The biggest issue facing Dallas Area Rapid Transit right now is the growing drumbeat for an independent audit, based on DART’s billion-dollar budget goof. That means some accounting firm may get the job of doing an overall performance audit. And the first one in line for that job might be…
Normally I can’t think of a meeting that would be fun to attend at 8 in the morning, but I must say this morning’s meeting of the executive committee of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board was intriguing. The DART board’s been in a pickle this last month, ever since…
In my e-mail in-box this morning was this message that makes a very good point about The Dallas Morning News and its coverage of the Calatrava bridges — you remember them, right? Writes our new pal Kyle: I grow increasingly frustrated with Bruce Tomaso’s continuing inaccuracies in The Dallas Morning…
DART board of directors chairperson Lynn Flint Shaw, who’s yet to respond to Unfair Park I did try hard to get a response from Dallas Area Rapid Transit board of director chair Lynn Flint Shaw for my item yesterday about the $17,000 discrepancy in her city council campaign finance report…
DART board of directors chairperson Lynn Flint Shaw, who also ran for city council — very briefly Dallas lawyer Michael Sorrell told Unfair Park yesterday he had received less than $2,000 as a consultant to one-time city council candidate Lynn Flint Shaw — even though Shaw’s campaign finance reports show…
Dear Mexican: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that Mexican-Americans have the highest proportion of D.U.I.’s and alcohol-related traffic fatalities of any ethnic group (60 percent as opposed to 40 percent for Caucasians—they’re even substantially higher than any other Latino group). I apologize that this question isn’t wisecracky, but…
This is what Roger and Marc Andres have in mind for Henderson Avenue — in place of an abandoned Carnival. I went to the Andres Brothers’ deal last night, where they unveiled their plans for the redevelopment of the Carnival site on Henderson Avenue near Ross Avenue. A real East…
Dallas City Attorney Tom Perkins Yesterday I asked Dallas City Attorney Tom Perkins why Mayor Tom Leppert and/or Lynn Flint Shaw, a City of Dallas appointee to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Board of Directors, are not in violation of the city’s ethics code, which prohibits a city appointee from…
DART Board of Director chair Lynn Flynt Shaw, also a good Friend of Tom Leppert Back during the Trinity River toll road debate, Dallas City Attorney Tom Perkins just stopped responding to my calls when I asked certain kinds of questions, especially about possible violations of the city’s ethics code…
DART president and executive director Gary Thomas can back-fill your pain. Dallas Area Rapid Transit Board of Directors chair Lynn Flint Shaw, in the news lately over a forgery accusation, sat sequestered in a corner of the room where reporters couldn’t get to her yesterday, while DART director Gary Thomas…
We finally figured out what those orbs are in the mosquito pond in front of City Hall: the city council’s testicles. Glory be, the Dallas city council isn’t dead after all. And just when I was beginning to expect a story out of City Hall that started out, “Police were…
Dear Mexican: I feel that the more Mexicans who come to this country, the better. I am a Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In our Book of Mormon, on page 54, it says on the left side of the page in verse…
Dirt skirts. Understand dirt skirts, and you understand the Earth. Some weeks ago I received e-mails from an esteemed neighbor warning me of an important City Hall issue having to do with “dirt skirts.” I wrongly assumed we were talking about our perennial East Dallas problem with prostitutes. Dirt skirts,…
I attended some of today’s meeting of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board during which they tried, once again, to explain why they are suddenly a billion dollars short on the cost of the proposed new rail lines to suburban Irving and Rowlett. It was supposed to cost $1 billion…
During the Trinity River toll road debate — which is to say, prior to the election in which a majority of Dallas voters voted the wrong way — various bloggers, pundits and kiester-faces around town mentioned Storrow Drive in Boston as an example of a multi-lane road that coexists peacefully…
I must point out: In my column this week, I reveal that one of my personal goals for 2008 is a massive flood in the Park Cities. Within 24 hours of my column hitting the streets, flood-clogged sewers in the Park Cities begin burbling poo-poo into the streets. Hear this…
C’mon, Wick, show us your dot. We promise not to giggle. The current issue of D includes sort of a neat little item — a map indicating “How Dallas Media Voted in the Trinity Toll Road Referendum.” It shows how the city voted in November, and there are dots indicating…
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be a better person. Another is to do a better job cleaning up after the dogs in my backyard. Whichever comes first. The dog thing I can do. The better person plan is in conflict, I must admit, with some of what…
Dear Mexican: As everyone knows, dogs seem to reflect their master’s personality. Likewise, the breeds invented by a nation say a lot about that nation. Germans bred the German shepherd and the Rottweiler: smart, loyal, faithful, yet a little cold and not the kind of dogs you want to piss…
I apologize for the shortened column this week, but there are tamales to make… Dear Readers, Gracias, thank you, gracias for another successful year. The Mexican now appears in 32 newspapers across the country, with a weekly circulation of just more than 2 million! As more readers join the Reconquista,…
Shipped off a little Christmas Eve bundle to DART legal affairs this afternoon — the letter’s after the jump. What we are looking for: How many, if any, of Mayor Tom Leppert’s political team received lucrative DART contracts. I await DART’s response, as always, with breath both bated and baited…
Hey. Want to know where you can find a billion dollars? Dallas Area Rapid Transit has been saying they are suddenly a billion dollars short of what it will cost them to meet their rail-building obligations, and they’re blaming it on inflation. Nuh-uh. I report in my column in this…
