The Dallas Morning News has a big shocker headline — a World-War-II-typeface, breathless, this-just-in, oh-my-God headline — on the front of today’s newspaper: “True Cost of Dallas’ Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge: $182 million.” The News tells us: “The new Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge will cost far more than the $117…
The Dallas City Council council didn’t waste much time getting ’round to the most eagerly awaited showdown of the day: Item No. 53 on its agenda, which creates that nonprofit that would allow Uplift Education to some $85 million in low-interest-rate bonds. As city Chief Financial Officer Jeanne Chipperfield told…
North Central Expressway-based Hotels.com promises, right here, that if you book a room through its website and then find “a lower publicly available rate online for the same dates, hotel, and room category,” then, heck, they’ll happily “match the price and refund you the difference.” Not only that, but Hotels.com…
Energy Future Holdings’ end-o’-year popped up on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s website late Tuesday, and, boy, is it ugly. Now, why should you care? Because Energy Future is the parent company of Luminant, Texas’s biggest generator of electricity. And TXU Energy, a huge retail supplier. And Oncor, the…
The video you see above was taken in the wee small hours of Saturday morning at the 7-Eleven located at 5123 W. Lovers Lane, just off Inwood — you know, the one next to Neighborhood Services, which, according to Dallas PD records, has been robbed more than 70 times in…
Final Rick Perry-for-President footnote? Next to last? Please, no more? Look, there’s one more point to drive home here. Then I think I can promise not to mention it again. I think I can. Now that he’s not running for president any more, Perry apparently has returned to his more…
President and CEO of Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance Mike Faenza said as much yesterday: He knows he’s “at risk of looking like Don Quixote” here, but he really, really believes Dallas can end its chronic homelessness problem by 2015. Which is why earlier today he did his best to convince…
Yesterday we took a sneak peek at City Auditor Craig Kinton’s audit that reveals the city’s code of ethics comes up awful short. As in, for starters: It doesn’t explicitly offer whistle-blowers protection. It doesn’t task one City Hall monitor with keeping the city on the up-and-up. Its ethics commission…
This afternoon, Dallas Residents at Risk, a coalition of of anti-fracking activists, will unveiling their map featuring what they say are more than 100 drilling leases on city-owned land totaling some 1,400 acres. The colorful visual shows that the extent of gas drilling leases in Dallas goes well beyond the…
Danny Cantu, a diesel mechanic, sued the city of Dallas and a small army of Dallas Police officers back in January, claiming he was making a sandwich in the kitchen when they tossed a flash-bang grenade through his window. As the deafening explosion rang in the kitchen, he alleged that…
Whilst browsing through the YouTube moments ago I stumbled across the video you see above, which was just posted by the TEDx’ers: Jason Roberts on the OU campus talking, at times breathlessly, about how to build a better block on January 27. It’s but the first in a long line…
In the end, the council’s Economic Development Committee didn’t want to talk about economic impact studies or debate the risk of sinking $12 million into a project where its partner fell millions short when it came to raising matching funds. In the end, most of its members wanted to make…
Might as well put my faithful Voice viewing to good use, though no doubt in coming weeks Audra will follow Anthony Evans’s reality-TV travails over on DC9 at Night. But even before the Marvin Gaye-covering Evans was intro’d as a Dallas native last night it was clear who he was:…
Last night, on WFAA, Byron Harris reported: “DART says it doesn’t have enough police to put an officer on every train, but it is trying to place uniformed officers on platforms, where they can be seen.” But then, this morning, this from The Dallas Morning News: “‘Effective today, there’s a…
Back in October 2010 Schutze and I really did spend a good half hour poring over The Official Map of Dallas from 1875, which Heritage Auctions never did did sell off; guess the $1,500 asking price was a bit steep, though I see here you’re still free to make the…
One of the more intriguing council briefings tomorrow will be given by an old friend of Mayor Mike Rawlings: Mike Faenza, president and CEO of the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance. The title of his PowerPoint isn’t very sexy — “Permanent Supportive Housing Plan” — but contained within is what Faenza…
Mark Samuels, a captain in the Navy, and Jennifer, his wife, never imagined their first time in court would be fighting for healthcare benefits for their daughter Kaitlyn. The 15-year-old was born with an uncommon brain condition similar to cerebral palsy. She cannot communicate verbally and functions at the level…
Earlier this month the city council’s Housing Committee was told during this briefing the Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs doesn’t have much coin to spare this year when it comes to doling out its Low Income Housing Tax Credits — just $7.6 million total for a region spanning…
Yes, you read that correctly: Robert Wilonsky, the longtime editor of this blog, is going behind the paywall. Or maybe he’s becoming the paywall. We can’t be sure. But we know this: He’s leaving the Observer for The Dallas Morning News, where he’ll officially be known as the digital managing…
I haven’t been to Paperback Plus’s La Vista location in about, oh, two months or so, when I picked up a copy of Schutze’s book … for Schutze, who collects such things. But a Friend of Unfair Park says it’s gone — has been for two weeks. That’s because the…
Whilst awaiting some return calls on this slow Presidents Day I was flipping through Mike Brooks’s two TicketStock slideshows, taken over the weekend at the Irving Convention Center. Toward the end of the first was this one, featuring Rangers lefty Derek Holland and … I have no idea, really. Had…
Let’s begin with what City Manager Mary Suhm said to wrap up the February 1 council back-and-forth over the recently revived Texas Horse Park: “If y’all don’t want to do this, just tell me.” But, look — it’s not that everyone don’t want a nice equestrian facility along the Trinity…
