Last week the city of Austin took the unusual step of suing the Travis Central Appraisal District, the body that sets property values on which local governments and school districts assess taxes. According to Austin officials, commercial properties were widely and consistently undervalued, handicapping the city’s ability to provide services and…
Dez Bryant, as vividly illustrated in last week’s Rolling Stone cover story, is a man who emerged, barely, from a trauma and pain-filled childhood to become one of the best receivers in the NFL. Growing up in Lufkin, Bryant dealt with a crack-addicted grandmother, a mom who sold crack and…
Monday, August 10 was one of the hottest days of the year. Government thermometers recorded a high temperature of 107 degrees. It was stupid, eyeball-searing heat any half-sentient creature — whose ancestors, after all, had the wherewithal to pass their genes along to subsequent generations — would presumably have the self-preserving…
There have been two versions of each of the undercover Planned Parenthood videos released by the dubiously named Center of Medical Progress. There’s been the naughty bits version, carefully edited in an attempt to shock viewers and implicate the women’s health organization in criminal activity — usually the sale of…
Dallas City Hall X-Files. OMG. I am so ready. Wednesday Eric Nicholson had a story here which seemed to confirm at least in part a conspiracy theory I have touting for about 50 years. It’s about a secret under-the-radar City Hall effort to steer major resources into land at the southwest corner…
First the basics: Developer Tim Headington — the guy behind the revitalized Joule Hotel — wants to build an outlet of the upscale retailer Forty Five Ten across Main Street from the boutique hotel. He’s torn down a couple of old buildings abutting the similarly old Wilson Building. That building’s…
One of the smartest things former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller said to me when she was serving on the City Council was, “In Dallas, the most important thing is never to say anything about anything, ever.” I agreed with her. Sometimes it’s almost but not really funny. This is a…
There has long been fevered speculation in certain circles that a cabal of rich businessmen are conspiring with high-level city staffers to funnel taxpayer dollars into the southwestern corner of downtown Dallas in a massive secret real estate play. As evidence, these conspiracy theorists point to the strange confluence of public…
For the most part, the debate over what to do with Interstate 345, the elevated strip of highway that cleaves Deep Ellum from downtown Dallas, has taken place in the abstract. Like the Trinity toll road, I-345 is a litmus test for where you stand in Dallas’ ongoing fight toward…
Despite his campaign being so low on cash it’s no longer paying staffers, former Texas Governor Rick Perry reiterated Wednesday that he’s in the 2016 GOP presidential race for at least the medium-haul. In Austin to watch his successor Greg Abbott posthumously award the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor to “American…
Yesterday afternoon Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk belatedly offered an explanation for her mysterious three-week absence from her office, announcing in a statement that she was battling a “serious episode of depression” and that, to more effectively cope with the disease, she would be taking an unpaid, four-week leave of…
In the matter of Susan Hawk, the Dallas County district attorney who finally resurfaced after three weeks to say she’s taking another four weeks unpaid time off to deal with depression, I know my primary empathy ought to be with her in her need to discharge her duties as head…
The white pit bull with no collar charged toward Charlie Howell as his wife restrained their own dogs behind him. Howell felt he had no choice but to tackle the animal. “I made the split-second decision that I was not going to let it get past me,” Howell says. As…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has a fantastic announcement about Texas’ air quality: It’s great! In an announcement his office posted last week about his staunch refusal to follow the Environmental Protection Agency’s new carbon regulations, he buries this inspiring news: …despite the past 15 years of rapid population and economic growth,…
Since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the percentage of Texans without health insurance has dropped dramatically, from 27 percent in 2013 to 20.8 percent this year, according to Gallup. This is good news, as it means that a couple of million more people in the state have greater…
Zad Roumaya says people are willing to pay $880 a month to live in a complex of 320 square foot shipping containers he plans to outfit and install in The Cedars. That’s $2.75 a square foot, right in line with luxury units across the city of Dallas. The units will…
The battle over the placement of DART”s second rail line through downtown doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. At a meeting last week of the Greater Dallas Planning Council and Urban Land Institute, DART indicated that it was wholeheartedly behind some version of the Young Street alignment for the…
Tanya Ragan made her first foray into Downtown Dallas’ neglected southeastern corner in 2007 when she bought a piece of commercial property there. The Bridge, the city-funded homeless shelter, opened in 2008. In the seven years since, Ragan, who lives in a town home near the Farmer’s Market, has established…
Jan Mickelson should be radioactive. Just last week, the conservative Iowa radio host issued a ringing endorsement for enslaving undocumented immigrants who refuse to leave the country. Mickelson thinks the United States should give any resident without the appropriate paperwork two months to leave. If they don’t, Mickelson says, they…
Don’t know what was going on at the beloved Lakewood Theater in Old East Dallas when I stopped by this morning – either a very serious remodeling or the first stages of demolition. When I went inside, workers seemed to be ripping out the stage and a bunch of interior…
It should probably go without saying that the University of Texas should not have been admitting unqualified candidates. The place that anyone but an Aggie will tell you is the crown jewel of the Texas higher education system should, at a bare minimum, require that those admitted by able to…
The Bent Tree North neighborhood, a leafy collection of half-million-dollar homes adjacent to an eponymous country club in Far North Dallas, was the picture of calm on Wednesday morning. Tucked just out of earshot of the Dallas North Tollway, only the faraway whir of lawn crews and the purposeful swish,…
