This afternoon, City Hall spokesman Frank Librio forwarded a memo City Manager Mary Suhm sent to Mayor Tom Leppert and the council last night, in which Suhm broke some news: She found an extra $1.8 million with which to fund the city’s rec centers, whose hours she’s proposing to drastically…
As I said after Mayor Tom Leppert’s huge convention center hotel victory, the man simply knows how to win. So that, combined with a sneak peek at Angela Hunt’s thoughts, didn’t make me fret about missing the big vote on the concessions at Dallas Love Field Airport. However, had I…
Speaking of library branches …Let’s return for a moment to the subject of vacant city buildings, chief among them the branches that have been replaced by new-and-improveds (like, say, boarded-up Walnut Hill and that canvas Casa View). Because when last we spoke with City Manager Mary Suhm about the subject…
An intriguing invite just arrived in the Unfair Park in-box: On November 6, the Park and Rec Board is hosting a daylong summit at the Fair Park Music Hall, during which Mayor Tom will deliver a keynote before the limited-to-500-attendees go in their separate directions to learn how to become…
Late last night, after a long day sluggin’ it out with the council (Carolyn Davis especially) over those Love Field concessions contracts, Mayor Tom Leppert sent out a conciliatory congratulations e-blast with the subject header “Love Field decision will benefit Dallas.” The decision, for those who missed it: The city…
‘Round 3 on Monday afternoon, the day after crews coated the hothothothot stainless-steel playground at Main Street Garden, Andrea was supposed meet Park and Rec officials to see if they were satisfied with the cool-down offered by the spray-on. She waited an hour, had a tea at the Lily Pad,…
Following up the Poor People’s March on City Hall in June, activist John Fullinwider (seen above “as” Mayor Tom) and his band of bikini’d protesters took their fight to save the city’s swimming pools to 1500 Marilla at noon sharp today, as promised. Alas, this time ’round no council members…
The great Dave Levinthal decamped from the City Hall beat in the spring of ’09 for the Center for Responsive Politics, where we find this item of some local interest: Emmitt Smith, freshly minted Pro Football Hall of Famer, is also a generous federal-campaign contributor — the only one among…
[Update: If you can’t make it through all 80-some-odd comments to get to the actual news, here it is: The council eventually voted to open up the bids at Love Field. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t pretty. But it’s done.]It’s another Wednesday morning here at City Hall, and love…
Patrick Michels will be Our Man at City Hall today, liveblogging the portion of today’s council briefing having to do with Love Field concessions (hey, he asked). But there is something else of interest on the agenda today: Storm Communication Improvements, referring, of course, to how Oncor gets out to…
Tomorrow, finally, the city council will be briefed once again on the concession contracts at Dallas Love Field Airport that has the council is split along racial lines. Mayor Tom Leppert failed to mention the racial taint attached to the issue in an e-mail we received from his campaign this…
I spoke yesterday with a high-ranking City Hall monitor who says that based upon the feedback council members are getting at their budget town halls, a tax hike “actually might happen,” since a 1-cent increase would go a long way toward sparing proposed cuts to rec centers and, just maybe,…
About 10 percent of next winter’s college bowl games will be played right here in our backyard, two under noses in Dallas. In addition to the Cotton Bowl at Cowboys Stadium, this year will mark the debut of the Dallas Football Classic at the Cotton Bowl. And yesterday brought news…
The very top of the very morning to you, Friends. Here I am at City Hall once again (still haven’t regained my Foursquare mayorship, very upset about it) to bring you live updates from the Trinity River Corridor Project Committee meeting. Maybe you have heard about this thing, where the…
Initially, MIG’s Downtown Dallas 360 plan was due to the city council right about now; but that was before the price tag jumped to more than $700,000 to cover the cost of parking, and now it’s scheduled to be put under City Hall’s Christmas tree, can’t wait. But late yesterday…
As we mentioned last Tuesday the city council’s Quality of Life Committee got ’round to discussing some tweaks the city needs to make to its graffiti ordinance, which isn’t quite in compliance with state law. At which point Friend of Unfair Park Bill Holston, local attorney and KERA-FM commentary contributor,…
According to Dallas City Code, all but three city parks are closed from midnight till 5 a.m. (The exceptions — Barnes Bridge Park, Bachman Creek Greenbelt and William B. Dean Park — close at 10 p.m.) But according to a proposal the Park and Rec Board will consider Thursday, that’s…
It’s been a long while since we’ve gotten an update on the Elm Fork Athletic Complex — you remember, that 20-field soccer complex the city’s been pitching since the ’98 bond election. Last I recall, construction on the $38.6-million, 140-acre project, located off Walnut Hill Lane just west of Stemmons,…
Two years ago, the council’s Economic Development Committee took a long, hard look at parking rates at Love Field and agreed with the recommendation that it gradually hike prices “over several years” for several reasons — among them, Love Field’s just too cheap, and it’ll help offset some of the…
With the clock ticking on the Cliff Manor Task Force’s 6 p.m. deadline yesterday, Patrick “Buzz” Williams and I had a chance to sit down with Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance director Mike Faenza, who wanted to offers his perspective on the fight over Cliff Manor that seems to be getting…
As Mayor Tom Leppert told DMN’er Rudy Bush last night, there will be at least four options for the city council to evaluate at Wednesday’s briefing about the Dallas Love Field Airport concession contracts, two of which contain the mayor’s input. We asked Leppert’s chief of staff, Chris Heinbaugh, for…
Meant to be sung to the tune of this Squeeze single …Remember Hiram Walker Royall? Sure you do — he’s the Highland Park developer who sued anyone who wrote, reviewed or pretty much read Carla Main’s 2007 book Bulldozed: “Kelo,” Eminent Domain and the American Lust for Land, which deals…
