Dallas’ lawyer joke

On the day the Dallas City Council settled the Cinemark lawsuit, the mood around the horseshoe was grim. This movie-theater thing was just so out of control. A simple vote two years ago to reject Cinemark’s Tinseltown proposal had led to a major lawsuit against the city and eight individual…

Luna landing

Chris Luna, who is not a morning person, answered the phone with the slur of sleep in his voice. It was 8:30 a.m. Tuesday–the day before the big Cinemark vote last week–and there was, of course, only one question that needed to be posed to Luna on this matter. “So,…

Quarterback sneak

Steve Hatchell answered the telephone in his hotel room last Thursday evening full of good cheer. And, hey, why not? The 49-year-old commissioner of the new Big 12 athletic conference was in New York City for an extended weekend. He was staying at the Marriott Marquis, a big, glitzy hotel…

A tragic trip

Looking at him, standing in front of a roomful of college kids, there is absolutely no question that this is the Pied Piper of local higher education. “Everyone with us?” he says, eyeing his students as he rocks back and forth on his brown loafers, shirt sleeves rolled up in…

The Truth About Townview (Part II)

By the beginning of December, with pressure on Watson mounting, a new and much more formidable ally stepped onto center stage on her behalf: County Commissioner John Wiley Price. It is no accident that Price’s two biggest racial battles this past year have involved Ora Lee Watson–at Parkland Memorial Hospital,…

The Truth About Townview (Part I)

It was a cold, bleak 7:45 in the morning–the second Monday in January, the first day of school after the winter break–and Townview Center, the most expensive, most eagerly awaited school ever built in Dallas, was being picketed for allegedly grave racial injustices being perpetrated inside. Newspaper, TV, and radio…

Where in the world is Ray Carboni?

The last time I saw Ray Carboni, he was sprawled out on the gymnasium floor of our high school, carefully penning his goodbyes into my yearbook. It was 1976. “Well, here it is, the moment I’ve dreaded and feared all year, the moment that I have to capsulize four years…

Politics makes strange enemies

It was the night of Domingo Garcia’s annual Christmas party, but not every guest was in a festive mood. In fact, Sylvana Alonzo couldn’t stand the idea of attending her third holiday party in three nights. “Roberto, do we have to go tonight?” she said tiredly as she was getting…

What I did on jury duty

Sitting in one of those hard seats in the cavernous central jury room of the George L. Allen Sr. courts building in downtown Dallas, I knew only two things for certain: That my day was shot to hell; and that I was bored out of my mind. Well, things change…

The making of an activist

Julie Mote–whose name, I assure you, would not ring any bells at Dallas City Hall–was sitting in her North Dallas home with her husband two Wednesdays ago, eating baked chicken and asparagus, when something unusual happened. The couple began discussing city politics. “We don’t usually talk politics in this house…

Private dealing

Ron Kirk was being uncharacteristically subdued. He was standing up against a wall, a good distance from the political action, arms folded across his perfectly pressed denim workshirt, lizard boots planted firmly on the floor. This was last May, two weeks after he’d surprised the city of Dallas, not to…

Look back in anger

What a difference a year makes. And if we only knew then… For example. Last winter, the majority of the Dallas city council balked at the idea of letting the voters decide whether or not to build a sports arena. It was a ridiculous idea, they said, a stupid concept,…

Bad planning

Two weeks before Christmas, on a nippy Monday night, there was a party at the Belo Mansion on Ross Avenue downtown. But as I entered the back door, I figured I had come on the wrong night. There was no activity in the back of the house, nothing happening in…

Who killed April Dabney?

Darryl Fourte stands at the corner of Denton Drive and Storey Road, looking a bit like Wesley Snipes on a secret mission. With one hand on his hip, the other clutching a black walkie-talkie, Fourte surveys the skid marks on the road before him through a pair of sleek, dark…

Compulsive childbirth

It was the morning of August 19, the day before my due date, and if this kid was anything like the last, I knew he’d be arriving the next day, right on deadline. I was ready. A naturally obsessive person, I had been certifiably manic since going on maternity leave…

Spouting rubbish

It is Tuesday. It is garbage day. More importantly, it is recycling day–at least in this North Dallas neighborhood, where once a week city sanitation workers travel the streets to gather old newspapers, plastic, and aluminum, all in the name of saving the environment. At least that’s the way it’s…

‘They wanted to destroy me’

Holly Keiser was sitting on the living-room sofa, watching the evening news, when the story broke: a Dallas public-school teacher had been suspended from her job, supposedly for telling her black fifth-graders to “Go back to Africa.” At first blush, Keiser couldn’t imagine the story was true. What schoolteacher in…

Kress and the merry morons

All the racial stuff happened while I was on maternity leave. And I don’t know what disturbed me more–the acquittal of O.J. Simpson or the trashing of Sandy Kress. I was squeezing a tomato in a Tom Thumb when the O.J. verdict came in. I’d run in to get something…

Arena games

It’s summertime–and the living for a City Hall reporter is easy. Primarily because we haven’t heard much about the new sports arena. But don’t get your hopes up. No news is not necessarily good news. It’s just that we’re in something of a stall mode right now. The hangup lies…

Blood sport

Steve Salazar had a birthday last week. Salazar is a freshly minted Dallas city councilman. This means that he’s still scoping out men’s room locations, never mind figuring out where all the political land- mines are buried at Dallas City Hall. Which is precisely why he never would have expected…

Behind closed doors

On November 16, 1994, the Dallas city council convened behind closed doors, citing in its formal agenda two exceptions to the Texas Open Meetings Act–“discussion of Reunion Arena leases” and “attorney briefings”–as justification for doing so. This 10-page transcript of its recorded discussion, obtained by the Observer from the city…

Lies on Tape

At Dallas City Hall, it can take a long time to find the truth. That’s because this city manager and city council don’t like the public to know what they’re doing. So they play games. They have a lot of closed-door meetings. They discuss things they’re not supposed to discuss…