Subject: Dallas City Council

• And In Other News

  May 17, 2006

• DEEP Roundup of Clubs Under Review

  November 2, 2007

• Look Out, Don Hill. Because Allen McGill Isn't Going Down Alone.

  April 15, 2008

• The City of Dallas and Its Shiny, Distracting Thing

  May 26, 2008

• Get a Sneak Peek at KERA's Special on Sharing the Power in Dallas

  May 28, 2008

• Council Not Playing With Full Deck Park

  October 8, 2008

• What the doctors ordered

  November 18, 1999

• Legal Learning Differences

  Somebody on the Dallas City Council skipped school the day they taught the U.S. Constitution

  January 11, 2001

• The City's Considering Those Streetcars. But, See, They Cost Money.

  Seven months ago, the word "streetcar" started showing up on Unfair Park -- seems Jim's plenty keen on the idea, along with other trolley-touters who look to yesterday's transportation option as tomorrow's development generator. Which is why, as the Dallas City Council's Transportation and Environment Committee discusses the second downtown light-rail alignment for Dallas Area Rapid Transit this afternoon, it'll also bat around the idea of downtown streetcars.In the briefing doc, which also

  December 8, 2008

• Wow, Is It Already Time to Renew the Juvenile Curfew Ordinance?

  Newcomers (and everyone else, let's face it) probably don't recall that when the Dallas City Council passed the Juvenile Curfew Ordinance in 1991, it was a long, contentious process that wound up in court, courtesy some teenagers' folks who thought keeping 17-and-unders off the city streets after 11 p.m. was a violation of their Constitutional rights. The Fifth Circuit disagreed, and, noted the Harvard Law Review in May 2005, "Dallas's juvenile curfew ordinance survived strict scrutiny [and] pro

  January 2, 2009

• Suhm to Tell City Council: Do Not Live Large, and Think a Little Smaller

  Seems like we were just here, hashing over the city's budget. But as you may have read -- and may have guessed -- FY2009-10 is already shaping up to be a) lousy, b) godawful, c) yech or d) all of the above. Which is why, at this morning's Dallas City Council briefing session, City Manager Mary Suhm will present the Initial Revenue and Expenditure Outlook for next fiscal year, when she anticipates "little to no growth in property tax base" and a "potential decline in sales tax revenue." And if th

  January 7, 2009

• Dallas by Design: If You Can Only Attend One City Council Briefing All Year, Make It Today's

  This morning's Dallas City Council briefing should be more interesting than most -- thing's almost like a meeting of a book club where the topic is urban design and development, which is perhaps why the council's moving out of City Hall and across the street to the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library's O'Hara Exhibit Hall. Among those scheduled to speak: Christopher Leinberger, self-proclaimed "Metropolitan Land Strategist & Developer" and author of Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New America

  January 21, 2009

• A Desire Named Streetcar

  Schutze's fourth-favorite subject, streetcars, goes before the Dallas City Council's Transportation and Environmental Committee this morning, where council members will be joined by Dallas Area Rapid Transit's board of directors. They've got a lot to consider, as in: Where will the streetcars go, who'll govern the operation, how much will it cost, who'll pay for it, and how will the project be funded? (Because, as we noted last month, "Funding for Streetcar Program is not in DART's 20-year Fina

  January 26, 2009

• City Council's Not in a Hurry to Dole Out TIF Money to Two Downtown Projects

  As the Dallas City Council goes into executive session before breaking for lunch, a few notes. As Dave Levinthal mentions, the Dallas City Council postponed till next month votes on two downtown projects seeking tax increment financing money. One of them is 1400 Main Street (better known as Plush), which, as we noted last month, wants $495,000.The other sits at 2301 Ross Avenue, an Arts District parking garage Hall Lone Star Associates is, finally, proposing to turn into a $120 million mixed-use

  January 28, 2009

• City Council's Not Quite Ready to Give the Convention Center Hotel to Omni

  Sam MertenWhat the convention center hotel's supposed to look like, more or less, except it won't be so, ya know, small.Item No. 3 on the Dallas City Council's briefing agenda for today reads as follows:Approve the execution of the Hotel Operating Agreement between Omni Hotels Management Corporation and the Dallas Convention Center Hotel Development Corporation, the City's local government corporation - Financing: No cost consideration to the City.But, this just in from City Hall: The council ha

  February 4, 2009

• The Arts District, "Not a Way of Life"?

