Welcome to Day Three of our continuing coverage of Park and Rec’s proposal to sell, among others, Samuell Farm and Samuell New Hope Park, which will be taken up by the park board at its meeting tomorrow morning at City Hall. (Which Andrea’s covering, thank God.) So far we’ve spoken…
Later today I’ll post at least the first part of my chat with City Manager Mary Suhm about how she plans to gutcut the city’s FY2010-’11 budget, which needs to shed $131 million even after last year’s $180-some-odd-million bloodletting. But here’s a relevant sneak peek related to an item on…
When W.W. Samuell left the city of Dallas thousands of acres of park land upon his death in 1937, he left very explicit instructions: “Real estate to the City of Dallas Park Board for park purposes – not to be sold.” Yesterday we broke the news that the Park and…
We’ve got July 12 circled in red on our calendars: That’s when Ron Slovacek goes to trial in U.S. District Judge Barbara M. G. Lynn’s courtroom — making him the way last defendant to be tried in the Dallas City Hall federal corruption case. Hard to believe we’re not done…
This isn’t our first item about Park and Rec’s proposal to sell Samuell Farm and Samuell New Hope Park, and it won’t be the last. I’m waiting to hear from the Texas Attorney General’s Office how it feels about Thursday’s agenda item, given that it was but 14 months ago…
Today or tomorrow, depending upon when she’s got the time to wrap up our chat, we’ll post the Unfair Park Interview with Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm concerning this year’s $131-million budget cutting that’s more like a gutting following last year’s to-the-bone. So far in our conversations she’s used words…
Man, those were good times back in February and March — headin’ down to the George Allen seemingly every other week for a hearing in City of Dallas v. Museum of the American Railroad. But there hasn’t been a court date in a long while, and there may not be…
I just spoke with Willis Winters, assistant director of Park and Rec, about the potential sale of Samuell Farm and how it landed on the board’s agenda this Thursday in the first place. Says Winters, it actually came up when the City Attorney’s Office was asked to prepare docs regarding…
The city has spent the better part of six months trying to come up with a proposal that’ll allow neighborhood farmers markets to keep operating without cutting into the city-owned downtown market’s business. The latest proposition goes in front of the city council’s Transportation and Environment Committee this afternoon –…
I expect this won’t be our last item on this subject today, given the years of blood, toil, tears and sweat that have been spilled over Samuell Farm. But just a little more than a year after the city and Texas Attorney General’s Office hashed out an agreement over the…
Happy Sunday, Friends! While you were out having a nice, relaxing weekend full of neighbors and sun and beers and loveliness, I was at the 2010 Texas Republican Party Convention having a blast talking about ‘Murka and stuff. It was a fun- and camo-filled two days, but I’ve managed to…
As Representative Dan Branch told us yesterday afternoon shortly after addressing the delegation from John Carona’s senate district, what a difference two years has made for state Republicans, whose attitude has changed since 2008’s Republican Party of Texas convention in Houston. “There seems to be a lot more positive feeling…
There are any number of interesting and important items on the council’s agenda this week — like the latest suggestions for regulating neighborhood farmers markets (which I’m gonna pass around this morning when I head over to the White Rock Local Market), the proposed budget for street services in the…
Steven Michael was hired in April 2007 as an Environmental Inspector III for the city of Dallas Water Utilities Department, at which point he told his immediate supervisor, Yilam Zerihun, that he had a disability that didn’t allow him to lift anything heavier than 20 pounds. Michael, who employment was…
The good people with the Republican Party of Texas are just beginning to get their biennial convention locked and loaded into the Dallas Convention Center, where the next few days promise a wealth of political theater, and this year, even a little more substance than usual. As Robert pointed out…
As you no doubt recall, the rains of March ’06 wreaked havoc upon the White Rock Lake Spillway — retaining walls collapsed, and huge hunks of land were swallowed by the storms. Which is why, in August ’08, the city council agreed to spend $16,748,070 to not only repair the…
We’ve been watching from Unfair Park HQ as pieces of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge have been lifted into place, and earlier today Mayor Tom Leppert and the rest of the City Council bunch saddled up to get their own up-close look at the construction. It’s a closed-off site, but…
I see here that tomorrow, the Landmark Commission’s Fair Park Task Force has but one item on its agenda: putting new row numbers and seat number tags on the wood benches in the Fair Park Band Shell. Which may seem like small progress, but it signifies significant strides in terms…
If nothing else, this’ll be the last Southwest Center Mall item of the day — only because there’ll be nothing left to talk about till after the council returns from its summer recess. But Ron Natinksky, head of the city council’s Economic Development Committee, called Unfair Park to discuss the…
What it do, Friends? Today’s Housing Committee meeting, which Robert warned you I’d be liveblogging, got a late start because of the overflow of the previous Public Safety Committee meeting, which I caught the tail end of, while they were discussing agenda item Mild Panic Over Not Having Enough Police…
Back to Southwest Center Mall for a moment — or, more specifically, the city’s plans to keep the “dead mall,” per the Urban Land Institute, alive. Karl Zavitkovsky kept the council’s Economic Development Committee behind closed doors for almost an hour this morning, during which point it was mentioned that…
I pulled into the parking lot of the Dallas Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Cathedral, Library & Museum at Harwood and Young Streets at 6:40 this morning; right behind me was Mayor Tom Leppert. The lot was already jam-packed with trucks and trailers and catering tables for today’s Good Guys shoot,…
