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…
Mark Miller, a candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission, took the stage at Gilley’s last night to warm up the crowd for Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate Bill Weld. He propped up presidential candidate Gary Johnson and railed against the two mainstream opponents, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, with a…
Let’s get real about what’s really going on with the Khraish family, called slumlords by Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and WFAA Channel 8 for shutting down 300 low-rent houses in West Dallas and South Oak Cliff. This is a land play. The city has offered no provision, no contingency, no…
Hey, I have to hit the pause button here and talk about a topic that has bothered me for years: tax increment finance district or “TIF” funds and property taxes. I am inspired to talk about it by an honest and sincere comment from a guy who wrote yesterday on…
Dallas City Council’s plan to hand over the day-to-day operations of Fair Park to a private foundation headed by Walt Humann is on hold. In a Thursday afternoon memo, new Dallas City Attorney Larry Casto told Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and the rest of the council that the city would…
Please note, dear Dallas, there is one place Donald Trump flies straight to with his coattails on fire when he needs an emergency injection of cash. Here. Yikes. His political castle crumbling at his heels, Trump knew there was one spot in this whole nation he could always count on…
Fresh off a Sunday night debate performance, GOP presidential nominee and admitted genital-grabber Donald Trump swung through Texas on Tuesday to pick up a pile of cash at private fundraisers in San Antonio and Dallas. The media was not allowed inside either event but Katrina Pierson, Trump’s Dallas-based spokeswoman, streamed…
Mayor Mike Rawlings called a news conference at City Hall yesterday to take credit for a 14-day restraining order granted by District Judge Ken Molberg to stop the Khraish family and their firm, HMK, from evicting 300 tenants living in low-rent single-family homes in southern and West Dallas. More on…
This, I hope, will not turn into a rant. I want it to be more of a solemn prayer. I pray that this city, my city, will deeply and sincerely examine its heart where the poor are concerned. But I could start ranting anyway. It happens. I want you to…
Friday, Donald Trump got caught. The Washington Post published a transcript of a tape, recorded while Trump talked to Billy Bush on a bus ride to a soap opera cameo. (For those who haven’t read the transcript, it’s at the end of this post.) Trump’s foes gleefully attacked, but so did a…