  Courtesy Dallas Center for the Performing ArtsHow appropriate: On the very day the Dallas City Council's Quality of Life Committee will discuss the Arts District Master Plan -- or, more specifically, the Dallas Arts District Strategic Assessment and Action Plan -- Architectural Record weighs in with an overview of the project due to be finished come October. Hate to provide the spoiler, but the most interesting tidbit from the AR round-up is found near the end:Many hope the district will evolve

  February 9, 2009

• Crime, Ann Margolin's Top Campaign Issue

  Mitchell Rasansky and Ann MargolinFew 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 No. 1 issue facing voters come May is .... crime! "By far." As in: "The bottom line: We need to add officers, put them on the street, and give them the tools they need to fight

  February 17, 2009

• Dust in the Wind? Maybe.

  From the city council's Water Conservation and Drought Plan Update, a look at lake levelsOn Wednesday, the Dallas City Council will discuss updating the city's 4-year-old water conservation and drought contingency plans, as this is shaping up to be yet another dry, dusty year. The update is necessary but won't come cheap: If and when council gives the okee-doke, the city will pay Alan Plummer Associates, Inc. more than $600,000 to provide "engineering services" necessary for the update, required

  February 23, 2009

• Buzz

  February 1, 2001

• Nobody Puts Jill Jordan in a Corner. Well, Except Maybe Angela Hunt.

  This is the first in a morning series of videos provided by members of Your Dallas City Council. First up, this lengthy offering from Angela Hunt (co-starring assistant city manager Jill Jordan), who writes on her Web site by way of introduction today, "If you've got 20 minutes on your hands and a hankering to see what goes on at the City Council when we talk about the Trinity flood control levees and toll road (and the obfuscation that occurs), then enjoy."2009.02.25 - Dallas City Council Discu

  March 9, 2009

• Best City Council Member

  September 20, 2001

• Some Folks Trying to Turn Out the Lights on Extending the Juvenile Curfew Ordinance

  'Member how, last month, the Dallas City Council's Public Safety Committee started talking about changing the Juvenile Curfew Ordinance to include daylight hours as well? Turns out, a group's done sprung up to oppose such an alteration: the Citizens Against the Dallas Daytime Curfew, which IDs itself as a "small, grassroots group." But it's a busy one (and they've got T-shirts too!): In advance of public hearings scheduled for March 25 and April 22 in advance of the council vote next month, the

  March 18, 2009

• Food For Thought 4.6.09

  "We're in a recession, hard times. We shouldn't be hurting business. I'm not saying, 'Let's take away this issue.' We're just saying, 'Let's give these businesses some time.'" (Tennell Atkins, member of the Dallas City Council, on an effort to delay the city's smoking ordinance, which bans lighting up in bars and is scheduled to take effect on Friday. Several drinking establishments have reported difficulty securing permits to build outdoor patios. Smoking will be allowed on decks beyond an esta

  April 6, 2009

• City to Take Stack of Downtown Dallas Master Plans, Turn 'Em All Into One "Area Plan"

  Flickr user: Stuck in CustomsIn December 2007, the Dallas City Council was briefed on the Office of Economic Development's long-term wish list for the central business district: Revitalizing Downtown: Creating Anchors to Build the Core, the Roadmap 2008-2015. The doc set specific benchmarks to be reached by 2015: create 10,000 residential units, fill 250,000 square feet of retail, reduce vacancy by 1.75 million square feet, complete the first phase of the Trinity River Project completed, have a

  April 6, 2009

• Letters

  January 1, 2004

• Stroll to the Future: Walkable Neighborhoods are Next for Dallas

  Welcome to Seinfeld America, a fine place to take a walk that's coming soon to Dallas

  January 29, 2009

• Buzz Reviews the News of 2008: Yes. It Was All Bad.

  Sex clubs in the 'burbs, teacher layoffs in the district, black holes in the commissioners court—Buzz makes perfect sense of 2008

  January 1, 2009

• As Dallas Wrestles With Regulating Private Parking Lots, a Public Meeting Invite

  Ever see the doc Parking Wars? You really should.At the end of March, the Dallas City Council's Transportation and Environment Committee took up the discussion of regulating a "relatively new practice being employed by private parking lot operators to enforce payment in their lots" -- booting cars. Parking lot owners, in a letter to the council, said, Look, it's better to boot than to tow, right? But there have been plenty of folks in recent months, especially in Deep Ellum, who claim they got t

  April 15, 2009

• Puppet Samba

  By pulling strings, road hustlers can make the city council dance

  November 27, 2003

• What's That Smell?

