to read of Dr. Lucas’ abusive and unethical violations of health, safety, and trust [“Dr. Lucas’ little shop of horrors,” October 9]. My heart goes out to everybody whose beloved pets were injured by this monster. Dr…
Just off Sylvan Avenue along Muncie Avenue is the West Dallas neighborhood of used-to-be. Looking at it today gives some glimpses of its very recent past. There was a time when the neighborhood had the trappings of community. Houses were fixed up, painted in the bright colors of the African-American…
C’mon, this is bullshit!” goalkeeper Hank Henry is screaming, his voice resounding through the empty arena. “There need to be two guys against the wall.” He steps out of the goal and literally grabs two young players, shoving them in their proper positions. “Like this! Here!” These young acquisitions seem…
Paul Skendrovic cannot forget that smell–the thick stench of death and rot that met him as he entered the eerily quiet house. The Arlington police detective had been dispatched around 10 a.m. on February 2 shortly after a neighbor called to complain of a “bad odor.” What he saw as…
Neener, neener, neener Long before Dallas public schools superintendent Yvonne Gonzalez began being measured for a prison jumpsuit (size not-petite), Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price was going about town dishing out servings of crow. (The phrase “I told you so” tastes so sweet rolling off the tongue.) Price, in…
The star chamber Your article on Judge McBryde in the October 2, 1997, issue of the Observer [“Temper, temper”] has been read, thoroughly. Thank you for an extremely well-written report on a complex and arcane subject. The statistical disclosures of the efforts of the U.S. Department of Justice to make…
Sitting around a table in the back room of the Charco Broiler in Pleasant Grove, the three men and one woman fidget a bit, aware of the tape recorder’s little red light. All four are members of LULAC–the League of United Latin American Citizens–and they are a little uncomfortable talking…
Soothing the savage beast Finally, something harmonious, melodic–hell, downright soothing–is emanating from 3700 Ross Ave., Dallas Independent School District’s central office–not to be confused with the set of The (Not So) Young and the Restless. What accounts for the sweet tunes? Well, it’s not that school board members have suddenly…
Race and powerlust Thank you for the quality of your coverage on the DISD-Dr. Gonzalez story [“Hunter or prey?” and “City of ignorance,” September 25]. You appear to be searching for facts and truth, as opposed to generating rhetoric and instigating inflammatory race-baiting and conflict–unlike The Dallas Morning News and…
In some ways, John Henry McBryde, federal district judge for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, seems destined to spawn a constitutional crisis. Though he was born in Jackson, Mississippi, McBryde grew up in Fort Worth and in many ways personifies the mythical Texan: He is tall, dark,…
It has to be one of the oddest moments in the annals of modern medical diplomacy. Standing over platters of cheese cubes and bowls of guacamole in the refined quarters of the faculty club at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Kern Wildenthal, the center’s distinguished but…
He walks with a slight limp, as though the floor were tilted. He cannot sit his 6-feet-5-inch, 255-pound frame for more than 30 minutes in one stretch; anything more, and the pain sometimes becomes too much to bear. Sometime in the near future, the 33-year-old will have to have his…
Just a few weeks ago, Matthew Harden, Jr. conducted his business in virtual anonymity. As DISD’s chief bean counter, Harden toiled in the shadows–as far from notoriety as he could possibly get. But that was before a brash, go-get-’em superintendent named Yvonne Gonzalez came on the scene. Now he’s become…
As soon as I arrived at DISD headquarters, I knew that something unusual, even historic, was taking place. Outside, next to the tiny visitors’ parking lot, some 150 Latinos were gathered around a man whose strained voice could barely be heard above shouts and loud talking. I couldn’t see him…
Defending Cat Eyes I’ve read Miriam Rozen’s breathless expose of Dr. Yvonne Gonzalez [“See Yvonne run,” September 11], and I can’t hold back my thunderous, righteous reaction: So what? C’mon, Observer! Consider what you’ve revealed: 1. Dr. Gonzalez has an ego and an instinct for self-preservation. 2. She is clever…
Tamara Hughes is insulted that she should be sitting here in her parents’ living room defending herself. She shouldn’t have to be second-guessed or mocked. What happened to her was traumatic, almost deadly, but to police it may as well be fiction.M MX”I just want to know from them why…
A year-long clash over the fate of a patch of land in Dallas’ historic Greenwood Cemetery is apparently about to end, with both sides in the dispute hammering out a compromise. The feuding parties–Columbus Realty Trust and Friends of Greenwood Cemetery–agreed to a tentative compromise over the development of 2.7…
See no evil City Attorney Sam Lindsay never met a conflict of interest he couldn’t rationalize, especially if it involves Mayor Ron Kirk. The latest issue involves Kirk’s vocal opposition to nascent Legend Airlines, which is trying to get its 56 first-class seat planes off the ground at Love Field…
