Dispatches from Dallas, January 17 edition

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth: news from the Lege and about the upcoming May elections in North Texas. Also: the Dallas City Manager hiring process is limping to a close; Mayor Johnson changes his mind about the HERO propositions; Fort Worth PD seizes photos from an art museum as possible kiddie porn; Tarrant County jail news, including folks arrested at a County Commissioners’ meeting over protesting deaths; schools news, particularly the discussion about Keller ISD splitting up; water infrastructure news including the latest on the Marvin Nichols reservoir; and more.

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of PJ Harvey. One of my goals for 2025 is to listen to more music by women artists, so expect to hear about a lot of women this year.

The big news this week is that the Texas legislature is again in session. As noted by our host, Democrats managed to keep the worst Republican, David Cook, (R-Mansfield), out of the speakership in favor of a slightly less bad Republican, Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock). Cook had pledged to keep all Democrats out of leadership; Burrows didn’t. That’s the slightly less bad.

We’re still in the “what are we going to do this year?” part of the session, so here’s what some of our North Texas legislators have to say:

• A bunch of Democratic leaders, including Rep John Bryant (R-Dallas) are all in on public education and unconvinced by Governor Abbott’s bluster about vouchers. I also agree with him about too much billionaire money (including that from Pete Yass of Pennsylvania as well as our home-grown troublemakers) drowning good politics in the Lege.
• Similarly, freshman Rep Aicha Davis (D-DeSoto), formerly of the State Board of Education, is here to see public education fully funded before we spend money on vouchers.
• Unsurprisingly, school districts in North Texas also have a list of priorities like fully funding them, improving teacher compensation, and security issues.
• The Fort Worth Report has a story covering the priorities of Fort Worth area legislators on both sides of the aisle as they return to Austin. This article precedes the Speaker vote, so not only are those affiliations mentioned, Rep Cook has no real goals other than getting elected as Speaker.
• And here’s a specific policy piece by a local legislator that I approve of: Rep Rafael Anchía (D-Dallas) wants to increase penalties for dogfighting and bring the penalties for cockfighting to the same level. Good for him. I hope he and Dallas County assistant district attorney Jessica Trevizo, who has also been educating legislators about this issue, get it done this session.

In other news:

