Bob Stimson

Mayor Mike Rawlings Wants to Make This Clear: "Right Now, I'm a Toll Road Guy"

Mayor Mike Rawlings was a bit late for his 9 a.m. speech at this morning's "Building South" presentation at the Oak Cliff Chamber. I knew it was Mayor Mike because OC Chamber director Bob Stimson, waffling for time, kept saying things like "I was told if I started and talked real slow, the mayor wou ... More >>

More Subsidized Housing is the Last Thing Poor Neighborhoods Need

The Dallas Morning News owes me at least five bucks for all the business I steer their way -- and, believe me, I hate doing it -- but once again they have an op-ed piece in the paper today that's really a must-read for people who care about the city or have any involvement at all with City Hall. I ... More >>

Oak Cliff's Better Nature Takes Charge

​The Oak Cliff secession movement in 1990 was one of Oak Cliff's very few expressions of political will in the last 30 years, and even that weak attempt at assertiveness was based on the region's profound inferiority complex. Its ethos was sort of: If you're going to treat us like your red-hea ... More >>

Mike Rawlings on Tenure as Homeless Czar and Why "Citizens Council" Isn't a Pejorative

viaAylwin Lewis​During our 90-mintute interview with Mike Rawlings at CIC Partners inside Crescent Court for last week's piece about the mayor's race, Rawlings repeated a statement about the campaign that he's made at countless debates: "It's not about personalities." We argued the opposite i ... More >>

Mayor Dwaine Caraway's "Calling a New Play"

Photos by Sam MertenMayor Dwaine Caraway, his wife and council member Dave Neumann this morning at the City Hall Flag Room.​Just minutes before presiding over his first meeting as the city's newly minted mayor, Dwaine Caraway assured a group of around 150 folks gathered for a light breakfast i ... More >>

City, Preservationists Come to Agreement About Permit Fees for Homes in Historic Districts

​At the very bottom of today's city council agenda you'll find a topic first introduced back in August, when the city was looking for every possible penny during the latest budget squeeze -- a proposal to increase fees for zoning, development and building permit applications. Last summer, preserva ... More >>

Mayor Blasts Feds For "Not Being Accountable to the Citizens of Dallas" Regarding Trinity

Photos by Sam Merten​Just two days after suffering the worst defeat of his short political career, Mayor Tom Leppert offered something different from his typical canned State of the City address that we've grown accustomed to hearing around this time of year. "I am very optimistic about the s ... More >>

UT Arlington To Set Up Shop In Oak Cliff

Daniel RodrigueBob Stimson​The Oak Cliff spirit of urban development and community outreach, which we are physically incapable of not writing about here in the paper and online, continues -- this time, with an urban planning storefront that's the result of a partnership between the Oak Cliff Chamb ... More >>

Big-Time Builders Insist Proposed "Effective Business Strategies" Are Quite the Opposite

​Earlier this month, the city council's Economic Development Committee was briefed on something called "Effective Business Strategies to Support Sustainable Growth." Translated, that means hiking building inspection fees in order to "recover the true costs of delivering services to our customers" ... More >>

Old Oak Cliff Conservation League Prez Makes Late-Hour Plea About Bishop/Davis Plan

​After "thousands of hours of discussion and debate," according to architect Rick Garza, head of the Bishop/Davis Land Use and Zoning Study steering committee, the Dallas City Council will finally vote on the plan Wednesday. Bob Stimson, the former city council member who's  now president of ... More >>

Oak Cliff Chamber Considers Its Own Suit Over DHA's Surprise Cliff Manor Move-In

​Update: Chris Heinbaugh, Mayor Tom Leppert's chief of staff, responds, briefly, to some questions I had for him this morning. They follow after the jump.This morning a Friend of Unfair Park directed our attention to None Zip Zero, a Web site created by opponents of Dallas Housing Authority's effo ... More >>

Oh, the Fiscal Effects of Expanding Beer, Wine Sales Citywide. Thought You Said "Physical."

​Elliot's at the Keep the Dollars in Dallas press conference at this very moment -- he'll post his Qs and their As shortly. Till then, some light lunchtime reading follows on the other side: Ray Perryman's 25-page report -- The Economic and Fiscal Effects of Expanding Alcoholic Beverage Sales in t ... More >>

Mayor Leppert Tells Neumann to Create "Advisory Board" to Calm Furor Over Cliff Manor Supportive Housing Proposal

Photos by Daniel RodrigueMayor Tom Leppert addresses the massive crowd at last night's Cliff Manor town hall.​Based on the comments, shouts and full-on screams erupting from the standing-room-only crowd gathered in Methodist Medical Center's Hitt Auditorium last night, it's a wonder that the town ... More >>

When It Comes to Bishop/Davis Study, Not Everyone In Oak Cliff Is On the Same Page

From the Bishop Davis Land Use & Zoning Study, which we'd recommend downloading from here before trying to open​With even Oak Cliff homeowners associations split over the Bishop Davis Land Use & Zoning Study, if nothing else yesterday's public hearing at the City Plan Commission proved th ... More >>

Notes from Last Night's Methodist Hospital Meeting, or: Hey, Oak Cliff, You're So Great. Why Are You So Great?

