Category: City of Dallas

Last fortnight’s news – for the two weeks ending 2025 07 20

Here’s a couple of weeks’ worth of interesting items from the news here in North Texas. No musical accompaniment this time, though we did spend a lot of time today listening to the late, lamented Asylum Street Spankers.

From Dallas:

From Fort Worth:

From Dallas County:

From Tarrant County:

From the suburban cities and towns:

From the suburban counties:

From throughout the North Texas region:

Local editorials and op-eds:

And miscellaneous news (including museums and zoos):

Last week’s news – week ending 2025 07 06

Mondays are the day I usually set aside to write these posts, but I was distracted yesterday by the news out of Kerrville. This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Tangerine Dream.

News from Dallas:

News from Fort Worth:

News from Dallas County:

  • KERA: Family of man who died of water intoxication in Dallas County jail files civil rights lawsuit. Spencer Swearnger died in 2023 after drinking an excess of water from his cell toilet. He had mental health problems and might have been suicidal. But, also, his was the third water intoxication death at the jail since 2020. Just because the Dallas County Jail isn’t as awful as the Tarrant County Jail doesn’t mean it’s good.
  • DMN: People are being held in Dallas County jail weeks beyond sentences amid systemic failures. This is a consequence of the problems with the county’s case management system, which was installed back in 2023. I appreciate that the Sherriff can’t release people without the proper paperwork, but the jail either needs to get on the same system as the court or to get an API connected so they can get orders in a timely fashion. This is not acceptable and I’m unhappy that my tax dollars are paying both to keep people in jail beyond their time and for the settlements that are coming because former inmates are quite properly suing over being held in the jail too long.
  • KERA: State commission sanctions Dallas judge Amber Givens. She was sanctioned for allowing her coordinator to impersonate her back in 2019 and admonished over actions she took in cases she’d been recused from, which gets into a rabbit hole about local court scheduling and overloaded dockets. This is not the first time I’ve seen Givens’ name attached to headlines about problems in her court. She’s probably due to be primaried.

News from Tarrant County:

News from the suburbs:

News from the suburban counties:

In other regional news:

Some editorials in local outlets:

Miscellaneous news:

Last week’s news – week ending 2025 05 25

Let’s jump in with some news from Dallas …

… and then on to Fort Worth …

… and then to Dallas and Tarrant Counties …

… and the suburbs and suburban counties

… and the region at large …

… and other interesting things I read about the area or the state.

May 2025 election aftermath

I waited to write this post until Monday under the assumption that we might get more analysis from Monday morning’s news. A few things were polished up (Frank Strong’s Bluesky thread is now in blog post form) but really there’s not a lot to say.

My takeaways were that first, as always, turnout in May elections is low, so the the side whose folks who are whipped up into the biggest froth win. Unsurprisingly in 2025, that’s Democrats and left-leaning folks. Second, it was a bad year to be a book banner. Frank Strong of Anger and Clarity has the throughline on that, comparing the election results to his Book-Lover’s Guide. LoneStarLeft also notes the trend against book haters. Third, a lot of incumbents in elections outside the school board races held on.

The big changes in Dallas and Fort Worth were in council elections where the incumbent retired or was termed out, or in bond elections. Frisco’s big arts bond went down, which wasn’t a surprise given the current economic situation, but a lot of the school bonds seem to have passed on the grounds that school districts better get their money while the getting is good. With vouchers coming, nobody knows what budgets will look like in a few years. Some of the Metroplex suburbs like Celina and Prosper are growing and will need new facilities. Those bond proposals made sense to voters even if the actual costs of the buildings may be more than anticipated due to tariffs and general inflation.

In Dallas, Mayor Johnson wasn’t on the ballot, and will be termed out the next time his office comes up. Incumbents held most of the seats, though we had three open: D6 in West Dallas, where Omar Narvaez was termed out, which his former staffer Laura Cadena won; D9, where Tennell Atkins was termed out, where we’ll see a runoff; and D11, where Jaynie Schultz retired, and which will also see a runoff. In Fort Worth, Mayor Mattie Parker is back for a third term; in the open D5 seat on the east side, former Tarrant Democratic Party chair Deborah Peoples emerged victorious in a six-person race; and in the open D6 seat on the southwest side, there will be a runoff. As in Dallas, the rest of the council seats were held by incumbents.

