Category: City of Fort Worth

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.

People with dirty minds see a lot of dirt

A story I’ve been keeping an eye on while I scramble out from under the piles of stories from international, national, state, and local sources is the seizure of photographs from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The Modern had an exhibit of Sally Mann photographs that closed at the beginning of this month. Among the many photographs in the exhibit were four photos of her then-young children naked. After some community outrage, Fort Worth PD showed up to seize the photos in January.

Now the ACLU of Texas, FIRE, and the National Coalition Against Censorship have gotten together to write a letter to FWPD describing the seizure as unconstitutional censorship. Nobody seems to have anything to say to local media; the museum and FWPD are keeping mum.

Here’s the thing: I haven’t seen these photographs, but I’m old enough to remember when toddler bathtime photos were considered normal and not sexual exploitation of children. I’m glad my bathtime photos aren’t on the internet, a topic that brings up questions of consent, and I certainly can see how putting naked photos of your little kids in an art exhibition brings up the same questions. But artistic nudity, especially where little kids are concerned, is real. If any photo of a naked kid you ever see is sexual, or even pornographic, in your eyes, you have a problem.

The Modern had noted that the Mann exhibit had mature content, which I understand is necessary in the GOP-led city of Fort Worth, but honestly photos of little kids running around naked shouldn’t need that label. Nor should the Cowboy exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum around the corner have had to post a warning because the exhibit included a painting of two men kissing. Tarrant County has a prudish bully in County Judge Tim O’Hare, who commented on the Mann exhibit on Xitter. And of course the Dallas Express had to have its say back in December. These are the folks who think photos of child nudity are inherently sexual. They’re the ones with the dirty minds, and the problem.