Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White criticized Gov. Rick Perry for failing to find the funds to pay for an additional 1,000 local law enforcement officers and 250 state troopers near the border — part of White’s six-point plan for border security. Speaking this morning at the Hyatt Regency with Dallas…
Now that Steve Salazar’s run the City Council’s Public Safety Committee out of the briefing room, his Housing Committee is powering through the afternoon in here for a look at the latest on efforts to place homeless folks into permanent supportive housing. With bullet-pointed stats presented in soothing ocean blues,…
Afternoon, Friends. I’m up here in City Hall’s good old room 6ES for the council’s Public Safety Committee meeting we told you about earlier today — on the menu are that upcoming police women reality-docu show and the Dallas Police Department’s pursuit policy. The cameras and media types are here…
For months Theresa O’Donnell, director of the city’s Sustainable Development and Construction department, has been meeting with contractors and developers about how to loosen up the permit-granting, inspection-making logjam caused in recent months by departmental layoffs and other budget-busters. Says O’Donnell, TEXO, which reps most of the major commercial contractors…
Every now and then I check to see if the 2011 Dallas Bike Plan website’s up and running, because ever since that jam-packed open house in late May it’s been little more than a new-site-coming-soon place-holder with a survey. But, sure enough, I clicked over from City Hall’s home page…
OK. Back to the greenery — or brownery — along N. Central Expressway. I’ll keep it brief, but I did want to answer some Friends’ follow-ups questions from yesterday.This morning I got a call from Assistant Public Works Director Alan Hendrix, who knows more about this subject than anyone. He…
Chris Heinbaugh, Mayor Tom Leppert’s chief of staff, sent hizzoner’s weekly sked this morning, and it says that Wednesday night and Thursday morning (and, like, early Thursday morning) he’s got a date with the FIFA World Cup Soccer Site Selection Committee. Remember: Dallas is among the 18 cities that made…
Eddie Bernice Johnson, who keeps changing her story about those scholarships that went to family members, appeared last night on Anderson Cooper 360 (via telephone). The segment was called “Keeping Them Honest.” And Anderson did not disappoint…
Sooner or later, sure, we’ll all be biking to work or play. Or taking DART. Or riding hovercrafts. Or jet packs. Or solar-powered water taxis. But till that day happens, well, we gotta park our cars somewhere. And, like I need to tell you, that ain’t easy sometimes. Which is…
A few weeks back, you no doubt recall, Virgin America announced that in December, it would begin flying out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The announcement was made in Houston, at the National Business Travel Association confab, and, turns out, Time’s Stacy Perman was on-hand for the announcement. So too…
Two months ago Intern Elliot broke the news that City Manager Mary Suhm was considering putting Dallas Farmers Market (and Fair Park) in the hands of a private operator, a la the city’s deal with the Dallas Zoological Society last year. At the time, there was no time line for…
From the in-box, this from one good Friend of Unfair Park: “What the h is going on with the landscaping on Central? Is TxDOT letting everything die? It looks like crap.”Good question(s). And I have the answer.First, let’s flashback to a meeting of the city council’s Transportation and Environment Committee…
Led by Councilwoman Delia Jasso, a group of sexual assault resource centers and the Dallas Police Department held a press conference today at City Hall announcing the sexual assault awareness campaign that’s been launched in response to a 25% increase in sexual assault offenses this year. Officially, we didn’t hear…
On Monday I noted that city officials were anxiously awaiting a verdict in the 4-year-old case of City of Dallas v. TCI West End Inc., which concerned the demolition of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Freight Station in the West End in ’06. The trial started two weeks ago, and on Friday, city…
Thanks to Roger Ebert’s early-Tuesday-morning tweet (“Beck’s next rally is planned for Nov. 22 in Dallas, at Dealey Plaza”), I’ve received more than a few e-mails from people wondering, in short: Really? No, not really. (I don’t think.) But he will be in Alaska on September 11. (And the other…
Rep. Donald Payne, a Democrat from New Jersey, is the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation — which, as you’re well aware by now, is where Eddie Bernice Johnson found the $25,000 she gave in scholarships to relatives and her top aide’s kids. And Payne’s so livid over the…
This morning the council takes its most detailed look yet at Mary Suhm’s proposal to gut the libraries’ budget for the coming fiscal year. The briefing goes back a few years too — back to when branches were open 47 hours (some on Sundays) and were fully staffed, when the…
When I called earlier this afternoon, no one in the City Attorney’s Office had yet seen the freshly minted copy of Judge Elizabeth Lang-Miers’s opinion in which the 5th District Court of Appeals tossed out attorney Andy Siegel’s writ of mandamus filed on July 2. So, at the moment, no…
Many thanks to the several Friends of Unfair Park who’ve forwarded along Austin American-Statesman PolitiFact Texas’s editor W. Gardner Selby’s list of Texas Influencers — which consists of the 50 most-powerful Democrats and Republicans in the state.Not all are presently working in Texas — like, oh, former Dallas Mayor Ron…
Alas, Rudy beat me to it in pointing out that someone at Dallas City Hall posted to the city’s official Facebook page this morning two pics taken from the very tippy-top of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. But Rudy opted for the view of the city (I can see my…
Even though Mayor Tom Leppert won an important battle when Angela Hunt voted on August 18 against a plan to extend the concession contracts at Love Field Airport for three well-connected Democrats — U.S. Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, state Rep. Helen Giddings and former Dallas Citizens Council director Gilbert Aranza…
“Do a tax rate increase.” That’s how City Manager Mary Suhm sums up the feedback from Thursday night’s budget meeting at Edna Rowe Elementary. “That’s pretty universal when we’re at town hall meetings,” she says. Despite the overwhelming number of residents pleading for a tax increase to restore Suhm’s budget…
