Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings sat in front of the Texas State Pension Review Board Thursday morning, arguing, he believed, for his city’s continued existence. “It is horribly ironic that a city that has enjoyed such tremendous success, a city that has made Texas so strong and so proud is potentially…
There is a way of talking about bad things that happen in this city as if those things are irresistible workings of destiny. In truth it’s not destiny. It’s some guys doing some stuff. Last week I got a 1,700-word letter from the mayor’s spokesperson, Scott Goldstein, taking me to…
The Earle Cabell Federal Building in downtown Dallas is an all purpose office complex, a bastion of federal bureaucracy located at 1100 Commerce St. Most people come for a passport or to get business done in front of a federal judge. But inside, a quiet review is underway that has…
Based on the evidence of a mayoral media event Monday, somebody already has told a small private organization called The Trinity Trust Foundation that they will be taking the lead role in designing, developing and then running the city’s long-awaited new linear park along the Trinity River. What? In fact,…
Tuesday afternoon, Texas Agriculture Commissioner and top Donald Trump surrogate Sid Miller’s Twitter account called Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton a “cunt.” The tweet was quickly deleted, but not before the Observer screengrabbed it. Just after 4 p.m., whoever was operating Miller’s account tweeted that the account had been hacked…
No one, it seems, will be charged with a crime in the South Dallas dog mauling death of Antoinette Brown. The Dallas Police Department announced Monday that there is no conclusive link between Brown and the seven dogs impounded near the Rutledge Street vacant lot on which Brown was killed…
At various points in the election season just ending, each side complained bitterly about the media coverage of the other. During Trump’s good months, his Republican primary opponents and then later the Clinton campaign were convinced the media would never stop lavishing him with free publicity. And of course later…
Over the last several months a very pointed debate has been forming up behind the scenes over what kind of park the city should build along the Trinity River between the flood control levees downtown. One camp, made up mainly of younger citizens from varied walks of life, would like…
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and the head of Dallas’ Domestic Violence Task Force, Dallas City Council member Jennifer Gates, have paid a lot of attention to domestic violence. For all of that, the city still has a gaping hole when it comes to the care and resources that are available…
City officials are ready to jump out of their skins. A series of recent City Hall internal emails, apparently already in the hands of the Justice Department in Washington, show Dallas’ city auditor, Craig Kinton, accusing City Hall of lying to federal officials about millions in unaccounted federal housing funds…
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and, most of all, Attorney General Ken Paxton are not content to leave well enough alone when it comes to the protections afforded to Texas’ same-sex married couples. On Friday the trio waded back into the waters they’d seemingly abandoned in 2015,…
Mayor and allies talk nice but support discrimination when it’s time to vote
The AT&T Byron Nelson PGA TOUR golf tournament would have found its way to South Dallas’ newly opened Trinity Forest Golf Club whether or not Mayor Mike Rawlings and the Dallas City Council got involved. But they brought their Grow South banners on Wednesday anyway, setting them up on the 10th tee…
The city of Dallas is not going to be the test case for the state of Texas’ ban on ordinances that require landlords to take affordable housing vouchers. Wednesday, the Dallas City Council voted 9-6 against enacting an income non-discrimination, later adopting a half-measure that will require builders getting certain…
There was a mutiny of sorts at Tuesday night’s DART board meeting. Five Dallas-appointed members voted against the expressed will of the Dallas City Council, despite being appointed by the council members. As a result, DART will attempt to build the D2 subway line through downtown Dallas and the suburb-connecting…
Accusations, with accompanying audio, have been flying throughout the city of Dallas’ fight with the Khraish family. At stake are the fates of the tenants of the hundreds of rent homes that the Khraishes own in West and South Dallas. The city, through Mayor Mike Rawlings and West Dallas City…
Most of the good stuff already happened in the primary. Since North Texas’ local and federal electoral districts are so gerrymandered, the real election fights are usually of the intra-party variety and happen in the spring. DFW does not have a single competitive U.S. House race, and both of Texas’…
As early voting starts across Texas this week, the remainder of the state’s early voting law is still largely inscrutable. Sure, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has slapped down the state for implementing a voter ID law that the court ruled unduly effected the state’s poor and minorities,…
Figuring out the Slumlord Battle Requires Us to Look Beyond Stereotypes
Khraish H. Khraish, the landlord locked in battle with the city over houses in West Dallas that the city says are substandard, says he met with Mayor Mike Rawlings and City Council Member Monica Alonzo Thursday morning to offer a settlement including the sale of more than 300 properties to…
Dear City Council Members Who Fought For Tougher Rental Housing Standards: It’s not your fault. The mess that Mayor Mike Rawlings has stirred up with landlords and tenants in West Dallas is not the product of the rental housing reform that you passed last month. Nor is it evidence necessarily…
The accusation against Khraish H. Khraish, who with his father owns hundreds of cheap rental houses in South Oak Cliff and West Dallas, is that he’s a slumlord who doesn’t maintain his houses within the requirements of city building codes, subjecting tenants to vicious living conditions. So how is it…
