By cutting funding to libraries, eliminating raises (or just paychecks) for City Hall workers, raising taxes, closing pools, deferring maintenance on pothole-ridden streets and privatizing parks clean-up? I kid. Only, I don’t. Anyway. This just in from Dallas City Hall: Angela Hunt, a 2008 recipient of the Marshall Memorial Fellowship,…
On June 6, 2006, this item appeared in the regional roundup found in the Metro section of The Dallas Morning News:Authorities have identified a woman fatally struck by a Dallas police car Saturday night as 51-year-old Patricia Ann Brooks. Police said Officers Juan Rangel and Susan Kreun were driving south…
A couple of weeks back, the city acknowledged that a “renegade pruning operation” was responsible for hacking down trees in the Great Trinity Forest, kinda the last place you’d expect someone to go nuts with a chainsaw. Now, this: Friend of Unfair Park Bill Holston sends along an item posted…
The case involving the citywide sale of beer and wine, which voters approved in November, is set for trial September 12. Could be a short trial, could be a long trial, could be no trial at all; a hearing’s set for this Friday in front of Judge Laurine Blake of…
Over the last couple of days I’ve received a batch of unhappy missives from Jane Bryant, the owner of 600 Elsbeth near the Bishop Arts District — a property that’s been the subject of years’ worth of litigation. Bryant’s particularly unhappy with my characterization of the property on Friday –…
Dallas Complete Streets Competition from Andrew Goodwin Brown on Vimeo.Absolutely, says Dallas filmmaker Andrew Goodwin Brown in the short you see above. It’s his entry in the 2011 Dallas Great Streets Visual Essay Contest, which City Hall sponsored in order to find out “what people like about streets in Dallas…
Damn it. We got so caught up in the state Supremes’ pole tax ruling at the end of last week we missed the far bigger one staring at us from the top of Friday’s Opinions on Orders page: City of Dallas v. Keneth E. Albert et al., otherwise known as…
After this, I’ll let Pete handle whatever becomes of the Dallas Backyard Music Festival — since, ya know, it’s a music festival? But we begin on Unfair Park for a couple of reasons: It’s on the Park and Rec board’s agenda for its Thursday meeting, which is where I was…
Perhaps it’s been awhile since you’ve re-read Rick Perry’s book Fed Up, in which he chronicles, presumably choose-your-own-adventure style, the improbable rise of a D-student to the highest office in the only-land-that-matters. If it has, you may not recall Perry’s take on Social Security, which he called a “Ponzi Scheme”…
In ’05, the city outsourced its parking-ticket operations to locally based Affiliated Computer Service; then, a year later, forked over an additional five figures so the company could mount a few AutoVu license plate recognition cameras, making it easier to spot and track drivers who couldn’t, didn’t or just wouldn’t…
We came in late to the fight over 600 Elsbeth: Back in October, we discovered that Jane Bryant was selling, through Heritage, a door to Lee Harvey Oswald’s old Oak Cliff apartment, on Elsbeth and Davis. The apartment building itself is mentioned here in the Warren Commission Report; Lee and…
In case you haven’t noticed, the map that the Redistricting Commission voted to forward to the city council on Tuesday night has one major change: It would place both Vonciel Jones Hill and Dwaine Caraway in District 4, meaning that the two council members would have to run against each…
Upcoming is a chat I had this morning with Corinne Hill, the interim director of the Dallas Public Library system. I called her to talk about the new Arts, Culture & Libraries Committee debuted on Tuesday when Mayor Mike Rawlings sent word of his new council committee appointments. She said…
Theresa O’Donnell, director of Sustainable Development and Construction for the city of Dallas, confirms: Sylvan Thirty’s zoning ordinance won’t go before the City Plan Commission till October 6, a month later than originally scheduled. The delay is due, in part, to a request made by the Belmont’s Monte Alexander on…
So, back to that Sylvan Thirty item from earlier in the week. Got an email this morning from Monte Anderson, the man who resurrected the Belmont. Said he wanted to talk about the development going in catty-corner from his — one he’s long supported. Matter of fact, says Anderson, he…
As The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal note today, President Obama will give a speech some time after Labor Day in which he will unveil “a plan to create jobs, stimulate the economy and reduce the federal deficit.” (Tom Leppert beat him to it!) But the president won’t…
Behold, Dallas, the shiny new city council districts the Redistricting Commission has drawn for you! Don’t uncork the champagne just yet, though. The commissioners themselves certainly didn’t seem to be in the mood for it.Near the end of last night’s six-hour meeting (yes, yes it was), the commission voted 11-4…
What you see is the video just posted by the Tom Leppert for Senate campaign in which the former Dallas mayor pitches his “ambitious” plan to “rebuild our nation’s economy,” which you’ll find here: “A New Direction for America.” To sum up: flat tax, reduce corporate taxes, eliminate earmarks, cut…
On the other side is a memo from Mayor Mike Rawlings that just arrived in the in-box in which he tells the council members who’ll serve on which committee. And, no, Angela Hunt did not get the Trinity River Corridor Project Committee chair — that went to Vonciel Jones Hill…
A couple of weeks back, City Hall asked residential and commercial customers to voluntarily cut back on watering landscapes — twice a week, at most, if that’s OK with you, thanks. A few days later, Assistant City Manager Forest Turner told the council that we’re actually quite a ways off…
After taking a few weeks off, the city’s Gas Drilling Task Force reconvenes at City Hall at 2 today; lucky Leslie will recap by day’s end. Should be an interesting one: After weeks of tours and overviews and regulation reviews and a public hearing, today the industry will make its…
When City Manager Mary Suhm proposed dumping all of the city’s trash at the McCommas Bluff Landfill as a revenue-generating brainstorm last summer, few imagined it would become such a hot-button issue this summer. Because in 2010, the idea came and went nowhere, along with that suggested transportation user fee…
