Listen, the debate about Fair Park – turning our 277-acre albatross two miles east of downtown over to a private entity — probably started out with good enough intentions. But now, not so much. Now it’s about nothing so much as shielding the board of directors of the State Fair…
About this time of year, one of my summer rituals has been to pack up a bottle of water, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and a can of bug spray and hike to the Trinity River bottoms to do my annual piece on “Stupid Dallas Fake Kayak Rapids Still There, Still Stupid.”…
Here’s a simple idea, a plain idea, not my own idea but a good one, I think. It might help allay some fears and misgivings associated with turning over city-owned Fair Park to a private and opaque organization. Make it not opaque. This 277-acre albatross, a park that isn’t even…
Apparently now everybody on the Dallas city council has seen a copy of the email a lawyer sent to a recruiter explaining why he doesn’t want the job of Dallas city attorney – too much trouble, too much controversy – so now some members are calling for soul-searching on the…
The real story is always better. Last week Michael Lindenberger of The Dallas Morning News wrote the official version of a political battle that took place almost a half century ago between the city of Dallas and a group of black homeowners around Fair Park in South Dallas. The true version…
Probably all I’ll ever have to tell you about myself is that recently, while reading a City Hall PowerPoint presentation on a proposed new housing policy, I laughed out loud. You already know never to invite me to dinner, right? Can’t help myself. Look. I have written about Curtis Lockey…
On Tuesday afternoon, four weeks to the day after Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick asked his office to weigh in, Attorney General Ken Paxton opined that a Fort Worth ISD policy allowing students to use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity was illegal. The AG opinion is a curious thing…
In an opinion issued late Tuesday afternoon, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says Fort Worth ISD’s attempt to let all students use a restroom consistent with their gender identity is likely illegal. Paxton was asked for the opinion in May by Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, an outspoken opponent of…
In Dallas as in Houston, the twin termini of what they hope will be the nation’s first bullet train, government officials and civic boosters have expressed enthusiastic and unreserved support for Texas Central Railway’s effort to bring high-speed rail to Texas. At a joint 2014 press conference, Dallas Mayor Mike…
Every once in a while something sticks in my heart or my craw. This one was heart. Last week, writing about a city-funded program to build houses in central oak Cliff, I quoted Raymond Crawford, who lives in one of the target neighborhoods, as saying, “Everyone knows the city really…
Even before Monday, there were two main points of the rationale Texas Republicans claimed in support of House Bill 2, the anti-abortion law largely struck down by the Supreme Court Monday morning. The first revolved around protecting women, and they pitched the second at ending abortion. Texas Governor Greg Abbott…
Thanks to a 5-3 decision from the United States Supreme Court, Texas still has 21 operating abortion clinics. The portion of the state’s 2013 anti-abortion legislation that would have shut down 13 of the 21 clinics by requiring them to be certified as ambulatory surgical centers (essentially mini-hospitals) will not…
Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston has changed the name of his campaign Facebook page, the one he calls Dallas’ “3rd best media outlet,” from Philip T. Kingston for Dallas City Council District 14 to Philip T. Kingston for Dallas. Kingston, long rumored to be a future mayoral candidate, says…
Only two months after a recent mass eviction of homeless people from a downtown encampment, Dallas officials already are preparing for a second mass evacuation of the new camp that the homeless people moved to when they got kicked out of the first one. This confirms a prediction I made the first…
Daniel Miller is seizing his moment. Following Great Britain’s vote Thursday to remove itself from the European Union, Miller, the leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement, has jumped on the opportunity to push his message of Texas sovereignty as hard as he can. “From the looks of it, the British…
Carolyn King Arnold is the city council representative from District 4 in central Oak Cliff. She and I have three things in common. We’re both skeptical of anything North Dallas likes. So we’re against deck parks. And we’re both dead wrong. I learned this one the hard way. Beginning in…
Marc Veasey, who represents a swath of southern Tarrant and Dallas Counties, was among the Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives involved in a sit-in on the House floor yesterday. The stunt was an attempt to force the chamber’s Republican leadership to take a vote on so-called “no fly,…
Oh no you don’t, City Hall. Don’t think for a minute that the May 2 dog mauling and death of Antoinette Brown is somehow going to die down or fade away and then you’ll be cool. This woman, this citizen, this human being was ripped apart by dogs while neighbors,…
Republicans. If you want to dismiss me as an ignorant hippie libtard, I will understand. You have your reasons. Sometimes I look in the mirror myself in the morning and silently mouth, “Oh shut up, you ignorant hippie libtard.” But I urge you to believe that my question today is…
If you’re going to run a political campaign, it doesn’t hurt to have David Axelrod on your team. The New York-born, Chicago-schooled operator shepherded a green Barack Obama past John McCain and into the Oval Office in 2008. After the election, Axelrod served as Obama’s senior adviser until it was…
Because we have this weird “city manager” system of government in Dallas, where no one person is actually totally in charge of anything, Dallas City Hall always assumes it can get away with dodging responsibility. The mayor’s not really the mayor. The city manager’s not really the manager. The city…
Before we get into a whole thing about it, let me just ask a question. If a formerly down-at-the-heels inner city neighborhood is becoming more middle class, which way should house prices be going, up or down? Well, wait. Two questions. If the city wanted to promote middle class housing…
