“Who’s in charge?” It was a question that everyone seemed to have in early October last year. Thomas Eric Duncan had just become the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States and no one, it seemed, knew what to do, as documented in February’s Vanity Fair…
It’s still a long shot for sure, but the Dallas Green Alliance’s path to eight votes against the Trinity toll road on the Dallas City Council is coming into focus. The DGA, a pro-environment PAC expressly formed to get toll road opponents elected, announced its endorsements Friday, along with plans…
Richard Sheridan, the perennial gadfly candidate accused of painting “666” on a number of local buildings and landmarks, is out of jail. He was released at 7 a.m. Sunday, he says, but not before he was able to persuade 10 people inside to vote for him in May 9’s mayoral…
In 2007, former television journalist and journalism professor Eric Gormly made history at the University of North Texas for suing one of his own students. In the suit, he accused two professors and the student of conspiring to give him a bad performance review that got him fired. School officials…
District 3 might be the most important race in the upcoming Dallas City Council election. Incumbents Scott Griggs and Philip Kingston have taken the rare step of endorsing a candidate outside their own districts, giving their support to high school teacher Joe Tave. Vonciel Jones Hill, who represents District 3…
On Wednesday, the Texas House overwhelmingly approved a statewide ban on texting while driving, the third session in a row where this has happened. In 2013, the measure died in the Senate. In 2011, it was killed by Governor Rick Perry, who vetoed it on the grounds that it was…
Those who wanted a bit of theater at Dallas City Hall on Wednesday — us, for instance — didn’t get exactly what they wanted, but Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston made sure they didn’t go home empty handed. Kingston, the id of Trinity toll road opposition, and Vonciel Jones…
Almost a week after Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings issued a memo to try to curtail City Council members’ responses to open microphone speakers at council meetings, two council members will take to the open microphone themselves on Wednesday to talk about the Trinity toll road. Rawlings’ memo came after March…
When Mayor Mike Rawlings and sundry other dignitaries gathered in Pleasant Grove last month to unveil the almost-open Texas Horse Park’s enormous new sculpture, there was much self-congratulatory gushing, multiple allusions to an imagined horse/cowboy culture, even a laughable pitch by Councilman Tennell Atkins for the Trinity toll road (“We’ll…
Ted Cruz confirmed what was inevitable early Monday morning on Twitter. The Texas senator, sworn in just 26 months ago, is running for president. I’m running for President and I hope to earn your support! pic.twitter.com/0UTqaIoytP— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 23, 2015 Monday morning, Cruz formally confirmed his candidacy at…
Since we last left Faux Mayor Mike, his still criminally underfollowed Twitter has more than tripled its constituency. Faux Mike himself has continued to rampage around Dallas’ favorite Internet haunts as well, dropping f-bombs, extolling the virtues of pizza and decrying all the “jihadist anti-toll road goofballs.” Amid the profanity…
Update March 23: Villalba unblocked Rhoads on Saturday and promised her an exclusive after the bill gets its committee hearing on March 26. Jason Villalba’s taken a lot of heat for HB 2918. Some of it’s been deserved — even Villalba himself admitted to The Dallas Morning News that the…
On March 26, the U.S. Department of Labor will change the definition of the word “spouse” as it’s used in the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. Any person legally married to another person in any state will become eligible for the spousal benefits provided for in the act. The…
Mayor Mike Rawlings is not happy with Dallas City Council member Scott Griggs. Two weeks ago, in response to a series of pro-Trinity toll road open-microphone speakers, Griggs tore into the road at a council meeting. “This is the worst boondoggle imaginable, and it’s time to get serious about developing…
Fort Worth oil heir Kenneth W. Davis Jr. is 89-years-old but continues to work every day as chairman of the Great Western Drilling Co. Impressive. Not too long ago, Davis decided to try something new: politics. The successful oilman cites unspecified “trouble” as his motivation to become political. “I never…
Nothing, it seems, trumps property rights. Not even the God-given right to carry a handgun anywhere you goddamn please that Republicans repeatedly cite. The Texas Senate voted Wednesday afternoon to approve so-called “campus carry” the second piece of major gun legislation the body has given the go-ahead this week. In…
On Tuesday morning last week, while most visitors to Klyde Warren Park were batting oversize foam tennis balls back and forth on the main lawn as part of some U.S. Tennis Association promotion, a handful of anti-circumcision protesters (aka “intactivists”) clustered on the park’s far eastern fringe. Clad in all…
CORRECTION: I mistakenly wrote that James Parker, who filed the ethics complaint against council candidate Sam Merten, said he wasn’t told a hearing on his complaint was scheduled. He was, and the corrected sentence is marked in bold below. The first ethics complaint to make it to a formal hearing…
We’re not going to take the time to fully debunk Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings’ column defending the Trinity Toll Road. Wylie H, Dallas’ preeminent City Hall gadfly and Internet commenter, has already — a day in advance no less — done that work on D Magazine’s Front Burner blog. Still,…
Friday, Unfair Park’s love/hate feelings about state Representative Jonathan Stickland took another turn. The Bedford Republican introduced a couple of bills on the last day of filing, one to cut off utilities to any National Security Agency facility in Texas and another, to make so-called “no knock” warrants illegal in…
State Representative Jason Villalba, a Dallas Republican, is close to a lot of cops. The best man in his wedding was a police officer. So is his uncle and various other friends and family members. So when his friends in the law enforcement community suggested the creation of a 25-foot…
Rafael Anchia has backed up claims that he would listen to his Texas House district when it comes to the Trinity toll road. Early Friday, Anchia filed legislation that would prevent the Texas Department of Transportation from providing funding for the Trinity roll road and require the road proposal to…
