Mitchell Rasansky, Dallas City Council member, is somebody I like. I just do. When you like somebody, you typically can’t say just why. I can’t. I just do. Which is what makes this so hard. Rasansky, a gentleman, philanthropist and self-made success in the real estate business, made his bones…
There was an a-ha! moment when Mayor Tom Leppert’s city council committee assignments came out — for council members, anyway. The most notable feature of the assignment list was the freeze-out of council member and Trinity toll road foe Angela Hunt, who was kept from a leadership position on any…
Heard back from our new mayor this afternoon on my questions about the Trinity River Project. I had accused him of ducking my questions and possibly, therefore, being less than manly. Turns out he called me Friday, but I failed to pick up my voice mail and call him back…
We are never, ever going to stop ragging on the CueCat — and probably Tom Leppert. Well, it’s been a week now, and I still haven’t heard back from our new mayor, Tom Leppert, on his promised responses to my e-mailed questions about the Trinity River. I did finally hear…
The nightmare anniversaries of both 9/11 and Katrina are upon us—again the dream-warped tracking shots of corpses and tangled rot, outstretched arms imploring helicopters from hopeless rooftops. A basic element in both horror stories was the failure of engineering or politics to protect us. Especially in the Katrina story, what…
Dear Mexican: A new line of Speedy Gonzales clothing came out earlier this year. As a black vendor in a predominantly Mexican market, I immediately thought about selling some of these items. I am 35 and, although I remember the cartoon coming on when I was a young kid, I…
This day has started off about as badly as a day can start off for me. I just got politely chewed out by Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, which is not the bad thing. All my days start out with my getting chewed out. I lie in bed at…
OK, so you want me to feel guilty about picking on the county judge for being non compos mentis. Jim Foster is an accidental officeholder, swept in last November on a countywide anti-Bush, Democratic tide. Give the man a break, you say. He’s a guy who owns an alarm business…
Dear Mexican: Do you agree with immigration rights activists calling Elvira Arellano, who is an illegal immigrant AND a criminal, I might add, the Mexican Rosa Parks? The very idea that these people refer to her as such is deeply disturbing. Rosa Parks was a legal resident of this country…
Maurine Dickey: She’s learning, we’ll give you that. The Dallas County Commissioners voted this morning to rescind the rescinding of the $69,000 senior citizen property tax exemption they voted to adopt at their previous meeting, effectively reinstating it. They learned, apparently for the first time, that they cannot rescind the…
Over on DallasMorningViews, The Dallas Morning News’ editorial page blog, Rod Dreher warns us that The News’ editorial board is churning the question whether New Orleans needs to be saved any more than it already has. Rod is a great writer, so he does an elegant job of expressing his…
Yesterday, Pete Sessions told a crowd that included Mayor Tom that the feds will kill the Trinity River project’s funding should we vote no on the toll road. Nuhn-unh, congressman. Trinity River toll road backers have been trying for months to get somebody in Washington to say that if Dallas…
Maybe you’re not like me. You don’t explain life as science fiction. So you don’t think of Dallas politics as The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I do. Body Snatchers is the movie where the space pods grow in your basement, and then they turn into you. I forget what…
Dear Readers: It’s not just questions and racist rants that invade the Mexican’s mailbox—your feedback sneaks under my digital fence también. Let’s start with Lean Like a K Street Chola, a former gangbanger-turned-lobbyist who wrote in a couple of weeks back wondering how she could explain to quizzical pals why…
I was half of a debate on the Trinity River project last night. It was between me and Craig Holcomb, executive director of Trinity Commons Foundation, the pro-toll road political lobbying group. We rassled in front of a group called the “Dallas 40” — one of those leadership-type outfits. Right…
In the August 13 edition of Time, a story by Michael Grunwald tells how the Corps of Engineers is in the process of repeating all the same mistakes that created the Katrina disaster. Only 10 times worse. This story is a must-read for anybody who really cares about Dallas’ own…
Dear Mexican: I had a heated discussion in my van pool with a couple of gringos where they made a comment that immigration (both legal and illegal) needs to stop. I replied jokingly, “Then who will take our orders at McDonald’s or work in the fields?” They had the nerve…
President Bush said last week he doesn’t think Congress should raise the gas tax to pay for new bridges until it does something first about all the gas tax money wasted on so-called “earmark” projects—projects that don’t meet federal standards but get done anyway as political favors to Congress members’…
So, it’s on. We will indeed have an election November 6 on whether to put a high-speed toll road through the proposed new park along the Trinity River downtown. Council voted it up 15-0 just now. Of course, they didn’t really have a choice. When the city secretary certified the…
Not to try to stir the pot or make trouble or pour gasoline on a fire or anything, but several thousand loud, irate and semi-out-of-control citizens really need to show up at City Hall tomorrow for the 9 a.m. briefing session of the Dallas city council. First item on the…
On its front page yesterday, The Dallas Morning News ran a story about the Trinity toll road in which there was a discussion of stories written by me and other people at the Dallas Observer. The story, written by Bruce Tomaso, said, “Mr. Schutze did not return telephone calls or…
Look, Jim and Tim and Patrick, you know that Angela Hunt’s married, right? As it turns out, our Patrick Williams and your Angela Hunt have both been peppering the same guy in the Dallas regional office of the Texas Department of Transportation with questions about the Trinity project. These are…
