Few people on the Dallas City Council seemed to be aware that the city owns over 21,000 square feet of land in Kaufman County until Wednesday, the day the land was up for sale. “I do not even know why we own that property, frankly,” councilman Philip Kingston tells Unfair…
Fired Dallas Voice editor John Wright’s feud with his former employer didn’t end with the parting shots he delivered here and elsewhere, nor with the launch of Lone Star Q, Wright’s new online news venture. It’s simmered on, first in hearings last fall before the Texas Workforce Commission, where Wright…
There’s a lot of buzz right now in Preston Hollow over a plan to redevelop the northeast corner of Preston Road and Northwest Highway, currently home to an oddly dumpy apartment complex and rows of considerably less-dumpy town homes, into a few hundred luxury apartments. Most of it is negative…
Robert Hamilton, 72, was walking down the 2900 block of Jeffries Street in South Dallas at 4 p.m. on Thursday when he was approached by a group of five boys. ‘Hey old man,” they called to him, according to a police report. “You got some money?” Hamilton did have money,…
In retrospect, the Dallas Country Club’s reluctance to admit then-Texas Ranger Alex Rodriguez seems less an expression of racial exclusivity than an act of justifiable caution regarding a man who would in short order become one of the most universally loathed figures in professional sports. That doesn’t make it any…
The easy response to news that the city of Dallas is giving a $275,000 “forgiveable loan” to the owners of South Dallas’ Two Podners Bar-B-Que and Seafood is to dismiss it as crony capitalism. One of them must have a friend on the City Council who decided they needed a…
Today is International Condom Day. Dallas City Councilman Dwaine Caraway celebrated by holding up a bunch of condoms at City Hall. There were a million of them in all, donated by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a meaningful gesture given the alarming rate at which Dallas County’s poor people are contracting…
When he gets out of federal lockup, Michael Allen Watson may want to consider finding a new line of work. His current vocation — counterfeiting money using computer printers — isn’t working out so well. Six years ago, the U.S. Secret Service raided Watson’s Dallas home after a pit bull…
It’s been six months since the Dallas City Council rejected applications from Trinity East Energy to drill for natural gas on city-owned land it had paid $19 million to lease five years earlier. But no one really expected that to be the end of the fight. The company had spent…
U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia didn’t hand down any ruling Wednesday following a hearing on two Texas couples’ lawsuit challenging Texas’ gay-marriage ban. A decision, on whether to grant the couples’ request for a preliminary injunction blocking Texas’ constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex unions, “will be forthcoming at some time,” he…
Approximately one hour after Justin Carter posted a sarcastic comment on a Facebook thread, his life began to unravel. The first reaction occurred behind the scenes, in another country. The 18-year-old Carter had no way of knowing that, while he did grunt work at a drapery shop in San Antonio,…
When Lyft rolled into Dallas last fall, it was a popular cab alternative for city-dwellers who couldn’t afford Uber’s “surge pricing” and who also didn’t need to travel very far. But that’s about to change. Starting tomorrow afternoon, Lyft’s service area in Dallas will expand to a much bigger grid…
Sometimes, the Dallas City Council does something important, say passing a budget or regulating natural gas drilling. More often, they spend ungodly amounts of time doing things like arguing about whether a single billboard should be allowed to advertise for condoms or strip clubs. That happened today for a full…
Ronnie’s Catfish & More is delicious. How delicious? This delicious: According to Dallas police, a man walked into the Ronnie’s location on Red Bird Lane at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday. “What can I get for six bucks?” he asked. He ordered a two-piece catfish basket ($4.69 plus tax, includes fries, pickles,…
Back in the ’80s, Prestonwood Country Club opened a course in Plano known as The Hills. To irrigate the greens and fairways, they pumped water out of Indian Creek. What the folks at Prestonwood didn’t know at the time, or else chose to ignore, was that the water they were…
For a glimpse at how a Republican can turn a relatively moderate stance on immigration into a winning (or, at the very least, not suicidal) political issue, look at State Representative Jason Villalba. Read the meditation he penned for The Dallas Morning News in which the 42-year-old wonders how to…
Dallas County Constable Beth Villareal is in the middle of a tough reelection bid. She knows this. You can tell she knows because she sued challenger Susan Lopez-Craig because her name was too Hispanic. It would seem prudent, then, at least until the March 4 primary, for Villareal to avoid…
Remember that time last summer, back when her epic filibuster against sweeping abortion restrictions gripped the nation and roused Texas’ long-slumbering Democratic Party, when it seemed like Wendy Davis had a shot of becoming governor? Well, here’s a flying roundhouse kick of reality, courtesy of Chuck Norris:…
Vic Holmes and Mark Phariss, the gay Plano couple suing to overturn Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage, will be in San Antonio on Wednesday trying to convince a federal judge to allow their case to continue. The battle lines are familiar by now. Gay marriage, proponents say, is a constitutionally…
Dallas ISD graduation rates are up. The percentage of kids dropping out keeps going down. That’s undeniably good news, but what about the bigger picture? Are local kids going on to get college degrees that will allow them to compete for decent jobs in an increasingly knowledge-based economy? The answer,…
We know that a Wendy Davis-governed Texas would probably be more into preserving natural resources than a Texas ruled by Greg Abbott, who has sued the EPA a modest 17 times. But in a state famous for its lax environmental regulations, how much tougher would Davis be? Local environmental issues,…
No one who knows former Dallas City Council member Sandra Crenshaw would dispute her intelligence or obsessive dedication to public service. It’s her long and well-documented history of erratic behavior, the most recent case involving the alleged theft of a rental car, that raises questions about her fitness to hold…
