Ginger Stampley – Page 4 – Dispatches from Dallas

May 3 election guides – 2025 04 22

Today is the first day of early voting for the May 3 elections and our local media sources have some campaign guides and recommendations for you.

As always, I recommend you start by looking at Vote 411, by those notorious pinko commies, the League of Women Voters. It will tell you what’s on the ballot. I only have two elections: Dallas City Council and Richardson ISD trustee. Some folks will have a lot more.

The big voter guides:

Star-Telegram.
Texas Tribune
D Magazine
Fort Worth Report.
Local real estate guide Candy’s Dirt has an election page and their elections tag covers most of the Dallas City Council elections.

Some general news about May’s elections:

D Magazine: Voter-Approved Effort to Move Dallas Elections to November Heads to Austin. This may be my last year to vote in May, at least on City of Dallas business. It’s in the hands of the Lege now.
KERA: Changes to Tarrant voting precincts won’t impact ballots. Apparently last-minute changes to Tarrant County voting precincts are required under state law.
DMN: Will Dallas voters show up to the polls for the May 3 city election? In 2023 only 8% of voters showed up for the May elections.
DMN: Smith: What it’s like to run for local office. Commentary piece about one of the candidates for city Council in McKinney.
DMN: As early voting begins, Dallas County officials are confident in new check in devices. This is the new software suppllied by KNOWiNK after the old Election System & Software pollbook barfed in the November election and was decertified by the state.

However you’re going to vote, get out there and do it. Election Day is May 3 if you can’t get out there early.

Book Review: Stolen Pride, by Arlie Russell Hochschild

Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right, by Arlie Russell Hochschild. This is a follow-up to Strangers in Their Own Land, about Lousiana; the new book covers the rise of the right in rural Appalachia. Hochschild’s focus is on how rural men hold pride in rural ways and providing without government assistance, and how that pride is “stolen” when changing economic times destroy their jobs and way of life, bringing shame on them in their own eyes.

One of Hochschild’s focal points is a white nationalist march in Pikesville in the runup to 2017’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. She interviewed local officials, a member of the group putting on the march, and men who might be drawn into the orbit of white nationalism. Part of the appeal of white nationalist politics is that it gives rural men something to be proud of in the face of lost jobs, drug addiction (the opiate crisis), and the strongly felt contempt of urban liberals.

I came away with a stronger understanding of why conservative men place such a high value on “owning the libs”. They generally share this pride versus shame orientation and project their shame onto their supposed opponents. Passing shame onward doesn’t work in online slapfights, but it does explain part of the “conservative” MAGA delight in undermining institutions perceived as liberal, such as universities and law firms. Even when it hurts MAGA supporters to burn down part of the government, as much of Project 2025 will, stealing the pride of liberals who “destroy” and deride their rural-based way of life is satisfying to men whose own pride has been stolen.

The story Hochschild elicits from her interviews and research wouldn’t work if she didn’t give all of her subjects a full three dimensions, even the man who led the white nationalist march in Pikesville and the imprisoned KKK devotee. But what was most intriguing for future research and practical politics was the concept of the empathy bridge, which Hochschild discusses in an appendix. The bridge connects the experiences of rural whites with Black Americans, either by an upper deck that educated, wealthy whites travel or a lower deck travelled by whites in precarious circumstances. In a time when unity across class and ethnic lines is vital to opposing American authoritarianism, Hochschild’s research points to a way forward that can include former MAGA men.

Review: Shanghai Quartet

The Shanghai Quartet at Caruth Auditorium, Southern Methodist Univeristy. Final concert in the Dallas Chamber Music 2024-1025 season.

I’m a season ticket-holder, though I often miss for health reasons, and a dilettante in chamber music. I enjoy the more intimate and casual chamber music and early music concerts over more formal and larger orchestral concerts. My knowledge of Western classical music is limited; I’m familiar with the bigger names, particularly as you recede in music history. Modern classical, besides Glass, is out of my bailiwick.

