Politics & Government

Maybe there was a line in the sand once between people who thought the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund was well run and those who disagreed. That line has disappeared under a whole bunch of footprints. In fact, two full years have passed — dating from March 2015 when…

Dallas officials were united Monday. Not about what to do about the city’s woebegone police and fire pension system. There’s still plenty of arguing to do about what to do with the $3.6 billion unfunded liability that could threaten the fund’s liquidity in less than a decade. No, Dallas Mayor…

Now the May 6 City Council elections are barely a month away, and it’s time to start looking for the weird stuff. As usual, nothing is ever weirder than District 14 in East Dallas. For decades East Dallas has been the city’s most politically volatile region, sort of like an…

Mayor Mike Rawlings and his friends in the private business group called the Dallas Citizens Council obviously must have learned their lesson when they tried and failed to give away Fair Park, a 277-acre city-owned asset, without a proper public bidding process. Never going to pull a blooper like that…

Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne is quitting her post to join Donald Trump’s administration as early as next week, the mayor told attendees of the AT&T Byron Nelson golf tournament’s kickoff luncheon Thursday. Van Duyne didn’t say what her role would be in Washington, but said an announcement is coming…

This year’s winner of the first Jim Schutze Not My Job Award (flourish, drum-roll, hushed gasp) goes to … JERRY CHRISTIAN, member of the board of directors of DART, the regional transit agency. Asked recently if DART should lend a helping hand to save the endangered Dallas Police and Fire…

Amazing what one good speech can stir up. Amazing good, amazing bad, time will tell. But a speech to the City Council last week by District 6 candidate Omar Narvaez certainly stirred the pot. Days after Narvaez heaped shame and brimstone on the mayor and council for possible massive evictions…

For Our Community sure doesn’t like Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston. The pro-Trinity toll road political action committee, founded by Dallas political consultant Mari Woodlief in 2015, is coming after the outspoken District 14 incumbent with a bevy of campaign mailers and an ominous website. Woodlief, who is best…

If you put aside the issue of bribery in the ongoing federal corruption trial of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price — the jury will decide that one — and just look at what he did, his behavior may look mild next to the way public business gets done in…

A month ago civic leader Walt Humann posted an essay on the op-ed page of The Dallas Morning News saying it would be a terrible mistake for the city to take sales tax money away from DART, our regional mass transit agency, and use it to save the Dallas Police…

Wednesday morning, the Dallas City Council passed its long-gestating ethics reform package. The vote was unanimous,but it comes at the end of months of arguing over the grievances that serve as the basis for many of the new rules. In the end, some members griping that the new regulations aren’t…

The approach of a June 3 court-imposed deadline — when more than 100 poor families are to be tossed out of their homes in West Dallas — is creating a political pressure-cooker. None of the parties to this dispute wants to be blamed when the TV cameras show up to…

Here’s a scary thing, and please don’t think I’m trying to make a joke. A child died. A man died. And those are just the ones we know about. So I’m not trying to be funny about the ongoing crisis in the Dallas 911 emergency service. But “ghost calls”? Before…

Once every two years, the nonpartisan U.S. Elections Project releases a data package updating the current state of voter turnout in the United States. For the state of Texas, the news contained within the most recent report is abysmal. Texas, according to data released last week, had the 49th worst…

There are two big questions to which Dallas police and fire officers need to demand answers quickly, as negotiations in the legislature on a bill to reconstitute their pension fund near an end. These questions are about the two main issues looming over the debate. The first issue, clawback, may…

Last week, a 6-month-old infant died after his babysitter used her cellular phone to call 911 three times without getting an answer. When someone picked up, the babysitter languished on hold for a half hour before getting assistance. The City of Dallas labeled the issue as “ghost calls” from phones on the…

Great news this afternoon from Dallas City Council member Scott Griggs. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has shot down the city’s request to have the Trinity River legally downgraded to a non-navigable river rather than fix a fake kayaking rapids built by the city. “This I will not do,”…

An ugly bit of street theater is being prepared for us by certain people at City Hall. When it gets here, I want you to know the real story. In the first week of June, as many as 200 poor families will be tossed out on the street in West…