Here’s the straight news story: According to multiple reliable sources speaking off the record, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General will soon conclude a yearlong probe of Dallas City Hall with findings of financial wrongdoing in the city’s housing and economic development departments. Here’s…
In a dispute over an appointment to the city’s Civil Service Board, Dallas City Council member Lee Kleinman told The Dallas Morning News this week, “I hate organized labor.” Wow. Where I came from, that’s almost hate speech. Or crazy speech. Like saying, “I hate CEOs.” C’mon. Which CEO? You…
Pity Joppa. With a deep, proud history as a living, breathing freedman’s town, this little gathering of 500 souls in a crook of the Trinity River five miles southeast of downtown is one of the city’s most impoverished places. Still, so many powerful people are always trying to rob Joppa,…
Justin Irwin won’t forget Feb. 14. After losing friends and classmates to an gunman that day in Parkland, Florida, he marched in Dallas’ March For Our Lives to show his support for gun legislation. Irwin was in Dallas to speak at Parkland Moves Us, a March 25 event hosted by…
Confessions of a liberal: I loved it, I swooned, I cheered out loud last week when Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a verbal flail to Trump’s HUD secretary, Dr. Ben Carson, at a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. But confessions of an old man:…
City staff is recommending that the city not remove the Confederate memorial next to City Hall, leave it in place instead and ameliorate its effect on the public by placing a plaque nearby with “contextual information.” At Wednesday’s City Council briefing on the issue, it looked as if a majority…
The city’s Confederate war memorial, cozily situated between City Hall and the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, could be on its way out after a slim majority of the Dallas City Council expressed support for its removal Wednesday. Late last week, it looked like the towering statue might receive a…
After a Feb. 23 gas-leak explosion in Northwest Dallas killed 12-year-old Linda Rogers in her home, emergency crews and Atmos Energy evacuated the surrounding area, cut off gas service and began working around the clock to repair leaky, corroded pipes. As Atmos crews work to restore service, some residents in…
The Dallas City Council is debating a new housing policy. During this period of public input and debate, you should closely monitor your banking and credit card accounts, keep all valuables in a safe and locked place, ask any so-called Girl Scouts who come to the door selling cookies for…
On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of North Texas students are going to try to do what adults haven’t be able to figure out. They’re going to confront America’s gun violence epidemic in a way that actually gets something done. When the students take to the streets in solidarity with the victims…
There won’t be a recount after all. Just before noon Monday, former Dallas County District Judge Elizabeth Frizell conceded her hard-fought primary for Dallas County district attorney. John Creuzot, also a former district judge, is now officially the Democratic nominee for DA. He’ll take on Faith Johnson, Dallas County’s last…
As things stood in November, the last time the Dallas City Council took up Dallas’ Confederate statue problem, it seemed the council was ready to accept the recommendations of the task force hastily assembled by the city this summer after a woman was killed during a fight over the fate…
Presuming Democrats don’t pull off a statewide upset, Texas’ November election is going to be about the small things. Lupe Valdez or Andrew White probably won’t beat Gov. Greg Abbott, and Beto O’Rourke, however charismatic, probably isn’t going to knock off Sen. Ted Cruz. Across the state, however, there are…
U.S. District Judge David Godbey has ruled against Dallas firefighters and cops whose retirement savings were frozen by the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund board, saying that the retirees don’t have a case because they will get their savings back eventually. I am trying to get my head around…
This is intriguing. Ben Carson, who is Trump’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development, has announced (see below) a new initiative imposing a system of spending controls on the agency, which spends $60 billion a year. You might wonder why somebody didn’t think of that before. We know all about…
This makes four times. Four times in the course of one week I have sent the same set of questions to the Atmos Energy public relations staff. First time, they messaged me back that they were busy. Next three times, radio silence. I just find that remarkable. This is a…
More than a week after Dallas County’s Democratic primary for district attorney, the two candidates in the race, former judges Elizabeth Frizell and John Creuzot, are still fighting it out over who will move on to challenge Republican Faith Johnson in November. Wednesday, Frizell made her strongest attack yet against…
Joe Straus and Byron Cook, two retiring moderate Texas House Republicans, got in their last licks on their frequent opponents, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, with the release of a Straus-commissioned report on Texas’ economic competitiveness. By publicly championing legislation last year to keep transgender people from…
All but one provision of Texas’ 2017 sanctuary cities law can be enforced as the law makes its long journey through the federal courts, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. The bill, which is the subject of a legal challenge from the cities of Dallas, Austin, Houston,…
Rex Tillerson and his DFW ties are out at the State Department. According to the White House, President Donald Trump decided Friday, in the midst of Tillerson’s diplomatic trip to Africa, to replace the secretary of state, but a statement from the State Department on Tuesday said that the secretary had yet…
The National Rifle Association’s national tent revival is coming to Dallas in May. Whether the city and its residents like it or not, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and company have a valid contract, good for a free takeover of the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center on Cinco de…
For a time in the fall and winter, and maybe still, Texas Democrats talked themselves into thinking that maybe this year was going to be the year. Through the Virginia gubernatorial election in November, Doug Jones’ massive senatorial upset in Alabama and early voting in Texas, those who’ve wandered through…
