When you think you’ve got a done deal at Dallas City Hall, that’s when you need to check to see if you’ve still got your wallet. No, that’s when you need to check to see if you’ve still got your pants. Oh, sure, I told you here a week ago…
It’s common knowledge that the child welfare system in Texas is broken. Most advocates and professionals in foster care would probably agree that the years of severe underfunding have been the largest contributors to the flawed system. There’s nothing new on that front. Texas Department for Family and Protective Services faces…
Here’s a shoutout from Dallas to national Republicans, asking if you think your grand old party is capable of keeping a person with serious mental problems in office just to prevent a Democrat from getting the job. If you live here in Dallas, it’s an important local question. If you…
Think of me as the guy in the safety glasses behind the window in the little wire-cage tool room, standing at the counter all day jotting stuff down on a pad as it goes out and comes back in. Only instead of “Tool Room” over the window, it says “Mayoral…
Andrew Duffey, 31, sat outside Dallas City Hall in the sweltering heat on Wednesday and smoked a cigarette. He was mulling over the city council meeting that he just witnessed, one of an estimated 200 homeless men and women who attended that morning. They arrived with hopes of speaking to…
Dallas police and activists, thrown together to make nice during the aftermath of the July 7 killing of 5 officers, are having a very hard time balancing the right to assemble with security concerns. Wednesday began with a couple dozen members of Dominique Alexander’s Next Generation Action Network showing up…
Donald Trump, somehow, is not sure to win Texas’ 38 electoral votes in November’s presidential election. Trump needs all the help he can get just to hang onto a state that is absolutely essential to any chance he has of becoming president. Texans have been all to willing to step…
The cost of banning Three Expo’s Exxxotica porn convention from the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center is still mounting. Instead of reaching an agreement with Exxxotica’s founder J. Handy to settle the suit, Dallas hired a group of the most experienced and ideological business lawyers it could find to fight Handy in…
Dallas knows a thing or two about assassination conspiracies. We know that the more important conspirator is usually the political climate, not the shooter. Properly stoked with hate, violence and dehumanizing vilification, the climate will find its shooter. A Lee Harvey Oswald will step forward to kill JFK or a…
Our souls are burdened by the murder of five police officers on the streets of Dallas just over a month ago. But we’re going to have to muster some patience and some self-control, anyway, while our City Council hammers out the fire and police pay and hiring issues on its…
In the aftermath of Micah Johnson’s July 7 attack on Dallas police officers, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and other city officials made it clear that fixing DPD’s attrition problem would be a top-priority. The draft version of the city of Dallas’ upcoming budgeted, presented to the city council by Dallas…
Stray dogs, dog bites and dog bite deaths: There was never an issue in this city better designed for single-member City Council districts to tackle and solve on their own. I think it’s fair to say the problem can only be solved by individual council members seeking solutions from their…
Midway through a seven-hour park board meeting last Thursday, board member Lawrence S. Jones, who represents the rarefied Strait Lane district of North Dallas, expressed his misgiving about a certain class of people who have been appointed to the board of a private entity set up to take over Fair…
Sorry, but I do think we are starting to have a Wylie H. problem. I know I am, and I believe others are, as well. We need to stop the speculation, the guessing, the false accusations. It is eroding our civic life and possibly even our psychological well-being. Yesterday during…
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings got what he wanted. After an arduous Dallas park board meeting that lasted more than eight hours, the Rawlings-pushed plan to offload the management of Dallas Fair Park to a private foundation achieved an important step, moving on to what will surely be a city council…
Mechanically, voting at Texas polling places this November is going to be the same as it was during the Texas primary on March 1. The easiest way to exercise your right is going to be by bringing one of the seven forms of photo ID — a driver’s license, state ID,…
Psst. Hey. Downtown property-owners and major institutions. I’m talking to you. This is between us, OK? That subway idea might be more popular and more feasible than you think. But you need to not listen, block your ears, totally ignore the arguments you are getting from our regional mass transit agency,…
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings is doing everything in his limited power to make sure that Dallas Fair Park gets off of the city of Dallas’ ledger. In Dallas’ system, the mayor only enjoys two privileges outside of his single city council vote: the power to set the council’s agenda and…
Tuesday, July 12 was probably the biggest gathering of Dallas and Texas law enforcement in the cities’ history. Thousands of cops, city and county officials gathered at a memorial service in honor of the five cops killed by Micah Johnson on July 7 to hear words from President Barack Obama,…
Dallas Park and Recreation Board meetings have always been like high tea – tinkly tee-hee and not much done. But Thursday’s was a barroom punch-out. Angered that they were not allowed to fully discuss a proposal to give Fair Park to a private entity, five board members got up and…
You know what? That new housing policy the Dallas City Council is working on, Julian Castro’s bright shiny political future, Mayor Mike Rawlings’ next move, the rep that this city has earned in recent days for dealing with demons of the past — now might be too early to lay down any big…
You can say this about him; Ted Cruz stuck to his guns. Texas’ junior senator, after a presidential campaign that saw him call the GOP presidential nominee a “sniveling coward” and “utterly amoral” thumbed his nose at Donald Trump during his speech Wednesday night at the 2016 Republican National Convention…
