In August, we broke the news that Lewisville-based Delcom Group filed a $40 million suit against the Dallas Independent School District over a massive technology contract awarded by the board in May and then yanked, without explanation, a month later. Turned out, according to a subsequent filing, that former DISD…
Speaking of the downtown farmers market …When last we looked at that cache of old photos of the market stored in the city’s Municipal Archives and posted to the University of North Texas Libraries’ Portal to Texas History invaluable website, there were a few dozen, give or take. But I…
On May 10, 2010, Hillwood Investment Properties’ Ross Perot Jr. got the bright idea to sue Mark Cuban in Dallas County District Court, hoping to prove that the “reckless and careless” Dallas Mavericks owner had put the team $200-and-some-odd million in debt and “in imminent danger of insolvency.” Perot, who…
In case you didn’t already know this — and I didn’t — at 1 p.m. Wednesday will be the first-ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System. Should last three minutes, so, no, this isn’t your standard test, but part of what the feds refer to as the Integrated Public…
Wrestling fans ’round these parts remember the song “Badstreet U.S.A.” — and if you don’t, you will. Riiiight — it was the theme song for Michael Hayes (who handles the, um, vocals?) and The Fabulous Freebirds, hated rivals of Kevin, David and Kerry Von Erich back in the glory days…
Life is life, and you gotta do what you gotta do. It’s like everybody can’t be a doctor, a teacher or have rich parents take care of us. And it’s gonna teach us, like — when we get older, we’re gonna be stronger, ’cause we know life experience and stuff…
If there is not a tsunami of underage prostitutes in America, that is not to say that there are no children trapped in this world. Of course there are. Yet, as we have pointed out in numerous stories, few resources have been devoted to sheltering the victims. If you want…
Just because you’re paranoid: We may never know the real reason Lisa Chambers was canned by Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins after serving just 15 months as the county’s director of homeland security and emergency management. Chambers says her firing last week came because she pointed out “irregularities” in the…
Speaking of items out for bid by the City o’ Dallas …Over the summer we noticed that the city was looking for someone to snap up the naming rights to the Elm Fork Athletic Complex off Walnut Hill and Stemmons — you know, that 138-acre, 20-field soccer complex behind Malibu…
Dallas Habitat for Humanity, which already claims to be the biggest single-family home builder in the city, will knock down and build more than 500 more homes in a $100 million blitz on the city’s blighted neighborhoods. The project, called Dream Dallas, was formally announced today at City Hall and…
Ethics reforms, or at least the earnest discussion thereof, are in the air over at City Hall lately. Mayor Rawlings won his seat, after all, at least partially based on a “pro-ethics” platform (not something many people come out against, but still). Then a couple weeks back, council member Jerry…
SMU is inching closer to admission into one of college football’s hallowed BCS conferences, which will mark the latest milestone on what the school and its alumni hope is the road back to football relevancy. It’s certainly been a long road, starting with the death penalty in ’87 and winding…
Yesterday I couldn’t get anybody on the phone to talk about the city’s plans to raze La Marketa Cafe in the downtown farmers market plaza; this morning, everyone has something to say on the subject.Chief among them: Troy Thorn, assistant director for the Dallas Convention Center, which, for now, oversees…
At last night’s called meeting of the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees, representatives from PROACT Search, the matchmaking firm hired to help select a superintendent for the district, chatted casually with board members about the qualities they desire in a candidate. “I think there is a perfect superintendent…
About six months ago, says Eric Steele, one of the partners in the Texas Theatre on Jefferson, he and his comrades decided that in a city full of film festivals, it was time for one more. But this one, they vowed, would be different. This one would have “a fringe…
Yesterday, after posting this item that asked when Dallas would finally implement mandatory watering restrictions in the midst of this historic drought, I spoke further with City Manager Mary Suhm, who reiterated: The city may indeed go to mandatory twice-a-week watering sooner than expected. But she won’t say exactly when…
For those who haven’t seen the full exchange between Dallas County Commissioners Maurine Dickey and John Wiley Price and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins over the termination of former Homeland Security director Lisa Chambers, here ’tis courtesy KTVT-Channel 11. Jenkins, for those who missed it, says he fired Chambers for…
Mayor Mike Rawlings called moments ago to discuss DPD’s announcement that it has in custody a 24-year-old registered sex offender who police say assaulted a 14-year-old girl at the Occupy Dallas encampment behind City Hall. City Hall has already issued an official statement concerning the investigation, but Rawlings wanted to…
One week ago we got Occupy Dallas’s side of the story concerning the sexual assault that took place at its encampment behind Dallas City Hall. Today, we get the official version from the Dallas Police Department, which is reporting that it has arrested Richard Wayne Armstrong, a 24-year-old “non-compliant registered…
Waaaaay back in the spring of 2006, the council’s Economic Development & Housing Committee was told: The food kiosk sitting in the middle of the downtown Farmers Market is “a visual barrier” and needs to come down. See that photo? That’s from this briefing, prepped in advance of the 2006…
During all the fuss, hubbub and ruckus over the Lower Greenville Planned Development District Ordinance requiring business owners to get late-hours specific use permits, there’s been one constant question: When the hell is Ship’s Lounge going to get its official okee-doke to stay open past midnight? Well, so glad you…
In Texas, Houston and filthy air have always been synonymous. But the Armpit of Texas has just been dethroned. For concentrated, ozone-laced air pollution, Dallas-Fort Worth has outstripped the country’s petrochemical hub as the EPA’s worst offender. According to watchdog group Downwinders at Risk, DFW exceeded air-quality standards more often…
