Greetings, Friends! I’m the only person wearing jeans in the Dallas City Council Chamber today for the Texas Senate Committee on Intergovernmental Relations meeting starring state Sen. Royce West and an ensemble cast of local government officials talking about the effect and implementation of state legislation passed during the last…
For more than 40 years, Dallas County Constable Jaime Cortes says, he led an exemplary life, rising up through the ranks of law enforcement in the last decade without running into trouble. But over the course of the last nine months, Cortes claims his reputation has been “smeared tremendously” by…
In an attempt to keep Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins’s schedule private, his office has asked for an opinion from the Texas attorney general regarding a public records request for Watkins’s calendar dating to his first day in office. In a May 6 letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott,…
Two months ago we directed your attention to the fact that the North Central Texas Council of Governments and the city of Dallas had hired, at the cost of $375,000, Baltimore-based Toole Design Group to revamp the antiquated Dallas Bike Plan. Toole has developed bicycle master plans for 16 cities,…
Well, soon as the Trash-Attack Code Compliance crew cleared out, this afternoon’s party at City Hall sure died fast. Blame it on this bummer of a PowerPoint from DART, explaining the long-term impact of having flat sales tax revenues over the last 10 years, referred to simply as “The Lost…
One year after Mayor Tom Leppert and the pro hotel’ers narrow victory at the polls over Harlan Crow and the anti-hotel folks, the Dallas Omni Convention Center Hotel is approximately half its height and construction is “on time and on budget,” according to developer Jack Matthews. “I can’t tell you…
[Editor’s note: Well, look who’s returned to Unfair Park, none other than former Girl on Top Andrea Grimes. And, for some reason, she’s decided to reintroduce herself with … a liveblog from the Quality of Life Committee meeting at Dallas City Hall, where they’re covering big changes in code compliance…
Yesterday, you’ll recall, those firefighters, police officers and assorted other first responders filed four amended lawsuits related to the 1979 referendum that gave ’em all pay raises (for how long’s the billion-dollar question). We’re still waiting to see how the Supreme Court of Texas is going to rule in the…
Back in December, we ran a Q&A with Phillip Dennis, founder of the Dallas Tea Party and an adviser to the National Tea Party Coalition. You’ll find it here. But today, Dennis gets a much bigger platform: CNN’s Web site, to which he’s contributed an op-ed headlined “Politicians such as…
Citing the April 26 murder of longtime Dallas Morning News delivery driver Robert Lawrence in South Oak Cliff, Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway unveiled his “Stop the Violence” program this afternoon aimed at curbing “senseless crimes.” Although he acknowledged that the crime rate has dropped in Dallas, Caraway painted a…
Those not listening to KVTT-1110 AM yesterday around 2:30 p.m. missed Mayor Tom Leppert’s appearance on Point of View, a nationally syndicated Christian conservative talk show based in Dallas. We weren’t tuned in either, but mostly because we didn’t know about it until today’s post by DMN’er Rudy Bush. As…
The staff was all tied up today and couldn’t make it to the Earle Cabell for Terri Hodge’s sentencing. But the guilty-plea-taking ex-state represenative got a year in federal prison, because U.S. District Judge Barbara M. G. Lynn didn’t really buy her story that, look, it was all a tax-return…
Oh .. and there’s a Twitter account too. I found them all completely by accident — I was looking for something else about an hour ago, then came across his new Web site, where, yesterday, he (or, ya know) announced the launch of his Facebook page, where the mayor promises…
So tomorrow’s shaping up to be a very interesting Dallas City Council meeting: As Rudy Bush wrote yesterday, the mayor’s mighty unhappy with the no-bid concession contracts being doled out to Dallas Love Field Joint Venture and Hudson Retail at Love Field Airport, which council members have been behind for…
… it must be true. Via Burnt Orange Report, here’s some video of Gov. Hairspray and the noted stand-up comic at a town-hall rally in Tyler over the weekend, where Beck and Perry were married by state Rep. Leo Berman. The AP suggests the title of Texan was just, ya…
This morning, Frank Librio at City Hall sent two audits released this morning by Craig Kinton — one of which dives into whether or not the Dallas Police Department is properly counting crime stats per federal Uniform Crime Reporting guidelines. You can read the 29-page doc for yourself after the…
So, I’m getting some work done just now when I get an e-mail heads-up from Borders: “JUST ANNOUNCED! A New Memoir By George W. Bush. Available Nov. 9. Pre-Order Now!” And, sure enough: Crown Publishers today announced the release date and further details about the ex-president’s new book titled Decision…
I’ve been pestering Frank Librio in Dallas City Hall’s Public Information Office for The Official Word on Harold Nogle, who, according to Texas Tribune’s city payroll database, is the fourth-highest-paid city official. And, while he was at it, maybe he had some more info about the city’s dependence upon the…
Merten just got around to looking at Texas Tribune’s list of city of Dallas employees’ salaries. He called me, shocked — SHOCKED — at some of those numbers. He also wanted to know who the who is Harold Nogle, the fourth-highest paid city employee at $208,000 — which puts him…
So insists the Texas Jewboy and former gubernatorial candidate in a piece penned for Tina Brown’s Daily Beast, the headline of which is “Why Democrats Should Blame Themselves for the Tea Party.” Friedman, who lost to his bid to become the Democratic nominee for agriculture commissioner last month, writes of…
Moments ago, D.C.-based Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released its report Worst Governors, which claims to serve up “in-depth analyses of 11 elected officials who have pushed their states’ best interests aside in favor of their supporters, families, political parties and bank accounts.” And, yes, Rick Perry’s among…
Baffled and outraged preservationists quietly vacated Monday afternoon’s Public Safety Committee meeting after the city council committee voted unanimously to adopt a new historic building demolition ordinance without public input. Katherine Seale and Scott Potter of Preservation Dallas stood at the lectern awaiting an opportunity to speak, but the committee…
