On July 29, Mayor Tom Leppert, Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway and Dallas Police Chief David Brown issued the joint press release calling for the ban on synthetic marijuana and salvia divinorum. The mayor got the so-called K2 ban on the fast track: The council’s scheduled to make selling it…
Moments ago, the city posted to its website the proposed budget City Manager Mary Suhm will discuss with the council at 9 a.m. Monday. It’s not a detailed breakdown by any stretch, but a terse, bullet-pointed 53-page summation of what we’ve known for months was coming — from the 450…
This is what it sounds like when a diesel-powered big rig hits the brakes — or, more to the point, the compressed engine brakes that release compressed air stored in the exhaust valves to slow down the vehicle. Got that? No? Try this, then. Or: The Straight Dope! Or maybe…
We don’t need lawyer Steven Riznyk to tell us that the immigration laws in the United States are complex and convoluted, but in stating the obvious, he’s also offering a road map for those those in need with 50 bucks and five free hours. Riznyk, who splits time between his…
After “thousands of hours of discussion and debate,” according to architect Rick Garza, head of the Bishop/Davis Land Use and Zoning Study steering committee, the Dallas City Council will finally vote on the plan Wednesday. Bob Stimson, the former city council member who’s now president of the Oak Cliff Chamber…
[Update Monday, August 9: The billboard was removed today.]One week ago today we introduced you to the latest downtown Dallas attraction — that Clear Channel billboard that damn near touches the Woodall Rodgers exit that dumps into northbound Stemmons. And while the city said on Monday, well, it appears to…
For a guy coping with the dismissal of his long-running challenge to the city’s bike helmet law, Paul Woodfield sounded in awfully good spirits this morning when I reached him by phone.Could’ve had something to do with the 160-mile bike ride through Washington State from which he and his wife…
No doubt you recall the brouhaha in June over Park and Recreation’s proposal to ask voters if it’d be OK to maybe, some day, sell Samuell Farm and Samuell New Hope Park, neither of which the city has dough enough to tend to. Long story short: The Texas Attorney General’s…
Back in June, Patrick told you about Paul Woodfield, the Southwest Airlines dispatcher who’s been engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the city over its bike-helmet ordinance — which Woodfield insists isn’t enforceable, since it doesn’t jibe with any existing state law. Woodfield, who’s been ticketed more than once…
Chris Kaplan, proprietor of Mawker Coffee, has been in Shed No. 2 at Dallas Farmers Market for 11 years — in other words, long before that $3-million redo. He was there when it was unbearably cold and insufferably hot — when it was known as “The Freeze and Fry Building,”…
Organizers of last night’s public hearing on the Bishop/Davis Land Use and Zoning Study at Methodist Hospital in Oak Cliff tried to head off any contentious quarreling and outbursts from the get-go. “Be respectful to everyone. There really isn’t any reason to not be,” organizers said. Play nice, or stay…
On Monday, Mary Suhm will present to the council the FY2010-11 budget, from which she had to trim some $131 million — a “painful, painful, painful” process, as she put it one month ago, because it will involve laying off hundreds at City Hall and gutting the budgets in myriad…
Update at 8:35 p.m.: The Dallas Police Department has sent a statement from Chief David Brown regarding his comments about the increase in the number of reported sexual assaults this year — and the reaction to them. It reads, in full:Chief Brown wants to emphasize, “I absolutely did not state…
A programming note.A few weeks ago we gave you the very advance heads-up that tonight, at the Belo Mansion, the Dallas Bar Association is hosting the “Dallas Tomorrow” forum featuring quite the bold-faced line-up: Mayor Tom Leppert, University of North Texas Chancellor Lee Jackson, Trinity Trust President and CEO Gail…
It’s been some three months since the City Plan Commission took up the Bishop Davis Land Use & Zoning Study, only to decide, against city staff’s recommendation, to put the thing under advisement pending further public comment. Said commission chair Joe Alcantar, “We want to make sure that we hear…
After the city council on June 23 delayed voting on the Dallas Love Field Airport concession contracts for a second time, food and beverage concessionaire Gilbert Aranza utilized the council’s July recess to commission an analysis of the city staff’s recommendations. Dr. Richard A. Briesch, an associate marketing professor at…
Initially, this was to be a quick chitchat with the mayor about the proposed ban of K2 and other dope substitutes, which, as Andrea noted earlier today, is on its way to a sure slam-dunk by mid-month at the latest. But Tom Leppert hung around long enough to talk to…
Don’t know what to tell you — certainly didn’t think we’d be into our third item about that Woodall Rodgers billboard. But Frank Librio, the city’s spokesman, has, as he promised last night, looked into how it got there; so too Morgan Lyons, Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s chief talker. So,…
Both Dwaine Caraway and I hope you had a fantastic summer vacation, but it is now time to get down to business at today’s Public Safety Committee meeting. First up, Dallas Police Chief David Brown’s crime report, wherein he is happy to report that overall crime is down 6.1%, due…
For those unfamiliar with the story of Saad Nabeel, there’s quite the extensive Wikipedia page — but long story short, he’s the Bangladeshi-born 19-year-old who, till recently, had been in the States since he was 3, when his folks came here seeking political asylum — a request repeatedly denied. And…
In recent weeks we’ve taken sneak peeks at how pending budget cuts will more than likely gut the library system. But till Monday rolls ’round and Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm debuts her proposed FY2010-11 budget, we won’t know for sure how deep those wounds will run. Nevertheless, Friends of…
‘Bout an hour ago I heard from City Hall about the black hole no wait 2001 monolith whoops Phantom Zone gateway pardon I mean Spinal Tap album cover dang itbillboard hovering but a few feet from the Woodall Rodgers ramp spilling into northbound Stemmons. Per Frank Librio, who says this…