Daniel RodrigueBob Stimson and Schutze find common ground: Oak Cliff kicks ass.​The Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce offered up a smorgasbord of presentations last night focusing on various initiatives from parks and the arts to bicycles and trolleys, and the community turned out in droves. An es ... More >>

Public Art Attack: Look, It's Good for Tourism

Dallas Convention & Visitors BureauIs Pioneer Plaza really "the best example" of Dallas's "iconic public art projects"?​Pretty sure Sam's heading to the city council's Transportation and Environment Committee meeting today, during which council members will meet with Dallas Area Rapid Transit pres ... More >>

Quite the Hiccup: In Oak Cliff, Four INCAP Fund Properties Are Posted For Foreclosure

View Larger MapThis morning, Steve Brown mentioned that more than 250 local commercial properties are up for foreclosure next month, including "several vacant tracts of land in Oak Cliff along Davis Street, Kings Highway and Stevens Forest Drive." But Brown didn't mention which properties -- or who ... More >>

Sure, Only God Can Make a Tree. But a New Dallas Tree Ordinance? That's Man-Made.

Monday's public hearing on changes to Dallas's tree ordinance -- Article X of the Dallas City Code, to be specific -- was quiet, cordial, and borderline erudite. Every commenter seemed as well-informed as he or she was passionate, and the breadth of experience -- from two former city council member ... More >>

With Friends Like These...

Unlikely allies form a coalition of the willing--for now

Deadbird

How vicious racial politics, mismanagement, and dirty dealing turned Dallas' Redbird Airport into a Third-World airfield

Buzz

Now you don't see it...Rumor patrol; Signing off; Flicked up; Study hall; Wyoming, we think

Fowled Out

Does City Hall's rooster ban signal the end of old Oak Cliff? Rose Farley goes to the front lines of a cultural war that threatens to turn the 'hood into something truly heinous...North Dallas

It's the details, stupid

Candidate Bob Stimson claims his opponent's shoddy bookkeeping is a sneaky way to campaign at taxpayer expense

Cursed are the peacemakers

Councilwoman Laura Miller steps right into the line of fire--and ends up wounded--in a neighborhood war over a parking lot

Parting shots

As Laura Miller rides off to tilt at political windmills, we recall some of her choicest words

Letters

Mr. Mayor, Meet Your Nightmare

Frustrated, fed up, and ready to fight, Laura Miller trades muckraking for a run at City Hall

Miller leaves Observer for politics

Letters

Flying blind

With the mayor and city manager leading the charge, the city council moves full speed on an arena deal that doesn't even exist yet

Priced to sell out

City Manager John Ware ramrods a patched-together arena deal

X marks the spot

A plan to rename Oakland Avenue for Malcolm X raises cries of racism in Deep Ellum

Tension Fund

Concerns about the soundness of the city's retirement fund are buried in a political mud fight

Static Quo

The City of Dallas could make a fortune from WRR-FM. But powerful friends don't want anything to change at their little radio station.

Quarterback sneak

How Ron Kirk secretly pulled the strings in city's Big 12 deal

Letters

The making of an activist

Arena process stirs one woman to get involved

Private dealing

How Ron Kirk killed the public arena briefing

Spouting rubbish

Dallas has run out of recycling excuses

None of your business?

Closed council sessions scorn open-meetings law

Who ya gonna call?

City Hall's top brass use taxpayer-provided mobile phones to call sweethearts, power brokers, and Pizza Hut.

Desperate dealing

City scrambles to finance arena privately--and steal racetrack back from Fort Worth

Blowup in City Hall

Councilman Duncan summons city staff for personal errand

Another view

What City Hall isn't willing to hear about the new arena

Let them cast ballots

Why can't citizens vote on new arena?

How to renovate Reunion

Architect details low-cost plan to save arena--and poll shows public wants it done

The racer's edge

Hunt alliance gives weaker track developer big edge

The Arena Papers

Inside the secret City Hall files: A tale of dupes and deception

The scapegoat

A mid-level staffer bears the brunt of a sleazy City Hall coverup

Whose city is it, anyway?

Arena documents, discussions remain hidden from the public