Plano voters will get the final say on Tom Harrison’s fate as a City Council member. Monday night, the Plano City Council voted 6-0 with two abstentions to schedule a recall election for the council member, who’s been the center of controversy since February, when a series of anti-Muslim posts…
There was a time when some viewed Texas as a model for the rest of the county. It wasn’t that long ago, either. Rightly or wrongly, as the ’00s turned to the ’10s during Rick Perry’s third full term as governor, some saw Texas as a low-regulation, pro-business paradise, one you…
If you think Weird Washington is a long way off, look again. The weirdness has come home to roost. And you know what? It might be good for us in the end. It might force us to grow up. Dallas City Council member Tennell Atkins hosted a special committee meeting…
The debate about things would change a lot around here if everybody suddenly knew who’s paying for what. Dallas City Council member Lee Kleinman caught one these jarring little tells and pointed it out at a council committee meeting Monday. See if you agree with me that it’s something nobody…
Plano City Council member Tom Harrison is headed for a recall election unless city staff members deem about 1,500 petition signatures invalid. A group called Our Plano, One Plano turned in more than 4,400 signatures Wednesday afternoon calling for Harrison’s recall to be put on the ballot in November. Plano’s…
However things end up in November, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso has already made one thing clear in his challenge to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz: It isn’t going to be easy for the incumbent, not by a long shot. O’Rourke announced Tuesday that he raised $6.7 million during…
After Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in August, there was enormous shock and dismay when thousands of homeowners learned they had been flooded out not by Harvey but by Uncle Sam. We’re in for the same trauma here someday, and I am doing my best to get ahead of it for…
Dr. Michael Phillips is a historian and author of White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001. Since December 2015, America has witnessed a tale of two cities and two mayors. One mayor educated himself about the racist history of Confederate monuments in his city and led the charge…
City Council member Tennell Atkins has called a special meeting of the council’s economic development and housing committee at 9 a.m. Thursday in the first-floor auditorium at Dallas City Hall to listen to the chickens. Why? Because 9 a.m. Thursday is when the chickens come home to roost. Last week, word…
Sometimes, Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston is just flat brilliant. When? I don’t know. But sometimes he is. Yesterday, he gave me an idea that I think may be the kernel of an important national story about the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, although it starts very…
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that the 2020 census will include questions about immigration status for the first time since 1950. The policy change, supported by Texas officials including Attorney General Ken Paxton and Sen. Ted Cruz, could have a tremendous effect of the Texas’ already…
Late Wednesday afternoon, Dallas City Council member Kevin Felder made up his mind about the concrete batching plant planned for the old freedman’s town of Joppa, which sits squarely in his District 7 domain, five miles south of downtown Dallas. Felder, reported to be on the fence about the facility…
Here’s the straight news story: According to multiple reliable sources speaking off the record, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General will soon conclude a yearlong probe of Dallas City Hall with findings of financial wrongdoing in the city’s housing and economic development departments. Here’s…
In a dispute over an appointment to the city’s Civil Service Board, Dallas City Council member Lee Kleinman told The Dallas Morning News this week, “I hate organized labor.” Wow. Where I came from, that’s almost hate speech. Or crazy speech. Like saying, “I hate CEOs.” C’mon. Which CEO? You…
Pity Joppa. With a deep, proud history as a living, breathing freedman’s town, this little gathering of 500 souls in a crook of the Trinity River five miles southeast of downtown is one of the city’s most impoverished places. Still, so many powerful people are always trying to rob Joppa,…
Justin Irwin won’t forget Feb. 14. After losing friends and classmates to an gunman that day in Parkland, Florida, he marched in Dallas’ March For Our Lives to show his support for gun legislation. Irwin was in Dallas to speak at Parkland Moves Us, a March 25 event hosted by…
Confessions of a liberal: I loved it, I swooned, I cheered out loud last week when Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a verbal flail to Trump’s HUD secretary, Dr. Ben Carson, at a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. But confessions of an old man:…
City staff is recommending that the city not remove the Confederate memorial next to City Hall, leave it in place instead and ameliorate its effect on the public by placing a plaque nearby with “contextual information.” At Wednesday’s City Council briefing on the issue, it looked as if a majority…
The city’s Confederate war memorial, cozily situated between City Hall and the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, could be on its way out after a slim majority of the Dallas City Council expressed support for its removal Wednesday. Late last week, it looked like the towering statue might receive a…
After a Feb. 23 gas-leak explosion in Northwest Dallas killed 12-year-old Linda Rogers in her home, emergency crews and Atmos Energy evacuated the surrounding area, cut off gas service and began working around the clock to repair leaky, corroded pipes. As Atmos crews work to restore service, some residents in…
The Dallas City Council is debating a new housing policy. During this period of public input and debate, you should closely monitor your banking and credit card accounts, keep all valuables in a safe and locked place, ask any so-called Girl Scouts who come to the door selling cookies for…
On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of North Texas students are going to try to do what adults haven’t be able to figure out. They’re going to confront America’s gun violence epidemic in a way that actually gets something done. When the students take to the streets in solidarity with the victims…
