A couple of weeks back, during those water conservation and watering restriction briefings, council member Scott Griggs had a few questions for Dallas Water Utilities Director Jody Puckett that she wasn’t prepared to answer, among them: Is the city presently selling water to gas drillers, and, be honest, how much…
On Wednesday we got our first look at the new-look Texas maps drawn by the court, which is attempting to rectify the U.S. Department of Justice’s concerns that the state Legislature is attempting to keep Hispanics from voting for Hispanic candidates, especially in Dallas-Fort Worth. To which Texas Attorney General…
The U.S. Department of Energy has coughed up $115 million for something called The EV Project, rolled out in October 2009 with the intention of spending the next 36 months analyzing how and how much folks actually charge their electric cars. A report’s due in 2015, and Dallas is among…
Last night, Mayor Mike Rawlings hosted a community forum at Cedar Crest Golf Course, billed in the invitation as an “update on the City of Dallas.” Backed by council members Dwaine Caraway and Tennell Atkins and a large supporting cast of other city officials, he tried to reassure the crowd:…
View more videos at: http://nbcdfw.com.For whatever reason Ken Kalthoff got a little distracted whilst reporting the piece you see above about the city experimenting with solar-powered parking meters that take credit cards (all together now: finally). Ken spends most of the piece trying to get his cash key re-upped. First…
Yesterday we met the three finalists for the Dallas Public Library System director’s position, one of whom’s the current interim, Corinne Hill. The other two candidates presented to city officials by a DeSoto-based search firm (??) are out-of-towners: Juliet Machie, who actually remains the deputy director of the Detroit Public…
If you happen to own or rent a house and you enjoy exploiting the elderly and the mentally ill, the city of Dallas has a legal loophole made just for you. A representative from Mental Health America of Greater Dallas warned the city’s Senior Affairs Commission yesterday that despite years…
Nicola Longford, executive director of the Sixth Floor Museum, won’t talk to Schutze, no fan of the museum’s plans to take over Dealey Plaza two years from today. But she will visit with the Los Angeles Times about those plans, not to mention that Dealey Plaza redo the city’s splitting…
Back in late August we mentioned that the city had hired a search firm to find a permanent (well, you know what I mean) director of the Dallas Public Library System. Corinne Hill’s been serving as interim director since Laurie Evans retired in June 2010, and by all accounts she’s…
It didn’t come up last Wednesday, when the council talked about saving and selling Dallas’s water. But there was a brief mention made ago, during that chitchat concerning the city’s long-range water-supply plan, the most recent of which was done six years ago. Says right there on Slide No. 41:…
When I had Willis Winters on the phone the other day, I mentioned in passing that I just driven pastthe new pavilion at Royal Park, off Royal and Cromwell in Northwest Dallas. At which point Park and Rec’s second-in-command directed my attention to this freshly minted guide to those architect-designed…
Saw this one coming; so too did the city council. After all, in mid-September the council met behind closed doors with city attorneys to review “legal issues regarding proposed resource flow control ordinance” — which, as I am sure you recall, is the ordinance directing all solid waste collected in…
Longtime Friends of Unfair Park will recognize the name Steve Houser: He’s the former chair of the Dallas Urban Forest Advisory Committee honored by George W. Bush in ’08 for his volunteer work saving the city’s trees. Reason I mention him today: The arborist sends word that he and other…
I was in the middle of watching the city council briefings on water conservation and the Stage 1 watering restrictions yesterday when I got pulled away — and just when it was getting interesting too. So this morning I started going back to review the tape, beginning just as Sandy…
A little past 11 last night, one of the protesters camped out behind Dallas City Hall was walking from tent to tent, shouting: “Anybody in there? Anybody in there?” From one emerged a groggy, irritated “What?” He was told: “You gotta go, you gotta go. Police are coming.” And they…
Robert’s downtown at the Occupy Dallas camp, where police are breaking up protestors as we speak. He sends along these photos, and this: City has yanked their agreement with Occupy Dallas, and they’re currently giving the camp the boot. Police are stationed at every entrance, and around City Hall. No…
On June 10, 2010, I wrote a column for the newspaper about an official complaint brought to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by two Dallas developers alleging a decades-old pattern of racial discrimination and fraud by the city of Dallas, the county and other local entities…
This morning marked a turning point in the local approach to homeless care. Mayor Mike Rawlings, city and county officials and leaders of local non-profits took turns at the podium in the Flag Room at City Hall in an introduction to the Greater Dallas Homeless Policy Alliance, a public-private partnership…
In the end, the most surprising part of this afternoon’s discussion at City Hall over whether to suspend the rules and allow redistricting brought back to the horseshoe is that there was no discussion at all. Sure, a few speakers came to the mic, among them Roy Williams and Marvin…
When the city-owned Omni Hotel had its grand-opening photo op the other day, everything seemed in place, right down to the giant ribbon and the past-due TV stars. But there’s one little speck of cement that the city’s still fighting over — and its sparring partner isn’t going down easily…
Yesterday we noted that the city council would be briefed today on two minor changes to rules governing public speakers, chief among them a proposal from Acting City Secretary Rosa Rios’s office that trims speakers’ three minutes at the mic to a mere 60 seconds if they’re coming back within…
We first told you back in May that Dealey Plaza is due for a makeover, which involves redoing the north and south plaza pergolas, planting new way-finding and history-of signs, and making the plaza ADA compliant at long last. Then we discovered how the city is going to pay for…
