The city finally came up with that list of city officials with whom lobbyists must report contacts under the new lobby reform ordinance that goes into effect a week from now. The lobbyists had been bitching behind the scenes because the city was taking months to come up with the…
Very strange thing going on right now in New York and Europe about a “National Bible Museum” to be created in Dallas — strange in that there has been no mention here in the city’s only daily newspaper. But people elsewhere seem to know all about it. The National Bible…
I’m getting a a lot of e-mail from people who want to know how to look up their property on the FEMA flood risk maps to see if they are exposed to flooding since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has declared the city’s Trinity River levee system unsafe. I’ll…
Got a little e-mail debate going with Frank Librio, the spokesman for the city of Dallas, which I thought I should share with the Friends of Unfair Park. Always good to get a second opinion. Maybe people will agree with Frank that I have been unfair. I have a column…
Showed up at Room 5ES in Dallas City Hall this morning at 9 a.m. to cover an officially posted hearing of the Dallas Zoning Ordinance Committee on community gardens. Sat there. Alone.After a span of time I am not willing to divulge, I snapped to the fact that something wasn’t…
Seven hundred percent. That’s the magic number. In a mile-deep swath running from downtown Dallas six miles west to the Walton Walker Expressway, north to Texas Stadium and in a brood loop around South Dallas, the risk of flood disaster from the Trinity River—at least as reflected in insurance rates—is…
Unfair Park reported yesterday that things might get uglier in the death and burial of the late Gen. Hugh Robinson, a leader in local Dallas business and civic affairs also prominent in national political and military circles of his time (a top aide to LBJ at one point, for example)…
Dueling obits — always a bad sign. This time the dark cloud of family unrest gathers over the death of Hugh Robinson (or Hughes, depending on which obit you read).The first obituary, which ran March 5 in The Dallas Morning News, did mention Major General Robinson’s stepchildren but neglected to…
We always knew you can’t beat City Hall. Now it looks like you can’t even meet City Hall. As of April 1, people or institutions deemed to be lobbyists at City Hall will be required to go online and report every meeting or contact they have with certain city officials…
Unintentionally hilarious item in The Dallas Morning News today: “Council’s Frustration Spills Over,” by Rudy Bush on the Metro front, in which council member par excellence Ron Natinsky asks a deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development if he can help get the U.S. Army Corps of…
Toll-you-so. Sometimes The Dallas Morning News does things so right, Buzz worries they might actually restore their credibility. Then what would Buzz do? But never fear! Just when skies are darkest, the Trinity River toll road story breaks through like a radiant beam. In last Sunday’s Page 1 story by…
Years ago an editor at another newspaper who thought I was worrying a story to death told me, “The French have a saying that to understand everything is to forgive everything. Remember, Schutze, we are not French.” No kidding. But I don’t think it forgives anybody to try to understand…
Doing some Trinity River research this week, I came across an item posted on Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert’s Web page talking about how the outcome of the 2007 toll road election was a real kick in city council member Angela Hunt’s ass. Hunt, of course, sponsored the unsuccessful referendum. “The…
I am here at the Big House, totally motivated, ready to blog the living hell out of today’s Dallas city council briefing on community gardens. A mob has gathered of approximately 11 community garden partisans. They are seated at the peanut gallery end of the council briefing room, where they…
Sometimes The Dallas Morning News does so many things so right I begin to worry. Tanya Eiserer’s work on how the Dallas Police Department faked the city’s crime reports so Dallas would no longer be the most crime-riddled city in the nation; everything Brooks Egerton does; in fact, most of…
Listen up, Dallas Area Rapid Transit! My man, Roscoe Betz, is still comin’. And some day he is gonna get you. This week Betz won again. I first wrote about Mr. Betz in June 2008, when he sued DART in the Justice of the Peace Court of Judge Al Cercone…
I just want to make sure we all understand the roll of the dice here.City council member Dave Neumann of Oak Cliff wants us taxpayers of Dallas to front about $1.4 million to the federal government in order to keep the Trinity River toll road on the fast track. Why?…
Recently when I spent time over in North Oak Cliff talking to people for a story about what North Oak Cliff wants, the most consistent theme was, “Not Lower Greenville.” They want cool entertainment venues in North Oak Cliff, but they don’t want drunks, public urination and an atmosphere of…
Never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I guess I regret not having Rod Dreher to kick around any more. When our own self-styled (and always stylish) “crunchy con” departed from the editorial page staff of The Dallas Morning News last December to work for the John Templeton Foundation…
Well, we’ll see what happens today here at the federal courthouse, where we await the first round of sentencings in the Dallas City Hall corruption trial. I am upstairs from the courtroom in the “overflow room” set up for media by Judge Barbara Lynn — what we would have called…
Good news about Greenville Avenue is not always easy to come by, but you will find a steady supply at a new site called Red on Greenville. Sponsored by Greenville Avenue merchants as a way to counteract bad news about their venues, the site is not a bad little newsletter…
Can an entire city reverse field? From World War II until now, the beckoning horizon in Dallas has been the cool, air-conditioned neighborhoods north, where houses are new and low-slung, lawns are pool-table smooth and garage doors open by themselves. But if North Dallas has been the city’s field of…
