Let’s just call it: Everyone in town is running for Congress. Okay, not everyone, but the race for the newly-created, much-argued-over Congressional District 33 has gotten very, very crowded, especially on the Democrats’ side. Last night we watched as former Dallas city council member — and mayor pro tem, state…
NASA was perturbed when Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell auctioned his checklist from the ill-fated mission through Dallas-based Heritage Auctions back in December. So perturbed, in fact, that NASA general counsel asked the auctioneer to halt the nearly $400,000 sale so that proof of ownership could be determined. The checklist,…
The Dallas Police Department’s downtown patrol is about to get a whole lot more, well, motorized. That much we can safely say. DPD announced yesterday that 7-Eleven was donating four new T3’s to the department, bringing the total to eight. They were so excited about the whole thing that we…
If you’ve been hiding under an especially sturdy and soundproof rock for the past month, perhaps you missed out on the increasingly bitter national debate over contraception coverage. Lucky for you, U.S. Representative Ralph Hall has taken a break from doubting global warming and talking about how incredibly safe fracking…
Speaking of the council’s Wednesday briefing and sewers and so forth …There are a few things council will actually vote mid-week, seeing as how they’re on spring break next week. Among ’em: a resolution tsk-tsk’ing the Columbia Packing Company in Oak Cliff, infamous for having been caught turning the Trinity…
And I was so looking forward to this Wednesday council briefing: Overview of Floodplain Management and Drainage Needs in the City of Dallas. Oh, well; guess it’s all Jim’s now. After all, he certainly knows a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to gettin’ in…
One month ago, City Manager Mary Suhm warned the city council: It’s early, very early, but it’s looking like the city could be short anywhere from $49 million to $87 million when it comes to putting together the FY2012-13 budget. And one month before that, Suhm warned the city council:…
Mighty kind of Dallas City Hall to offer all these briefings wrapping up a few loose ends before I get up outta here. First Sylvan Thirty, then the old Dallas High School, then the Cotton Bowl, and now Old Dallas City Hall, which one day should become the University of…
Shortly before the 2011 kick-off of Texas-OU’s annual clash at the Cotton Bowl we spoke with Willis Winters, Park and Rec’s second-in-command, about the need to once again renovate the Fair Park stadium in order to keep the Red River Shootout in Dallas past the 2015 contract. Said Winters, it…
Now that Sylvan Thirty’s out of the way …We learned at the end of last week that Wynne/Jackson intends to turn the 105-year-old Dallas High School on Pearl and Bryan into an apartment complex — that’s on Landmark Commission’s agenda this afternoon, as the developer’s seeking around $923,000 in historic…
The council’s Economic Development Committee’s being briefed this morning on two projects familiar to the Friends of Unfair Park — Wynne/Jackson’s redo of the old Dallas High School downtown, which we’ll get to shortly, and Sylvan Thirty, which is first up.The reason the latter’s on the agenda, says Karl Zavitkovsky,…
The speeches went on and on and on and on … and on, everyone on the stage thanking everyone else on the stage for having a hand in building this thing we were all standing on: the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. Mayor Mike Rawlings, Friday night’s emcee, introduced “our new…
Strange timing that one of my last tasks for the Observer will be covering the opening (but not really opening) of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. Shame I can’t get Schutze to be my date this weekend, so instead I’ll just have to schlep along my son, who wants to…
A few days ago, we told you that Texas’s Medicaid Women’s Health Program appears to be on death’s door, which could leave some 130,000 low-income Texas women without vital medical care. We also mentioned that Gov. Rick Perry’s administration appeared eager to blame the program’s end on the feds broadly…
As we noted earlier in the week, the council’s Economic Development Committee will be briefed Monday concerning plans for the old Dallas High School downtown. So too, turns out, will the Landmark Commission: The freshly posted agenda for Monday’s 1 p.m. meeting reveals that developer Wynne/Jackson is looking to sink…
A few major issues, including set-back distances from drill sites and whether to protect parks from fracking, have plagued the Dallas gas drilling task force for months … and months. (Keep in mind: Yesterday’s final meeting was more than three months past the scheduled end date.) At meeting after meeting…
The first thing we need to remind you about the impending Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Celebration this weekend is that there will be “mammoth puppets.” If this information makes you feel the need to stay home, perhaps under the bed, that’s fine and understandable. For the rest of us, there…
The Medicaid Women’s Health Program provides some 130,000 Texas women with vital medical care: family planning, birth control, cancer screenings and annual exams. And for that, of course, it must die. That, at least, has long been the case as far as Republican lawmakers are concerned. And after last week,…
A technical glitch (on my end, I guess — sabotage?) kept me from listening in on Dallas Arboretum president and CEO Mary Brinegar’s presentation to the council’s Quality of Life Committee this morning. Shame too, as her chat this morning was City Hall’s first real chance to hear all about…
At the end of last week we glanced at those surveys conducted during those citywide Complete Streets workshops put on by City Hall beginning last fall, input from which will go toward the manual Sustainable Development’s hoping to put together before year’s end. Some of which, incidentally, will be covered…
So, you’re an undocumented immigrant. Your great hope is to stick around, make a living and, some day, become naturalized. Unfortunately, our immigration laws are a tangled morass of inscrutability, insensible to the realities of a globalized world. You may have watched last week’s Republican debate in Arizona with a…
Back in the fall of 2010, the city’s garage-sale permit fee, then just a proposal, raised quite the ruckus — so much so, you may recall, Neil Cavuto told Dwaine Caraway during a FOX News appearance that, well, “it just looks desperate” during a segment titled “Garage Sale Gouge.” At…
