While Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has cryptically blamed the refs yet again for his team’s fourth first-round exit from the playoffs in the last seven years, the Rangers haven’t even sniffed the postseason since the Y2K panic. Although Texas is stuck in last place at 10-12, it could be poised…
Baffled and outraged preservationists quietly vacated Monday afternoon’s Public Safety Committee meeting after the city council committee voted unanimously to adopt a new historic building demolition ordinance without public input. Katherine Seale and Scott Potter of Preservation Dallas stood at the lectern awaiting an opportunity to speak, but the committee…
Although the city council’s Trinity River Corridor Project Committee didn’t vote on a plan to transform Riverfront Boulevard into a not-really-a-“complete street,” committee members voiced support of the $54.5 million project, with chair Dave Neumann describing this morning’s briefing as “very energizing.” However, Carolyn Davis questioned why renderings presented by…
While District Attorney Craig Watkins has rejected two offers by the Office of the Attorney General to assist in a criminal investigation of the constables, the OAG is conducting an ongoing civil investigation of Dowdy Ferry Auto Services, according to an open records request filed by Unfair Park. Dowdy Ferry…
The owners of Greenville Bar & Grill — Lucky Merk, LLC — filed a lawsuit this afternoon claiming the property owners of Terilli’s were cited 17 times for code violations by Dallas Fire-Rescue in the months before the March 2 fire that burned down four Lower Greenville staples. The suit…
When Republican Ken Mayfield admitted to us that he’s been recruiting volunteers to help Democrat Beth Villarreal defeat Precinct 5 Constable Jaime Cortes in Tuesday’s upcoming Democratic primary runoff, Cortes was one of the first people we called for reaction. Especially after Mayfield said he doesn’t know Villarreal, whose best…
Bipartisan: Nothing whets our political appetite like rumors of alliances between Republicans and Democrats during election season. So when we heard that Republican Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield was helping Democratic candidate Beth Villarreal in her campaign against Precinct 5 Constable Jaime Cortes, Buzz thought we’d won the lotto. A…
After council member Angela Hunt led the charge in August 2008 to deny a special-use permit for longtime Ross Avenue staple Woodard Paint & Body Shop, she admitted that it was “one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make on the council.” As other repair shops shuttered as a…
Nothing whets our political appetite like rumors of alliances between Republicans and Democrats during election season. So when we heard that Republican Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield was helping Democratic candidate Beth Villarreal in her campaign against Precinct 5 Constable Jaime Cortes, we thought we’d won the lotto. Sure, Mayfield’s…
While he’s been dodging us and other local media outlets, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins apparently had no qualms about granting an interview to former DMN’er Emily Ramshaw, who profiled his November race against Republican candidate Danny Clancy for the Texas Tribune. Strangely, Watkins comes across as decidedly Republican…
Earlier this morning, those among Mayor Tom Leppert’s nearly 2,000 friends on Facebook were treated to a link to the city’s Web site where they could find an official response to a recent story in The Dallas Morning News about the Trinity River Corridor Project. Turns out the statement is…
For those who didn’t read our cover story last week, the Office of the Attorney General made a second attempt on February 23 to lend a helping hand to District Attorney Craig Watkins in a criminal investigation of the Dallas County constables. In August 2009, Watkins said, um, no thanks…
Much like Richard Allen’s interview, our conversation with Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson didn’t make it into the cover story on Dallas County Judge Jim Foster appearing in last week’s paper version of Unfair Park. But that’s not to say Jillson’s opinions about Foster, runoff candidate Clay Jenkins…
As we told you at the end of Monday’s item about Mayor Tom Leppert’s new Web site, consultant Laura Reed Martin was supposed to get back with us about the decision to hire Washington, D.C.-based Stan Olshefski to handle the site’s upcoming redesign. Stuff like this normally wouldn’t be that…
As you may have read in this morning’s Dallas Morning News, Vice President Joe Biden has plans to drop by the home of lawyer Russell Budd tomorrow night to headline a fund-raiser for the Democrats’ U.S. Senate campaign committee. Dallas County Republican Party chair Jonathan Neerman seized on the visit…
Despite its stunning view of downtown Dallas, the patio outside the bar at the Belmont Hotel in Oak Cliff is lifeless. That may be because it’s a Tuesday night, but had Jim Foster’s political fortunes been different, there could just as easily be music blaring, drinks flowing, and politicos and…
Space restraints prevented us from including our interview with Richard Allen, CEO of The Allen Group, in this week’s look at departing Dallas County Judge Jim Foster — available wherever paper versions of Unfair Park are given away tomorrow. Of course, TAG is developing the Dallas Logistics Hub, which Schutze…
On Tuesday, we opined that Mayor Tom Leppert’s U.S. Senate campaign was moving full steam ahead regardless of whether Kay Bailey Hutchison resigns before her term expires at the end of 2012. Why? The donations to his mayoral campaign completely dried up in the last half of 2009; his annual…
For the past two years, Mayor Tom Leppert’s annual “Giraffes, Monkeys and Lepperts” event at the Dallas Zoo has served as a birthday bash for the mayor and fund-raiser for Friends of Tom Leppert, a committee formed to pay Leppert’s consultants and expenses. Last year, we revealed one of the…
One hundred and fourteen votes. That’s all that kept Clay Jenkins from securing the Democratic nomination for county judge on March 2. Instead, he’ll take on former Dallas City Council member Larry Duncan in the April 13 runoff election to determine Republican Wade Emmert’s opponent in November. Echoing much of…
This morning at the offices of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee, president and CEO Bill Lively and chairman Roger Staubach announced the state’s decision to reimburse the committee and four cities — Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and Irving — a maximum of $31.2 million for costs associated…
To the delight of State Representative Rafael Anchía and others in the Dallas County Democratic Party, chair Darlene Ewing couldn’t have been more wrong when she told us that “rampant fear and mistrust” would leave Terri Hodge’s successor in the hands of precinct chairs in House District 100. Anchía, whose…
