This afternoon, the Dallas City Council voted unanimously to kick in more than $4.4 million from sports arena tax-increment financing district funds to begin some of the more rudimentary tasks necessary to rehabilitate the dystopian pseudo-urban wasteland that is Victory Park. The money is but a small part of the…
It may comes as a surprise, but as more of the Trinity River project becomes actually worth using, the security concerns facing the area become more complex. To that end, with help from a grant by the Caruth Foundation through the Trinity Trust, the Dallas Police Department is conducting a…
In a lawsuit filed in Dallas’ 44th District Court on Thursday, state Senator Royce West claims a resident of his district has consistently defamed him and has, more recently, begun stalking him at campaign and other events, including a pair of funerals. At the events West cites, Bennie Jeffery held…
Give U.S. Representative Pete Sessions credit for participation. In December, he met with a group of students from Richardson’s Berkner High School to answer some questions and be filmed for a C-SPAN contest in which the students were competing. The students seem well informed — or at least well prepped…
Life isn’t fair. It’s why kids starve. It’s why puppies suffer. It’s why the people who live next to Cityplace will soon also be living next to a 130,000-square-foot Sam’s Club. Dallas’ City Plan Commission confirmed this afternoon that yep, the big box Trammell Crow has planned for the corner…
After finally worming its way onto the Dallas City Council’s briefing agenda, the newly revised transportation-for-hire ordinance, the one that’s supposed to fix the whole Yellow Cab/Uber/Lyft mess, has been put off. Despite protestations from Sandy Greyson, who headed the work group behind the new ordinance, and Dwaine Caraway, a…
In month when Texas Republicans seemingly cannot stop saying dumb things about homosexuality, the party’s finished 2014 platform makes it clear the state GOP isn’t just ignorant about gay life — it’s willfully ignorant. They even put it in writing. See also: Rick Perry Doubles Down on Stupid Talking About…
Greg Abbott debuted his first general election campaign ad Tuesday, bucking his party’s recent trend by at least attempting to appeal to Hispanic voters. The ad, which can be seen in full below and features Abbott’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law, was aired on Univision during Mexico and Brazil’s 0-0 World Cup…
A few months ago, just south of the Texas-Mexico border, a 17-year-old girl was cautiously making her way to the Rio Grande river and the American desert beyond. In her arms she carried her 1-year-old daughter. The two made it across, but, like most of the South American women and…
We should probably be used to it by now. Governor Rick Perry went on CNBC earlier this week and said something that, were it to have come from anyone else, would’ve been stunning for its intellectual dishonesty. In the midst of an interview, which you can see in full below,…
On Saturday, when the other, more ordinary candidates for the Texas House of Representatives were probably making campaign calls or hanging out with their lame families, Arlington Republican Tony Tinderholt appeared to be on a bolder mission. Dressed in camouflage gear, Tinderholt posed for three photographs posted to Facebook Saturday…
If nothing else, Rick Perry deserves points for hubris. In California to stump up business for Texas — including a proposed factory to build batteries for Teslas — the governor responded to questions about the Texas GOP platform’s endorsement of dangerous reparative therapy for LGBTQ individuals by comparing homosexuality to…
Chivalry, you’ll be happy to learn, isn’t dead. Almost, maybe, but it still burns on in the heart of former Dallas police officer Michael Mosher. Mosher was one of seven officers who responded to a report of three potentially suspicious young men walking through an alley in the 6600 block…
House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor went down to ignominious defeat in his Republican primary in Virginia last night, becoming the first sitting majority leader to lose a party primary in the position’s history. In the upset’s aftermath, two North Texas representatives — Pete Sessions of Dallas and Jeb…
After a thankfully brief and largely unfocused debate this morning, the Dallas City Council amended city ordinances to allow bicycles in public buildings, remove unwieldy prohibitions against stunt riding and racing, and allow bicycle riders older than 17 to choose whether to wear a helmet. Changing the helmet requirements was…
Commissioners began considering whether to allow the installation of so-called historical racing terminals at Texas horse tracks at a Tuesday afternoon meeting of the Texas Racing Commission in Austin. The machines, which allow bettors to rapidly wager on replays of past races that have scrubbed of all identifying information, are…
Keller ISD board member Jo Lynn Haussmann was censured at a special meeting of the board last night. She was asked to resign, too, but that was never going to happen. She offered a half-hearted apology for the Facebook comment that led to the meeting — the one in which…
In a move that’s been a long time coming, the Deep Ellum Tax Increment Financing District Board met Monday to approve a recommendation to the City Council that the district be expanded to include the area that people actually think of as Deep Ellum. The core of Deep Ellum, the…
When we left you on Friday, there was a glimmering hope that Texas Republicans might consider adopting a more middle-ground approach to immigration, in an attempt to appeal to Hispanic voters. According to state Representative Jason Villalba, a more moderate stance would be critical to the survival of the Republican…
“Unless we adjust, we as a party are at tremendous peril of vanishing forever.” This was Jason Villalba, the state rep from Dallas, over the phone today, imagining the doomsday scenario that could break his Republican party, if far-right members don’t shuffle toward the center aisle on immigration. Villalba recently…
The Republican National Convention committee on Tuesday kicked off a week of host city-searching with a trip to Cleveland, the first of four stops. After Cleveland, committee members will make stops in Kansas City and Denver before rounding out the trip in Dallas late next week. Dallas city officials, for…
An early draft of the 2014 Texas Republican Party platform obtained by the San Antonio Express-News would get rid of some of its most strident anti-LGBTQ language while maintaining staunch opposition to marriage equality and any state or federal benefits for same-sex couples. The draft also includes an endorsement of…