• North Texas has a lot of elections in May, including city council elections in Dallas, Fort Worth, and suburban cities and a number of school boards. The Fort Worth Report does a great job of covering the issues on the Fort Worth side of the Metroplex and the Dallas Morning News covers Dallas and some of the Dallas side suburbs.
  • Fort Worth City Council elections: What you need to know now that filing has opened and who expects to run.
  • Dallas City Council elections: Filing has also begun for the Dallas elections including who’s term-limited out.
  • Fort Worth area school boards: Fort Worth ISD and a host of suburban districts.
  • Arlington area school boards: Arlington ISD, Manfield ISD, and Kennedale ISD from the Arlington Report, sister to the Fort Worth Report.
  • And suburban city councils: Mansfield and Kennendale, also from the Arlington Report.
• Here in Dallas, we may finally be about to get a new City Manager, almost a year after T.C. Broadnax arranged to get kicked out so he could manage the city of Austin instead. Last Saturday, the three candidates for the City Manager job met and greeted the citzenry more and less successfully in various formats; also in the DMN. On Wednesday, the candidates met with City Council, but as I write on Thursday afternoon, we don’t have any sense of who’s ahead. If you need a review of the whole sorry process, Axios has you covered.
• Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, who usually doesn’t have much to say, managed to spark some interest in a speech to the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce: he thinks the voters made mostly the right call in November including on the Dallas HERO amendments that were passed over the objections of Dallas civic leaders. This is a change of heart for him. A big exception: he doesn’t like that the voters decriminalized small amounts of marijuana.
• In sort-of related news, since we’re talking about how the Mayor approves of adding another third as many cops, our local Fox affiliate reports that Dallas PD cleared almost 80% of the homicides committed in 2024. The numbers are slightly off because some of the cleared cases were from previous years.
• Bragging rights for Fort Worth: they passed Austin in population in 2024 and may break a million residents this year.
• After a froth whipped up by County Judge Tim O’Hare and GOP Chair Bo French, among others, in Monty Bennett’s Dallas Express, Fort Worth PD is investigating four photographs from an exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art for child pornography. The photographs, by noted artist Sally Mann, included a few depicting her young children running around naked, and the exhibit carried a mature subjects warning. Other photographs were left in place and the exhibit continues through February 2. Local artists are concerned by the investigation and worry that it will discourage artists in the city and museums from bringing in controversial exhibits. Similarly, the Star-Telegram’s new columnist Bradford William Davis has a great piece about Fort Worth leaders, censorship, and art. This story also brings a new lens to brief closure of the Cowboy exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum, just down the road from the Modern, back in October. That exhibit reopened with a mature subjects warning.
• This week I learned that almost a quarter of people under 65 in Dallas County don’t have health insurance, and that we’re one of the least insured counties in the nation.
• We have two items of Tarrant County Jail news. First, Shannon Herklotz, Detention Services Chief Deputy at the Dallas County Jail, was hired out from under Dallas County by Tarrant County. The Star-Telegram also has the story. Second, the Tarrant County Commissioners had a meeting where their constituents wanted to talk about deaths in the jail, and it went badly enough that two people were arrested (also covered by the Star-Telegram). This isn’t the first time County Judge Tim O’Hare has been fast to protect his perceived privileges and it won’t be the last. The Star-Telegram also notes that deaths in the jail have made unlikely allies of Black activists and (usually white) Second Amendment activists. Sheriff Waybourn’s re-election has secured his position for a while, but he’s sure making more enemies for his next time on the ballot.
• Tarrant County Appraisal District swore in members who were added to or retained in position on the Board by taxing authorities. They also updated the rules, including setting a limit of three minutes on members of the public commenting to the board, down from five minutes.
• The DMN’s consumer affairs watchdog ran an article about a retired software analyst’s use of the Tarrant County property fraud alert system, which is apparently very poorly designed. Example: it alerts on properties owned by folks with the exact name you put in, but not similar variants. Also, it doesn’t ask for your property address, just your name and email address. Yeah, I made that same face.
• Department of OF COURSE: Plano’s representative on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board is a lobbyist for Uber. He’s following the law because all state law requires is that he recuse himself from matters involving Uber.
• Another thing that I learned this week is that when Arlington canceled its bus test (through DART) in 2017, it replaced the bus service with on-demand car rides through a company now called Arlington On-Demand. Arlington’s last official fixed-route bus system before the DART test ended in 1934.
• D Magazine has a longread on the land rush in Sherman, which is north of Dallas past Anna on 75, basically halfway between Dallas and the Oklahoma border.
• You may remember that the suburb of Princeton put in a six-month residential development moratorium back in September. They just extended the moratorium for another 180 days. Princeton is the third-fastest-growing city in the US according to the Census Bureau.
• The Fort Worth Report had a Q&A with the interim superintendent of Fort Worth ISD and printed her responses.
• A Dallas ISD vendor had a data breach last month that compromised student and staff information. PowerSchool, the vendor, contracts with school districts nationwide, including Denton ISD, Frisco ISD and Richardson ISD. While other school districts were affected, none of the other local districts were.
• I’m putting in a pin in this story for now because I’m still wrapping my hands around it: there’s a move afoot to split Keller ISD in Tarrant County into two districts. This DMN story explains that a higher-performing side of the district wants to split from a lower-performing section. As usual, the election of reactionary board members is also an issue. There are also questions about whether trustees are following open-meeting laws in the discussions about the split. So there’s a lot going on and nothing has been decided yet. There’s likely to be a blowup and lawsuits when decisions are made, however.
• The Fort Worth Report interviewed Pat Hardy, whose 22 years on the State Board of Education just ended after she was primaried out by another Republican. You probably won’t agree with everything she says, but it’s worth reading anyway.
• What is it about North Texas pastors and kids? A youth pastor in Frisco got the sack after being confronted and forced to admit he’d had “inappropriate contact” with a youth while pastoring more than ten years ago. And a pastor in Watauga was arrested for continuous sexual abuse of a young child, which means under 14 and more than once in a 30-day period. I wish the young people involved peace and healing.
• Bishop TD Jakes, one of Dallas’ name brand Black preachers, has filed a motion to subpoena information from Google. Specifically Jakes wants the identities of YouTubers whom he claims have defamed him by alleging he was going to launder Sean “Diddy” Combs’ reputation using Ai-created videos.
• Here are two stories about North Texas’ water supply. First, ground water in Dallas and throughout the state is contaminated or salty and brackish, which is a problem. Dallas’ water supply is rated as superior and there were no new contamination cases in 2023, the last year we have full records for. But we have a lot of demand for water between population growth and industrial needs, so there’s a lot to worry about. Also, the Texas Water Development Board has reported to Governor Abbott that we could have the controversial Marvin Nichols reservoir up and running by 2050 assuming we can get all the federal approvals we’d need. It doesn’t discuss engineering feasibility or any possible alternatives.
• In deference to the interests of our host, I note that Torc, a subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG, has rented space in the Fort Worth area to serve as an autonomous truck hub.
• Here’s a story about the Dallas Weekly, which is celebrating 70 years of reporting on Dallas’ Black community.
• And here’s a piece on Dallas fabric artist Andrea Heath and her chain-stitching work. You may know of Andrea’s husband, psychobilly musician the Reverend Horton Heat.
• Here’s a question it’s past time someone asked: Is Big Tex too white? Yeah, Big Tex should reflect more Texans than just us pale folks.
• The Sex Pistols’ 1978 set at the Longhorn Ballroom here in Dallas will be released on vinyl and CD in March. Based on the article, I don’t expect great audio quality, but I’m very interested in the pictures taken during the show (example).
• HEB will be opening its first full store in Dallas at Hillcrest and 635. No opening date has been set, but folks are talking about next year. This is going to cut my drive for groceries in half, so I’m beyond thrilled.
• The next big celebrity auction in Dallas will feature a kimono Joe DiMaggio gave to Marilyn Monroe and two paintings by Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, among other items.

Related Posts:

• Gina Ortiz Jones joins the crowded field for San Antonio Mayor
• High speed rail II proposed in the Lege
• “Uber with guns”