Dallas Flashes Back to 1997

Lookin' good: Critics blast city council member Angela Hunt for spending $270 in campaign funds on hairstyling and "makeup services" to prepare for a photo shoot and a separate news conference at which she announced she would lead the effort to kill a proposed toll road along the Trinity River. Hunt defends the expenditures as legitimate. The flap leads reporters to pore over campaign records belonging to Dallas mayoral candidates, in which they find that Max Wells spent $1,100 on Geritol and NoDoz to help him stay awake during campaign events held past 6 p.m., while not-quite candidate Zac Crain spent $300—give or take $50—on smokes, Star Wars DVDs and beard combs.

Remember 1940: The Dallas Mavericks, No. 1 seed in the NBA playoffs, are eliminated in the first round by the eighth-seeded Golden State Warriors. The shocking loss stuns basketball fans and prompts an Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation into the immigration status of league MVP Dirk Nowitzki. "It says on his immigration forms that he's German, but he sure looked pretty French out there on the court, if you know what I mean," a spokesman for the Dallas ICE office says.

Buh-bye: Conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell dies. This has nothing to do with Dallas, really, but Buzz just loves typing the words.

Be vewy quiet: Authorities announce they are searching for an armed robber they call "the Elmer Fudd bandit" after the man holds up an Albertsons Express on U.S. Highway 287 while wearing an orange hunting cap with ear flaps. The mild-mannered robber apologizes for the "wobbery," telling a clerk that he needs money to buy "buwetts" to continue his hunt for a "wascally wabbit."

Pull in the welcome mat: By a 2-to-1 margin, voters in Farmers Branch approve an ordinance prohibiting landlords in the suburb from renting homes to illegal immigrants. City council member Tim O'Hare declares the new law will have a positive effect by helping the suburb maintain its reputation as a hospitable spot for the "rednecks, crackers and assorted conservative tight-asses whose white flight from Dallas decades ago helped make Farmers Branch what it is today—backward."

You read it there first: In a 2,350-word story published two weeks before the Dallas mayoral runoff election between Ed "Gay" Oakley and Tom Leppert, The Dallas Morning News reports that being gay is no longer a major factor in Dallas political races. The story points out at length that the fact that Oakley is gay—in that he prefers sex with men—is an absolute non-issue in his campaign against Leppert, whom the News endorsed and who is not gay, though Oakley, you know, is. But that's not important anymore, because voters don't care that Oakley is gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. And Leppert isn't. He's straight. Leppert, whose love for and commitment to Dallas extends all the way back to 2003, when he moved to the city, defeats Oakley in the runoff.

Walk hard: The Dallas City Council rejects the "Walk of Fame," a proposed monument in Opportunity Park that would feature bronze images of 114 notable South Dallas leaders, including sitting council member Leo Chaney, a proponent of the memorial. Chaney denies—with a straight face—that his inclusion on the monument is an act of self-aggrandizement, but the council sends the plans back for further public review. The council later rejects a revised "Perp Walk of Fame" featuring southern Dallas political leaders either indicted or under investigation by the federal government, claiming that space for the memorial was too small to accommodate all the images.

Adios, Mike: Dallas County Constable Mike Dupree resigns, ending a months-long controversy that began when he admitted to the Observer that he arranged for the deportation of a former lover to Honduras. His resignation comes as part of a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of abuse of official capacity, which stemmed from numerous allegations of sexual harassment of his male employees. As part of his plea agreement, Dupree promises not to seek public office again in Texas, and all other pending criminal investigations and civil suits against him will be dropped. The veteran lawman vows to use his now free time mentoring young people. "There just aren't that many programs available to help svelte Latino immigrants ages 19 to 22 out there, and that's a group I'm committed—very, very committed—to helping out in any way I can," he says.

July-September

Busy, busy, busy: The Morning News reports that a sheriff's department employee hired to write requests for grants had filed only one grant application in 14 months on the job. The employee, Cynthia Smith, was hired at an annual salary of $49,179 to a position created at the request of Sheriff Valdez. The one grant application Smith wrote was filed late, the News writes. Valdez was out of the country when the story broke and did not speak to the paper's reporter, but returns two weeks later and tells the newspaper that her employee actually filed two applications. The sheriff's media coach comes up with a new, abbreviated list of suggestions for her: "First, stay out of the country as long as you can; second, don't talk to reporters."