Theresa O'Donnell

Dallas City Employees Make "It Gets Better" Video, But What is Mike Rawlings Doing In It?

This week's edition of the Dallas Voice features a long article about the video you see above, an "It Gets Better"-themed compilation featuring a whole bunch of LGBT city of Dallas employees, including city spokesperson Frank Librio, assistant city manager Joey Zapata, asisstant city attorneys Melis ... More >>

Dallas and Dwaine Caraway Both Have Big Plans for the Reunion Arena Area, but Only One Involves Prince's "Purple Rain."

Downtown Dallas 360, the city's long-range master plan for the area, has high hopes for southwestern downtown. Where Reunion Arena once stood, it envisions a cluster of mid-rise mixed-use developments. These would be clustered around a promenade and central park and would be accessible by stops on t ... More >>

Back, Pedal: Dallas Bike Lanes Won't Be Easy, But They Just Might Happen After All

The bureaucratic red tape for bike lanes is loosening in Dallas. Well, OK. There's talk of it loosening. Which, for those who like to want to ride their bicycles, who want to ride them where they like, is better than nothing. At today's meeting of the city council's Transportation and Environment C ... More >>

Deep Ellum Is "No Place to Put These Kids in the Afternoon After They Get Outta School"

At this point, Deep Ellum could easily star in its own Rocky-style franchise, given how many times it's been knocked down and still managed to stagger back to its feet. As we've mentioned, the latest worry for business owners in the area comes in the form of some 900 schoolchildren: Uplift Education ... More >>

Uplift Education's CEO: "We Do Not Want To Be a Roadblock" to Development in Deep Ellum

​Anna's attending tonight's meeting of Deep Ellum property owners and city officials concerning Uplift Education's latest charter school -- which, Uplift CEO Yasmin Bhatia just told me, is very definitely going to take the former Baylor building on Elm Street. As Bhatia put it: "All systems go" fo ... More >>

Uplift Wants to Open a Charter School in Deep Ellum. But What Does That Mean for the Bars?

​For a long while now, the old Baylor offices at 2625 Elm Street in Deep Ellum have been on the market -- for $5.5 million. And word was that a would-be buyer was eying the space for offices, which greatly pleased restaurant and bar owners, since it would have meant more warm bodies in need of col ... More >>

City Council Delays Giving DISD Rezoning It Wants in Jubilee Park, Pending Trustees' Vote on School Closures Tomorrow Night

​Best I can tell using our half-baked search engine, we began writing about Jubilee Park-ers' battle with the Dallas Independent School District over a new-and-improved O.M. Roberts in April 2010, when residents told Dallas County commissioners they were terrified of losing their homes in an emine ... More >>

Dallas Is the Worst When It Comes to Cycling to Work? Gee, Can't Imagine Why. No, Wait ...

​I've been trying since daybreak to reach Max Kalhammer, the city's bike coordinator, to talk about the not-at-all-surprising results of the Alliance for Biking & Walking's 2012 Benchmarking Report, which says we're one of the worst big cities in the entire country when it comes to people ridi ... More >>

Erykah Badu, Rebirth Brass Band and a Late-Night Funeral Procession for Main Street

​Shortly after the clock struck just past midnight Sunday, Erykah Badu, behind the wheel of a matte black Stingray, led a funeral procession down Main Street -- not far, mind you, just from Pegasus Plaza at Main and Akard to the front door of PM Nightlife Lounge at The Joule, which is all of, what ... More >>

Bicycle Advocates Win a Game of Chicken

City Hall turns back on fudged numbers for bike lanes.

Council Faces Huge Bill for IT Glitch. Maybe They Should Just Dial Jesus for Technical Help.

​The Dallas city council today is locked in a dispute today over paying a contractor $8.3 million to help City Manager Mary Suhm straighten out a huge mess with the city's computerized billing system. Unable to resolve it this morning, they will come back to the question this afternoon. Watch ... More >>

Are They Angels or Grinches at Dallas City Hall? Depends Which Project You're Discussing.

​Sometimes I think city staff may be demon-possessed. I'm sorry, I know it's a very weird thing to say. But I can't come up with another explanation. One day they're so bouncy and positive and totally can-do. The next day they've been taken over by the negativity goblin. I attended a city council ... More >>

Why the Need for Thoroughfare Amendments for Bike Lanes? Well, It Was 30 Years Ago ...

From one of two briefings today dealing with the implementation of bike lanes citywide​On Saturday we previewed today's council look-see at how the new Bike Plan will be implemented; both the Quality of Life and Transportation and Environment committees got the docs Friday night. (There's also a v ... More >>

How Will Dallas Roll Out New Bike Plan? Just Look at the Plan For Fort Worth Avenue.

