Blewett Says ‘Parks Are Parks’ but Quietly Calls for Another Vote

OK, I hate to keep shooting this horse, but all of you people who wanted East Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston and council member/mayoral candidate Scott Griggs out of City Hall because they weren’t civil enough, here’s how civility works: David Blewett, who beat Kingston in District 14, is…

Blewett Filed Memo for Revote on Reverchon, Forgot to Tell Us

Two days after the Dallas City Council in a split vote  shot down a deal to turn over Reverchon Park to a for-profit sports entity, East Dallas District 14 City Council Member David Blewett, who had voted against the giveaway, filed paperwork with the City Secretary for a re-vote —…

Dallas, Tarrant Counties Move Forward With Countywide Voting

Voters in Dallas and Tarrant counties will continue to be able to vote at any polling place in their counties. The Texas Secretary of State’s office notified both counties last week that they had been granted permission to continue participating in the state’s countywide voting program. The program allows voters…

Mayor Has ‘Concerns’ About New DPD Crime Reduction Plan

The Dallas Police Department promised to implement a “data-driven approach to reduce violent crime” and laid out crime-reduction goals for the upcoming year in a report released Thursday. Mayor Eric Johnson demanded the report be released by the end of 2019, a particularly violent year in Dallas. In a statement released…

Former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro Ends Presidential Campaign

Julian Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, ended his presidential campaign Thursday morning. Castro, the only remaining Texan in the race, announced the news Thursday morning on Twitter, pledging to “keep fighting for an America where everyone counts.” In a video posted on Twitter Thursday morning, Castro highlighted several…

Texas Is Falling Out of Love With the Death Penalty

Texas prosecutors aren’t giving juries the opportunity to put people to death and, even when they do, jurors aren’t going for it. Those are the big takeaways from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s annual roundup of Texas’ death row development. Only nine of the 21 executions scheduled…

Texas in the Year of Our Gohmert, 2019

In the aftermath of the 2016 election, as everyone scrambled to figure out what a Donald Trump presidency would look like in reality rather than in their worst nightmares or wildest dreams, one thing no one could have predicted was the rise of a certain East Texas congressman. Louie Gohmert,…

The Observer’s Year in Social Media: 2019

Social media is doing its best to destroy the news industry. Temperamental algorithms shift page views — oxygen for publications like the Observer — up or down, seemingly on a whim. Anonymity means abuse flows freely from trolls to journalists, further wearying reporters working in newsrooms that have already seen their…