  The stink of broken promises in the last big bond election

  February 27, 2003

• 2002 Revealed

  An aging Buzz finds little to celebrate in the year gone by. What did you expect?

  January 2, 2003

• Taxpayers, Arise!

  A little-known chapter of the city charter says we don't have to take it anymore

  July 11, 2002

• The Scarlet Letter

  The Dallas City Council is about to mark itself for life with its vote on the Palladium deal

  May 16, 2002

• :cueless

  Buzz hacks through the past in search of the cool cats and fools of the year that was

  December 28, 2000

• The City Wants to Pay You Up to $10,000 to Improve Your Neighborhood

  City of Dallas Code ComplianceThe Dallas City Council gets back to business today with three committee confabs, chief among them the Quality of Life hoedown where they're poring over the Code Compliance Accountability Report Card -- so "modeled after a 3rd grade report card" and lettered A through F to provide "the reader a grading scale of which they are familiar," hunh. According to the sneak peek provided in the briefing docs, the Citywide Service Request Volume Improvement Rating for April '

  May 11, 2009

• Who Knew There Were Residents at the Delux Inn? No Matter. It's Going Bye-Bye.

  I didn't know till I looked at the Dallas City Council's addenda for this week that for the last couple of months, the city's been the proud owner of the Delux Inn on Stemmons Freeway. (The expenditure was approved last September, for $3.18 million in 1998 bond money.) Alas, don't get too excited: Sure, the city bought the former Howard Johnson's -- which is on the tax rolls for $2.8 million, or almost three times its 2006 valuation -- but it's scheduled to be demolished at some point to make wa

  May 13, 2009

• Look Out, Kids! Because Starting Next School Year, There's a Daytime Curfew!

  Moments ago, the Dallas City Council voted on the 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.daytime curfew ordinance -- and, not surprisingly, it passed almost overwhelmingly, by a vote of 12-2. The vote was taken shortly after Mayor Tom Leppert stressed that the ordinance (which you can read here, beginning on Page 63) is not "trying to address the issue of kids staying in school," which, far as he's concerned, remains an issue for the Dallas Independent School District. The city will "do all we can do to support pub

  May 13, 2009

• Five Easy Pieces: How to Fix Dallas's Very Broken, Busted Municipal Courts System

  Back in March, the Office of the City Auditor noted that the Dallas Municipal Court system is all kinds of messed up. Which is why the Dallas City Council's set to get briefed Wednesday on an efficiency study aimed at cleaning up the mess -- though how much time the council spends with the briefing on Wednesday's a bit iffy, as it shares agenda space with a detailed 181-page preliminary FY2009-'10 budget sneak preview sure to eat up most of the day.This much is certain, though: The team charged

  June 15, 2009

• Who'd Turn Down Free Tickets to Paradise? Apparently, Not the Dallas City Council.

  ​Regarding yesterday's item concerning the Dallas City Council's retreat to Paradise tomorrow, Jaynie Schultz, vice president of the Garrett Creek Ranch Conference Center, sends this reply about her family's Very Special Gift to our elected officials:After learning that the Dallas City Council was potentially not going to hold their retreat, we decided to offer a free stay because it is important to all of us in Dallas that they lead with a clear vision. Garrett Creek Ranch embodies the value

  July 28, 2009

• Design for (Free) Living

  ​Earlier this year, the Dallas City Council said it wanted no part in plans to turn a former hotel at 1011 S. Akard Street into a home for the homeless. Perhaps you recall said brouhaha, the result of which will be 250 low-income apartment units once developers Ted and Larry Hamilton can give their undivided attention to the former Sheraton, Ramada and Plaza that sits across the freeway from and in the shadow of Dallas City Hall. But till then, the Hamiltons are allowing folks to live in the

  August 5, 2009

• Sweep the Legs! It's Gonna Cost More -- and Take Longer -- to Get Rid of Reunion Arena.

