Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings loves task forces. During five years in office he has created specialized committees both large (Rawlings’ domestic violence task force boasts more than 40 members) and small (the obscure senior citizen’s task force, chaired by Councilwoman Monica Alonzo, which we have to assume has some members, though…
The word, hater, has come to Dallas City Hall. Let’s hope its a temporary infection. This is anecdotal, not scientific, but use of hater really does seem to have grown in frequency, the most recent bump coming from the harrumptive Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump. He used it three…
Nothing has changed but the stakes. From the American Airlines Center last September to Gilley’s Southside Ballroom last night, this is still Donald Trump’s show. The presumptive Republican presidential candidate showed up in Dallas on Thursday as unlikely party standard bearer. He’s the guy who, unless something unprecedented happens…
Texas’ fight to keep refugees out of the state appears to be over, and the Syrians can stay. In a ruling released Thursday morning, U.S. District Judge David Godbey, said that the state did not have grounds to sue the federal government and an immigrant settlement non-profit to keep refugees from…
It took a while, but the details of Dallas’ latest encounter with presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign finally got filled in Wednesday afternoon. After a nearly weeklong search for a venue, the Trump operation found a DFW home at the Southside Ballroom, otherwise known as the big room…
Serious effort here on my part. Really. I shall approach the story of our local mentally ill district attorney from a more positive perspective than in the past. Ahem. Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk has returned to Dallas from yet another institutional sojourn associated with mental illness – I…
Another painful moment lies ahead for Dallas as the city struggles to deal with an issue most of the nation probably thought was long shut away in the history books – formal racial segregation by policy. It’s not history here. Segregation is about to be news again. But first, there…
When it’s finished later this year, the Trinity Forest Golf Club will be, per Avid Golfer magazine, “pretty freaking awesome.” It will be expansive and undulating, with carpet-like greens and fairways accented by native grasses, all just a short hop from Downtown Dallas. In the meantime, the private Company of…
After the fatal savaging of Antoinette Brown in southern Dallas in May, the status quo on loose dogs in Dallas has grown increasingly unacceptable. Led by City Council member Tiffinni Young, residents and other leaders of the city’s southern sector have grown louder in demanding that the city do more…
Dallas City Manager A.C. Gonzalez announced on Memorial Day he intends to resign at the end of January, telling a TV crew he wants to get his “life back.” I don’t know any more than that, so I am bound, however grudgingly, to take what he says at face value. But…
In an extensive report released Friday afternoon, the city of Dallas detailed the lapses in enforcement and communication that led to the dog-mauling death of Antoinette Brown on May 2. In memo to the Dallas City Council, Assistant City Manager Joey Zapata wrote that Dallas Police and Dallas Animal Services…
Here are some observations that may help you put the city’s projected budget shortfall of $19 million for 2016-2017 into a proper context. In a total city budget that was something over $3 billion last year, a $19 million shortfall will amount to about 0.6 of one percent of the…
Very late Thursday afternoon, a Dallas County judge ruled that Dennis Topletz can’t intimidate, threaten or retaliate against his tenants for the duration of city of Dallas’ lawsuit against him. Topletz is, if you believe the city and The Dallas Morning News, a slumlord. He owns about 200 houses in…
Assessed home values in Dallas County were up by 12.2 percent across the board in 2016, thanks to the region’s robust housing market. While the state caps any increase in taxable value at 10 percent a year, the rise still means pain for homeowners, especially those in the middle of…
Somebody slipped me a copy of a 2-inch-deep, loose-leaf binder being circulated to members of Dallas’ park board, who are stalled on what to do with Fair Park, the city’s 277-acre post-apocalyptic exposition park two miles south of downtown. No wonder they’re stalled. This week was supposed to be the…
This year, DART is celebrating 20 years of the agency’s yellow and white light-rail trains moving people around North Texas in one form or another. DART’s system traverses more than 90 miles of track, making it the longest light rail system in the country, and claims more than $8 billion…
There’s nothing funny about the affluenza defense. I’m not trying to be funny. I’m serious. A light bulb came on over my head this morning when I read a letter to the editor. In all seriousness, is there not some sense in which the affluenza theory could be applied legitimately…
On the one hand, naming a linear park on an old bridge for a former mayor seems like something that would fall somewhere between a nice thing to do at best and at the very worst harmless. But it’s the misdirection that counts. When you look at what some city…
Immigration and civil rights groups have stepped in the middle of the fight over immigration between Texas and the Obama administration, appealing a lower court decision they say threatens their clients’ privacy. The National Immigration Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project and the ACLU of Texas aim to…
Uh-oh. Grab your wallet. The Dallas Morning News editorial page wants you to know about a very exciting City-Hall-run real estate development on Lancaster Road across from the Veterans Administration hospital, six miles south of downtown: “This is an important project,” the paper said this week. “It’s prime property on…
Oh, man, sometimes I think I’m walking into a serious conversation about Dallas City Hall. Then I hear what people down there are saying. I just want to stop and say, “Oh, excuse me, wrong venue, I guess. I thought I was walking into City Hall. Obviously I took a wrong…
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, as one parent of a transgender teen described it at the Texas State Capitol Wednesday, has gotten himself into a “literal pissing contest.” Still defiant over a White House directive that schools receiving federal funding must allow students to use the restroom consistent with their…
