The white-folks version of local history is that back in the Time of Genius, the great fathers wanted to protect the citizens from tension, so they agreed to do all the governing themselves. The African-American version is that back in the time of Colonel Sanders, rich white bigots invented the…
Did members of the Dallas City Council vote to make a huge “gift of public funds”–tens of millions of tax dollars to the Palladium deal in exchange for private business favors–when it had evidence the city was getting totally chumped on the deal? That’s the issue. That will be the…
For years, Dallas County Judge Lee Jackson told witty jokes about how nobody really knew what a county judge was. Now Margaret Keliher, the Republican candidate to replace Jackson in November, is trying to turn the joke into a campaign strategy. Keliher is a sitting civil district judge in Dallas…
You’d think Terri Hodge would be in a conservative mode. Her administrative assistant, Felicia Pitre, goes on trial in June on a 10-year felony charge of messing with a blind lady’s absentee ballot. Other players have retired entirely from the absentee vote game, given the heat surrounding it in recent…
The city council debate on the Palladium and City Center-Madison development deals downtown will rise or fall on an issue that has little to do with downtown but everything to do with the votes on the council. Money. It is the very strong impression of certain key council members that…
Back during the mayoral election, did the district attorney’s office not say and did I not eagerly report here and on the radio that a bunch of vote fraud indictments were about to pop? Tell me I dreamed that. All during the election, I got calls from political insiders whispering…
Laura Miller is trying to do this mayor thing the hard way. The Trinity River plan–our version of Boston’s “Big Dig,” a megapolitan pork-barrel chain reaction that has escaped all human control–is a good example. Miller’s predecessor as mayor, Ron Kirk, did the job the slick way. He didn’t spend…
This is how I think: I think that if a judge ordered me to pay a fine of $15 and I failed to do it, I would wind up on Death Row. That’s how fatalistic I am and how afraid of judges I am. So, in a way I almost…
Wow. This Laura Miller thing is going to be different. I don’t know exactly how or what different. But way different. Hold-on-to-your-top-hat different. Miller invited me and Victoria Loe Hicks of The Dallas Morning News, along with David Gray, an environmentalist, to take part in a personal briefing that the…
But enough about you. Let’s talk about me. In “Selling Ron,” last week’s Dallas Observer cover story by Christine Biederman, former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk went on at some length about what a racist I am. Among other things, he said, “Jim is just as racist, in a liberal way,…
In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left Leg, which advancing gently forward over my Breast, came almost up to my Chin; when bending my Eyes downwards as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human Creature not six Inches high, with a…
Laura Miller is the new mayor. The issue of the frame-up drug busts by the Dallas Police Department is front and center. Something major has to give and soon. I think I have an example of what to expect: True story. At 6:35 a.m. on the morning of the mayoral…
The suicide of Fermin Vazquez last August posed a turning point for me in my reporting on Laura Miller, who was a city council member when it happened and is a candidate for mayor now. Suicide is a painful issue for me. This was churning in my head and heart…
Last week I reported that members of the Tom Dunning and Domingo Garcia mayoral campaigns had been subpoenaed to testify before a Dallas County criminal grand jury investigating election fraud. Garcia confirmed the story concerning his own campaign, but Dunning went on KRLD radio last week and insisted that nobody…
I have known Domingo Garcia for a long time. I admire the political contributions he and his powerful political padrona Adelfa Callejo have made over the years. But I believe Garcia is a liar. It’s only my opinion, but I think the accusation he made that front-running mayoral candidate Laura…
We sort of get tricked into these debates about whether the people on the city council are being polite enough with each other. I get tricked, too, all the time, worrying whether Domingo Garcia or Laura Miller will be able to build coalitions if one of them gets elected mayor…
This mayor thing is getting very interesting, but it’s also painful to watch at times. The city’s first black mayor just concluded a two-term tenure, and all of a sudden it’s as if black and white Dallas are on an awkward first date. Very awkward. Let me give you an…
Lots of people are sitting around now slapping themselves in the forehead, maybe even slapping each other in the forehead and giving each other noogies trying to figure out why state Representative Domingo Garcia has jumped into an already pretty weird mayoral race in Dallas. So it wasn’t enough with…
There are global issues people need to think about, but I also believe an issue that needs to be addressed is when a perfectly law-abiding citizen pulls up in front of a certain bagel shop to park his car in order to go next door to a certain cafe, and…
Talk about a showdown. Next January 19 in this city of just over a million souls, something in the neighborhood of 50,000 voters will show up at the polls–a pitiful showing predicted because of the timing of the election–and they will make fundamental decisions about the future of the city…
If this job craters, I have a fallback skill. I can work for the CIA! I’m qualified to read the official newspapers of authoritarian regimes and ferret out what’s really happening, because I spend a lot of time reading The Dallas Morning News. Latest good example: On October 3, the…
Picture this. Laura Miller as Mayor Pretend. Mary Poss as Mayor For Real. Believe it. If nothing else changes between now and the special election, that’s what could happen. The scenario goes like this: A fed-up, cynical, deeply frustrated Dallas electorate–probably including me–votes for and elects Miller in a special…
