I just spoke with Willis Winters, assistant director of Park and Rec, about the potential sale of Samuell Farm and how it landed on the board’s agenda this Thursday in the first place. Says Winters, it actually came up when the City Attorney’s Office was asked to prepare docs regarding…
The city has spent the better part of six months trying to come up with a proposal that’ll allow neighborhood farmers markets to keep operating without cutting into the city-owned downtown market’s business. The latest proposition goes in front of the city council’s Transportation and Environment Committee this afternoon –…
I expect this won’t be our last item on this subject today, given the years of blood, toil, tears and sweat that have been spilled over Samuell Farm. But just a little more than a year after the city and Texas Attorney General’s Office hashed out an agreement over the…
Happy Sunday, Friends! While you were out having a nice, relaxing weekend full of neighbors and sun and beers and loveliness, I was at the 2010 Texas Republican Party Convention having a blast talking about ‘Murka and stuff. It was a fun- and camo-filled two days, but I’ve managed to…
As Representative Dan Branch told us yesterday afternoon shortly after addressing the delegation from John Carona’s senate district, what a difference two years has made for state Republicans, whose attitude has changed since 2008’s Republican Party of Texas convention in Houston. “There seems to be a lot more positive feeling…
There are any number of interesting and important items on the council’s agenda this week — like the latest suggestions for regulating neighborhood farmers markets (which I’m gonna pass around this morning when I head over to the White Rock Local Market), the proposed budget for street services in the…
Steven Michael was hired in April 2007 as an Environmental Inspector III for the city of Dallas Water Utilities Department, at which point he told his immediate supervisor, Yilam Zerihun, that he had a disability that didn’t allow him to lift anything heavier than 20 pounds. Michael, who employment was…
The good people with the Republican Party of Texas are just beginning to get their biennial convention locked and loaded into the Dallas Convention Center, where the next few days promise a wealth of political theater, and this year, even a little more substance than usual. As Robert pointed out…
As you no doubt recall, the rains of March ’06 wreaked havoc upon the White Rock Lake Spillway — retaining walls collapsed, and huge hunks of land were swallowed by the storms. Which is why, in August ’08, the city council agreed to spend $16,748,070 to not only repair the…
We’ve been watching from Unfair Park HQ as pieces of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge have been lifted into place, and earlier today Mayor Tom Leppert and the rest of the City Council bunch saddled up to get their own up-close look at the construction. It’s a closed-off site, but…
I see here that tomorrow, the Landmark Commission’s Fair Park Task Force has but one item on its agenda: putting new row numbers and seat number tags on the wood benches in the Fair Park Band Shell. Which may seem like small progress, but it signifies significant strides in terms…
If nothing else, this’ll be the last Southwest Center Mall item of the day — only because there’ll be nothing left to talk about till after the council returns from its summer recess. But Ron Natinksky, head of the city council’s Economic Development Committee, called Unfair Park to discuss the…
What it do, Friends? Today’s Housing Committee meeting, which Robert warned you I’d be liveblogging, got a late start because of the overflow of the previous Public Safety Committee meeting, which I caught the tail end of, while they were discussing agenda item Mild Panic Over Not Having Enough Police…
Back to Southwest Center Mall for a moment — or, more specifically, the city’s plans to keep the “dead mall,” per the Urban Land Institute, alive. Karl Zavitkovsky kept the council’s Economic Development Committee behind closed doors for almost an hour this morning, during which point it was mentioned that…
I pulled into the parking lot of the Dallas Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Cathedral, Library & Museum at Harwood and Young Streets at 6:40 this morning; right behind me was Mayor Tom Leppert. The lot was already jam-packed with trucks and trailers and catering tables for today’s Good Guys shoot,…
Now that school’s out for summer, the city council’s Public Safety Committee is set to be briefed in a few minutes on the one-year-ish anniversary of the 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. curfew ordinance, passed by council on May 13, 2009, following some debate on whether or not it turned kids into…
Just a programming note for those a fan of the Girl on Top at City Hall: Andrea’s liveblogging the council’s Housing Committee meeting — specifically, the 4,293rd hearing involving the Demolition Process for Urban Nuisances in Existing and Proposed Historic Districts. So do stay tuned — she could use the…
It was less than a month ago the city council’s Economic Development Committee went behind closed doors with, among others, Office of Economic Development Director Karl Zavitkovsky to discuss what the what to do with Southwest Center Mall. They confabbed for more than an hour and emerged without ever mentioning…
Last Friday Daniel recapped the first Dallas Bike Plan Open House — and by “first,” I mean there will be more forthcoming, according to Angela Hunt, co-chair of the committee overseeing the redo of the antiquated Greater Dallas Bike Plan Map. Now we find Hunt’s recap as she returns to…
If you weren’t aware that we’re but a week away from the Republican Party of Texas’s 2010 convention at the Dallas Convention Center, you’ll find Harvey Kronberg’s preview at Quorum Report, part one of which was posted yesterday evening, awfully helpful. (If, that is, you’re a subscriber — the rest…
Walked into today’s city council briefing a couple minutes late to catch Tennell Atkins talking about how Dallas needs “classy,” and then they gave a long and lengthily introduced award to Wal-Mart wherein everybody was really enthusiastic and in no way embarrassed that they were giving an award to Wal-Mart…
This, if I am not mistaken, is the very National Public Radio story that introduced me to Jubilant Sykes, the classically trained baritone who crossed over to pop long before Renée Fleming released her controversial new Dark Hope. Sykes, who’s performed at venues as varied as Carnegie Hall and the…
