Speaking of Fair Park …In the wake of its inclusion on the American Planning Association’s list of Great Public Places, several Friends of Unfair Park have asked: How’s that long-proposed plan to open the fairgrounds year-round(ish) coming? And: What about the pending closure of The Women’s Museum?As far as the…
Brent Jackson posted a note this morning headlined: “City Approves Sylvan | Thirty Zoning Application.” Well … technically, no, that’s not true. Nothing’s been approved for Jackson’s controversial mixed-use development at Sylvan and Fort Worth Avenue where the Cox Farms grocery store’s supposed to take root. City staff has, however,…
Talk about your good timing: Last night, Dallas City Hall sent word that the American Planning Association yesterday released its list of the Great Places in America, which is divvied into three categories — Great Neighborhoods, Great Streets and Great Public Spaces. It’s the latter with which we’re concerned today,…
Anna, of course, is at today’s council briefing, where, Mayor Mike just said, they’re going to spend the next 90 minutes or so fighting over the three council-submitted redistricting maps. She’ll recap later today — the mayor said they oughta wrap the chat at 11:30, though it could go longer…
The Dallas gas drilling task force sees many of the same faces at each meeting: a small and dedicated group of Dallas residents who show up every Tuesday afternoon and, as it turns out, have formed an unofficial task force with the same goal as the city’s official entity –…
Our Sara Kerens was on the Love Field tarmac when President Obama arrived yesterday; revisit that moment via this slide show. Then hop on over to the White House website, where all three of the president’s Tuesday speeches are preserved — not only his Eastfield College American Jobs Act remarks,…
The voter ID law passed by Texas lawmakers in May continues its circuit among activists, lawmakers, academics and social commentators as a discriminatory, unjustified and absolutely necessary measure, depending on who’s yelling. Words like “voter fraud” on the right and “disenfranchisement” on the left stir up serious emotion with people…
Actually, you probably just want better streets — most of Dallas does. But a Complete Streets PowerPoint prepared for tomorrow’s council briefing, during which redistricting will probably eat up most of the morning, reveals the findings of a Collective Strength survey conducted in August by Promark Research, during which 518…
I’ve yet to make the transition to Kindle; I was reminded of yet another reason why over the weekend, which I’ll explain later. But when a colleague, peeking over my shoulder, saw the news release in the in-box late yesterday — the one from the city titled “Kindle e-book downloads…
On Friday, in a briefing sent to the city council, the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance and the downtown homeless shelter The Bridge announced they would be separating their leadership, something that became effective Saturday. The Bridge is now its own separate non-profit and will be a member of the MDHA,…
Before the council’s Economic Development Committee got ’round to talking about Dallas’s employment figures — and it was a brief briefing — familiar Unfair Park figure Karl Zavitkovsky, head of the Office of Economic Development, gave the council an hour-long-plus overview of what his office of up to — everything…
In a few minutes, the council’s Economic Development Committee will take up the subject of Dallas’ Workforce and Jobs, which comes with this 29-page PowerPoint worth a look-see even if you’re not planning on following along, which we are. Long story short: “In an ongoing weak national economy,” says the…
Several Friends of Unfair Park have asked if we’re planning on covering this morning’s scheduled hearing concerning Yucatan and Service Bar’s lawsuit over the Greenville Avenue Planned Development District ordinance. As you’re well aware by now, City Code now dictates that in order for Lower Greenville businesses to stay open…
There’s a HuffPo piece this morning about how the pepper-spray-flavored Occupy Wall Street protests moved to the West Coast yesterday — San Francisco, specifically, and the Bank of America building in the Financial District. Next Thursday, though, they hit a little closer to home. Without Radiohead, which may or may…
Another redistricting post, I know. Settle down. But this one’s especially interesting: Dwaine Caraway, Tennell Atkins and Carolyn Davis have made it very clear that whatever the redistricting map ends up looking like, they want four “winnable” African-American districts. At last week’s forum, that was also important to the majority…
No doubt you recall: A couple of weeks ago we discovered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants the city to pay back $15 million in federal funds doled out for the Dallas Floodway Extension project. Problem is, we don’t have it — at least, not all of it. Rebecca…
Well, look what made Courthouse News today: Yucatan and Service Bar’s lawsuit against the city over the late-night specific use permits as mandated by the Lower Greenville ordinance. Good timing too, given yesterday’s no-go for both bars in front of the city council. The whole petition’s here, but by now…
At around 9, before the Dallas City Council voted on the measure that would direct all trash collected in the city to the landfill in southeast Dallas, more than 50 students and teachers at Paul Quinn College marched around City Hall chanting and wearing white T-shirts that read, “I AM…
On this jam-packed city council Wednesday, we now come to the late-night specific use permits that Lowest Greenville Avenue bars Yucatan and Service Bar are asking for — the ones the City Plan Commission denied, based upon the planned development district ordinance passed by the city council in January. As…
Brantley’s been at Dallas City Hall for this morning’s flow control vote, which began with that promised pre-game protest by the students of Paul Quinn College, who stood throughout the entire discussion that ran close to two hours. (Save for one protester, who fainted during the discussion, prompting a five-minute…
When it came time for the city council to vote on the FY2011-12 budget moments ago, it wasn’t without a few bumps in the road. Several council members told City Manager Mary Suhm they weren’t at all thrilled with her plan to shuffle fire trucks with the intention of retiring…
The council may or may not vote on that ordinance involving the redirecting and recycling of solid waste today. It all depends where flow control falls on the action-packed agenda, which includes passing the budget (that should go smoothly) and debating Yucatan and Service Bar’s denied-at-CPC specific use permits (which…
