Humor me for a minute. Imagine you’re a city council member on the Trinity River Corridor Project Committee. You walk into yesterday’s meeting and Page Six of this schematic is on the screen as Dan Chapman, project manager of the Trinity Turnpike for the North Texas Tollway Authority, is in…
As Schutze mentioned earlier, the council’s Trinity River Corridor Project Committee met this morning to get an update on the Trinity Turnpike, with reps from the North Texas Tollway Authority and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on hand to walk everyone through the PowerPoint presentation. Of most interest was how…
Hundreds gathered at Highland Park United Methodist Church this morning to celebrate the life of Dallas real estate tycoon Trammell Crow, who died in his sleep last week at a family farm in East Texas. The church’s sanctuary was full nearly an hour before the 11 a.m. service, forcing others…
As we mentioned a while back, District 13 city council candidate Ann Margolin appeared to be the heir apparent to Mitchell Rasansky with a long list of notable supporters and a strong résumé. And as the 5 p.m. deadline approaches for candidates and committees to file their finance reports, Margolin’s…
Nearly nine years after he was tried before a federal jury on 65 counts of alleged bribery and conspiracy, 84-year-old civil rights leader Al Lipscomb remains a prominent political icon in southern Dallas. He’s a fixture at Dallas City Council meetings, where he served as District 8’s council member from…
The council won’t be voting today on final arrangements for the convention center hotel project, which includes approval of the development agreement and Guaranteed Maximum Price with Matthews Southwest and the operator agreement with Omni Hotels, leading us to believe the final vote on this boondoggle will take place January…
Three weeks ago, we briefly mentioned Tiffinni Young’s name in a story about Mayor Tom’s potential bid to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison if she decides to run for governor. If Leppert leaves office early, the mayor pro tem would take his place, with either Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway…
Of no surprise to us, former council member Al Lipscomb’s grandson, LeVar “LD” Thomas, became the first challenger to battle freshman Tennell Atkins for his District 8 council seat when Thomas held a press conference at the E Zee Shop parking lot in South Dallas Friday morning. He was joined…
(Helping Dallas secure a convention center hotel earned DCVB President and CEO Phillip Jones a bonus larger than most people’s paychecks./Sam Merten) When Harlan Crow launched a petition drive to give Dallas voters a say in publicly financing a $525 million convention center hotel, proponents of the project cried foul,…
As addressed in our March 2007 cover story, Senator Royce West is a powerful guy who makes a lot of dough collecting legal fees from the Dallas Independent School District. At the time, former Observer staff writer Matt Pulle reported payments of nearly $2.5 million from DISD to West in…
Despite a solid 51-31 record last year, the Mavs barely made the playoffs, earning the seventh seed in the Western Conference. They proceeded to get their asses handed to them as the New Orleans Hornets won by double digits in three of the first four games on their way to…
At the edge of the Commerce Street bridge, a sign at the city’s Trinity Outlook encourages passersby to “watch our progress.” But on this 77-degree day in early January, any signs of progress in the more than 10 years since voters approved $246 million for the Trinity River Corridor Project…
Batty: Three days before Christmas, The Dallas Morning News gave its former parent company, Belo Corp., an early gift by editorializing on behalf of building a publicly owned $525 million convention center hotel. (We say “former parent” because last year Belo spun off its newspaper biz to a new company…
With the exception of strolling over to Schutze’s office, it’s hard to find anyone in the media willing to criticize Mayor Tom, but Advocate publisher Rick Wamre is quickly rising up Leppert’s naughty list, and his blog yesterday on Back Talk might vault him up to the top spot. While…
For those looking for some year-end reading during the slow news cycle, consider my personal favorites of the year from Observer columnist Jim Schutze. I refuse to play favorites, so the list is chronological. And since any commentary from me can’t compare to the work itself, a memorable excerpt from…
Brian Harkin Whilst searching city records, we stumbled upon council member Carolyn Davis’s semiannual campaign finance report. She filed the document November 17, which was nearly two months ahead of the January 15 deadline. Since Davis is hardly the model of punctuality when it comes to filing reports and she’s…
While speaking with one of Mayor Tom Leppert’s consultants last month, I asked if Leppert was considering running for U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s seat. At that point, I heard he was contemplating the political leap from a few sources, but the response was something along the lines of: “Right…
10. Mayor Tom Leppert presents a Mavs jersey to Mayor Huang Xingguo during his trip to China…
As we mentioned yesterday, Jon Daniels is entering his fourth year as Texas Rangers general manager. He started off with a bang in year one, trading Alfonso Soriano in his first move and dealing Chris Young and Adrian Gonzalez less than two weeks later. Unfortunately, he received very little in…
Earlier today, we posted the comment from former mayoral candidate (and current candidate for Dallas County judge) Sam Coats regarding the death of Jennifer Gale. Gale didn’t do as well as Coats in the 2007 battle for Dallas mayor, but she was able to finish ahead of John Cappello and…
Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels, who spent most of last week his colleagues in Las Vegas for baseball’s Winter Meetings, has been relatively quiet as the offseason reaches the halfway point. Thus far, he has dealt Gerald Laird to the Detroit Tigers and Wes Littleton to the Boston Red…
For all those pro-hotel peeps convinced I can’t find anything positive about the city’s convention center hotel project, clearly you missed my post applauding the surprise selection of Matthews Southwest as the developer of the project back in June. Heck, even the Build the Hotel committee has it posted on…
