Mayor Tom Leppert paid a visit last night to Zubar on Lower Greenville to meet with the Dallas County Young Democrats to talk about crime, the Trinity River Project and the convention center hotel, but it didn’t take long before the audience found themselves smack in the middle of a…
With the city council campaign season heating up, we thought it would be worthwhile to take a look-see at some of the campaign finance reports of the incumbents to see how they’ve been spending their dough. Freshman council member Tennell Atkins emerged as our first subject after we noticed an…
After reading Friday’s story in The Dallas Morning News regarding the nearly $1 billion funding gap for the Trinity Turnpike, Angela Hunt decided she would spend this week developing a strategy to address the approximately $64 million remaining of the city’s $84 million contribution to the project. She’s unsure whether…
As Jim pointed out earlier, transportation writer Michael Lindenberger came up short yet again in today’s Dallas Morning News regarding the Trinity Turnpike. Lindenberger’s biggest blunder was exposed shortly after the November 2007 vote, and he made another when he reported the price tag of the road at $1.8 billion…
Bryan Burrough was in town earlier this week to sell a few copies of his must-read tome The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes. Been looking forward to the book ever since September, matter of fact, when Vanity Fair excerpted a chapter that made…
The UK Guardian has an oh-those-crazy-Yanks piece about locals spending $20 on those “Welcome Home, George and Laura” signs. Better still is the accompanying artwork by the great Nan Coulter — a homemade banner from “the Maloufs,” among the eight photos included in the sidebar slideshow (or, as I like…
The Senate Committee on Finance doesn’t have Ron Kirk’s confirmation hearing penciled in on the schedule; so, for now, Bush appointee Peter F. Allgeier is the acting U.S. Trade Representative, the position to which then-President-elect Barack Obama appointed Kirk last month. But the former Dallas mayor took at least one…
First, on this Inauguration Day afternoon, a mention of drink specials in honor not only of our new president, but the former one who will make Dallas his home, oh, any day now. A few days back, Simon McDonald at The Libertine Bar forwarded us a handful of welcome-home signs,…
From the monolithic high-definition screens at Victory Park this morning, Rick Warren prayed; Aretha Franklin belted out “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” from beneath a killer hat; and Joe Biden became VP. The crowd of locals — a few hundred gathered in the sunshine at one end of the square,…
As mentioned last week, Dallas’s T.D. Jakes did indeed deliver the pre-inaugural sermon from the St. John’s Episcopal Church pulpit. The pool report contains the entirety of his sermon, delivered in front of 200 invited guests. Jakes, captured here by Patrick Michels at the Dallas premiere of Seven Pounds, quoted…
Last night from the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in D.C., site of the Texas State Society’s 2009 Black Tie & Boots Inaugural Ball, a good Friend of Unfair Park sent the following message: “The Texas ball is not only a celebration of a new president, but a display…
A traffic heads-up for tomorrow: Unless you’re planning on protesting George W. Bush’s move to the ‘229, you may want to avoid Mockingbird Lane at N. Central Expressway between the hours of 4 and 7 p.m. That’s when Code Pink of Greater Dallas is planning on celebrating Inauguration Day by…
Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, the first full-time executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King’s chief of staff, is in Dallas tonight to speak at the Belo Mansion as part of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture’s Fourth Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium. Arrested…
A good Friend of Unfair Park, up in D.C. for Barack Obama’s inauguration, was on Capitol Hill this a.m. to pick up her tickets for tomorrow. Alas, all did not go as planned:Hundreds of people are standing outside capitol offices to get tickets. Many were turned away from congressional offices…
Dallas mayors former and current were in D.C. over the weekend for the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual winter meeting: Tom Leppert, to once more make Dallas’s case for stimulus dough-re-mi; Ron Kirk, to calm mayors’ fears concerning his unpopular position on free trade. Leppert, like every other in mayor…
Two days before Christmas, while addressing the controversy surrounding President-elect Barack Obama’s decision to have Rick Warren deliver the inaugural invocation, John McWhorter wrote in The New Republic, “Suppose Obama had invited black megastar preacher T.D. Jakes instead.” Turns out, Obama has given Jakes a speaking slot on Inauguration Day…
I know, I know — we have a music blog. But on this frigid morning, I wanted to direct your attention to this download, warm and well-meaning, courtesy National Public Radio, songwriter Christian Kiefer and a singer named Will Johnson. It’s a song called “Someone to Wake,” the final installment…
As we mentioned a while back, District 13 city council candidate Ann Margolin appeared to be the heir apparent to Mitchell Rasansky with a long list of notable supporters and a strong résumé. And as the 5 p.m. deadline approaches for candidates and committees to file their finance reports, Margolin’s…
On Tuesday, Governor Rick Perry told the Associated Press he seriously doubted Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was going to challenge him come 2010. Because, look, “there’s plenty of time for the senator to think that it’s not in her best interest, Texas’ best interest or the country’s best interest to…
The council won’t be voting today on final arrangements for the convention center hotel project, which includes approval of the development agreement and Guaranteed Maximum Price with Matthews Southwest and the operator agreement with Omni Hotels, leading us to believe the final vote on this boondoggle will take place January…
When I saw that Jane McGarry had posted a comment to Unfair Park yesterday, I felt a tingling sensation in my Carly box. And with that, we present, in its entirety, the KXAS-Channel 5 anchor’s interview with Lady Bush.Update: Since, yet again, some Friends of Unfair Park are having issues…
Three weeks ago, we briefly mentioned Tiffinni Young’s name in a story about Mayor Tom’s potential bid to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison if she decides to run for governor. If Leppert leaves office early, the mayor pro tem would take his place, with either Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway…
