The leadership of the Thomas Jefferson High School student council (sniff), guests of Ann Margolin at this morning’s meeting of the Dallas City Council, got quite the treat this morning: a parade of public speakers once again thoughtfully, kindly but also forcefully berating Mayor Mike Rawlings for not signing that…
One month ago Dallas Area Rapid Transit released its 2011 Customer Satisfaction Survey, with nine out of 10 riders insisting they would recommend DART to others. But Pages 19 and 20 of the 23-page report are filled with concerns over security aboard DART buses and trains: Only 78 percent of…
The city’s main website is OK, though every time I visit it — which is way too often — I do wonder when City Hall’s going to begin planting those Seeds of Change it’s been promising since December. But the Dallas Parks home page is truly awful; it was outdated…
For days now Nancy Brinker has said, over and over, that Karen Handel — the one-time gubernatorial candidate from Georgia and Palin pal — had nothing to do with Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s decision to cut its funding to Planned Parenthood. Handel, who’s Komen’s senior vice-president for public…
You know the cell phones must have been burning all weekend when the first city council committee briefing of the week at City Hall on Monday morning starts off with a rebuttal. Wait, rebuttal already? While those of us out here in the peanut gallery are still wiping the weekend…
In September, as the council was putting the finishing touches on the current budget, Scott Griggs and Angela Hunt suggested the city revisit its resident water rate structure — specifically, they said, the city up the amount charged to those who use the most water. Insisted the council member from…
Allow us to re-introduce you to the octogenarian congressman who’s currently perched atop the catbird seat in the oversight hearings every fracker in America is watching with bated breath. His name is Ralph Hall. He’s the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. One of its subcommittees,…
Received a note earlier in the day that on Tuesday, Mayor Mike, Comerica CEO Ralph Babb, Serita Ann Jakes (Mrs. T.D. to you) and a host of city council members are meeting at the North Oak Cliff Library Branch for “a major announcement” that will involve the “unveiling of [an]…
Speaking of Uplift Education and its planned expansion into Deep Ellum …There’s an intriguing item that just appeared on the Dallas City Council’s consent addendum for next week’s meeting, posted here. According to the doc, the city wants to create a nonprofit called the City of Dallas Education Finance Corporation…
Amidst all the ruckus, resignations and double-talking over Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s politically charged move to pull its breast-cancer screening funding from Planned Parenthood, you should also be aware: Dallas-based Komen’s actually the subject of a documentary that opens in Canada today that takes a very dim view…
I’ve driven past this house countless times; it’s not far from the office, after all, more or less just behind Maple and Motor on Maple Springs Boulevard. But till I saw the agenda for Monday’s meeting of the Landmark Commission, I had no idea that it was designed by one…
A few moments ago, Jason Roberts tweeted: “Exploring a run for Congress. With redistricting up in the air, it’s going to be an incredibly short campaign for the primary.” As long as we’ve been covering his doings, I’ve never known the Better Block-er to be … silly, let’s say. Nevertheless,…
As you know by now, locally based Susan G. Komen for the Cure has cut off its funding to Planned Parenthood, meaning it’ll no longer help pay for mammograms for women who can’t afford them; why, there’s Nancy Brinker herself above, attempting to explain Komen’s “new granting strategies” concerning its…
Speaking of Walmart (told you) …In the end, turns out, I didn’t need Mitchell Rasansky to tell me what everyone already knew — or guessed, anyhow. Because, as I discovered this morning, the permits were filed with the city two months ago and approved December 29. So, yes, brace yourself,…
Rasmiya AlGhrawi greets guests with big hugs and a series of kisses from cheek to cheek and back again. She’s a mother and grandmother to both her own family and to anyone who walks through her door and sinks into her comfy couches. She’s also a refugee, having fled from…
We began the new year by rehashing an ancient topic: the proposed Texas Horse Park that’s been around since the mid-1990s and was part of the $246-million capital bond program for the Trinity River Corridor Project approved by voters in 1998. Reason it never happened: The folks charged with partnering…
Word of warning: This won’t be the sole Unfair Park item of the day to feature the word “Walmart.” Patience, patience. But, to begin: Remember that Walmart going in at Ledbetter and R.L. Thornton? Right, that one. Gave us the phrase “Trees do not vote” during the contentious discussion about…
We told you Friday: Very, very, very, very early guesstimates at City Hall have the city short anywhere from $49 million to $87 million when it comes to putting together the FY2012-13 budget. City Manager Mary Suhm repeated that this morning: “We’re very early in the process.” The city’s chief…
It’s been a couple of weeks since lawyers hired by the city and the National Solid Waste Management Association squared off in U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s over the flow control ordinance that would have dumped all the city’s solid waste at the McCommas Bluff Landfill. I say “would have”…
A few years back Dallas City Hall made a big push for folks to sign up for its Reverse 911 Emergency Notification System, which called you when danger was near. Or, at least, that was the idea. But this morning the city sent a heads-up: Reverse 911 is dead, long…
When Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm first told the council it was time, at long last, to enact twice-a-week watering restrictions, Dallas’s six water-supply reservoirs were about 25 percent depleted. But last week’s record rainfall, in addition to other recent wet-weather events, have helped fill area lakes as evidenced by…
At this point, Deep Ellum could easily star in its own Rocky-style franchise, given how many times it’s been knocked down and still managed to stagger back to its feet. As we’ve mentioned, the latest worry for business owners in the area comes in the form of some 900 schoolchildren:…
