It’s been eight years since the Dallas City Council passed its homeless feeding ordinance, which barred charity groups from serving food except at certain designated sites. And it’s been just more than six years since two of those groups, Big Heart Ministries and Rip Parker Memorial Homeless Ministry, sued the…
Last month, when the city finally released details about plans to privatize the Dallas Farmers Market in hopes of making it a going concern, it prompted celebration among the many who have been dismayed by the market’s stagnation and demise. The proposal calls for a number of improvements, the most…
The attention of the country, or at least that segment of it that’s politically aware enough to pay attention, is focused squarely on the U.S. Supreme Court,which this week is debating a pair of potentially momentous cases. Hollingsworth v. Perry, which was argued today, could do away with California’s Proposition…
Ted Cruz has barreled into Washington with the force of a crazy, toupee-haired meteorite smashing through the Capitol dome. But for all his rhetoric about Obama and communists and how they are pretty much the same thing, Cruz has distinguished himself from fellow wingnuts by keeping relatively silent on the…
It took a house burning to the ground and a woman being murdered, plus an additional six months, but Dallas police have finally acknowledged just how abysmally run its 911 call center was. Deputy Chief Scott Walton said as much today during a briefing before the City Council’s Public Safety…
The couple started arguing on Saturday, around 3 in the morning, in a house near Fair Park. The man told the woman he hadn’t forgotten their past arguments, all the times she had “disrespected” him. He shoved his palm hard against her face and forced her down against a desk…
City Council chambers erupted in applause Thursday afternoon as the Plan Commission voted to deny controversial drilling permits to natural gas producer Trinity East. It was a victory for drilling opponents, to be sure; it means the permits will take 12 votes to get past the City Council, instead of…
Head down Central Expressway at or near rush hour, and you’re guaranteed to spend awhile sitting in traffic. There’s no guarantee, though, that any other route will be quicker, so drivers are left to sit and wait and wonder. You won’t have to wonder for much longer. DART is rolling…
Occupy Dallas, the local champion of the 99 percent, persists in vestigial form as small band of activists who stage occasional temporary demonstrations. The semi-permanent-City Hall-squatter’s-camp version of the movement died in November 2011 when it was raided by police as part of a nationwide crackdown on Occupy. Since then,…
Plans for the Trinity Forest Golf Course, the much-touted game-changer for southern Dallas, are taking shape as the project marches toward an expected groundbreaking this fall. All that remains, really, is figuring out how to pay for it. To get the city’s buy-in, not to mention the $12 million it’s…
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was first passed in 1986, when the thought of storing an electronic message online for any length of time must have seemed absurd. So Congress, in its foresight, gave law enforcement incredibly easy access to emails older than 180 days old. No search warrant is…
Texas’ Senate Health and Human Services committee approved another measure late yesterday straight out of the anti-abortion playbook: a bill that would require all medical facilities that perform abortions to meet the standards of an “ambulatory surgical center.” Opponents of the bill are calling it a “back-door abortion ban,” mostly…
Head over to Klyde Warren Park at noon today and you’ll be treated to a lunchtime piano recital. This evening, you can stop by for a zumba class, if that’s your thing. Tomorrow it’s a stroller boot camp and yoga, all in addition, of course, to the park’s myriad other…
City officials have made this much clear: a plastic bag ban, a la Austin and any number of California cities, will be coming to Dallas — eventually. Just last month, assistant city manager Jill Jordan told the City Council that Dallas is “maybe a year or two” away from considering…
Titus County is a little spot on the far northeastern part of the map, comprising some 32,000 people total. Belle is a infirm, chocolate-colored, 16-year-old dachshund. She also lives in Titus, and it appears that she’s made an enemy. Belle’s person is named John Mark Cobern; he also happens to…
For Trinity East, the Fort Worth-based shale gas producer, the Dallas Plan Commission meeting this Thursday is make or break. Nearly six years ago, the company bid on drilling city-owned land while Dallas sought to shore up a budget shortfall. Since then, the company shelled out tens of millions of…
In her time in office, Councilwoman Pauline Medrano has established herself as a staunch ally of the LGBT community. That’s more or less a requirement for election in District 2, which includes much of Oak Lawn and has a sizable, and politically active, gay population, and there’s no reason to…
There are a couple of bills bouncing around the state Legislature now that would make it easier — or, rather, make it harder to interfere with — to breastfeed in public. We wrote about one of them, state Representative Jessica Farrar’s HB 1706, which would allow women to sue if…
You’d think in this state, property rights would be the inviolable bedrock around which damn near everything else revolves. You’d think eminent domain, the taking of private property for public use, would be invoked only when the common benefit of a railroad, a highway or a pipeline is so undeniable…
In the race to replace Ann Margolin as District 13’s representative on the City Council, Jennifer Gates has Staubach as a maiden name and the backing of the establishment; Leland Burke, a real estate investor, has the business experience that plays well in the district’s Preston Hollow core; and Jacob…
They called him crazy. And “crazy-pants,” and “unhinged,” and, at times, a “gay-hating conspiracy theorist.” But when you call freshman Tea Party-darling Senator Ted Cruz any of those names, just understand that whilst you are merely boring, petty glue, he is rubber. Proudly crazy rubber. At a speech last night…
State Representative Rafael Anchia of Dallas filed legislation Friday that he hopes will position Texas to lead the sustainable age. He describes it as a launching point for a dialogue in the Legislature, a “shell” of a bill that will eventually drive workforce development for the next generation of jobs…