Click to enlarge for a better look at a proposed plan to redo Fort Worth Ave.​By 2021 the city of Dallas hopes to have 1,296 miles of here-to-there dedicated to cyclists, 456 of which would be off-road -- trails, let's say. Which leaves the rest, 840 miles, spread up and down the cracked concrete, ... More >>

Before City Gets to Work on Complete Streets Manual, the "West Davis Community Walk"

​The city's spent the last month or so piloting some Complete Streets projects all 'round town, among them the Grand Avenue Better Block-ing that transformed the four lanes and land in front of R.L. Griffin's Blues Palace near Fair Park the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Sustainable Development and ... More >>

Gas Drilling Task Force Begins Deliberations, Opts to Stick with Current Approval Process

Photo by Taryn WalkerThe task force toured a drill site this summer, getting an education before entering the deliberation process.​The city council-appointed gas drilling task force stopped listening to The Experts yesterday and got down to the business of discussing just what it'll suggest t ... More >>

City to Spread Gospel of Complete Streets Far and Wide, With Workshops and Pilot Projects

​The poster at right is for what could be the best Better Block event yet, scheduled to take place in and around the parking lot of R.L.'s Blues Palace No. 2 in the shadow of Fair Park -- an institution. Jason Roberts, QB for Team Better Block, says there are several choirs lined up to perform -- ... More >>

What the Frack: Task Force Isn't Done, But City Moves Closer to Issuing First Drilling Permit

Click to enlarge this map from the city's April gas drilling ordinance presentation​XTO and Trinity East, two of the companies that have paid the city big money and signed leases to drill for gas within the city limits, have agreed to wait 30 months while the city rewrites its gas drilling ord ... More >>

Lowering the Bars

How Lower Greenville neighborhoods snookered club owners right out of business.

Well, We Were Going to Talk About Complete Streets. But Then the Council Ran Out of Road.

From today's briefing to the council's Transportation and Environment Committee​The council's Transportation and Environment Committee kicked off its 1 p.m. meeting with a review of the LBJ Express project, with TxDOT and Trinity Infrastructure reps telling council members: "There is possibility y ... More >>

Shade Learns You Don't Want to Make Hunt Angry As Its Late-Night Permit Gets Tossed

From Shade's website​Many of those Lower Greenville specific use permits approved by the City Plan Commission came before the city council today, which is why Bruce Richardson, repping a coalition of neighborhood associations, was perched at the podium for the better part of the last hour, saying ... More >>

City's Gas Drilling Task Force Makes Its Official Bow With Vow to Protect Citizens of Dallas

Photos by Leslie MinoraLois Finkelman and task force member David Sterling at today's introductory meeting​Today's first meeting of the city's gas drilling task force meeting played out like the pilot episode of a new TV series: It laid out the basic plot line without giving away too much. Which i ... More >>

Scenes From a Better Ross Avenue

​Tomorrow, we'll have much more from the Build a Better Boulevard event presently slowing traffic along a stretch of Ross near and into downtown; maybe I'll even let Leslie run the photo she took of me submerged into the dumpster swimming pool parked in Fellowship Church's lot at Ross and Central ... More >>

Council, Consultants Take the Slow Ride Toward Solving Downtown Dallas's Parking Problems

Image from the Downtown Dallas Parking Strategic Plan SlideshowCurrently, off-street parking takes up 27 percent of downtown land.​As we're well aware of the Friends of Unfair Park's thoughts on parking in downtown Dallas, we attended yesterday's meeting of the council's Transportation and Environ ... More >>

Before Council Takes Out a Payday Loan, Sneak a Peek at Possible New Regulations

​If nothing else, the timing's certainly good: Just three days after Mayor Dwaine Caraway branded mayoral candidate Mike Rawlings the "Payday Loan King" in a series of ads to which Rawlings later responded, the city council's Budget, Finance & Audit Committee is about to take up the subject of ... More >>

Liveblogging City Council's Look at Gas Drilling Task Force. Or: The Return of Lois Finkelman!

Welcome back to City Hall, where the council's settling back into their seats in the briefing room after a much-needed break for lunch. Word was that the council was going to treat us to its gas drilling update in the morning -- but after taking an extra-long executive session to work out just who' ... More >>

Live from City Hall: Complete Streets, Bike Plans & Better Blocks. An Unfair Park Best-Of!

Theresa O'Donnell, director of Sustainable Development and Construction​Welcome to City Hall, where nothing seems to have changed too drastically since Mayor Dwaine Caraway took the reins over the weekend. Any doubts you might have had should be assuaged by item number one on this afternoon's agen ... More >>

After Fighting to Keep Adamson From Becoming Historic Landmark, DISD Backs Off. For Now.

