The other night after talking all day to people about the no-sewer zone around the new University of North Texas at Dallas campus in Southern Dallas, I got to wondering. If the rest of us in other parts of the city had to give up a single part of the…
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings last night walked out of a meeting he’d called to engage a broad cross-section of Hispanic leaders about the “home-rule” push, an effort to strip control of Dallas ISD from the board and possibly put it in the hands of him. Multiple sources who were at…
UPDATED MAY 1 2014: A Cease-Fire Breaks Out at DISD ORIGINAL POST:Oh, do give me a break. Sure, there are some really compelling arguments for dumping the current system of governance of the public school system, the main one being the public school system. The stealth petition drive that has…
The timing sure seems dicey on this “home rule” deal — the plan to get rid of the school board and turn the whole thing over to Pete Delkus.* Right now it looks like the plan will get tossed into the laps of the school board in May, right when…
Yesterday my item about the no-sewer zone in southern Dallas drew sharp comments complaining about the “14-1” single-member City Council system in Dallas. In that particular case, the council member for the district won’t allow sewers to be built in an entire region of his own district because he’s afraid…
First of all right off the bat and here at the top, let me say that the Trinity Forest Adventure Park — a tree-top park combining zip lining with a kind of ropes course — is fun, brand-new, clean, well-run and operated by very nice people. But that would bring…
Small update here on the part of Dallas to which City Hall refuses to extend sewer service. We have spoken about it here several times. It’s an area abutting the brand-new University of North Texas campus near Interstate 35E and I-20. DART is building a new rail station right there,…
Stop me if I told you this already. Oh, hah-hah, it’s print, isn’t it? You can’t stop me. Well then just bear with me. In American schools, kids learn to read from kindergarten through the third grade. From fourth grade on, they read to learn. Kids who can’t read by…
Sure, there has been some local news coverage of the fact that a Fort Worth gas drilling company called Trinity East is suing the city of Dallas over some kind of drilling/fracking deal that went south. But man, let me tell you. When you drill down into that lawsuit, it…
Normally I’m not here to say the left hand at City Hall does not know what the right hand is doing. Whenever I can, I hope to be able to say much worse stuff than that. But this here is a left-hand/right-hand missing-each-other type deal, I do believe. Mid-morning last…
Reporter Scott Parks had an excellent “get” Friday in The Dallas Morning News revealing that Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings has been running a secret task force to come up with ideas for the future of Fair Park. Fair Park — the 277-acre 1930s Art Deco exposition park in the heart…
Drill down into the Trinity East lawsuit against the City of Dallas, and it tells one hell of a story about how Dallas City Hall really operates. The question is whether or not to believe it. That story started in 2007 when the city was facing a $90 million budget…
Yesterday morning after I read the story in The Dallas Morning News about the so-called Trinity lakes the city is going to build, I went straight to the kitchen and put my face under the cold water tap, then gave myself a couple of sharp slaps and said loudly, “No,…
“Grow South” is Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings’ initiative to erase or at least soften the hard economic border dividing white North Dallas from black and Hispanic southern Dallas. When Rawlings ad libs about it from a chair out front of his desk in his City Hall office, he can reel…
Yesterday I came in and found a fat suspicious-looking Fedex package waiting for me not on my desk with other mail but propped alone on my chair. Normally with potentially harmful mail, I leave it unopened and dispose of it safely in the trash can in the advertising department But…
Yes, I, too, love the Shakespeare T-shirt about first kill all the lawyers, and I bet I’ve got five good lawyer jokes to your one, but then again, I do dearly love it when good lawyers get elected to the City Council. In Dallas, as a result of having had…
Very interesting press conference Friday in the Flag Room at Dallas City Hall … wait … wait. Oh, no. Did I just tell you there was an interesting press conference in the Flag Room at City Hall? Tell me I did not just say that. No, what I meant to…
Wait. The State Fair of Texas spent $30 million to start up a new summertime amusement park at Fair Park. It ran one season — two months plus a week — last summer. Now they’re giving up already? No second season? What is this, Broadway? You put in $30 million,…
You know, I’m beginning to think a million bucks, maybe a couple million, just flat does not matter in today’s world, at least if it’s “public” money (that would be yours and mine sorta). Maybe whenever people say “a million bucks” on a public document or in a public hearing…
The powers that be made sure leadership of the Dallas City Council’s Trinity River project committee would go to Vonciel Hill, their biggest suck-up. Therefore, most of the good information about the project dies right there. Everything would die if it were not for Sandy Greyson and Scott Griggs. Griggs,…
Just when you thought I would never talk about the Kennedy assassination and the Sixth Floor Museum again, I’m baaack. But, look, I’m only baaack because Robert Groden is baaack, this time with a state district court lawsuit against the city for malicious prosecution. Groden is the nationally known New…
We’ve been talking here off and on about land owners near the new UNT-Dallas campus in southern Dallas who want a sewer. They think City Hall is deliberately holding back on a system they were promised years ago. And, yeah, I always feel I need to stop and stipulate that…