This concert featured two Beethoven quartets and a more recent Penderecki quartet, plus an encore. Beethoven’s style is recognizable to me and the playing seemed solid and full of verve. The Penderecki was new to me; I was initially inclined to dislike the piece but it developed into something I enjoyed more. Reading up on Penderecki afterwards, I found that his later work had moved away from the avant garde style of his earlier period, which explained some of what I’d noticed.

The players were unsurprisingly skilled and other audience members with more experience than I have were particularly complimentary about the cellist, who drew a lot of my attention as well. They received three standing ovations, one at the end of each piece. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear the name of the encore over the whooping and applause, but they played it with even more gusto than the announced quartets. They really let their hair down: literally, as one of the violinists’ hair was flying loose from the vigor of his movements.

Getting out and listening to live music serves the same function for me as the proverbial touching grass. I commend it to anyone who feels terminally online.

School District Sunday – 2025 04 13

Star-Telegram: Tarrant County schools, cities urge appraisal district changes, say millions at risk. This is about the Tarrant County Appraisal District’s decision to move to appraising property every other year and the bill Rep. Chris Turner (D-Grand Prairie) to force TCAD to appraise every year.
WFAA: Texas school districts rush to pass nearly 100 bond proposals as funding remains murky in state legislature. There are 89 bond proposals on the May ballot, totalling $12 billion. The funding needs are in mid-sized districts that are growing. Also, inflation.
Dallas Observer: Trans Sports and CRT: Ken Paxton Targets North Texas School Districts. Gotta keep throwing that red meat to the base while he runs for Senate!
KERA: Dallas ISD, AG’s office reach agreement in investigation into trans athletes policy. It’s a wrist slap and all that happened is the superintendent told the district to follow state law. See: red meat for the base.
The Barbed Wire: Paxton’s Anti-CRT Lawsuit Was Based on A Manipulated Video, Coppell ISD Says. I’ve talked about this elsewhere, but the subhead says it all: “District officials claim the suit was meant to fuel debates over private school vouchers and public school funding”. See: red meat for the base.
Dallas Morning News: Dallas ISD teachers, staff could see pay increases under proposed budget. This is the budget for the next school year, of course, which is up in the air because of vouchers.
Fort Worth Report: Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD adopts new reading curriculum for $3M. It’s Amplify Texas, not Bluebonnet Learning, the controversial religious curriculum.
Star-Telegram: Fort Worth ISD election: Incumbent accuses opponent of illegal campaign activity. This is in their District 1 election; the incumbent says the challenger of illegally gathering mail-in ballots.
Star-Telegram: A new Fort Worth political action committee looks to marshal support for literacy. “Fort Worth Students First” is a PAC started by Fort Worth officials including Mayor Mattie Parker and Commissioner Manny Ramirez (both Republicans) to get elected officials on board with increasing literacy. We’ll have to see how this pans out and whether it leads to actual expenditures, like more money for the library.
Fort Worth Report: Fort Worth ISD considers closure of S.S. Dillow Elementary due to structural issues. The building has underground leaks and they’re worried about the walls moving and tiles popping off. It was already under consideration for closure under the district’s consolidation plan, but the damage to the building means it may close after this year.
Fort Worth Report: Fort Worth ISD trustees OK $22.5M in spending. Here’s what they approved in March.
Fort Worth Report: Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD sees mixed results from midyear test results.
Star-Telegram: Keller ISD will close early learning centers, consolidate classrooms to cut costs. One of the two early learning centers they’re closing is in a free-standing building that was rezoned by Fort Worth City Council recently.
Star-Telegram: Keller board says lawsuit alleging open meetings violation has no merit, calls to dismiss. They’re making technical arguments here that are above my pay grade. The gist of it is that the split didn’t happen so there’s no problem, which seems a little disingenuous to me.
Fort Worth Report: Northwest ISD budget remains $965K short following $15M in cuts to staff, programs. Voters rejected a tax increase in November, so they’re stuck figuring out how to do more with less, and it’s really going to be less with less.
Fort Worth Report: Tuition at many Fort Worth private schools is higher than proposed voucher amount. The current voucher proposal is about 2/3 of average private school tuition.