​Speaking of historic landmarks ...For more than a year, the Dallas Independent School District has been fighting the Landmark Commission to keep Adamson High School from being designated as a city landmark -- so much so that in September '09, the board passed a resolution that said, in part, "any ... More >>

"Free Spaces"? Hunt Updates Downtown Worker "Concerned" About Parking Meters.

​Yesterday, downtown-working attorney Brad Nitschke sent this parking-meter picture to Angela Hunt, via the Twitter, with the note: "This is not what a commitment to downtown looks like." To which she responded: "You're absolutely right. Part of the update to Dallas' Downtown plan is a parking stu ... More >>

Tomorrow, City Hall to Look at How to Park Food Trucks Downtown (and Elsewhere!)

Perhaps it's but a matter of time before the city finally lets one of America's most-favorite food trucks park downtown.​Nancy Nichols did a bang-up piece in the August issue of D chronicling the myriad reasons mobile restaurateurs have had issues parking their burgeoning parade of food trucks in ... More >>

About Those Proposed Permit Fee Hikes ...

​For months Theresa O'Donnell, director of the city's Sustainable Development and Construction department, has been meeting with contractors and developers about how to loosen up the permit-granting, inspection-making logjam caused in recent months by departmental layoffs and other budget-busters. ... More >>

City Plan Commissioner Wants to Take a Long, Hard Look at Dallas Parking Regulations

​Sooner or later, sure, we'll all be biking to work or play. Or taking DART. Or riding hovercrafts. Or jet packs. Or solar-powered water taxis. But till that day happens, well, we gotta park our cars somewhere. And, like I need to tell you, that ain't easy sometimes. Which is why, for instance, th ... More >>

City's Director of Development and Construction Shelves Proposal For Permit Fee Hikes

​Theresa O'Donnell, director of Sustainable Development and Construction for the city of Dallas, called a little while ago to discuss developers' concerns over a City Hall proposal to hike building permit fees. She says she was "surprised and disappointed" by the letter several high-ranking member ... More >>

Does This Billboard Look Like It's 100 Feet Away From the Freeway? Didn't Think So.

Photos by Patrick Michels​Yesterday Friend of Unfair Park John M wondered if we had any spare interns who'd be able to snap a photo of the newly installed billboard next to the Woodall Rodgers ramp that dumps into northbound Stemmons Freeway. And when I say "next to," I mean "right on top of," as ... More >>

Oak Cliff Becomes Cool Embracing What Other Parts Of Dallas Have Fought: Builders, Bikes And Immigrants

Do You Want to Help City Hall Rewrite the Dallas Bike Plan? No, Seriously. Yes, You.

​Frank Librio at Dallas City Hall sends word this morning: Max Kalhammer, the city's new bike coordinator, is looking for folks to help the city rewrite the outdated Dallas Bike Plan, which hasn't been touched since 1985, more or less. As Kalhammer told Kim in December, the ultimate goal of the ne ... More >>

Natinsky: Make Sure New Downtown Plan Remains Open to Closing Main Street to Cars

The great Red Oak Kid found this old postcard, which we stopped reading after "pot," to be honest.​More than one Friend of Unfair Park has suggested it in the past: What if the city closed off Main Street downtown to cars and made it pedestrian-only? If you're among those, what a friend you have i ... More >>

The Man With the Latest Downtown Plan Says We're "A City of Districts" In Need of "Unity"

Daniel Iacofano​Daniel Iacofano -- the "I" in MIG, Inc., which the city hired to develop the latest downtown master plan -- was at the Dallas Convention Center a couple of weeks ago collecting wish-list items from stakeholders and civilians; more than a few Friends of Unfair Park have offered sugg ... More >>

Dallas Has A Dirty Secret: It Acts As If Supports the Community Gardens Movement, But That's Not the Real Truth.

Adios, César Chávez. For Now, Anyway.

Patrick MichelsEight days ago, Unfair Park broke the news that the city was looking to rename at least a section of Young Street for César Chávez. What a difference a week makes, as city council member Steve Salazar -- head of the mayor's task force charged with finding a suitable street following ... More >>

Mitchell Rasansky Tells City to Get the Pocketbook Ready if it Wants to Push Out Family-Owned Scrap Metal Recyclers

Sam MertenCouncil member Mitchell Rasansky meets with owners of local scrap metal recycling businesses after blasting city staff for how they've handled the issue.As we mentioned yesterday, the city council's Trinity River Corridor Project Committee was briefed on what should be done about the scra ... More >>

Why the Council Isn't Voting on Ross and Industrial Name Changes Today

Extreme Home Demolition Makeover

Finally, We Appraise the Appraisals for the Convention Center Hotel Land

Lesse. Do You Want the Katy Trail or an "Attractive Alley"?

Headache Hotel and Other Dallas City Council SUPs and WTFs

Selling forwardDallas! in Austin

Inspecting the Inspector

Live from City Hall