Barack Obama nominated Ron Kirk as U.S. trade representative a week before Christmas. A month after that, Obama was sworn in as president. A month after that, the former Dallas mayor’s still waiting for his hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance, which still doesn’t have Kirk pencilled in on…
In the comments of a blog item regarding council member Tennell Atkins’s questionable campaign finance reports, someone using the name “joe” suggested that, along with being a hobbit, my motivation in digging around Atkins’s reports was his support of the Trinity Turnpike and convention center hotel. Then he wrote: “cue…
Ten days ago, we extended Tennell Atkins an invitation to provide us with an explanation regarding the office space he’s spent nearly $9,000 in campaign dough to rent that he claims doesn’t exist, but not a peep so far from the freshman council member. In the meantime, we’ve continued to…
The battle for the city council’s District 13 seat is already quite a pricy one, as Ann Margolin takes on Brint Ryan for the right to take over for Mitchell Rasansky, who’s leaving because of term limits. Both candidates have been flooding area residents with mailers and campaign materials over…
In separate 10-2 votes, the Dallas City Council approved developer and operator agreements with Matthews Southwest and Omni Hotels for the convention center hotel, leaving the $525 million bond issuance as the final vote remaining before the project is officially given the green light. While the city waits to float…
Yesterday afternoon, the council’s Trinity River Corridor Project Committee learned about the inner workings of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from their newly appointed liaison, Kevin Craig. Described by Assistant City Manager Jill Jordan as the No. 2 civilian at the corps’ district office in Fort Worth, Craig previously…
Few weeks back, we directed you to an online survey Dallas City Council candidate Ann Margolin was taking as she vies for Mitchell Rasansky’s District 13 seat at the horseshoe. Well, the results are in, and Margolin writes in a mass e-mail sent to her would-be constituency today that the…
“Attention to detail delays Army Corps of Engineers, frustrates Trinity Parkway supporters.” The headline of Michael Lindenberger’s latest story on the Trinity Turnpike in The News serves as a powerful reminder of the fundamental difference between supporters and opponents of the toll road. The opposition views the U.S. Army Corps…
So says the former president’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, who also told Politico that Bush has been “very, very busy.” Doing what, exactly? Well … lots of things. No mention of his trip to Calgary, where Bush is expected to pocket some serious Canadian bacon. Garrison Keillor, though, sees…
Mayor Tom Leppert paid a visit last night to Zubar on Lower Greenville to meet with the Dallas County Young Democrats to talk about crime, the Trinity River Project and the convention center hotel, but it didn’t take long before the audience found themselves smack in the middle of a…
With the city council campaign season heating up, we thought it would be worthwhile to take a look-see at some of the campaign finance reports of the incumbents to see how they’ve been spending their dough. Freshman council member Tennell Atkins emerged as our first subject after we noticed an…
After reading Friday’s story in The Dallas Morning News regarding the nearly $1 billion funding gap for the Trinity Turnpike, Angela Hunt decided she would spend this week developing a strategy to address the approximately $64 million remaining of the city’s $84 million contribution to the project. She’s unsure whether…
As Jim pointed out earlier, transportation writer Michael Lindenberger came up short yet again in today’s Dallas Morning News regarding the Trinity Turnpike. Lindenberger’s biggest blunder was exposed shortly after the November 2007 vote, and he made another when he reported the price tag of the road at $1.8 billion…
Bryan Burrough was in town earlier this week to sell a few copies of his must-read tome The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes. Been looking forward to the book ever since September, matter of fact, when Vanity Fair excerpted a chapter that made…
The UK Guardian has an oh-those-crazy-Yanks piece about locals spending $20 on those “Welcome Home, George and Laura” signs. Better still is the accompanying artwork by the great Nan Coulter — a homemade banner from “the Maloufs,” among the eight photos included in the sidebar slideshow (or, as I like…
The Senate Committee on Finance doesn’t have Ron Kirk’s confirmation hearing penciled in on the schedule; so, for now, Bush appointee Peter F. Allgeier is the acting U.S. Trade Representative, the position to which then-President-elect Barack Obama appointed Kirk last month. But the former Dallas mayor took at least one…
First, on this Inauguration Day afternoon, a mention of drink specials in honor not only of our new president, but the former one who will make Dallas his home, oh, any day now. A few days back, Simon McDonald at The Libertine Bar forwarded us a handful of welcome-home signs,…
From the monolithic high-definition screens at Victory Park this morning, Rick Warren prayed; Aretha Franklin belted out “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” from beneath a killer hat; and Joe Biden became VP. The crowd of locals — a few hundred gathered in the sunshine at one end of the square,…
As mentioned last week, Dallas’s T.D. Jakes did indeed deliver the pre-inaugural sermon from the St. John’s Episcopal Church pulpit. The pool report contains the entirety of his sermon, delivered in front of 200 invited guests. Jakes, captured here by Patrick Michels at the Dallas premiere of Seven Pounds, quoted…
Last night from the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in D.C., site of the Texas State Society’s 2009 Black Tie & Boots Inaugural Ball, a good Friend of Unfair Park sent the following message: “The Texas ball is not only a celebration of a new president, but a display…
A traffic heads-up for tomorrow: Unless you’re planning on protesting George W. Bush’s move to the ‘229, you may want to avoid Mockingbird Lane at N. Central Expressway between the hours of 4 and 7 p.m. That’s when Code Pink of Greater Dallas is planning on celebrating Inauguration Day by…
Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, the first full-time executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King’s chief of staff, is in Dallas tonight to speak at the Belo Mansion as part of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture’s Fourth Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium. Arrested…
