If you aren’t sure of where you’re supposed to vote this morning, you’re now battling more than just the rain. As of 10:00 a.m., dallascountyvotes.org, the county’s guide to all things voting, isn’t working. We called the county to see what was going on. A worker told us the site…
For all you Dallasites who skip the midterm elections in favor of the presidential races, you might reconsider that strategy: For Texans, your vote in national and even state races is all but symbolic.It’s local issues where your ballot will really count. According to financial analysts at WalletHub, Texas is…
Digging through the this year’s community survey, which you can see in full below, is like looking at one of those magic eye posters. You have to look past it to see what is really going on. On its face, the results of the survey are positive. The survey’s “major…
Dallas City Council members were treated to the Commemorative Air Force’s cinematic masterpiece “If These Planes Could Talk.” There are known knowns about Dallas Executive Airport. These are things we know that we know. One of the known knowns, courtesy of Dallas City Council member Tennell Atkins, is this: “We…
As of Tuesday, Amber Vinson and Nina Pham, the two Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurses to get Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, are Ebola-free. It’s remarkable, inspiring news. Seeing the two speak at their post-release press conference was, in a way, like seeing someone back from the dead. Then…
The other day, while I was at Kroger buying laundry detergent and frozen waffles, a man came up to me, leaned in close, and said, “Come on now, baby. Let’s see a smile on that nice little face of yours.” Before I could stop myself, before I could rebuke this…
For three years, a confessed attempted murderer roamed the streets of Dallas, going on a crime spree that ended when he killed a man in July 2007. Michael Wyatt had pleaded guilty to the attempted murder in 2004, but the Dallas District Attorney’s Office wanted him to testify against his…
Every hour or so, the Save the Cabana Hotel Facebook page reminds its 900-plus followers to SAVE THE CABANA HOTEL. Dallas’ luxury Cabana Motor Hotel opened on Stemmons Freeway in 1962, and photographs on the fan page show legends like John Bonham and Robert Plant hanging out. The Beatles, Jimi…
Right now, as this story is being written, four clinics provide abortions in Dallas: Abortion Advantage, Planned Parenthood, Routh Street Women’s Clinic and Southwest Women’s Surgery Center. Two, Whole Woman’s Health and Planned Parenthood, are open in Fort Worth. But read quickly, because it’s possible some of those will be…
During a seven-year law enforcement career as a Dallas County deputy constable and Dallas City marshal, Tyler Atkins says he protected the public from fake security guards. “I used to take people to jail who used to run security companies without a license,” he says. But for the past several…
They don’t work. At least not in the way they’re intended to. Study after study shows that red light cameras are, at best, an inefficient revenue generator and, at worst, increase accidents. Dallas’ red light enforcement is especially bad. Because the city signed its contract with Xerox — the company…
As if the state needed more reason to be ashamed about the 2012 Republican Senate primary — you know, the one that ended with Ted Cruz basically being handed a national platform on a silver platter — Buddy Barfield, longtime top aid to Cruz’s runoff opponent, David Dewhurst, has admitted…
Here’s the good news: Dallas-Fort Worth ozone levels for the first this year dropped below the federal standard of 84 parts per billion. The bad news: the 84-ppb standard the area has just now met for the first time is from 1997. The current standard is 75 ppb, well below…
Dallas has terrible streets. Ask any driver who hasn’t been rendered prematurely senile by the constant jostling over disintegrating pavement or any cyclist who’s survived a run-in with a man-eating pothole. Hell, ask City Hall, which estimates that it will take three-quarters of a billion dollars to get the city’s…
Say what you will about boring stuff like feasibility — as surrealist art the latest renderings of potential park-like amenities between the Trinity River levees are pretty damn amazing. Tragically, the solar-powered water taxis we’ve all grown to love from earlier sales pitches for the Trinity project are gone, but…
The problem, according to City Council member Philip Kingston, is that red light cameras seek to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. “[Red light cameras] are based on two fallacies,” Kingston says. “The first is that there are a bunch of people out there who intentionally run red lights. Those…
You heard it here first: Former Dallas City Council member Linda Koop next month will waltz to victory in her Texas House race. We know this not because Koop is running as a Republican in a North Dallas district that, aside from an anomalous Democratic victory in the pre-Tea Party…
If you hear the word “sanctuary” and think of the scene in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in which Esmeralda pleads with the cathedral priest for shelter (or, be honest, you think of Logan’s Run), you might be surprised to learn that actual sanctuaries are a growing movement in many…
Four-and-a-half years ago, Mayor Tom Leppert stood overlooking the old Trinity River channel, now a forlorn muddy course that snakes through the Design District, and unveiled Turtle Creek Plaza, a handsome semi-circle of concrete adorned with a red water fountain that very much resembles a fire hydrant and a blue…
Mike Rawlings has hired Laurey Peat + Associates, a Dallas-based public relations firm to handle media relations for the mayor’s office. The firm replaces Sam Merten, the mayor’s previous manager of public affairs and communications, who left the office on September 19 to make a run for the District 9…
A school bus parked in front of the Ivy Apartments yesterday afternoon and let out dozens of kids as reporters filmed B-roll and took photographs across the street. The news stations had already confirmed that this apartment complex in Vickery Meadows was where Thomas Eric Duncan stayed in Dallas before…
Vinny Minchillo had seen enough. “Everyone talks about civil discourse, but when we talk to each other, especially on social media, there’s no civil discourse,” he says. “It’s really, really funny. It’s become OK to talk about Republicans in the most horrible terms possible. In the ’80s and ’90s on…
