Despite the financial restraints stemming from the team’s unresolved ownership situation, Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels skillfully inked the most dominant free-agent starter at this week’s Winter Meetings in Indianapolis without adding payroll. By dealing starting pitcher Kevin Millwood to the Baltimore Orioles for relievers Chris Ray and Benjamin…
Dave Neumann kicked off the city council’s Trinity River Corridor Project Committee meeting this morning by revisiting last week’s decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which approved levee remediation plans regarding construction of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. “It ended up not being a major deal at all,”…
While the city’s chief financial officer began his career 28 years ago as a computer programmer in the Dallas Water Utilities Department, somehow he didn’t find his way onto the pages of Unfair Park until two years ago — a short mention in a February 2008 piece about the convention…
For polling purposes, Rasmussen Reports pretended the Tea Party movement organized as a political party and then tossed it into a ménage with the GOP and Dems. On a generic congressional ballot test using the three parties, 23 percent of respondents to a national telephone poll voted for the Tea…
When we cornered Houston Mayor Bill White in late October after his campaign speech in Plano, he said he can appeal to conservatives and moderates as a Democrat because he knows how to make government run efficiently. He added that he’s “honest and straightforward,” which had been tested when we…
Despite the length of our cover story on the GOP gubernatorial primary, my discussion with former city council member Donna Blumer about Republican Party of Texas chair Cathie Adams didn’t make the cut. Knowing Adams would become newsworthy again in short order, I tucked away my notes, and sure enough,…
Supporters of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge breathed a collective sigh of relief this afternoon at the Trinity Trust as Mayor Tom Leppert announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved levee remediation plans submitted by the Texas Department of Transportation. The plans ensure that construction on the approaches…
Four of the five defendants convicted last month of bribery and extortion in the City Hall corruption trial gained traction in their arguments regarding two counts as U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn agreed this morning to further consider overturning the jury’s verdicts on counts 18 and 19: conspiracy to commit…
Around we go: He doesn’t have Governor Rick Perry’s awesome, awesome hair. He doesn’t have Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s statewide name recognition. Plus, he’s a Democrat in what remains a GOP state. So, does Houston Mayor Bill White have a real shot at becoming the next governor of Texas? Maybe,…
There’s a reason why I went to see Houston Mayor Bill White during his stop in Plano last month. It wasn’t because he was one of many folks vying for Kay Bailey Hutchison’s job in the Senate, although I suppose that would have warranted the trip. Nope. I’ve long viewed…
Kay Bailey Hutchison’s appearance Sunday on Meet the Press could have been an opportunity to show potential voters why she kept her gig in Washington instead of resigning to focus on winning the GOP gubernatorial primary in March. It certainly should have been. Yet, on the heels of her questionable…
In case you missed it, Michael Lindenberger reported in Saturday’s Dallas Morning News that the Texas Department of Transportation finally submitted its proposals to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers aimed at solving the soil issues currently stalling construction of the approaches to the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. And if…
Nearly three months after he told us that Tanya Watkins — the wife of District Attorney Craig Watkins — working as a campaign consultant for judicial candidates posed an “ethical dilemma” for the couple and presented “the potential appearance of impropriety,” Dallas County Republican Party chair Jonathan Neerman was quoted…
As temperatures dip into the low 80s, providing a brief respite from the searing September heat, a crowd of people enter the side entrance of the Jewish Community Center in North Dallas. Perhaps the pleasant afternoon weather is bashert, Yiddish for “meant to be,” as the local Republican Jewish Coalition,…
Stick it: The last time the Dallas Observer wrote about the troubles facing a local political party trying to draft a solid field of local candidates, it was August 2006, and our target was the Dallas County Democrats. We accompanied the story—subtly headlined “Party Poop”—with a picture of the exploding…
From the looks of the photos sent along by Mayor Tom Leppert’s chief of staff, Chris Heinbaugh, it appears as though Leppert and the other 21 members of a privately funded, weeklong trade mission through Asia have managed a solid swap: We give South Korea a Mavs jersey. They show…
Here we go again. First it was Phillip Linder. Then it was David Finn. Now Danny Clancy is the latest criminal defense lawyer to announce his plans to do the seemingly impossible: knock off incumbent District Attorney Craig Watkins. The former Dallas County prosecutor and judge says he has been…
Something was missing from Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle’s retirement press conference this morning. OK, maybe not something so much as someone. More than a hundred folks found their way to DPD headquarters this morning to hear Kunkle’s farewell, but Mayor Tom Leppert was not one of them. Kinda strange…
Less than two months after we introduced you to criminal defense lawyer Phillip Linder, the would-be Republican challenger to Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins has stepped aside and is now supporting David Finn, a fellow criminal defense lawyer and former trial judge and federal prosecutor. At least that’s what…
When Dallas County Republican chair Jonathan Neerman told us that the election of Cathie Adams as the state party’s new chair “set the party back five years,” even the editorial board at The Dallas Morning News took notice. A few days later, DMN’er Gromer Jeffers tried to make peace between…
While the Mavs already have an impressive 94-80 win against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers under their belts, knocking off the Spurs is just as important because San Antonio’s Big Three (Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili) have managed three championships of their own in seven seasons together…
Sure, you’ve probably already heard by now that Mitchell Rasansky might run for Dallas County judge. However, the benefit of not speaking with the former North Dallas council member until today yielded a much more definitive answer about his intentions. Rasansky tells Unfair Park that while he hasn’t made up…
