The closure of Dallas’ Tent City is turning into a game of whack-a-mole. On Wednesday, city officials announced that it was beginning the process of closing two large homeless encampments, one under Interstate 30 and Haskell Avenue, the other beneath Interstate 45 at Coombs Street. Both sites have served as…
Jack Evans died Thursday night, three days short of his first wedding anniversary. He was 86. Last June 26, Evans married his longtime partner, George Harris, 82, in Dallas County’s first ever legal same-sex marriage ceremony. Evans and Harris were together for 56 years and pioneers in Dallas’ LGBTQ community,…
Thursday afternoon, a Collin County grand jury elected not to indict former McKinney police officer Eric Casebolt, who made national news when video surfaced of him pinning a pool party reveler to the ground last June. Casebolt and 11 other McKinney police officers were called to bust up a pool…
For now, the state of Texas is winning its battle with the federal government over President Obama’s executive actions on immigration. Obama signed an executive order allowing the parents of U.S. residents brought to the United States as young children to receive the same protection from deportation that their…
Carolyn King Arnold is the city council representative from District 4 in central Oak Cliff. She and I have three things in common. We’re both skeptical of anything North Dallas likes. So we’re against deck parks. And we’re both dead wrong. I learned this one the hard way. Beginning in…
Abigail Fisher’s long fight against the University of Texas’ admissions system is over. Fisher, who has since graduated from Louisiana State University, didn’t get into UT-Austin, her first-choice school, in 2008. She sued the school, claiming that the system it uses for admitting students who don’t automatically get in thanks…
Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant is being sued by his former attorney and landlord, Royce West, for allegedly causing more than $60,000 worth of damage to a DeSoto rental mansion. The court action is the latest falling out between the two, who used to be close. West, the property’s owner,…
Marc Veasey, who represents a swath of southern Tarrant and Dallas Counties, was among the Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives involved in a sit-in on the House floor yesterday. The stunt was an attempt to force the chamber’s Republican leadership to take a vote on so-called “no fly,…
Oh no you don’t, City Hall. Don’t think for a minute that the May 2 dog mauling and death of Antoinette Brown is somehow going to die down or fade away and then you’ll be cool. This woman, this citizen, this human being was ripped apart by dogs while neighbors,…
Dallas County officials have officially reported that 10 pregnant women have tested positive for the Zika virus. The mosquito-borne illness is often benign in adults, but contracting it when pregnant can cause severe birth defects, including microcephaly. Each of the 10 pregnant women potentially carrying Zika came in contact with the…
In court documents, the Securities and Exchange Commission refers to him only as “Client One,” and all we know about him is that he is a prominent former Major League Baseball player who lost millions in a “Ponzi-like” scheme involving Ash Narayan, an investment adviser working for a Dallas-based wealth management…
Republicans. If you want to dismiss me as an ignorant hippie libtard, I will understand. You have your reasons. Sometimes I look in the mirror myself in the morning and silently mouth, “Oh shut up, you ignorant hippie libtard.” But I urge you to believe that my question today is…
If you’re going to run a political campaign, it doesn’t hurt to have David Axelrod on your team. The New York-born, Chicago-schooled operator shepherded a green Barack Obama past John McCain and into the Oval Office in 2008. After the election, Axelrod served as Obama’s senior adviser until it was…
Pat Johnson has been a thorn in the towing industry’s side since 2008 when he began posting on his blog “Texas Parking Facility Fraud.” A former tow truck driver, Johnson has written more than 290 articles about the towing industry and its predatory practices. He quickly established himself as the…
Because we have this weird “city manager” system of government in Dallas, where no one person is actually totally in charge of anything, Dallas City Hall always assumes it can get away with dodging responsibility. The mayor’s not really the mayor. The city manager’s not really the manager. The city…
Less than a week after returning home to Dallas from the Menninger Clinic in Houston, Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk is again getting treatment for mental illness, this time at a treatment facility in Arizona. Hawk released a statement today: “Under the guidance of my doctors, today I’m entering…
Before we get into a whole thing about it, let me just ask a question. If a formerly down-at-the-heels inner city neighborhood is becoming more middle class, which way should house prices be going, up or down? Well, wait. Two questions. If the city wanted to promote middle class housing…
Dallas police have been looking for Jesus Anthony Rodriguez since February 5. With the help of the United States Marshal North Texas Fugitive Task Force, they finally got their man over the weekend, booking Rodriguez into Dallas County Jail early Saturday morning. According to DPD, Rodriguez, his common law wife and…
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings loves task forces. During five years in office he has created specialized committees both large (Rawlings’ domestic violence task force boasts more than 40 members) and small (the obscure senior citizen’s task force, chaired by Councilwoman Monica Alonzo, which we have to assume has some members, though…
North Texas is booming. Through April, the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area had more housing starts this year than any other place in the country, according to U.S. Census data, a solid 12 percent above second-place Houston. Most of the new units under construction (76 percent) are being built outside of…
The word, hater, has come to Dallas City Hall. Let’s hope its a temporary infection. This is anecdotal, not scientific, but use of hater really does seem to have grown in frequency, the most recent bump coming from the harrumptive Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump. He used it three…
Nothing has changed but the stakes. From the American Airlines Center last September to Gilley’s Southside Ballroom last night, this is still Donald Trump’s show. The presumptive Republican presidential candidate showed up in Dallas on Thursday as unlikely party standard bearer. He’s the guy who, unless something unprecedented happens…
