At the ungodly hour of 8:30 a.m. today, the Dallas Police & Fire Pension System board of trustees held their monthly meeting. We decided to join them, both due to our love of waking up in what was basically the middle of the night to sit in a conference room,…
Last December, with Texas in the midst of one of the worst droughts on record and with lake levels dropping to worrying lows, the city of Dallas implemented Stage 1 water restrictions, meaning residents and businesses could only drench their grass twice per week. Even as North Texas was emerging…
For the past decade, the city has been inching forward with plans for the Elm Fork Soccer Complex, a $40 million, 160-acre collection of athletic fields at Stemmons Freeway and Walnut Hill Lane that’s part of the non-tollway portion of the Trinity River Corridor Project. Last we checked, phase one…
What timing. Just as the trial of Texas’ voter ID law kicks off in D.C., a new analysis by the Associated Press has found that such laws in other states have led to hundreds of ballots being rejected, both in 2008’s general election and in the primaries this year. The…
Yesterday afternoon, Beau Chandler and Mark “Major” Jiminez went down to the Dallas County Records building to apply for a marriage license. They were refused, naturally. So they quietly handcuffed themselves together, sat down and refused to leave. When the building closed for the day, they were arrested and taken…
A week ago, code enforcement officials reported on progress plowing through that backlog of restaurant inspections. The backlog was taken care of with the help of an outside company, they told a City Council committee. From now on, with a few new hires, the department would be able to handle…
Friday’s Democratic primary run-off debate between Domingo Garcia and Marc Veasey for the 33rd wasn’t quite as bitchy as we had hoped, in that Garcia didn’t refer to his opponent, a grown-ass black man, as a “boy” this time, which is positive, right? At the beginning, hell, we even thought…
When video surfaced earlier this year of EPA’s regional administrator Al Armendariz comparing his strategy for regulating the oil and gas industry as the EPA’s regional head to crucifixion, Republicans gladly accepted the former SMU professor’s proffered head. Then, when they asked him to Washington to be pilloried in person,…
Fine. So the Toll Road Creature Who Comes in the Night paid a visit to Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings bedroom recently, and now he’s a “Toll Road Guy.” Yesterday the Toll Road Guy handed out an utterly specious document — a near laughable and transparent fabric of lies and hoodoo…
Last month, Mayor Mike Rawlings asked the Texas Department of Transportation for figures showing the relative merits of building the Trinity toll road versus reviving the abandoned Project Pegasus, which would improve downtown’s current highways of hell. This was after numbers provided by toll road opponents prompted the mayor to…
We’ve known for a while now that the city will keep the the 2013 commemoration of John F. Kennedy’s assassination “classy,” we just haven’t known exactly how. We still don’t, but we now know that it will involve a fairly significant touch-up to Dealey Plaza. The architecture firm Good Fulton…
After only a minimal amount of mind-numbing bureaucratic discussion, Dallas City Council members voted Wednesday afternoon to approve a new ordinance regulating the city’s boarding homes. Set to take effect October 1, the rules apply to around 200 of the cities 300 boarding home facilities, where several thousand people with…
A lot of things have changed in Dallas in the past 40 years — just look at the skyline or Uptown or the exploding suburbs — but not everything. I was reminded of that this morning by the city’s Facebook page. There, spokesman Frank Librio posted a brief history of…
Perhaps you’ve heard by now: the Morning News reports that negotiations “have all but broken down” between the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, who own the neighboring Museum Tower, which its critics say is really lighting up the neighborhood. But a statement sent to…
Update at 2:41 p.m.: I just heard back from Garcia. It was his personal account that was targeted, and it’s still down. “They changed the email to the account and changed the password, and they unfriended everybody,” he told me. Why someone would do that, he wasn’t sure, but he…
Six Republican members of the U.S. Senate — including Texas’ Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn — have requested an investigation of the EPA’s decision to accuse a natural gas producer of contaminating a North Texas water well. In a letter sent last week, the senators asked the EPA inspector…
Dallas Fire-Rescue has not, judging by the lawsuits, always been the best place to work if you’re a woman. A for instance: way back, oh, three years ago, one might have found semen in one’s coffee cup. But the department’s working to change that, making considerable progress, in fact, DFR’s…
After years of struggle, Dallas may be on its way to regulating the city’s boarding home facilities. Finally. City Council members are set to vote Wednesday on a new ordinance that would require licenses and annual inspections for boarding homes, as well rules aimed at keeping the homes “safe, sanitary…
Is “Stuff Dwaine Caraway Likes” officially a meme yet? If not, can we make it one? Because every time he opens his mouth, something fascinating emerges. (See sagging pants and, again, sagging pants, and the roof at Fair Park Coliseum, all in just the few weeks I’ve been paying attention)…
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down much of Arizona’s illegal immigration law Monday morning, leaving its most controversial, show-me-your-papers provision standing, and that only provisionally. Experts say the decision provides a road map to federal courts evaluating immigration laws enacted in places like Alabama, Georgia and even Farmers Branch, Texas…
Hypothetically at least, the 6,100 Dallas restaurants, bars, school cafeterias, and food trucks are supposed to be inspected twice a year by city health inspectors. But when the responsible department’s budget is cut by 43 percent and its inspection staff by more than a third, its ability to conduct such…
The Trinity Strand Trail will someday run about eight miles from the old Trinity River channel, pass under Stemmons Freeway and out of the Design District, lope alongside Turtle Creek, loop beneath the DART/TRE tracks and the Tollway, then link up with the Katy Trail. That’s the plan, at least,…
