Public officials are saying things now about the Trinity River in downtown Dallas that make no sense, are impossible to believe and may even be sort of crazy. Here’s the basic: The whole multibillion-dollar Trinity River project, Dallas’ Big Dig, is on hold and in trouble because the U.S. Army…
The concept of regionalism is a Trojan horse designed to gut the city in favor of the ‘burbs. If you ever doubted that, take a look at the very close bullet that downtown Dallas just dodged yesterday … we hope.For 26 years, ever since the founding of Dallas Area Rapid…
The Trinity River toll road is dead. DOA. Cold. Clothespins on noses. The Trinity River toll road is no more. From here on out, it’s all bad money after good and proof our city is led by fools. Monday, the mayor of Dallas and a backup choir of politicians held…
It almost isn’t possible to describe what Mayor Tom Leppert and a line-up of loyal politicos were trying to accomplish this morning in the Flag Room of Dallas City Hall. Talk about lipstick on a pig.For weeks everybody has been wondering whether Leppert and the Dallas Citizens Council would be…
Well, we have now officially turned our back on school desegregation. I’m sure some of you will be thrilled. Personally, I’m sitting here at my computer in the back corner of a darkened house at a quarter to two in the morning, and I feel more like throwing up.At a…
Tonight’s meeting of the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees will tell the tale — several, in fact. First, of course, we have the underlying question: Should the district gut the budgets of its enhanced schools — magnets and learning centers — in the name of equity for other…
“Magnetic Subtraction,” by Jim Schutze, May 21 Bunch of Dupes What I, too, find scary is how many people actually believe [Superintendent Michael] Hinojosa and his “fairness” and “equity” stance. It is unbelievable how easily deceived some people can be, how the masses will simply follow and not really question…
You can’t really understand Dallas politics without grasping the concept of the white-people deal. It’s a key element. I’ll give you an example. In 2000 a professional lobbyist named David Dean and his wife, Jean, bought a 1916 Georgian Revival home in the Swiss Avenue Historic District and announced they…
In a sworn deposition filed in Dallas today, Dallas County Judge Jim Foster is quoted saying he has spoken with the FBI “on many occasions” concerning an ongoing FBI investigation of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and the southern Dallas “inland port” project. Reached for comment this afternoon, Foster…
Former Dallas Observer ace reporter (and sometime-Unfair Park contributor) Matt Pulle has a great piece up today on the Texas Watchdog Web site revealing that in 2008 alone, state Sen. Royce West’s 10-person law firm billed the City of Dallas, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, the Dallas Independent School District, the…
South Side Story: Turns out the story isn’t true. The southern Dallas vote did not deliver the No-vote victory for backers of a city-owned convention hotel in the May 9 referendum. Not according to an analysis done by Brooks Love. True: Brooks Love was campaign manager for Vote Yes—the side…
Magnetic Retraction By Jim Schutze, May 14 Messing with Success The magnets are not only “islands” of excellence, cut off from the larger world around them. They provide a crucial role in allowing a sense of possibility and aspiration to permeate the entire district—to kill them is to kill that…
A concerted effort is under way to pit communities against each other—especially Hispanic against black—over public school resources in Dallas. It’s sort of like going to a starving village somewhere and spreading rumors about secret midnight feasts. It is not an effort with virtue in its heart. But, look, let’s…
On Tuesday of this week Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon Dahlander responded to questions I had asked him last week for my column this week about per-pupil expenditures at high school campuses. Unfortunately, his response by e-mail reached me several days after my deadline had passed. Mr. Dahlander is…
Today’s meeting of the Dallas City Council’s Trinity River committee — during which the committee endorsed this alignment for the proposed Trinity River toll road – was dull and uneventful in ways that were of keen interest to trained Kremlinologists. By observing which members of the committee made eye contact…
Last night’s decision by the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees to delay voting on budget cuts for the district’s enhanced schools was more than just a stall. The debate leading up to that decision shed a little more light on the question most people watching all this have…
“Whine Flu,” by Richie Whitt, May 7 You and Him Fight You are a jerk. Why don’t you get out there and try playing and see what happens to you in the same circumstance? You gain nothing by retaliation, and statistics show that the one who delivers the retaliation blow…
For the last several weeks, a certain story has emanated from the superintendent of schools in Dallas and also from a majority of the school board and a cast of lawyers. I paraphrase: Dallas’ splendid magnet schools and learning centers, the crown jewels of a beleaguered school system, must be…
I spoke this morning with Ben Barlow, the Fort Worth attorney for the Dallas Independent School District system who had informed me yesterday that no waivers were available under existing law for Dallas’s magnet schools facing severe budget cuts under federal Title I funding rules. The thing was, an hour…
At about 5:50 pm today, I received a call from a Fort Worth attorney, Ben Barlow, representing the Dallas Independent School District on the magnet school and learning center issue. He informed me that my piece posted to Unfair Park on Friday night was dead wrong and that there are…
Things are popping a bit today on the Dallas Independent School District magnet schools front.Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson’s office confirms that Johnson is talking to the U.S. Department of Education seeking “clarification” of its current position on Title I money and school funding. Dallas school headquarters has been insisting it…
The Dallas Independent School District is about to do massive damage to its magnet school and learning center programs. The magnets represent the best of the district’s academic efforts. The learning centers are the last remaining legacy of a successful decades-long court battle to cleanse the district of apartheid. The…
