As the Dallas City Council gets back to business next week, I thought we’d start sneaking a peek at next Wednesday’s council agenda. A few easy ones out of the way first; need to stretch amd warm up after a two-week layoff. Like, oh, Agenda Item No. 51, which calls…
At 8:50 this morning, The Real Estate Council sent to local media its Government Affairs Committee’s endorsements for the upcoming Dallas City Council race. Not a whole lot of WTF there: All the incumbents got the nod save for Carolyn Davis, as the GAC went instead with Dallas school board…
To my delight, I returned from vacation and discovered that the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Trinity Turnpike has finally been released. It would have been a nice read on the plane ride home, but rest assured I’ll be scouring the 1,942 pages and reporting back shortly. In…
Schutze is on an East Texas retreat with Dallas administrative judge C. Victor Lander this week, so he won’t mind me posting this T-shirt suggested by Friend of Unfair Park “ericthegardener.” It all started in the comments section of yesterday’s item about the May 5 Trinity Parkway Public Hearing at…
Snagged this poster during All-Star Weekend ’97 in Cleveland. It’s the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players. Was going over it the other day and wondering how different it would look today? Would Kobe Bryant bump someone off? Who’d get cut? Would Tim Duncan squeeze into the picture? Steve Nash? Our own Dirk Nowitzki?…
The Economist takes a gander at Texas — “America’s most robust big state” — and concludes (spoiler alert!) that “many now fear that Texas’s low-tax, low-spend model will need revision.” Why come?In December 2008 and January 2009 the state lost tens of thousands of jobs. Unemployment reached 6.4% in January…
Two weeks ago, the AFI Dallas International Film Festival finally announced its complete line-up — save for the closing-night title. Pardon — titles. Because, as hinted at, the fest has opted for two final films: James Toback’s doc Tyson, which is indeed about the travails of the former heavyweight champ,…
State Sen. John Carona’s bill that would allow counties to levy taxes and other fees to fund transportation projects is getting major play this a.m. Carona, a Dallas Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Transportation & Homeland Security, made his case to a packed house down in Austin yesterday…
Jim Smith’s been a hard man to track down this a.m. — though, seeing as how he divides his time between his three Saturn dealerships (in Irving, Lewisville and Plano), that’s completely understandable. (And, as a former wide receiver for the USFL’s Birmingham Stallions and the Pittsburgh Steelers and Oakland…
What good timing. Perhaps, by now, you’ve read Alexa’s cover story on the grand canyon separating what the city says and what the city actually does when it comes to planting new trees and protecting the ones we’ve got. As in, the mayor says he wants more “Dallas trees and…
Only 19 days until the Texas Rangers open the 2009 regular season at home against the Cleveland Indians. In other words, time for some mid-spring training grades. So far, so good I’d have to say. No major injuries. Josh Hamilton is pounding the ball. Michael Young is flawlessly fielding grounders at…
“Gimme Shelter,” by Megan Feldman, March 12 No sympathy Cowards. I enlisted before 9/11 and still knew what I was getting into. I have deployed twice, have been in college and taken out of college for military reasons. I have dealt with leaving parents, wife, family, friends, etc.—just like other…
On February 24 SMU’s basketball team welcomed a special visitor to its sparkling new Crum Center practice facility. Ushered in by school president Dr. Gerald Turner, the guest was none other than Dallas’ newest celebrity resident, the Mustangs’ latest fan and the former leader of the free world. Fortunately, George…
Democracy inaction: On May 9, thanks to folks who signed a pair of petitions, Dallas voters will decide whether the city should build a convention center hotel and whether to enact strict limits on public subsidies to private developers of hotels, condos and shopping centers. Odds are most of you…
On a windswept rise in southwest Dallas, Frank Bracken squints into the late-afternoon sun and sweeps his wiry, flannel-clad arm across the empty expanse of chalky white caliche. This ridge used to be thick with 30-foot jade-green cedar and oak trees, the only species tenacious enough to cling to the…
Last night, Quincy Jones got a jump on signing copies of his coffee-table history-of The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey and Passions, which he’ll do for you starting at 6 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Park. With his good pal Allison V. Smith in tow, Q stopped…
If nothing else, this City Hall-provided video concerning the Bexar Street redevelopment project in South Dallas is the first city-made video you can dance to — though it’s hardly Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good,” as advertised. (Anyone? Because Shazam’s no help here.) I, for one, hope this is the wave of…
‘Member how, last month, the Dallas City Council’s Public Safety Committee started talking about changing the Juvenile Curfew Ordinance to include daylight hours as well? Turns out, a group’s done sprung up to oppose such an alteration: the Citizens Against the Dallas Daytime Curfew, which IDs itself as a “small,…
It very well could happen in April. It’s already happened in March. In a shocking upset that definitely requires slow, detailed, further review, the Mavs Dancers were knocked off by San Antonio’s Silver Spurs, 69%-31%, in the first round of NBA.com’s annual dance team bracket. Not surprisingly, fans crowned the Miami Heat…
Don McLeroy, a Republican dentist from Bryan, is the chair of the Texas State Board of Education. He’s also a book critic: Over the weekend, an indie book publisher posted his recommendation of Robert Bowie Johnson Jr.’s new book Sowing Atheism: The National Academy Of Sciences’ Sinister Scheme To Teach…
In light of the news that American International Group — better known as AIG — is doling out those “distasteful” but nonetheless delicious bonuses to its execs, the House Financial Services Subcommittee is meeting at this very moment to discuss AIG and “how it got into its current situation, why…
Tomorrow and Friday are two of the best sports days of the year. 32 college basketball games over 36 hours, tipping off Thursday at 11:30 a.m. with BYU-Texas A&M. And when it’s done, you can use your office pool brackets at toilet paper. Unless, that is, I let you peek…