Closing my tabs – 2024 04 13

What I was reading this week while I was sick:

NY Times: How to Shop for a Home That Won’t Be Upended by Climate Change. A lot of good advice here, but also a lot of it relies on government data. Some of it isn’t updated frequently enough (I lived in Houston for many years, so I’m intimately familiar with the failures of 100-year flood plain maps) but with the Trump purges, I wonder how reliable the data for some of these sources will be in the future.
Beautiful Public Data: WWII Japanese Mass Incarceration collections. Unfortunately relevant.
The Guardian: ‘Financial microaggressions’: why ‘pink tariffs’ hurt women more than men. Part of the complicated answer to the question of why women’s clothes are worse-made but more expensive than men. It’s not all sexism, but sexism in law and regulations is a part of it.
BBC: How sex with Neanderthals changed us forever. 6 minute video, subtitled. If Neanderthals are a different species from humans, how did they interbreed? 1%-3% of Eurasian humans have Neanderthal DNA. Not a lot new in the conclusions if you’re up to date on the science but I didn’t know the specifics of the research.
TV Guide: How Daredevil: Born Again Tackles the Punisher’s Real-World Legacy. Not a subject I would have expected to see in TV Guide, but it makes sense for them to go there.
Tatler: The scintillating histories of the Mitford sisters, as anticipation for Outrageous reaches fever pitch. Potted short biographies of the Mitford sisters, if you’re into that kind of thing (I am).
Dallas Observer: Bigger Isn’t Always Better: What Local Tiny Desk Concerts Tell Us About Dallas Music. I listen to Tiny Desk concerts occasionally and always enjoy them. I knew nothing about the background, so this was fascinating.
Radley Balko’s The Watch: Trump’s modest proposal. It’s prima nocta. As a medievalist by training, I laughed.
ProPublica: How Investigative Journalists Actually Find Fraud, Waste and Abuse. Compared to what “DOGE” does.
The Oregonian: Many Portland-area residents say they never use government services. Actually, they do. People don’t know what the government does for them.
AP: North Carolina judge challenging outcome of race wore Confederate uniform in college photo. Of course he did. “[H]e was a member of a college fraternity that glorified the pre-Civil War South.” Of course he was. Read the whole thing: this whole fraternity needs to be burned to the ground. And I say that as someone with slaveholders and Confederate soldiers in my family history. I acknowledge that past but I don’t celebrate it.
NPR: Rosie the Riveters honored for service in WWII. Woke DEI history that we soon won’t be able to talk about.
Yale News: Why don’t we remember being a baby? New study provides clues. The memories may still be there; we just can’t access them.
The Mary Sue: John Boyega is right about Star Wars fans. A bunch of them are racist and sexist. Also, tbh, the powers that be didn’t do enough to shut down toxic fans and it’s a big problem with the sequel trilogy and the future of the Star Wars universe.
The Nation: What’s a Rebel Pundit to Do in the Age of Trump? Bari Weiss is beneath contempt, as is Glenn Greenwald, but I am super disappointed in Matt Taibbi. He used to write good stuff when he was with Rolling Stone.
Texas Highways: Engines of Optimism. The author went to all the public libraries in Austin. Now I want to do that in Dallas.
Dallas Morning News: Public Editor: Why doesn’t ‘The News’ use ‘Gulf of America’? It appalls me that the DMN has to explain this stuff.
Billy Bragg’s Substack: Happy 100th Birthday Tony Benn
Tech Crunch: WordPress maker Automattic lays off 16% of staff. I love Tumblr and obviously I find WordPress useful. But man I worry about PhotoMatt (whom I was acquainted with back in the day) and where he’s taking the company.

