Did you wake up this morning wondering what all the arguing’s going to be about at Saturday’s redistricting forum with Mayor Mike Rawlings and the city council members? Wonder no longer! At a City Hall press conference just now, council members Dwaine Caraway and Tennell Atkins, backed by former council member…
I was looking for something extremely unrelated on the city’s bids website when I came across what’s referred to as an “informal solicitation,” which is what landed Schutze in the county lockup in the early 1970s. And seeing as how we take and take and take from City Hall but…
In the end, it would be quicker to name the council members who didn’t submit amendments to the Redistricting Commission by Monday’s 3 p.m. deadline: Sheffie Kadane, Angela Hunt, Jerry Allen and Sandy Greyson. Everyone else had something to say, including Mayor Mike, who actually turned in two amendments –…
Driving home last night, I saw a few lonely sign wavers on the north side of Northwest Highway. “Bring our troops home now,” the signs urged, and I thought: Hey. That’s nice. A totally depoliticized protest of our country’s ongoing wars, just some guys who, on a comfortable Tuesday evening,…
Yesterday we got ’round to covering the first half of the council’s Arts, Culture & Libraries Committee meeting — the part about how other cities spend more on their arts organizations than Dallas, and how we might be able to fix that. (Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette tax.) This morning,…
I’m dialed into the inaugural meeting of the council’s Arts, Culture & Libraries Committee, tasked by Mayor Mike, as you’ll recall, with finding “alternative funding sources” to help make Dallas “a smart, cultured and creative city.” And God bless her, Maria Munoz-Blanco, director of the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs,…
Next week’s council agenda makes it official: The long-talked-about expansion of César Chávez Boulevard and Pearl Expressway downtown, from Commerce Street to Live Oak Street, is on track to begin in December. The council is set to sign off on paying $12,473,920 to Tiseo Paving Company to do the job,…
This afternoon at 1, the city council’s Budget, Finance, and Audit Committee will get together with a jam-packed agenda that will include an appearance by City Auditor Craig Kinton, who will outline his FY2012 to-do list. (Which includes a look-see at the city’s ethics, as in: “Assess and evaluate the…
Back in February we noted that former municipal judge Staci Williams — a Hockaday graduate with a Georgetown law degree — had filed a federal suit against the city of Dallas over her dismissal in June 2010, when the city council’s Ad-Hoc Legislative Committee refused to reappoint her to that…
Now that it’s wrapped budget amendment talk, the council’s in executive session, where one of the agenda items reads: “Legal issues regarding proposed resource flow control ordinance.” And not a moment too soon. Not only is council set to return to read over those flow control Q&A’s we posted Saturday,…
The council’s wrapped up straw-voting on those budget amendments, one of which involved those changes to Dallas-Fire Rescue’s dispatch scheduling. Sheffie Kadane had proposed leaving the schedule as it is now: with DFR employees working one 24-hour shift, followed by 72 hours off. Because, he said, going City Manager Mary…
A little after 9 this morning, the city council just took up those budget amendments we mentioned Saturday morning. First up was the slam dunk: the en masse suggestion, led by Mayor Mike Rawlings, to eliminate one more city-worker furlough day, fill those five pools and up funding for the…
On Wednesday, two Dallas Fire-Rescue workers told Mayor Mike and the rest of the council that two proposals in the city manager’s budget were “a disaster in the making.” They take issue with Mary Suhm’s proposal to alter and reduce shifts for dispatchers, which Suhm says will save around $1…
Those in need of a little light reading this Saturday morning will find on the other side the stack of heads-ups sent to the city council last night, the highlight of which will probably the proposed budget amendments offered by council members before Monday morning’s briefing and straw vote. And…
We briefed you earlier about PARK(ing) Day Dallas, which organizer Noah Jeppson told us was supposed to help Dallasites and visitors “rethink the function of our public spaces … and have fun doing it.” I just got back from checking out the teensy-tiny parks that have taken over 30 or…
Forget what I just wrote below about council members turning in their redistricting amendments by 5 p.m. today. I just got a call from someone at City Hall informing me that, no, that deadline was just changed — at the request of the mayor’s office. The Redistricting Commission office confirms:…
Turns out, Mayor Mike Rawlings isn’t the only council member considering submitting an amendment to the final redistricting map sent to council. Last night I was told at least five other council members are planning on offering their own suggested alterations by today’s 5 p.m. deadline, among them Vonciel Jones…
Thanks to Anna’s unswerving dedication to documenting the entirety of the redistricting process, I’ve become addicted to the proposed maps that may or may not decide council districts for the next decade. So too has Mayor Mike, who may turn in his own amended map tomorrow by 5, the deadline…
The high-rise standing at 1607 Main Street looks nothing like the one built on that very spot in 1909, when it was known as the Praetorian Building — “the West’s first ‘skyscraper.'” Architect Clarence C. Bulger’s 15-story building, once an ornate, golden-hued tourist attraction, was gutted and stripped bare in…
Got a cryptic email yesterday that said someone from Dallas Fire-Rescue would speak to the council today (“if he is allowed”) about changes to DFR mentioned in the city manager’s budget. Those should ring a bell: A couple of months back we looked at concerns over plans to shuffle some…
Many of those Lower Greenville specific use permits approved by the City Plan Commission came before the city council today, which is why Bruce Richardson, repping a coalition of neighborhood associations, was perched at the podium for the better part of the last hour, saying nice things about some applicants…
During the morning portion of today’s city council meeting, Mayor Mike Rawlings told his colleagues he’s been “doing some thinking” about redistricting. Lord, haven’t we all. In reviewing what the Redistricting Commission has done, he said, “I believe the transparency was there.” This, of course, despite recent complaints by Ruth…
