While District Attorney Craig Watkins has rejected two offers by the Office of the Attorney General to assist in a criminal investigation of the constables, the OAG is conducting an ongoing civil investigation of Dowdy Ferry Auto Services, according to an open records request filed by Unfair Park. Dowdy Ferry…
Two years after Texas Department of Transportation officials told Dallas that they could no longer afford to cough up the cash needed to maintain the plant life in the medians and window boxes along the stretch of Central Expressway between Woodall Rodgers and LBJ Freeways, the city council’s Transportation and…
More than two dozen folks — several of whom broke meeting protocol by talking to council members and city staff — showed up yesterday afternoon to hear the Transportation and Environment Committee tackle … well, attempt to tackle how to regulate the neighborhood farmers markets that have popped up around…
When Republican Ken Mayfield admitted to us that he’s been recruiting volunteers to help Democrat Beth Villarreal defeat Precinct 5 Constable Jaime Cortes in Tuesday’s upcoming Democratic primary runoff, Cortes was one of the first people we called for reaction. Especially after Mayfield said he doesn’t know Villarreal, whose best…
Wednesday at 5 p.m. was the filing deadline for anyone interested in running in the May 8 special election to fill state Rep. Terri Hodge’s District 100 seat — and the Texas Secretary of State’s Web site shows there’s but one candidate, Eric Johnson, who trounced guilty-plea-taking Hodge in the…
Nothing whets our political appetite like rumors of alliances between Republicans and Democrats during election season. So when we heard that Republican Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield was helping Democratic candidate Beth Villarreal in her campaign against Precinct 5 Constable Jaime Cortes, we thought we’d won the lotto. Sure, Mayfield’s…
While he’s been dodging us and other local media outlets, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins apparently had no qualms about granting an interview to former DMN’er Emily Ramshaw, who profiled his November race against Republican candidate Danny Clancy for the Texas Tribune. Strangely, Watkins comes across as decidedly Republican…
For those who didn’t read our cover story last week, the Office of the Attorney General made a second attempt on February 23 to lend a helping hand to District Attorney Craig Watkins in a criminal investigation of the Dallas County constables. In August 2009, Watkins said, um, no thanks…
A few odds and sods on this Census Day:The fine folks at Bike Friendly Oak Cliff have posted a video follow-up to our post about plans to build The Better Block at the intersection of N. Tyler and W. 7th Streets on April 10 and 11. That’s it up top,…
Much like Richard Allen’s interview, our conversation with Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson didn’t make it into the cover story on Dallas County Judge Jim Foster appearing in last week’s paper version of Unfair Park. But that’s not to say Jillson’s opinions about Foster, runoff candidate Clay Jenkins…
So says the Friend of Unfair Park who sent us the link to the most astonishingly named Web site in the history of ever: Palin4Life.com. What you see above is the only thing on the Web site, which was created on March 8. And, ooof, tickets ain’t cheap — unless…
Word is Kay Bailey Hutchison will announce this morning down in San Antonio that she’s staying in the Senate — so say NBC News and The Washington Post, anyhow. Which would explain Mayor Tom Leppert’s acknowledgment yesterday that, sure ’nuff, he’s mulling a second term.And it would explain State Sen…
As we told you at the end of Monday’s item about Mayor Tom Leppert’s new Web site, consultant Laura Reed Martin was supposed to get back with us about the decision to hire Washington, D.C.-based Stan Olshefski to handle the site’s upcoming redesign. Stuff like this normally wouldn’t be that…
As you may have read in this morning’s Dallas Morning News, Vice President Joe Biden has plans to drop by the home of lawyer Russell Budd tomorrow night to headline a fund-raiser for the Democrats’ U.S. Senate campaign committee. Dallas County Republican Party chair Jonathan Neerman seized on the visit…
Today, in the foyer of the Kroger at 5665 E. Mockingbird Lane, Progress Dallas officially launched its effort to collect the 68,846 signatures needed to call a local option election giving residents the chance to vote for the elimination the dry areas of Dallas, as well as ending all the…
Space restraints prevented us from including our interview with Richard Allen, CEO of The Allen Group, in this week’s look at departing Dallas County Judge Jim Foster — available wherever paper versions of Unfair Park are given away tomorrow. Of course, TAG is developing the Dallas Logistics Hub, which Schutze…
First we didn’t know who shouted “Baby Killer!” at Rep. Bart Stupak last night, during the health care debate. Joe Barton knew, but he wasn’t talking. Then, we found out: It was Lubbock’s own Rep. Randy Neugebauer, which, according to Jim anyway, sounded familiar.Neugebauer. Neugebauer. Neugebauer. (Also: It’s fun to…
On Tuesday, we opined that Mayor Tom Leppert’s U.S. Senate campaign was moving full steam ahead regardless of whether Kay Bailey Hutchison resigns before her term expires at the end of 2012. Why? The donations to his mayoral campaign completely dried up in the last half of 2009; his annual…
[Updated: Below, you’ll find an update, from Taking Points Memo, in which Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock fesses up to being the shouter last night. As TPM also points out, he was also the co-sponsor of the so-called Birther Bill.] Last night, Gawker wondered, “Who Is the American Hero Who…
For the past two years, Mayor Tom Leppert’s annual “Giraffes, Monkeys and Lepperts” event at the Dallas Zoo has served as a birthday bash for the mayor and fund-raiser for Friends of Tom Leppert, a committee formed to pay Leppert’s consultants and expenses. Last year, we revealed one of the…
Hands up, waiting for their turn to talk and asking the woman across the table to speak up a little louder, please, about 20 people gathered at The Generator in Garland on Saturday afternoon to mull over political questions at one of about a dozen local Coffee Party USA kick-off events.Billed as a…
One hundred and fourteen votes. That’s all that kept Clay Jenkins from securing the Democratic nomination for county judge on March 2. Instead, he’ll take on former Dallas City Council member Larry Duncan in the April 13 runoff election to determine Republican Wade Emmert’s opponent in November. Echoing much of…
