This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.
This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth we have a lot of election news. No, more than that. Also: the Tarrant County jail; school districts; rail news; Black Dandies; Meat Fight; the State Fair; and more.
This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Air, the French pop band, whom we’re seeing next week.
As always during election season, I urge you to get out and vote. We haven’t voted at our house, but we do have a firm plan and a backup in case we miss our first early voting date.
Let’s start with election business. The Star-Telegram, D Magazine, and the Dallas Observer have voting guides. KERA has you covered for Collin County and the Dallas Morning News has the Frisco ISD bond/tax election for folks in those areas. I also read up on unopposed races in Dallas County where it’s Republicans who don’t bother to put up candidates in countywide races. The DMN also has an editorial on the big issues they’re seeing after interviewing a lot of candidates. They also talked about why they didn’t issue recommendations in any of the Texas Senate races: a combination of lack of time and resources, gerrymandering, and the feeling that anybody who voted against convicting Ken Paxton had already said what they needed to say about party over state.
In Tarrant County, the Fort Worth Report has the lowdown on the open seats on Tarrant County Commissioner’s Court. And the Texas Tribune covers ballot harvesting in the 2022 election in Tarrant County, which the Republicans involved claim shows ballot harvesting and the Democrats involved claim is staged.
I also commend this AP article about Lewisville and Flower Mound flipping the usual script on how Democrats and Republicans vote to your attention. The two north Texas suburbs paint a picture of how the old voting coalitions have fallen apart and are reforming with different SES and ethnic groups.
We also have some news about actual voting here in Dallas and in Fort Worth. Our AG, for once doing something not terrible, has investigated the voting machines here in Dallas County and says they’re OK. Who’s against them? Local GOP Chair and job-hopper Allen West, who thinks 60-70% of votes could be manipulated. There’s a lot of effort going into putting out FUD into voting here in Dallas; there was a FB post about precinct errors at my local library, where I usually vote, on Monday in a local Democratic group. It was swiftly deleted, and a separate and very reassuring post from an election judge telling us what to do if we thought our ballot was wrong showed up not long afterward. Hard to tell if that was a real issue or a psyop! Per the DMN, some precinct errors did happen on Monday because of problems with the check-in devices. I’m planning to keep an eye out for that when I vote. We also saw one incorrect vote in Tarrant County, but it was fixed on the spot and may have been voter error. The Star-Telegram also posted a fact-check about the operation of voting machines to convince readers to get out and vote.
I’ve already pointed at the voting guides, and in previous weeks at the endorsements from the DMN and the Star-Telegram, but I’d like to note that I was pleasantly surprised that the Star-Telegram endorsed Colin Allred for Senate alongside the DMN endorsement. This is the sort of thing that gets the Republican-oriented Star-Telegram dismissed as a pinko commie outlet even if it only seems like common sense to the rest of us.
I’ve left the Dallas HERO amendments for last. There’s a lot to report: the press against the amendments by the Dallas establishment is on. D Magazine has a piece on Proposition U, the one increasing the number of cops and diverting half of future increases in revenue to Dallas PD, which finally points out the elephant in the room: Dallas would never be able to take any of that money out of the police budget without triggering those state laws to punish cities that defund the police. (Thanks Greg Abbott!) D Magazine also has a podcast with former mayor Mike Rawlings to discuss the propositions. Opponents have also talked to KERA and Axios. The DMN has covered local officials doorknocking against the HERO amendments; I haven’t had any of them at my door although my email box has been full of my state senator, Nathan Johnson, telling me to vote against them. But the biggest gun that opponents have pulled against the “STUpid” amendments is the police union. When you’ve lost the cops, you’ve really gone over the edge.
Let’s look at some minor election news and other recent stories in the Metroplex:
- Mark Cuban of the Mavericks was interviewed in the Guardian about the election.
- LoneStarLeft introduces us to Hava Johnston, who’s running against Jared Patterson in HD 106.
- You will be unsurprised to hear that all those deaths in the Tarrant County Jail are a big issue in the Sherriff’s race.
- Speaking of the Tarrant County Sherriff’s race, it’s one of the 33 key prosecutor and sherriff elections covered by Bolts Magazine. Also on the list: Harris County Sherriff and DA and Travis County DA.
- The Tarrant County jail was visited by federal corrections experts back in May and they’ve issued a report into how the jail can do physical and mental health care better. The visit came just two weeks after the death of Anthony Johnson Jr.
- Fort Worth PD has a backlog of almost 1000 rape kits.
- Our host has been covering updates to the Robert Roberson case. Adding a couple of things I have read: the Star-Telegram has an op-ed about the case and the Guardian reports on the case. The DMN has a timeline of the case up to AG Paxton’s Wednesday night statement.
- Let’s turn now to issues in our local school districts. First, folks in Grand Prairie don’t want the district to sack the recently hired superintendent. This is the case where the superintendent went to court to keep the board from firing him for some case of discrimination that nobody will talk about.
- And Fort Worth ISD is having a third party investigate that racist incident at a game between Arlington Heights and North Side a few weeks ago. The district’s report was inconclusive. They may have been kind of distracted by the whole superintendent resigning before the sack hit business.
- North Texas leaders want Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s funding issues resolved. And the DMN blames Dallas City Hall for things getting this far and says their current support may be a day late and a few dollars short.
- Here’s an explainer on the Tarrant Regional Water District in case you want to know where Fort Worth gets its water.
- Dallas is about to spend more than a half million dollars on the economic impact of high speed rail to Fort Worth and Houston.
- Collin County is reopening its passport office in McKinney, by appointment only for now. Click through to read about why it was closed in 2018.
- Mercy Culture, a Tea Party/Trump church in Fort Worth, has been in a long-term dispute with neighbors over their desire to put a human trafficking shelter on their campus. They’re going before the city on November 13, and the neighbors have hired a lawyer to represent them, so things are getting pretty serious. The pastor at Mercy Culture is state Rep. Nate Schatzline.
- The Department of Justice is investigating the Southern Baptist Convention over sexual abuse. The DMN tells you what to know about the chickens coming home to roost at the SBC and their connections to Fort Worth.
- The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is holding a meeting in West Dallas to address community concerns about the GAF shingle plant, which is renewing its air permit. GAF is a longtime thorn in the side of local residents.
- This week I learned that rental expenses take up more than half of total income for 23% of Dallas households.
- It was not a surprise to me that the city is pausing its funding to the Dallas Black Dance Theater, which you may remember fired all its dancers when they tried to unionize. The city’s share is about a quarter of a million dollars.
- D Magazine introduced me to the Black Dandies of Dallas and Fort Worth who are some stylin’ gentlemen.
- And local icon Erykah Badu is getting the CFDA’s Fashion Icon award.
- The National Medal of Honor Museum will be opening in Arlington soon, at the end of March.
- The DMN has a report on Meat Fight, the BBQ fest against MS, which they describe as the zaniest food festival in town. We haven’t done the in-person festival but we get their barbecue boxes at Valentine’s Day, and they’re always a treat.
- The State Fair is over and I didn’t go again. Sigh. WFAA has the numbers for you and the DMN and the Star-Telegram have more. And because we can’t have nice things, Ken Paxton is still going to sue the fair over the gun ban.
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