At several points last night I was distracted from election results by the video you see above, sent again and again and again by Friends of Unfair Park amazed and astonished at its content. As you will see, Debbie Georgatos emerges not necessarily as the front-runner in the race to…
It’s all over but the drinking: Mike Rawlings, who will wind up with around 41 percent of the vote, and David Kunkle, who will claim around 32 percent, will face off June 18 in the runoff to see who will become the next mayor of Dallas. But truth told, Kunkle…
It was awful hard to hear Scott Griggs over the phone from the watch party that turned into a victory party. But with all but four out of 56 precincts reporting in from District 3, Griggs has ousted incumbent Dave Neumann — 2,654 to 2,003, giving Griggs 57 percent of…
If you care at all about the latest vote counts in the Dallas mayoral and council races, you’re either refreshing the DalCo Elections site or at a candidate’s watch party. So this’ll be the last update till the final numbers are in — and we know for sure whether it’s…
Back when we covered the ’07 mayoral election we had a small army of writers out and about, because who doesn’t like drinking at a watch party and calling it “work.” Now, with Merten gone and Schutze on vacation and Patrick Michels covering a small-town race for a cover story,…
The county just posted its early-voting numbers, and it’s Mike Rawlings with the early lead — and quite the lead at that. Of the 29,688 votes cast during early voting, the ex-Pizza Hut CEO got 42.75 percent of ’em — which translates to 12,693 votes, for those bad at math…
Sam says it below, “The budget is easily the biggest issue.” In the race for Dallas mayor, he means, which comes to its thrilling (?) conclusion, though probably not, beginning at 7 tonight, when we’ll reconvene here for The World’s Loneliest Watch Party. If he’s right, if it all comes…
Not surprisingly, all four of Dallas’s mayoral candidates have Facebook fan pages, some (David Kunkle) more active than others (Edward Okpa). But what, if anything, do Facebook numbers mean? Are they indicators of electoral momentum or of quick-thumbed interns? A Chicago-based social media guru says Facebook numbers, when viewed in…
Michael Vick took steps toward rehabbing his image last season. No thanks to the Eagles quarterback, one of his former bait dogs is doing much better as well. You remember Mel, right? I first told you his story almost a year ago. It was later picked up by the Los Angeles Times, etc., and…
We never did talk to Debbie Georgatos about why she wants to become the next Dallas County Republican Party chair following the adios of Jonathan Neerman. No matter: After the jump, for those who have 10 minutes to spare, you’ll find Georgatos and former candidate for Dallas County Judge Wade…
It’s been more than three months since 15-year-old Ashley Donaldson found $2,000 outside a North Dallas strip mall and returned it to a nearby Chase bank, thinking someone there could find the owner. But city officials tell Unfair Park the bank didn’t turn over the dough to the Dallas Police…
So far today we’ve heard from Ron Natinsky, David Kunkle, City Auditor Craig Kinton and even Mayor Dwaine Caraway about last night’s Channel 8 story, which alleged that mayoral candidate Mike Rawlings used his influence as Park Board president to get city officials to hire his friend and former TracyLocke…
Speaking of getting city officials’ responses to WFAA-Channel 8 stories …Maybe you saw the story last night about 15-year-old Ashley Donaldson, who found $2,000 stuffed into an envelope and, though her family sure could use the bread, did the right thing and turned it in. According to Ashley, she took…
I promise: Unfair Park won’t be clogged with piece after piece about that Happy Trails safety campaign contract. But this one merits its own item: City Auditor Craig Kinton, who functions as an independent investigator inside the hallways of City Hall, returned my call moments ago and said his office…
I’ve left messages and sent emails all over Dallas City Hall — to City Manager Mary Suhm, Assistant City Manager Forest Turner (who oversees Park and Recreation), City Auditor Craig Kinton, city spokesman Frank Librio and Chris Heinbaugh in Mayor-For-Now Dwaine Caraway’s office. I’ve been told they are all presently…
No doubt you’re well aware that President Barack Obama was in El Paso yesterday, where he said that “genuine, comprehensive reform” was the only way to repair a “broken immigration system.” In his speech, posted in its entirety to the White House website, Obama insisted his administration’s doing what it…
Speaking of ethics at City Hall…So happens that Patrick stopped by Dallas City Hall Thursday, just as ad man Jake Schroepfer was giving his Happy Trails Dallas safety campaign presentation, which included that star-studded Junior Brown music video. Those photos come in handy this morning: WFAA’s Brett Shipp had a…
While I was on the phone with Chris Heinbaugh about the item just below this one, he mentioned that Mayor-Not-For-Long Dwaine Caraway informed his council colleagues today that he’s ready to go with that whole ad hoc ethics committee mentioned at the end of last week’s rather tense back-and-forth over…
Last June, we took a look at some moneymaking brainstorms Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm presented to the city council, which Suhm hoped would offset some of the $131-million budget shortfall with which she was faced at the time. Among them was one in particular that didn’t get very far,…
Ed Oakley, who once sat in the District 3 seat at the Dallas City Hall horseshoe, is already listed among Scott Griggs’s supporters, alongside, of course, Dallas County Commissioner Elba Garcia, former Dallas ISD school board trustee Jose Plata, former Dallas City Manager Jan Hart Black and a host of…
As the Texas Tribune notes today, in the wee small hours of the morning, the state House passed Carrollton state Rep. Burt Solomons’s HB 12, the so-called “sanctuary cities” legislation deemed an emergency item by Gov. Rick Perry. As the Trib’s Julian Aguilar sums it up, those who are for…
I’ve been trying, with no luck, to talk to Dallas County Commissioner Elba Garcia about why she’s endorsing Scott Griggs over Dave Neumann in the race for District 3’s seat at the City Hall horseshoe. Garcia served on several committees with Neumann during her tenure on the council — among…