  ​When last we saw Reunion Arena, it looked like "a coffee table from 1974." Or, "that carport thingie that's going up in the Arts District." Turns out, it'll stay that way a while longer -- like, oh, till at least January of next year. How come?Under the arena's exterior plaster finish, there is a layer of styrofoam insulation backing material mounted on concrete masonry units which circle the upper ring of the arena. It has been determined that blasting operations would result in breaking the

  August 11, 2009

• Once Again, the Mayor Had the City Attorney Rewrite Rules for Council, Public Speakers

  Natalie Dee​I see Rudy's already posted his item about tomorrow's vote on Dallas City Council rules changes, which showed up earlier this week on the addendum for tomorrow's meeting. (It's Item No. 2.) But what he doesn't get into is why the council will vote on reducing and, in some cases, eliminating public speakers' open-mike time -- or why the council will vote to take away some of its own power, no kidding.Among the rules being voted upon tomorrow is one that says a single council member

  August 11, 2009

• Jim and Sandra's Affairs

  What you'll find below is the first episode of what we hope will become a weekly series starring Jim Schutze and former Dallas City Council member Sandra Crenshaw, who've been spending way too much time together in an auxiliary courtroom at the Earle Cabell during the Dallas City Hall federal corruption trial that'll wrap sometime 'round Halloween, maybe. This pilot episode, shot by Patrick Michels, is a little light on the romantic comedy we'd hoped for -- and, sorry, nothing about the Jews. (N

  August 21, 2009

• Five Council Members Lobby for Transparency at Dallas City Hall. Good Luck With All That.

  Psssst, Carol Reed, they're talking about you ... ​Five Dallas City Council members want the city to think about requiring people to register as lobbyists if they get paid to influence the council. The ongoing Dallas City Hall federal corruption trial has brought a series of revelations about so-called consultants -- a broad term apparently meaning anybody who can get you the votes you need for your deal with the city, for a price.Five council members this morning signed a letter to City At

  August 24, 2009

• Keep on Truckin'. Just Not in the Left Lane.

  ​For the last four years, the Texas Department of Transportation and the North Central Texas Council of Governments have been restricting big rigs from driving in the left lane along small sections of I-20 and I-30. And they're delighted with the results of the pilot program: Dan Kessler, NTCOG assistant director, will tell the Dallas City Council's Transportation and Environment Committee this afternoon that the restrictions have reduced the number of crashes, increased travel speed and cut d

  August 25, 2009

• At Last, a Parking Boot Ordinance!

  ​It took long enough, but the Dallas City Council finally got around to the parking-lot booting ordinance -- and it passed council almost unanimously. There was but one "nay" vote: newcomer Ann Margolin, who said, well, "I understand there has been a lot of work to get this done, but I have to say I don't have enough time to digest this right now, and I am reluctant to vote on something I don't understand. ... The rushed nature is troublesome to me." Well, sure, Ann. Rushed. Or the opposite.Th

  August 26, 2009

• Exactly One Year After Cole Berardi Was Killed By DPD Car, Council to Settle Family's Claim

  Cole Berardi​Late last week, word came down that the Dallas City Council was close to settling with the family of Cole Berardi, the 10-year-old boy who was killed one year ago after he was struck by a Dallas police car. No doubt you recall the incident, which was captured by the dash-mounted camera inside Sr. Cpl. Michael Vaughn's squad car and shown all over the local news after Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle opted to release the video.City Attorney Tom Perkins wouldn't officially confirm t

  October 5, 2009

• How Do Dallas's Lobbyists Earn Their Dough?

  Zazzle​On October 28, the Dallas City Council will vote to renew its contract with the lobbyists who do the city's bidding in Austin and D.C. Right about now, the city spends $502,000 with the likes of CapitalEdge (which also lobbies on behalf of Arlington; Denton, Reno, Nevada; and Huntsville, Alabama), Alcalde & Fay (which works for Miami and Atlantic City, among many others), former Dallas assistant city attorney Randy Cain, HillCo Partners, Kwame Walker and San Antonio attorney Susan R

  October 6, 2009

• City Council to Put Two of Its Commissions Out of Commission. Sorry, Kids.

  Peter Hill is the chair of the Youth Commission. For now.​The city's Commission on Productivity and Innovation, born from the ashes of the alluringly named Privatization Technical Subcommittee, was created to advise the Dallas City Council and the city manager how to make City Hall run more efficiently. Guess it's done its job: Per the addendum for tomorrow's meeting, the council will vote on putting the commission out of commission. So, then, a brief recap of its accomplishments: In 2005 it u

  October 13, 2009

• It's Old Home Week at Council, as Sid Stahl to Handle Sandra Crenshaw's Ethics Complaints

  Just noticed this on the council's meeting addendum for tomorrow:​I called Crenshaw, who served on the council from 1993 till '95, to find out the details of the complaint, but a friend of hers answered the phone and offered this rather stunning news: "Her mother died Thursday, and her father died this morning." Unfair Park, of course, offers our condolences. The city secretary and city attorney also were not available. Stahl, of course, served on the Dallas City Council from 1980 till '83, an

  October 27, 2009