The voter ID law passed by Texas lawmakers in May continues its circuit among activists, lawmakers, academics and social commentators as a discriminatory, unjustified and absolutely necessary measure, depending on who’s yelling. Words like “voter fraud” on the right and “disenfranchisement” on the left stir up serious emotion with people…
Actually, you probably just want better streets — most of Dallas does. But a Complete Streets PowerPoint prepared for tomorrow’s council briefing, during which redistricting will probably eat up most of the morning, reveals the findings of a Collective Strength survey conducted in August by Promark Research, during which 518…
I’ve yet to make the transition to Kindle; I was reminded of yet another reason why over the weekend, which I’ll explain later. But when a colleague, peeking over my shoulder, saw the news release in the in-box late yesterday — the one from the city titled “Kindle e-book downloads…
On Friday, in a briefing sent to the city council, the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance and the downtown homeless shelter The Bridge announced they would be separating their leadership, something that became effective Saturday. The Bridge is now its own separate non-profit and will be a member of the MDHA,…
Before the council’s Economic Development Committee got ’round to talking about Dallas’s employment figures — and it was a brief briefing — familiar Unfair Park figure Karl Zavitkovsky, head of the Office of Economic Development, gave the council an hour-long-plus overview of what his office of up to — everything…
In a few minutes, the council’s Economic Development Committee will take up the subject of Dallas’ Workforce and Jobs, which comes with this 29-page PowerPoint worth a look-see even if you’re not planning on following along, which we are. Long story short: “In an ongoing weak national economy,” says the…
Several Friends of Unfair Park have asked if we’re planning on covering this morning’s scheduled hearing concerning Yucatan and Service Bar’s lawsuit over the Greenville Avenue Planned Development District ordinance. As you’re well aware by now, City Code now dictates that in order for Lower Greenville businesses to stay open…
There’s a HuffPo piece this morning about how the pepper-spray-flavored Occupy Wall Street protests moved to the West Coast yesterday — San Francisco, specifically, and the Bank of America building in the Financial District. Next Thursday, though, they hit a little closer to home. Without Radiohead, which may or may…
Another redistricting post, I know. Settle down. But this one’s especially interesting: Dwaine Caraway, Tennell Atkins and Carolyn Davis have made it very clear that whatever the redistricting map ends up looking like, they want four “winnable” African-American districts. At last week’s forum, that was also important to the majority…
No doubt you recall: A couple of weeks ago we discovered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants the city to pay back $15 million in federal funds doled out for the Dallas Floodway Extension project. Problem is, we don’t have it — at least, not all of it. Rebecca…
Well, look what made Courthouse News today: Yucatan and Service Bar’s lawsuit against the city over the late-night specific use permits as mandated by the Lower Greenville ordinance. Good timing too, given yesterday’s no-go for both bars in front of the city council. The whole petition’s here, but by now…
At around 9, before the Dallas City Council voted on the measure that would direct all trash collected in the city to the landfill in southeast Dallas, more than 50 students and teachers at Paul Quinn College marched around City Hall chanting and wearing white T-shirts that read, “I AM…
On this jam-packed city council Wednesday, we now come to the late-night specific use permits that Lowest Greenville Avenue bars Yucatan and Service Bar are asking for — the ones the City Plan Commission denied, based upon the planned development district ordinance passed by the city council in January. As…
Brantley’s been at Dallas City Hall for this morning’s flow control vote, which began with that promised pre-game protest by the students of Paul Quinn College, who stood throughout the entire discussion that ran close to two hours. (Save for one protester, who fainted during the discussion, prompting a five-minute…
When it came time for the city council to vote on the FY2011-12 budget moments ago, it wasn’t without a few bumps in the road. Several council members told City Manager Mary Suhm they weren’t at all thrilled with her plan to shuffle fire trucks with the intention of retiring…
The council may or may not vote on that ordinance involving the redirecting and recycling of solid waste today. It all depends where flow control falls on the action-packed agenda, which includes passing the budget (that should go smoothly) and debating Yucatan and Service Bar’s denied-at-CPC specific use permits (which…
Anyone who’s even glanced Unfair Park in the last few months knows by now that City Manager Mary Suhm and Mary Nix, head of Sanitation Services, are hoping that the city council will vote tomorrow on a proposal that will force all solid-waste haulers to dump their trash at the…
If, say, during your lunch break this afternoon you were to dip between the Trinity River levees, you would see the trail Jason Roberts first promised back in June — the one that, when completed, will link Bishop Arts on one side of the river to the Katy Trail on…
The council’s Transportation and Environment Committee kicked off its 1 p.m. meeting with a review of the LBJ Express project, with TxDOT and Trinity Infrastructure reps telling council members: “There is possibility you will receive complaints about noise” related to construction, but, hey, they’re moving as fast as they can…
Speaking of Quality of Life …At the end of January, the council committee debuted a short film titled The Shopping Cart Menace!, which tallied up the number of abandoned carts in and around Vickery Meadow (spoiler alert: 40 espied during a 20-minute look-see) and demanded the council “pass an ordinance…
There are a couple of council committee meetings worth keeping an eye on today; we’re spending lunch with Transportation and Environment at 1, matter of fact, where the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee’s Oil and Gas Task Force, LBJ Express and Complete Streets are on the action-packed agenda. Ah,…
As the redistricting process goes on (and on and on), you might expect the public to become less involved, especially when a meeting takes place late on a college-football Saturday afternoon. But, in fact, the opposite seems to be true: Yesterday’s public forum, like the one in August, was packed,…
