Linda Earnhart is still disturbed by what she saw the Thursday morning before Memorial Day, when her concepts of safe neighborhoods and the innocence of children were so balefully tainted. “I woke up about 5 o’clock, and I just knew something was wrong,” Earnhart recalls. “I knew my dog was…
Earlier this month, alarm bells sounded within the small, increasingly skittish world of Texas historic preservationists when they learned that city officials in Waxahachie were planning to raze eight shotgun houses that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The houses, whose owners live in Dallas, have become…
If Oak Cliff were its own state, the rooster might be its state bird. That, or the finger, extended with pride and pointed north across the Trinity River, where like-minded creatures phone one another on Nokias as they tear across a concrete landscape in their Lexus RX 300s. At least…
“What in the hell?” asks Dallas City Councilman Al Lipscomb, who has just been put on hold by a goosey receptionist inside the city manager’s office and is thoroughly frustrated. On this Thursday afternoon, Lipscomb and Carol Brandon, his appointee to the city’s park and recreation board, are angry as…
A lineup of heavy hitters was on hand for the Dallas Breakfast Group’s March 9 candidates forum at the Crescent Hotel. Real estate mogul Vance Miller was there, along with representatives of Texas Instruments, Southwestern Bell, and Hunt Oil Co., among other executives. They nibbled on eggs and fruit as…
To county clerks around Texas who are tracking legislation in Austin, the show is turning into a sort of campy horror flick. Call it Courthouse Dracula Returns or The Bill That Wouldn’t Die. What’s troubling the clerks is the re-emergence of a proposal that would increase filing fees for public…
Phil Thomas is undeniably obnoxious and, to be blunt, weird. He speaks–loudly–of being a “commando” for truth, democracy, and open government. That much was evident during a February 8 court hearing, at which Thomas repeatedly refused to lower his voice and extra sheriff’s deputies were summoned to state District Judge…
Dallas Plan Commissioner Rick Leggio doesn’t have any doubts about the purpose of a letter he received last month from a member of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas days before commissioners were to vote on a plan to designate St. Ann’s building a historic landmark over the church’s objections…
Christy Morrow is hard at work on this Tuesday evening inside the Munger Place United Methodist Church, where more than 100 people have gathered for yet another meeting about Albertson’s request to change a zoning law so it can build a massive grocery store in Old East Dallas. Shortly before…
Jim Carrao stares through the windows of a ninth-story conference room into a thicket of fog that has swallowed the city’s skyline and blotted out the view of the world outside. And he frowns. Once again, it seems to him, forces beyond his control are engaged in a conspiracy. How…
When former Dallas city election manager Jeff Watson announced 14 months ago he had accepted a job as elections administrator for Denton County, he thought the new position was an opportunity he just couldn’t pass up. The new gig came with expanded responsibilities in a considerably larger political arena, which…
As Albertson’s readies for the biggest zoning battle Dallas has seen in 20 years–a fight prompted by the grocery giant’s plan to build a mammoth, suburban-style store in East Dallas despite objections from many who live there–the company’s local team is learning how important it is for them to get…
The Rev. Al Sharpton wants the citizens of Dallas to know, for the record, that he is not the disruptive sort, and he certainly isn’t coming here with any intention of stirring up trouble. “I think anyone who has that perception wants to have that perception, because the record clearly…
Surely, the 22 people gathered in the back of the Denny’s restaurant at LBJ Freeway and Midway Road on this Friday afternoon are kooks. They are there for the weekly lunch meeting of the Dallas Area Y2K Community Preparedness Group to discuss what to do when the world as we…
There’s a chance that Richard Evans’ tardiness on this Thursday evening is a faux pas, an innocent error made while the Dallas school board candidate juggles his busy campaign schedule. But it’s more likely that Evans’ fashionably late arrival is just another calculated campaign tactic designed to propel the “management…
In the end, history will judge the events that took place on Main Street, in the heart of Grapevine, on September 14. Maybe this time history will get it right. On that sweltering Sunday, thousands of wine lovers savored the final hours of the annual GrapeFest, a three-day celebration promoting…
For most people charged with a petty misdemeanor such as speeding, showing up at the drab courtrooms of Dallas Municipal Court is an annoying experience. Long waits generated by the glutted city bureaucracy are not made any easier by coming face-to-face with municipal judges, whose heavy caseloads sometimes inspire them…
It is 5:15 p.m. on May 7 in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-eight.XOrdinarily, it would be quitting time for the hardworking denizens of Big D. But this Thursday is no ordinary weekday, and this moment is more than just the beginning of the evening traffic jam…
The spectacle that took place two weeks ago at the home of Charlotte Parkhurst, a.k.a. the Mulch Lady, was awe-inspiring. An army of city officials–representing code enforcement, streets, sanitation, fire, and neighborhood services–occupied the 7200 block of Eccles drive in Pleasant Grove as part of a five-day blitzkrieg designed to…
As he speaks, it is easy to forget that Carnell Johnson is sitting inside the north tower of the Lew Sterrett jail, caught safely in the hands of the Dallas County sheriff. On this Monday afternoon, Johnson is remarkably happy and, for just a moment, the white brick cell doesn’t…
Leaders of the nation’s most influential conservative religious groups didn’t kick up much dust when they arrived in Fort Worth late last month for an unprecedented meeting with executives at American Airlines, including President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Crandall. Some of America’s top moral crusaders were on hand for…
If there’s one lesson Alice Britt says she learned during her short tenure as the head of the city’s oldest job training and placement agency, it’s that doing a good job doesn’t pay. On March 16, Britt was stunned to learn that she was fired from her position as executive…