Closing my tabs – 2025 04 06

Liberal Currents: Guys Win: Andrew Tate, Rape Politics, and the Authoritarian Right. The boys are not all right; they’re being lured into authoritarianism.
Interview: Claire Tabouret Designed the New Stained-Glass Windows at Notre-Dame. She’s Ready for the Blowback. I really wish I could see her designs or the windows in full. One day.
Vice: Wild Photos of Berlin’s Feminist Noise-Punk Scene. It did my heart good to read this and see the people.
The Guardian: Zadie Smith on the magic of Tracy Chapman: ‘She didn’t just look like us – she was singing our songs’. I’m not in the demographic they share, but I do love that album. What a lovely remembrance of that time and place.
Pajiba: Carrie Coon Ditched Marvel Because of Their Insulting Offer. Good for her.
BBC: The unexpected origins of Houston’s favourite po’ boy. I miss Antone’s. Gonna have to have one the next time I’m in town and maybe take some chow chow home.
Reactor: Repo Man: A Brash, Indelible, Outrageous Look at 1980s America. I loved this movie from the first time I saw it.
Status: Hanging by a Thread. Meta’s Twitter-killer mostly killed itself with early policy decisions. The interesting thing here is that since nobody is stuck with investment in Threads the way they are with Facebook, which really doesn’t have a similar-type rival, everybody just stopped posting there. And when I do log in, mostly what I see is people posting the same content as on other similar services (Bluesky).
Rolling Stone: Remembering the George Foreman Grill, Undisputed Champ of Nineties Fads. Fad, my ass. We still use ours!
The View from Rural Missouri by Jess Piper: You Are Going to Have to Tell Them the Truth. About public speaking (and running for office) in the red rural heartland.
Travel & Leisure: This Badass Woman Took the World’s First Road Trip—and Stole Her Husband’s Car to Do It. Bertha Benz (of Mercedes Benz) stole her husband’s invention and drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim with her teenage sons sometime in the 1880s or 1890s. This is a silly article but I’m more interested in Bertha after reading it.
Think Progress: What A 19th Century Campaign To Declare Mormons ‘Non-White’ Tells Us About Modern Islamophobia. The stories in this article sure sound like Greg Abbott talking about EPIC City!
NY Times: Hillary Clinton: How Much Dumber Will This Get? Still with her.
The Art Newspaper: ‘Mystery of a masterpiece’: how Van Gogh’s postman portrait ‘disappeared’ from London’s Tate Gallery a century ago. They didn’t like it, so it was returned and moved on, and now it’s at MOMA.
Texas Monthly: One of the Rarest of Texas’s Rare Plants Might Be Growing in Your Neighbor’s Garden. It’s wild big red sage, which I know nothing about because I’m absolutely garden ignorant and a black thumb.

School District Saturday – 2025 04 04

This week we have some news from the Legislature about bad bills. You know what to do.