Of the school board elections, my favorite has to be Keller ISD, where one of the two board members not involved in the split plans was re-elected and the other was ousted. A third member of the board who was involved in the split chose not to run again. (Other members involved in the split plans weren’t on this year’s ballot.) Keller ISD is currently all at-large seat, but they’re under warning over that and may be sued if the school district doesn’t move to trustee districts.

I also agree with the DMN op-ed writer who thinks there’s no room in the middle any more. The middle in the Metroplex used to be the business Republican. Nobody likes those guys any more. Your choices are generally go MAGA, go left, or go home.

May 3 Election guides – 2025 05 03

On Election Day, a few more stories. If you didn’t vote early, please get out and vote!

Let’s start with couple of additional relevant voter guides for you: The Dallas Free Press’ Dallas Voter Guide and The Book-Loving Texan’s Guide to the May 2025 School Board Elections, which was being updated with new districts this week.

In other election news:

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:

Some general news about May’s elections:

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.

The week in Metroplex news – 2025 04 04

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

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:

Prop U: the rubber hits the road

We’re starting to see the fallout of the passage of Prop U in the November election last year. Currently there are about 3,000 police officers in Dallas. The formula for police vs population in Prop U means we need about another 900. That’s a lot of new cops in a time when it’s hard to hire, even with the additional money DPD will get from the required distribution of city monies under Prop U.

DPD says it can add about 300 officers this year, plus more space for its academy. City Council originally wanted to recommend 250 new officers, but after some debate has settled on asking for 325. You’ll note that that’s adding ten percent of the existing force, which is a lot. DPD’s culture needs to change, but uncontrolled change isn’t ideal either.

That said, if DPD doesn’t bring on new officers quickly, some resident, probably someone connected to Monty Bennett and Dallas HERO, is going to sue the city. The loser of that lawsuit is going to be the citizens and taxpayers of Dallas. Meanwhile, the DMN’s editorial board thinks that since the people passed Prop U, the city needs to get creative and get more new officers in the door by any means necessary, especially financial incentives. That money will have to come from somewhere. One source the city has identified is the Office of Community Care, which provides social services to Dallas residents. It’s going to lose about $5 million to DPD. Monty Bennett is getting exactly what he paid for.

Sources:

That Mavericks trade

I’m not a sports person. I like my Houston teams, from when I was growing up; I have a soft spot for my alma mater in sports even though their football team was terrible when I was a student; and I cheered for the Rangers along with my mother-in-law because she was a fan. I don’t have much interest in the Cowboys (see: grew up in Houston) but the Mavericks haven’t earned my ire, at least not over sports.

When Miriam Adelson of the Sands casino conglomeration bought the team, I cast some side-eye in her general direction. As her wikipedia article notes, she’s not just a gambling billionaire, she’s also a huge financial and political supporter of Donald Trump and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from him. I’m not a huge fan of the billionaire class in general but at least Mark Cuban seemed to be spending some of his money toward the public good.

Jump forward to this weekend, when the Mavericks executed a complex three-way trade sending Luca Doncic to the Lakers in exchange for two other players and a 2029 draft pick. I don’t know much about the players involved, other than that Doncic is a local favorite, but I do know he’s expensive and has a long future and it seems like they’re getting cheaper players, since one of them will be no salary until he’s drafted four years down the road. So it seems to me like this is about money.

Here’s the thing about Adelson and money: she’s a casino person. Gambling people have been trying to get casinos in Texas for decades. It’s an open secret that Adelson bought the Mavericks as part of a pitch to bring a casino complex with a new NBA stadium to Arlington. The Mavericks’ lease on their current home, American Airlines Center, expires in 2031, so it’s about time for the push for a new stadium to start. Also, this is a Lege year, so it’s a good time for the push to make a casino happen that would be necessary. Adelson has probably already contributed her limit to the local folks whose vote she’d need; it’s time to get out there and put some money down on other legislators. She just had the team unload an expensive asset in favor other athletes, including one who won’t be on payroll for several seasons yet. That’s got to help her money quest.

I personally don’t know how she can get around the Christian Dominionists and other reactionaries who run the state Senate and have a strong presence in the House, but that’s just me. I could be wrong about what Adelson is thinking, or about what Dan Patrick is thinking (pretty sure gambling isn’t on his radar this session). Maybe she’s ruining the team to send it to Las Vegas, which is another rumor I’ve read online. But the timing sure seems right for pushing for some big change, and the Arlington rumor seems a lot more likely than moving the Mavs to Vegas.