Greg Abbott has made it clear: He is not using his Latina wife as some sort of “prop” to woo Latino voters, and he’s outraged that a Lubbock City Council member may have suggested otherwise. Never mind that the only verification of the councilman’s comment came from an anonymous source…
Dallas City Council members had no trouble finding words to describe their feelings when confronted yesterday with a $9.6 billion to-do list of infrastructure needs that runs the gamut from streets to cultural facilities to flood management. “Unbelievable” was one. “Daunting” was another. Throw in “depressing” and “scandalous,” and you’ve…
The Dallas City Council never got around to passing the marriage equality resolution Scott Griggs introduced last year. But that’s OK. In many ways the resolution passed by today goes further. It doesn’t mention marriage, but it does formally place the council in “full favor of equal rights” for Dallas’…
Last month we introduced you to Chris Mapp, a U.S. Senate hopeful from South Texas who would go on to be crushed by John Cornyn in yesterday’s Republican primary. He’s the guy who referred to illegal immigrants as “wetbacks” and said that ranchers should be allowed to shoot them on…
In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s primary, there was a lot of chatter about how the Tea Party was losing its grip on Texas. It was a nice thought, that Ted Cruz’s antics and the constant demagoguing against the federal government had worn thin, nudging voters back to the…
Office Depot has earned a reputation in recent years for screwing over local governments. San Francisco got $4.25 million to settle claims that it overcharged for office supplies. Maricopa County claims $5.3 million in overbilling. Houston is demanding $6.6 million. All because a disgruntled corporate employee in Florida got himself…
Whatever “dramatic ideas” Dallas’ new task force will propose to revitalize Fair Park now that the summer amusement park has gone belly up are still months, if not years, away. In the meantime, the city is moving forward with smaller initiatives aimed at attracting visitors to the park. Key among…
When a few Dallas cops arrested a woman hanging out in the 4300 block of Colonial Avenue last year, it seemed obvious they weren’t catching a criminal who had a ton of money. Officers Charles Moreland and Clayton Edwards were working undercover on March 28 when they came across Amber…
In a wholly unexpected and incredibly bizarre turn of events, Republican lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick offered an endorsement of gay marriage so enthusiastic that he suggested doing away with heterosexual unions in the process. Patrick, heretofore the most conservative candidate in the race — a man who vociferously denies…
The Trinity River lakes were never going to be humongous. Seventy-five or 80 acres each, according to the Balanced Vision Plan developed for the Trinity River Corridor Project in 2003. But now the plans have been reduced to something so small — a couple of 20-acre ponds reaching a depth…
Dallas has three options to address its $900 million in street repair needs, all of them terrible. Here’s how Councilwoman Sandy Greyson laid them out during the transporation committee’s come-to-Jesus meeting on Monday: “We can put these things in our bond program and keep increasing our debt service. We can…
Last year, the city of Dallas abruptly shut down Project Reconnect, its $1.6 million effort to help ex-prisoners get housing and job training, amidst an investigation into nepotism and misallocation of funds. The Dallas Morning News reported that the inquiry centered on $91,000-per-year director Suanne Spires Durham and the possibility…
The main danger posed by Dallas’ tepid growth is, as Councilman Scott Griggs pointed out this week, that the city will find itself without enough tax revenue to maintain its sprawling infrastructure. Raise taxes and make repairs or let things decay, either response will drive people away, crunching the budget…
If Tink Nathan doesn’t belong in the Texas Legislature, we’re not sure if anyone does. The 72-year-old Republican from Kerr County, just northwest of San Antonio, has the whole package: scraggly frontiersman beard; monogrammed Texas flag shirt; an eponymous line of hunting products derived from deer urine. He’s the guy…
Every Wednesday, before and after every Dallas City Council meeting, there is an open mic session. Most of the stuff that comes up is rambling, off-topic, and beyond the scope of a municipal government’s authority (e.g. 9/11 conspiracy theories), and council members may or may not pretend to listen. Nevertheless,…
State Representative Jonathan Stickland is brash, young and cocky, just as he was when Tarrant County voters sent the 30-year-old Tea Party favorite to the Legislature two years ago. In one instance — his trailblazing email privacy bill — Stockland’s irreverence served him well, earning plaudits from civil libertarians and…
In 2016, on a yet-to-be-determined date in June, Republicans from across the country will gather somewhere to pick their next presidential nominee. Maybe it’ll be Chris Christie. Or Rand Paul. Perhaps a Jeb Bush-Ted Cruz ticket? Yes, that last one is stupid, but so is speculating on a race that’s…
This afternoon, for the first time since a marriage equality resolution went down in flames almost a year ago, the Dallas City Council made its first official nod to LGBT equality in the form of a “comprehensive statement of support” passed by the Budget, Finance & Audit Committee. The measure…
Mike Howard is not a fan of Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne. A quick glance at the one-time Irving City Councilman’s blog (written under the nom de plum Mark Holbrook) is proof of that. But it’s one thing to lob critiques of local government from the safe confines of the…
Dallas has, for the most part, missed out on the North Texas population explosion that has taken place over the past dozen years or so. While the region as a whole grew by 22 percent between 2000 and 2012, and exurbs like Frisco and McKinney more than doubled in size,…
Later this morning, gubernatorial hopeful Greg Abbott will stumping at a Tex-Mex joint in Denton. At his side: rocker/conservative troll Ted Nugent. For a candidate aiming to be taken seriously, Nugent, who has called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel” and “piece of shit” who should “suck on my machine gun,”…
Amongst the stack of campaign literature that showed up in my mailbox on Saturday, two fliers caught my eye. One featured photograph of a smiling, competent-looking Tammy Kemp, a top administrator in District Attorney Craig Watkins’ office currently running for judge in the 204th Criminal District Court. The other showed…
