On Monday, the battle for the future of Fair Park began in earnest. Dallas’ fight over handing the park over to the Walt Humann-led foundation had been a proxy battle at the park board level. Those skirmishes ended earlier this month when the board signed off on the proposed management…
Did anybody else notice that Inclusive Communities Project just got its hat handed to it on its big lawsuit against the state over placement of subsidized housing in already segregated neighborhoods in Dallas? No, I didn’t think so. Welcome to Weirdtown. After yesterday’s City Council briefing on a new city…
This is like two weeks before Christmas when I was 7 years old. I’m so excited. I know it’s going to be something very good. There is no way the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would devote this much energy to keeping something away from little old me…
The lawsuit filed this week against Dallas City Council member Tiffinni Young accusing her of barratry in the death of a woman by dog attack will provide us all with an opportunity to learn what barratry is. I know one thing already. This is going to be all about gray…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is not going to quit fighting against Texas’ transgender community. Tuesday, Paxton filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Franciscan Alliance, a religious hospital network, against the Obama administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in an attempt to block HHS from…
Dallas is waiting for the seemingly inevitable local transmission of the Zika virus, but in the meantime there is preparation to be done. When someone in the city of Dallas contracts the birth defect-causing disease from a local mosquito, Dallas County — home to 30 residents so far who’ve caught…
Do you know what a carbuncle is? It’s something awful, swollen, painful and pus-filled under the skin. Oh, sorry. But I think of the fake kayak rapids that the city built five years ago in the Trinity River – closed for use the same week it opened because it’s too…
Wildebeest-gate. Please let me say that to my knowledge the Dallas Police Association (DPA), the main police union, is not responsible for the placement of a photo of a dead wildebeest on the mayor’s desk to intimidate him in labor talks like the scene in The Godfather where the guy wakes…
When Mark Montgomery beat incumbent Wade Emmert to become the chair of the Dallas County Republican Party, it was widely viewed as a fluke. Montgomery’s short stint at the head of the local party drove the point home. The unknown Tea Partier proved unable to raise money and resigned earlier…
When you think you’ve got a done deal at Dallas City Hall, that’s when you need to check to see if you’ve still got your wallet. No, that’s when you need to check to see if you’ve still got your pants. Oh, sure, I told you here a week ago…
It’s common knowledge that the child welfare system in Texas is broken. Most advocates and professionals in foster care would probably agree that the years of severe underfunding have been the largest contributors to the flawed system. There’s nothing new on that front. Texas Department for Family and Protective Services faces…
Here’s a shoutout from Dallas to national Republicans, asking if you think your grand old party is capable of keeping a person with serious mental problems in office just to prevent a Democrat from getting the job. If you live here in Dallas, it’s an important local question. If you…
Think of me as the guy in the safety glasses behind the window in the little wire-cage tool room, standing at the counter all day jotting stuff down on a pad as it goes out and comes back in. Only instead of “Tool Room” over the window, it says “Mayoral…
Andrew Duffey, 31, sat outside Dallas City Hall in the sweltering heat on Wednesday and smoked a cigarette. He was mulling over the city council meeting that he just witnessed, one of an estimated 200 homeless men and women who attended that morning. They arrived with hopes of speaking to…
Dallas police and activists, thrown together to make nice during the aftermath of the July 7 killing of 5 officers, are having a very hard time balancing the right to assemble with security concerns. Wednesday began with a couple dozen members of Dominique Alexander’s Next Generation Action Network showing up…
Donald Trump, somehow, is not sure to win Texas’ 38 electoral votes in November’s presidential election. Trump needs all the help he can get just to hang onto a state that is absolutely essential to any chance he has of becoming president. Texans have been all to willing to step…
The cost of banning Three Expo’s Exxxotica porn convention from the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center is still mounting. Instead of reaching an agreement with Exxxotica’s founder J. Handy to settle the suit, Dallas hired a group of the most experienced and ideological business lawyers it could find to fight Handy in…
Dallas knows a thing or two about assassination conspiracies. We know that the more important conspirator is usually the political climate, not the shooter. Properly stoked with hate, violence and dehumanizing vilification, the climate will find its shooter. A Lee Harvey Oswald will step forward to kill JFK or a…
Our souls are burdened by the murder of five police officers on the streets of Dallas just over a month ago. But we’re going to have to muster some patience and some self-control, anyway, while our City Council hammers out the fire and police pay and hiring issues on its…
In the aftermath of Micah Johnson’s July 7 attack on Dallas police officers, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and other city officials made it clear that fixing DPD’s attrition problem would be a top-priority. The draft version of the city of Dallas’ upcoming budgeted, presented to the city council by Dallas…
Stray dogs, dog bites and dog bite deaths: There was never an issue in this city better designed for single-member City Council districts to tackle and solve on their own. I think it’s fair to say the problem can only be solved by individual council members seeking solutions from their…
Midway through a seven-hour park board meeting last Thursday, board member Lawrence S. Jones, who represents the rarefied Strait Lane district of North Dallas, expressed his misgiving about a certain class of people who have been appointed to the board of a private entity set up to take over Fair…
