Pour one out for the Texas State Fair: it had a rough weekend. Hours after Big Tex turned into The Wicker Man, the Midway Stratosphere ride lost power. A couple dozen riders were dangling above the earth on a motionless, two-hundred foot tall ride for a couple of hours. Dallas-Fire…
If your debate-watching drinking game included a shot for each use of the word “coal,” you either peed on your roommate’s couch or had your stomach pumped. Or both. The primitive fuel was invoked some 22 times, apparently, mostly by Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Our…
A federal judge has ruled that the City of Dallas pretty much lied about every single aspect of its so-called “flow-control” trash program. Judge Reed O’Connor granted a permanent injunction against a new city ordinance that would have forced commercial haulers to take their trash to the city-owned dump instead…
When it comes to funding cancer research, no entity other than the federal National Institutes of Health draws from a deeper well than the The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. Since the taxpayer-funded agency’s creation in 2007, backed by Governor Rick Perry and Lance Armstrong, it has awarded…
The latest New York magazine goes all-in on the Bush family, assessing the political hopes of Jeb before finally deciding that it’s actually George P., Jeb’s half-Mexican son and a rising star in Texas politics, who has the highest political ceiling. “George P.’s future in Texas in unlimited,” says James…
Last November Phyllis Lister Brown, who at the time was a city of Dallas municipal judge of 17 years, filed a lawsuit against the city. It was a preemptive strike. Brown was preparing a run for a seat on the 162nd Civil District Court and expected the city require her…
The city’s proposed rules for drivers operating motor vehicles near cyclists — that they must pass at a safe distance, can’t turn right into their path, and, last but not least, aren’t allowed to pelt them with things from car windows — seem like no-brainers. Anyone who doesn’t think they…
Former city council woman and intermittent Unfair Park commenter Sandra Crenshaw was arrested in August after she allegedly failed to return a rental car to Budget. Court records show that she was indicted on felony theft charges last week. We accidentally broke the news of her indictment to Crenshaw just…
Just last week, we noted that while those long-delayed bike lanes downtown are great and all, it’ll be a long time before Dallas drivers give cyclists their space. Texas motorists tend to feel entitled to the road, which they are loath to share with some spindly, non-motorized conveyance. We learn…
It’s been almost a year since the city first began mulling changes to its solicitation and anti-litter ordinance, which is a roundabout way of saying the City Council wants the Morning News to quit it with the damned Briefings, those free papers distributed to unwitting homeowners across the city. Those…
“On the inside, I’m a wreck,” Don Nedler confided. He’s a baldish, blue-eyed guy in his mid-50s, and from the outside he looked pretty calm. “I didn’t sleep last night,” he added. “I woke up at 5 a.m. My dogs were looking at me like I was crazy.” Although he’s…
Last week, the city’s Park and Recreation Board made City Council member Dwaine Caraway very unhappy when they announced their plans to go about searching for someone to replace outgoing department director Paul Dyer. The seven-member committee won’t be hiring a national search firm, instead looking at the Park Department…
Farmers Branch Latinos have a better chance today at seeing a little color introduced into the all-white tableau of elected city government. Under orders from a federal judge, who determined that the town’s at-large-style districts robbed Latinos of representation, the city council approved single-member voting districts at its meeting Tuesday…
Last night’s Senate debate between Ted Cruz and Paul Sadler got surprisingly heated, with the two men snapping at each other about illegal immigration, healthcare, where Barack Obama was born and whether Ted Cruz is, in fact, a troll. Meanwhile, John Jay Myers, the Libertarian Senate candidate who did not…
The city’s Park and Recreation Board is looking for someone to replace Paul Dyer, who is retiring after two decades at the helm of the parks department. Last week, a seven-member search committee, comprised of park board president Max Wells and a half dozen other board members, decided to keep…
Last month, a report from city auditor Craig Kinton’s office enumerated what it politely termed “deficiencies” in the operation of the city’s McCommas Bluff landfill. There were a lot of them, since the landfill didn’t really have much in the way of procedures to safeguard cash, prevent embezzlement or make…
A few weeks back we told you about John Jay Myers, the Free Man-owning, big government-distrusting Libertarian candidate for Senate, who believes he’s being unfairly excluded from a Belo debate that will feature his two major-party competitors. After a small protest in front of WFAA’s Young Street headquarters failed to…
We’ve known for a while now that the Cotton Bowl is getting an $82 million facelift. We’ve also known for a while that New York-based artist James Carpenter will be the one to bring that tired art deco facade into the 21st century. What we haven’t known is what exactly…
The Sylvan Avenue Bridge is a humble thing, an unlovable, low-lying stretch of concrete over the Trinity that tends to flood a handful of times per year. That’s why the city and TxDOT have been planning, what seems like forever planning a newer, wider, taller, $42.3 million replacement. Work on…
The Joppa Gateway is one of those half dozen parks included in the city’s Trinity River Corridor Project that will provide access to the wetlands and horse parks and other amenities that are being built. Located near the junction of Interstate 45 and Loop 12 … er, ahem … Great…
It’s been more than two years now since Laurie Evans stepped down as director of the Dallas Public Library. Since then, the operation has been steered by a pair of interim directors: first Corinne Hill, who set off for Tennessee earlier this year at least in part because the search…
A few months ago, Joan Walne, chair of the city’s Park and Recreation Board, sent a letter to the City Council to let them know that the board was not happy with a rock crushing plant right across the street from the $38 million Elm Fork Soccer Complex, which is…
