The city of Dallas got in on the earthquake hysteria Monday. The takeaways: Chances of a significant (5.0 or higher on the Richter scale) quake are small, but we all need to start putting together our emergency kits — the city recommends we stock them with bottled water, several days’…
I moved into a new apartment on New Year’s Day. Wednesday, as I was making my way down the stairs, I saw the door you see in the photo. It stopped me cold. “Surely, it couldn’t be this easy,” I thought. Had Wylie H. been hiding in plain sight –…
Big cities are threatening to turn the state’s economic miracle into a nightmare, according to Texas Governor-elect, Greg Abbott. Regulations drafted by cities with regard to fracking, plastic bags and cutting down old trees are a grave threat to the state’s well-being. If cities like Dallas lead the way, we…
All of Vanity Fair reporter Bryan Burrough’s portrait of Dallas in the hours, days and weeks after the arrival of Thomas Eric Duncan is worth reading, but we thought it’d be worthwhile to highlight some of the most interesting stuff in his piece for those who can’t afford to read…
Acknowledging that maybe the tear down first, ask questions later policy with regard to old buildings that aren’t protected landmarks might not be the best thing, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and District 14 City Council member Philip Kingston have teamed up to form the most Dallas of all pseudo-governmental units…
Starting with the adoption of a an equality resolution by the City Council in March, 2014 saw the city of Dallas continue to inch its way to becoming one of the most inclusive municipalities in the country. The city added health benefits for transgender city employees, made it possible for…
A little less than a year ago, the city of Dallas adopted a drought contingency plan to mitigate damage from increasingly low water levels at the city’s lakes and reservoirs. The first stage of that plan kicks in when levels are down 35 percent. In December that line was crossed;…
I’m just going to pay the nickel. That’s what I realized, staring at a 7-Eleven sign on New Year’s Eve warning of the coming enforcement of City Council member Dwaine Caraway’s baby, the city’s carryout bag ordinance. I’m going to pay the nickel, because remembering reusable bags is hard and…
As the start of 2015 approaches, so does our state’s biennial circus, the regular session of the Texas Legislature. This session, the 84th, will feature the usual bickering over just how far social services can be slashed without turning Texas into an anarcho-libertarian hellscape and the inevitable crushing of any…
Let’s set aside for a moment the niceties of due process and innocent-until-proven-guilty and take Dallas police at their word. We’ll take without further cross-examination the claim that they conducted a five-month investigation of Eternal Eden, a regular, all-night rave at Northwest Dallas’ Jaguars strip club, and that undercover officers…
Mike Rawlings is going to finish the job he set out to do after his 2011 election whether the nattering nabobs of negativity like it or not. That’s the message set out in the mayor’s end of year address, posted on his office’s Vimeo channel over the brief Christmas respite…
The news just keeps rolling on, and not every story has a neat ending. Sometimes it pays to stop and take a look back to see what’s happened with stories we reported during the year. That time is the day after Christmas, when all the new newsmakers are sneaking in…
One thing is clear from Dallas attorney Marcos Ronquillo’s first mayoral campaign press release: He’s looking to make his May 2015 contest with incumbent Mike Rawlings a single-issue showdown, a third referendum on the Trinity toll road. “The proposed Trinity River toll road project has been controversial from day one,”…
Last Friday, the day Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins was ticketed for shaking a 61-year-old city employee while screaming, “Do you know who I am” in her face, the security camera that should have recorded the incident wasn’t working. The city of Dallas says it had been out of order…
A bill filed Monday in advance of the upcoming session of the Texas Legislature would make the maximum penalty for the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana a $100 fine. The fine would not count as a criminal conviction and could not considered as such by anyone performing…
Update: 12:54 p.m.: Atkins has issued a statement about the incident. He admits that he was “a little upset” but denies touching Hultquist. “I regret that the two ladies feel I was too aggressive in my comments and that I ‘shook’ one of them,” he says. (You can check out…
Get ready for Round 3 in the ongoing — and possibly never-ending — bout between Laura Miller and would-be Preston Road/Northwest Highway developers. A few months after helping neighbors kill two proposed apartment developments near the intersection, Miller is limbering up to fight Crow Holdings’ plan to build a pedestrian…
In his first term as North Dallas’ state representative, Jason Villalba established himself as a serious, policy-minded lawmaker focused on finding common-sense solutions to important problems, like freeing Mavs fans from stupid and outdated liquor laws. Unapologetically conservative, to be sure, but in a reasonable, non-pandering way that has won…
On paper — and video — firing Jesus Martinez was a straightforward call for Dallas Police Chief David Brown. Martinez was filmed “using his right knee to pin the pedestrian’s right elbow down while raising the pedestrian’s left elbow and hand upward causing him severe pain,” according to the police…
Bringing an end to almost an eight-year legal battle, the Dallas City Council will vote Wednesday on whether to pay two charity groups $250,000. Big Heart Ministries and Rip Parker Memorial Homeless Ministry sued the city in March 2007, challenging a city ordinance that restricted the ways groups could provide…
For the past few years, the Dallas City Council says it’s been trying to develop a vacant lot on Simpson Stuart and Bonnie View roads, in a section of Dallas south of Loop 12 that is 22.5 square miles but home to just 27,500 people. What the relatively low-population area…
Just over a week ago, on November 24, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the “odds were in favor” of the state suing the federal government to stop President Obama’s executive action on immigration. Wednesday afternoon, the governor-elect cashed that bet, announcing that he’d been joined by 16 other states…
