As Sam notes below, Angela Hunt was the lone council member to vote against paying architect Santiago Calatrava $10.7 million to design a second version of the Margaret McDermott Bridge. The District 14 council rep believes spending all those many millions on a “signature” component added to a bridge TxDOT…
City Hall was kind enough yesterday to pass along a recording of Monday’s meeting of the city’s Transportation and Environment Committee meeting. That’s the meeting during which DART board member Jerry Christian told council member Jerry Allen he was no longer associated with the litigation attempting to overturn the vote…
The city council by a 13-1 vote this morning approved a $10.7 million contract with architect Santiago Calatrava to design pedestrian and bicycle components for the proposed Margaret McDermott Bridge, but not without strong opposition from council member Angela Hunt. Through a series of questions aimed at Assistant City Manager…
No doubt you recall the show Mayor Dwaine Caraway put on April 1 in front of the Luxury Inn on S. Buckner, where he was joined by the Dallas City Hall All-Stars to proclaim the motel closed due to its myriad “unpleasantries,” with rampant prostitution and drug-related crimes high on…
By week’s end, District 2 council candidate Billy MacLeod expects to file in state and federal court a lawsuit over the city’s decision not to remove Esperanza “Hope” Medrano Elementary School from its list of polling locations for the May 14 election. As you’re no doubt aware by now, MacLeod…
At tomorrow’s meeting, the city council is expected to approve a tax abatement estimated at approximately $1.7 million and an economic grant of $250,000 for Dean Foods. Pete Schenkel, a consultant for Dean who previously served as vice chair of its board, says the nation’s largest dairy producer will proceed…
… but instead, he’s running for mayor. Above you’ll find the spot set to premiere on local TV tonight, which is good timing — Sam’s cover story about the Dallas mayoral race is set to hit newsstands tomorrow. And in it, he discusses when and why “bringing businesses to Dallas”…
It’s been, what, four whole months since last we visited 508 Park Avenue and the surrounding properties, which remain in limbo at this late date. (Though better that than a heap of bricks.) First Presbyterian Church of Dallas acknowledged way back in August 2010 that it wants to buy the…
From the beginning of last night’s forum at the Avalon at Kessler Park, questions from the crowd of nearly 100 District 3 residents focused squarely on natural gas drilling and incumbent city council member Dave Neumann’s ties to the industry. Neumann said the city is monitoring the results of several…
On Friday, Patrick Michels noted that Deep Ellum denizens didn’t exactly greet the city’s long-talked-about plans to two-way Commerce and Elm with open arms. But new streets aren’t exactly around the corner; they’re part two of a three-step makeover that has but the first phase funded. Nevertheless. For those who…
Been trying to reach council member Jerry Allen ever since yesterday; no luck so far. But we know where he’ll be at 3 today: in the Flag Room at Dallas City Hall, standing beside Dr. Frederick Haynes and Rev. Gerald Britt at an anti-payday lender press conference on behalf of…
The council’s Transportation and Environment Committee is being briefed on streetcar funding at this very moment. We’ll get back to that shortly. But a little while ago, the committee was interviewing Dallas Area Rapid Transit board nominees, among them Jerry Christian Sr., who’s a sitting board member and has been…
On the other side you’ll find four videos posted by KERA in which BJ Austin asks each of the Dallas mayoral candidates, more or less: Why you? The best part: No video last longer than two minutes…
The city’s still auditioning would-be managers for Dallas Animal Services, which is still recovering from a disastrous run of bad news, and hopes to have that wrapped by month’s end. And while plenty items remain on the to-do list, one quick fix is identified in this afternoon’s DAS update in…
Took the visiting mother-in-law to White Rock Lake yesterday, and as we were leaving, the wife espied a sign like the one you see above in this photo posted by Jason Roberts to his Facebook page last night. Turns out it’s part of that BlockCamp project about which we wrote…
It’s been an awful long time since last we wrote about John Greenan and Brent Brown’s plans to build that green, sustainable building of tomorrow directly behind Dallas City Hall. But a few days ago, a piece written by a former local crossed my screen celebrating Dallas — and this…
A crowd of Deep Ellum residents and business owners got a look at City Hall’s latest plans for turning one-way Elm and Commerce Streets into models of walkability during a two-hour PowerPoint-n-panel-talk at Life In Deep Ellum last night. Pamè La Ashford from the City Manager’s office spent much of…
Under a tent along Bexar Street in South Dallas this morning, city officials treated a crowd of more than 100 to an enthusiastic display of back-slapping and upbeat progress reports for the neighborhood revitalization underway around them. Surrounded by blocks of mixed-use construction and new brick townhomes, Mayor Dwaine Caraway…
A couple of weeks back, Sam mentioned that Billy MacLeod, who’s running for the District 2 city council seat against incumbent Pauline Medrano, has a few problems with the coming elections. Chief among them: Votes will be cast at Esperanza “Hope” Medrano Elementary School — which so happens to be…
First thing this morning, the “final draft” of the Downtown Dallas 360 plan appeared in the Unfair Park inbox, replacing the version sent out a few days back in advance of Wednesday’s council meeting, at which point the city will officially adopt a resolution that “directs the City Manager to…
Below, in the comments, one Arthur Smythe — who, as everybody knows, hates the Cowboys — was quick to point out that Not Mayor Tom Leppert has raised $1.1 million in his bid for the United States Senate. Arthur’s comment, which I imagine was made in an English accent by…
Dallas has been trying to get a handle on group housing for years, dating back — at least — to the Boarding House Task Force formed in June ’07, which consisted of everything from code compliance to Dallas Fire-Rescue to the City Attorney’s Office. That was but one of myriad…
