Perhaps more than anything, the ongoing skirmish at Dallas City Hall over whether and how to bump hourly pay requirements for contractors doing work for the city is an object lesson in how ideas that aren’t that controversial often whither on the vine. The way council member Philip Kingston describes…
Oh, we can’t just talk about the f-word 24/7 352 f-bomb days in the year, I know, much as I would like to, but with your gentle indulgence I would like to drop a few more f-bombs here today just to get the f the f out of my system…
It’s not easy, turning a few hundred acres of environmentally contaminated landfill in a long-neglected semi-rural pocket of southern Dallas into a top-of-the-line golf course. But Dallas does not do things because they are easy; it does them because they seem world-class. And so, three years ago, Mayor Mike Rawlings and…
Last week brought renewed uproar over the Scott Griggs f-word matter (only in Dallas), in which a city council member was accused of attempting to coerce a public official by threatening to break her “fucking fingers” if she did blah-blah-blah with some documents. F. A grand jury three-weeks ago found…
Three weeks ago a Dallas County grand jury looked at a felony “coercion” accusation against City Council member Scott Griggs and found it unworthy of prosecution. The term of art here is “no-billed.” Griggs was no-billed on an accusation that he had coerced a public official by threatening bodily harm…
Soon enough, this will officially not be happening, so let’s enjoy the possibility while we can. According to multiple reports, Dallas’ Pete Sessions has decided that he wants to be speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, assuming Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, whom Sessions would support, doesn’t toss his hat…
A former employee of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office has filed a petition to remove District Attorney Susan Hawk from her job. Cindy Stormer, Hawk’s former administrative chief, filed the removal suit Tuesday, claiming that Hawk is unfit to serve because of her alleged drug abuse, financial impropriety and…
From the looks of it, what happened last Friday was a good sign for Dallas Police Chief David Brown. After about two weeks of being circled by his opponents, Brown got what appeared to be a robust show of support from nearly all of the Dallas City Council and Dallas…
If you had just read this week’s Dallas City Council agenda, you might have thought the meeting was a good opportunity to get informed about Neighborhood Plus, the program developed by the city in response to accusations that it illegally concentrated low-income housing in the southern part of town. You…
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, or at least the person running his Twitter account, is generally pretty feisty on the social media platform. His tweets are usually signed with the infamous TCOT hashtag — the portal to wingnut Internet hell, search it at your peril — and the governor’s not afraid…
Dallas park “ambassador” Courtney Wright, patrolling the front lines of Lake Highlands Park, stood firmly next to the destroyed soccer goal post as angry parents confronted him. One of the parents, videotaping the encounter, asked him why he broke their soccer equipment. “You guys have been instructed to take it…
Last weekend when I made the first of what will be my many visits, The State Fair of Texas, now in the second week of its annual run and blessed by beautiful weather, was vibrant and jammed with happy human beings, not to mention livestock. I love the fair. I…
I would love it if the Rangers moved into a new stadium in downtown Dallas. Absolutely love it. I might go to 60 games a year if it happened, and I would definitely buy season tickets. I am about as biased as you can be toward all things baseball, and…
World-renowned performance artist Donald Trump’s ongoing piece, titled “What if Pat Buchanan Was a Billionaire and had a Queens Accent,” continued Friday with his announcement that he’s hired state campaign directors in three states that are not among those with the earliest GOP nominating contests. Included in those hires is…
It’s not a shock, but disappointing nonetheless: State Representative Jonathan Stickland, the Observer’s BFF and favorite member of the Texas Legislature, is getting a primary challenger. The Reverend Scott W. Fisher, pastor of the Metroplex Chapel in Euless, announced this week that he’s taking Stickland on. “With my background in overseeing…
The looming battle over a big loan proposed for the school system in Dallas’s wealthy Park Cities enclave is but the local version of one very big fat squawky chicken coming home to roost for rich people everywhere in America. I would say it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch,…
Dallas Police Chief David Brown’s critics, it seems, are beginning to smell blood in the water. After a week that’s seen Dallas City Council members singled out by the mayor for having a meeting to discuss Brown’s performance with the city manager and Brown firing back at his critics during…
Full credit to The Dallas Morning News’ Robert Wilonsky for finding this video first, but boy, it sure is something. First Baptist Church of Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress, it turns out, was not content to give his blessing to the Donald Trump for president circus just once. Monday afternoon, according…
So. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro did come to Dallas City Hall yesterday on what I can only call a secret mission, and I will explain why I call it that in a minute. HUD never would tell me what he talked about, but the…
There are two stories currently consuming Dallas City Hall. They’re related, but they aren’t the same. One is the growing frustration among multiple members of the Dallas City Council, Dallas’ police associations and some members of the police rank and file with police Chief David Brown. The other is the…
At the contentious townhall meetings between city of Dallas staffers who insist Dallas Executive Airport is going to expand and neighboring Oak Cliff residents who would rather it didn’t, one airplane in particular has drawn flak. “At previous meetings, everyone has brought up the yellow airplane that was so loud,”…
Let’s fly up high and take a bird’s eye view of Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings’ philosophy of government. Apparently it’s not just OK but a real good thing for deliberations and even decisions about the public’s business to be taken out of the hands of public officials and given instead…
