Jim will be along shortly with his take on the passionate discussion surrounding Uplift Education’s efforts to get the city to assist with the selling of bonds to help with the charter school’s expansion. I’ll just note this: During his closing remarks on the subject, just before council voted to…
A Friend of Unfair Park who knows of my affection for local relics, myself included, sends word: The Texas Rangers are selling off the outfield bleachers pulled out of the Ballpark in Arlington to make way for those $11.5-million renovations set to debut in a matter of weeks. And, turns…
The leadership of the Thomas Jefferson High School student council (sniff), guests of Ann Margolin at this morning’s meeting of the Dallas City Council, got quite the treat this morning: a parade of public speakers once again thoughtfully, kindly but also forcefully berating Mayor Mike Rawlings for not signing that…
One month ago Dallas Area Rapid Transit released its 2011 Customer Satisfaction Survey, with nine out of 10 riders insisting they would recommend DART to others. But Pages 19 and 20 of the 23-page report are filled with concerns over security aboard DART buses and trains: Only 78 percent of…
Earlier today Rudy posted an explainer to the City Hall blog about those so-called “conduit bonds” Uplift Education hopes to sell with City Hall’s backing. But long story short, per a Los Angeles Times piece last year, they “allow private entities to tap into low-cost municipal bond financing for projects…
We started this morning by noting Brett Shipp’s piece from last night suggesting the Texas Education Agency is threatening to withhold Dallas ISD from close to $80 million in federal funds birthed by No Child Left Behind. The reason, says Commissioner of Education Robert Scott: Only 40 students out of…
The city’s main website is OK, though every time I visit it — which is way too often — I do wonder when City Hall’s going to begin planting those Seeds of Change it’s been promising since December. But the Dallas Parks home page is truly awful; it was outdated…
As I’ve noted a few times, Mike Shropshire’s Seasons in Hell, about the “worst team in baseball history” (the ’73-’75 Texas Rangers), is my favorite sports book; probably has something to do with being raised on the ’73-’75 Texas Rangers. Anyway.On a very related note, a Friend of Unfair Park…
For days now Nancy Brinker has said, over and over, that Karen Handel — the one-time gubernatorial candidate from Georgia and Palin pal — had nothing to do with Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s decision to cut its funding to Planned Parenthood. Handel, who’s Komen’s senior vice-president for public…
When we joined, which is to say “stumbled,” into Erykah Badu and the Rebirth Brass Band’s 407-foot-long drive-n-dance down Main Street a few weeks ago, we noted the many cameras on hand to film the brief trek; word was, per Badu’s business partner Paul Levatino, they were there for a…
The Texas Education Agency released its federally mandated, No Child Left Behind-backed Adequate Yearly Progress report back in August, at which point it was revealed that the Dallas Independent School District missed the mark for the third consecutive year — which interim superintendent Alan King blamed on the “annual ratcheting…
We first touched on this back in June — the possibility that the Dallas Independent School District might turn its schools and buses into billboards, because, hey, every penny counts these days. And while, oh, Morgan Spurlock might think it’s a terrible idea (“Are we going to live in a…
For seven years David Timothy has brought to the Hyatt Regency downtown 500 homeless people for a Christmas dinner, followed by a night’s stay in a warm bed; as Mayor Mike Rawlings said during this year’s event, “it’s the way we do things in Dallas — in a classy way.”…
For the last few months I’ve been on my son’s school’s Site Based Decision Making Committee, as one of the Dad’s Club reps, and last week was our first discussion about something that’s been a topic of conversation at 3700 Ross for a good long while: the district’s in-the-works teacher…
An old Friend of Unfair Park directs our attention to, of all things, TMZ, which says Randy Travis was “arrested in Dallas this morning” for drinkin’ some wine in front of the First Baptist Church in Sanger … which is in Denton County. But, sure enough, there it is on…
Exactly one year ago Dallas Area Rapid Transit announced that it had signed a $210-million contract with Anniston, Alabama-based North American Bus Industries, Inc. for a new fleet of compressed natural gas-fueled buses, which DART promised to start rolling out by October 2012. This morning I stumbled across this just-posted…
In September, as the council was putting the finishing touches on the current budget, Scott Griggs and Angela Hunt suggested the city revisit its resident water rate structure — specifically, they said, the city up the amount charged to those who use the most water. Insisted the council member from…
What you see above is the video — the short film, really — that accompanied a weekend Wall Street Journal story about two recent Dallas residents: Ian Welch and girlfriend Katie Brickman. Welch is a native Texan, born and raised near College Station; Brickman’s from Mentor, Ohio. The couple, boyfriend…
A couple of years back we virtually toured the Mercantile Bank Building as it looked following its 1958 redo, when Heritage Auctions made available 17 never-before-seen photos of R.L. Thornton’s skyscraper taken by legendary Chicago-based architectural-photo firm Hedrich Blessing. Those photos, offered in a single package initially guesstimated to be…
Received a note earlier in the day that on Tuesday, Mayor Mike, Comerica CEO Ralph Babb, Serita Ann Jakes (Mrs. T.D. to you) and a host of city council members are meeting at the North Oak Cliff Library Branch for “a major announcement” that will involve the “unveiling of [an]…
It’s been close to two years since former Dallas Cowboy Kurt Vollers pleaded guilty to his role in a pot-distribution “conspiracy” run from 2006 till ’08 out of an apartment on N. MacArthur Boulevard, and more than a year since John Newton, the leader of the so-called Newton Drug Trafficking…
Several Friends of Unfair Park have been asking, repeatedly: When will Dallas Police arrest the 19-year-old woman who, on January 7, hit 17-year-old Riley Rawlins as he crossed Royal Lane, near Audelia Road, to meet some friends at the Sonic there. It’s a question that’s been repeated again and again…