Texas Tribune & ProPublica: Texas conservatives are using school board elections to exert influence over what students learn. The headline of this article is deceptive: this article is really about at-large voting in school districts. It’s comparing Keller ISD, which we all know about, and which has only at-large trustees, and Richardson ISD, where my house is zoned, which has district trustees. And of course, Patriot Mobile is involved.
Dallas Observer: New Bill Would Remove DEI Programs From K-12 Schools. This is SB 12 filed by State Sen. Brandon Creighton, who is from Montgomery County (so not one of our local idiots; one of my home town’s exurban idiots). The bill would also ban queer student groups like Gay-Straight Alliance. Call your reps.
Dallas Morning News: Texas school libraries could have tighter oversight if Republicans get their way. This is SB 13 filed by State Sen. Angela Paxton (R-McKinney), who is one of our exurban idiots. And yes, in case you didn’t know, she is also Mrs. Ken Paxton. The DMN’s editors failed to notice that the bill number wasn’t included in the article, so I had to chase it down in this Texas Tribune article. I can excuse that in a blog but nobody pays bloggers! Wherever this is in the process, we need to find out and call our reps, because our local school districts need to decide what students can read, not the State Board of Education and certainly not the Lege.
KERA: Texas cleared to release 2023 school accountability ratings, appeals court rules. Also the Texas Tribune: Texas Education Agency can release schools’ 2023 performance ratings, appeals court rules, updated with the most recent developments. The school ratings are a complicated topic that I’m not competent to address, but what I do know is the state will use these ratings to take over urban districts like Houston. And based on HISD, I don’t think anybody the state puts in charge of a district is going to do right by the students.
DMN: What we know about the fatal Frisco track meet stabbing. This is tragic. A 17-year-old was stabbed to death at a UIL track meet in Frisco. The assailant, another 17-year-old, claims self-defense and is facing a murder charge. I have to wonder what impact this case is going to have on the demand for school security. On the one hand, how did a student get a knife into a track meet? On the other hand, how do you keep legitimate tools that can be used as weapons, like box cutters, out of the hands of students who might use them to hurt someone. Another one where I don’t have answers, just questions, and condolences for the victim.
Fort Worth Report: Arlington ISD owns 168 acres of undeveloped land worth over $15.7M. Here’s why. Tax foreclosures are a big part of it. I’m not surprised to find out this happens but the look at what they’re trying to do with the properties, most of which will be taken over by the city of Arlington, was news to me.
KERA: ‘Grossly misleading’: Coppell ISD officials deny teaching critical race theory in lawsuit. This is the Ken Paxton lawsuit based on Accuracy in Media’s edited video. AIM is not James O’Keefe-level lying but I don’t trust them. Also, CRT is a term with a technical meaning that is actually taught in graduate schools; it’s not appropriate for secondary schools. It does not actually mean Black history, despite what some people like to say on reactionary web sites.
DMN editorial: Dallas ISD leads again on retaining teachers. It’s the money. Pay-for-performance plan money, but it’s money.
Texas Tribune: Ken Paxton wants Dallas school officials under oath on transgender athlete policy. Also KERA: AG Paxton wants to depose Dallas ISD officials over transgender athletes policy. This is another investigation driven by Accuracy In Media. DISD says it’s following the law; AIM got someone to say they might be able to let a kid play if the kid’s birth certificate had been changed. Changes to birth certificates are illegal in Texas, but some other states will still change them. Our tax dollars at work.
Star-Telegram: Keller school board to consider campus closings, bond issue for 2025-26 school year. They have a $9.4 million shortfall for the next school year. I wonder how much of that is legal bills.
Related, also in the Star-Telegram: Fort Worth HOA demands removal of 5 Keller ISD board members over split. This is the lawsuit over the board violating the Texas Open Meetings Act. Also, remember up at the top of this post where we talked about the differences between the at-large school boards and the single-member district boards, with Keller as one example? This is an example of how at-large boards go very, very wrong.
DMN: Transgender teacher at North Texas district resigns after viral video spurs threats. This is in Red Oak ISD, south of Dallas and the viral piece comes from Libs of Tik Tok. I’m very sad for her. Also, her State Rep is Brian Harrison, whom the article quotes as demanding her job, and I’m sad for her about that too.

The week in Metroplex news – 2025 04 04

Some area news that happened over the last week or so:

KERA: Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare highlights economy, tax cuts in State of the County address. He wants to get the Stars and any businesses he can to move to Tarrant County from Dallas County. He didn’t talk about his reactionary activism, though.
Star-Telegram: Legal fee bill for jail death lawsuit grows. Tarrant County approves up to $30k more
Star-Telegram: Tarrant County takes step to redraw commissioners’ precincts. This is going to be the subject of a longer piece at some point, but the gist is: the county doesn’t need to redraw the precincts, but County Judge Tim O’Hare and his two Republican cronies have hired a known “election integrity” firm with a record of defending racist redistricting here in Texas, and two commissioners and O’Hare are up for re-election in 2026. You do the math.
KERA: Tarrant County judge, commissioner vote against honoring Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta Committee. This was Tim O’Hare and Matt Krause, who wouldn’t vote for anything that said socialism. It passed anyway because the other Republican Commissioner is Manny Ramirez.
Fort Worth Report: Tarrant County Democratic Party lays off all paid staff, declines to share details. I recently learned that the Texas Democratic Party doesn’t run things top-down from the state level; all the local parties are independent. So this is bad, but it doesn’t reflect on the state party or any other area parties.
Star-Telegram editorial: From FIFA soccer to streets, Plano transit pullout could drive gridlock in Fort Worth | Opinion. Fort Worth is noticing that the problems with DART might affect the Dallas-Fort Worth railroad (the Trinity Express) and the FIFA World Cup that’s coming in 2026. I personally think the World Cup is going to be a bust; big events like that never make as much money as proponents claim they will. Even beyond that, though, we have to deal with the international travel climate fomented by the current federal administration. We’ll be lucky if FIFA doesn’t cancel the whole thing. If the games occur, they’ll be playing in nearly-empty stadiums because no foreign tourists are going to come to the US for a long time.
Dallas Morning News: Here’s who was behind the mass texts about the Las Vegas Sands casino plans in Irving. Big surprise: it was a PAC funded by the Sands people. The DMN did the work and came up with the PACs funding media and advertising on both sides of the issue. Irving City Council wouldn’t approve the casino part of the Sands resort plan last month; the plan submitted and approved doesn’t include a casino.
DMN: How a temple spire put a small Texas town and the LDS church’s religious rights at odds. An explainer about the Fairfield vs Mormon temple case, which has been ongoing for about a year. The Mormons want to build a temple, which has specific ritual meanings for them, to accommodate their congregants in the area; the town thinks the steeple they want to build is too high compared to the rest of the town.
DMN: Tesla owner sues for $1 million after car keyed at DFW Airport. The alleged culprit was arrested for criminal mischief and is in the Tarrant County Jail already. The civil suit is for property damage, emotional distress, mental anguish, fees, and costs. I don’t endorse property damage but I cannot imagine being a million dollars worth of distressed over my car getting keyed. On the other hand, my identity is not tied up with my motor vehicle.
DMN editorial: How much parking does Dallas need? Dallas has been considering revising its parking ordinance for a while. The particular version that the DMN likes is going to kill minimums downtown and in certain business and industrial areas, and reduce it elsewhere. The Powers That Be have spoken, so now we see what Dallas HERO has to say.
D Magazine: Dallas County Will Consider Independent Review of Roberson Case. Also in the DMN: Dallas County commissioners approve review of medical records in Robert Roberson’s capital murder case. We’re about to pay $20,000 to have those autopsy reports reviewed because Roberson’s daughter was airlifted to Dallas and died here, so our medical examiner did the autopsy. That was back in 2002, when shaken-baby syndrome was considered real and not junk science, as it is now. Roberson, you may recall, came very close to execution last fall and only survived because two of the members of the Texas House caused a constitutional crisis by trying to get him to appear before their committee.
DMN Watchdog: Are you overpaying on your Atmos gas bill? A customer tries to find out. The answer is: the watchdog and the customers can’t get a straight answer because Atmos gives non-answers to questions. As a customer myself, I assume I’m getting screwed.
Companies affiliated with Republican Mayors Association execs have scored business. The Republican Mayors Association was founded by Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson in 2023 after he won his second term and switched parties. Financial reports suggest senior officials in the association who are also political consultants are self-dealing.
Texas Observer: Congressman Denounces ICE Response About Prosecutor Operating Racist X Account. Steve Monacelli of the Observer and several other sites found out an ICE prosecutor here in Dallas was behind a gross, racist Xitter account. Congressman Marc Veasey of Fort Worth demanded information from ICE. This is the part where they say they’re doing an internal investigation and talk to them in six months. The DC Bar, where the prosecutor was admitted, is also fobbing Veasey off. It’s going to take lighting a bigger fire under ICE than Veasey seems to have firepower for to get some action here.
DMN: Rocket acquires Coppell-based mortgage company Mr. Cooper in deal valued at $9.4B. In addition to the local angle, this is also my mortgage company. Rocket, the buyer, also just bought Redfin, so this is some vertical consolidation in the real estate market.
D Magazine: The New Billionaires: Meet the DFW Leaders Among the World’s Richest People. Also the Dallas Observer: 34 North Texas Billionaires Makes 2025 World’s Richest List. This is the Forbes list. Related in the Star-Telegram: Is Alice Walton still the richest person in Dallas-Fort Worth? Here’s Forbes 2025 list. Yes. She’s also the richest person in the world, and Fort Worth is proud she calls it home.
DMN: Congressional task force explores question of who killed JFK. Dallas will never get over 1963.
Fort Worth Report: Texas State Veterans Home named for Tuskegee Airmen opens in Fort Worth. Glad they’re honoring the Tuskegee Airmen.
KERA: ‘The healing process can actually begin’: At last, marker for 1930 Sherman race riot to go up. Sherman is up near the Oklahoma border; the article is worth reading if only for the interview with a descendant of a survivor of the 1930 lynching and riot, which destroyed the Black business district.

Cop Shop

We’re down to the wire on deciding who the next Chief of Police here in Dallas will be. There are three external candidates and two internal candidates, including the interim chief, in the middle of the meet-and-greet part of the proceedings. It’s not clear which of the internal candidates has an advantage; Interim Chief Igo has his fans on City Council (and apparently a slogan: “I go with Igo”) but he’s also been under fire from Attorney General Ken Paxton for comments that suggested he wouldn’t slavishly follow the Trump administration’s lead in harassing (possibly) undocumented folks.

For all that the applicants seem enthused about the job, it comes with downsides. Prop U still requires the city to hire about an additional 1000 officers, where the current plan for the next year calls for hiring only 300 more. So there’s a lawsuit coming from the Dallas HERO folks, as mentioned in a KERA article below. At the same time, the city has been struggling with planning a new police academy and whether or not it should be tied to the University of North Texas Dallas campus. The city’s current facilities need replacement even without considering hiring and training an additional 1000 officers. And continuing arguments about the location have jeopardized state funding, though the city and the state now seem to be on the same page.

So wish whoever gets the job good luck, because they’re going to need it.

Sources:

Dallas Observer: Meet the 5 Candidates Vying to be Dallas’ Top Cop.
KERA: Dallas police chief candidates prioritize recruiting, community engagement.
KERA: Dallas HERO to city officials: Comply with Prop U or risk litigation.
NBC DFW: Texas AG Ken Paxton opens investigation into Dallas alleging ‘Sanctuary city policies’. (March 13, 2025)
Dallas Morning News: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick recommits $5M for Dallas police academy. Council still has concerns.

Same stuff, different year

Every year since my husband took his current job, I’ve had to ask the same question: will Blue Cross Blue Shield and Southwestern Health Resources come to terms in a timely fashion? Southwestern Health Resources is the biggest hospital/care provider in town, covering the University of Texas Southwestern system and the Texas Health system (known locally as “Presby”). It’s where almost all of my health care, including my cancer care comes from. And guess who provides our insurance?

The last time they played this game, BCBS put UTSW and Presby out of network for close to a month. We got letters advising us to find new doctors because our current doctors were out of network, though they arrived after BCBS had made their deal. I don’t know that the dispute will go that far this year. Presby doesn’t think so, because I have my semiannual checkup coming up in a week and they’re behaving like I’m insured and in-network. If I have to pay up, then I’ll know we’re in for a longer fight.

It’ll all sort out in the end. I’m generally with the doctors over the insurance company; doctors need to spend more time with patients and worry less about meeting artificial quotas than the insurance company would like. That said, I can’t imagine they won’t come to terms, just with a lot of stress for everybody in the meantime. And isn’t stress something we could all do with more of?

ETA on April 3: Apparently my insurance, while it is BCBS, is not through the Texas branch and my doctor’s office thinks I’m not affected. One less thing to worry about.

Sources:

Dallas Observer: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas drops major North Texas hospital system from its network.
Dallas Morning News: UT Southwestern, Texas Health Resources no longer in-network for Blue Cross Blue Shield.
WFAA: Major North Texas healthcare provider dropped from Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance.