Dispatches from Dallas, November 1 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: more on the Roberson case; election updates and the HERO amendments; the latest on Crystal Mason; the new Dallas police monitor; updates on the Marvin Nichols reservoir and the GAF shingle plant; more from the nuns in Arlington, who are maybe not nuns any more; the War on Christmas comes to. or maybe for, Neiman Marcus; a local JFK tour that’s longer and more expensive than I expected; where to get your OG Lu-Ann Platter fix in the Metroplex; and more.

The mister and I voted this week. We had to get up and be in line at about 7 AM to get in and out quickly. We’d planned to vote Friday on the way out of town to the Texas Renaissance Festival (we had a great time) but the line was over an hour long. Early morning was the only time the election judges were seeing short lines. We were both in and through the line in under half an hour even with the Dallas ballot, which isn’t as long as the Houston ballot but wasn’t short either.

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Apple’s shoegaze and dreampop essentials, which seemed right for Halloween, which is when I’m writing this post.

I know the biggest story this week is really the upcoming election, but I’m stuck on the role that the Robert Roberson case is playing in Texas politics. I said last week that I was really glad that Jeff Leach was interfering in the trial, but I didn’t know he’d also asked the judge to consider a new trial and that the request was an ethics violation. I still appreciate Leach acting on a matter of conscience (and hope the State Bar treats him accordingly) but I’m not enjoying watching Ken Paxton question Leach’s, or well, anybody’s ethics and ask Leach to resign, a standard Paxton won’t live up to in his own cases. Also I was sad to read that the maternal family of Roberson’s child still wants him executed.

Last but not least, it turns out, unsurprisingly, that the allegations about sexual abuse and some other matters brought up in Paxton’s brief about the Roberson case weren’t in the actual court records. This is because they weren’t part of the prosecution’s case but were merely mentioned in the prosecution’s notes. Pretty sure Paxton doesn’t consider accusing Roberson of molesting a baby without sufficient evidence to bring it to trial an ethical lapse.

In other news, starting with next week’s election:

  • The Dallas Observer got the editor of SMU’s student paper to write up her observations about voting and the election at SMU. KERA, meanwhile, talked to Black women voters in South Dallas about their concerns in the 2024 election.
  • Today I learned from this Texas Tribune piece that even though it’s legal for folks convicted of misdemeanors to vote, the only counties that help prisoners vote are Dallas County and Harris County.
  • Crystal Mason has filed an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals over her conviction for illegal voting. Click through to read the Tarrant County DA’s mealymouthed statement on the case and if you’re in Tarrant County, remember to vote against him when he’s on the ballot.
  • The Texas Tribune has fundraising numbers for Texas elections and I noted the numbers for a couple of local races: Rep. Angie Chen Button raised $1.6 million last month, which was a lot more than challenger Averie Bishop; my state rep, Rep. Morgan Meyer, raised $1.5 million, some of which I have seen in the form of multiple flyers; and Democratic Rep. Mihaela Plesa of Dallas hauled in ten times as much money as her Republican challenger, though the Tribune gave no figures at all in this race.
  • Lots of talk about what I have taken to calling the STUpid amendments (not my coinage, but amusing nonetheless), aka the HERO amendments, aka Monty Bennett wanting to ruin Dallas. D Magazine frames their piece around the Dallas Regional Chamber debate between the HERO folks and former city officials and the things the HERO team doesn’t say. The DMN is all about the unintended consequences of the amendments, which the D Magazine folks think is an unwarranted assumption of good faith on the part of Dallas HERO. The DMN also has five things to know, one of their many articles breaking down the big issues into bite sized questions and answers.
  • KERA has a piece on the Judicial Fairness Political Action Committee, which is nominally going after judges who grant bail too often but actually only endorses business-friendly appellate judges. Who’s giving the money behind the PAC? Ken Fisher, a billionaire Trump supporter; Ross Perot, Jr.; ConocoPhillips; Jeffery Hildebrand, an O&G billionaire; and Phillip Huffines, twin brother of right-wing Republican Don Huffines.
  • Quinn Yeager’s Substack has a guide to intermediate state appellate courts. Scroll down to find out about the relevant courts in Texas and what will be on your ballot.
  • Interested in early voting numbers in north Texas? The Dallas Observer has some early numbers for Dallas County and the Fort Worth Report covers similar turf for Tarrant County.
  • KERA reports on voting machine issues in North Texas. The expert verdict is that it was mechanical problems, not election interference.
  • If you’re in Tarrant County and want to track your vote, the Star-Telegram has you covered.
  • Sam Eppler, the Democrat who’s running to unseat my congresscritter, Beth van Duyne, in CD-24 reports sign stealing and dog-poop leaving on his supporters’ lawns. I can’t speak to the dog poop on the porch, but the local Facebook groups are full of reports of Democratic signs being stolen or defaced (with some photos of the latter), so I believe that much.
  • If my reports do not convince you that Tarrant County GOP Chair Bo French is an asshole, click through and scroll down to see what he’s saying about Democrats on Xitter. Using “gay” as a slur and the slur that starts with r for folks with intellectual disabilities is not cool.
  • The suburb of Keller has a mayor who was born in Puerto Rico but he still supports Trump even after what that DMN article I’m linking called a “raucous” rally with the bigoted comic. The Star-Telegram also covers the mayor’s Xitter post. I’m sure the leopards won’t eat his face when the time comes. Meanwhile, the DMN has a piece on young Latino political activists who are trying to turn out Latino voters in this election.
  • In the spring elections, a lot of people were very mad because talking about education policy made school boards look like they were pro-Democrat. Turns out what’s bad for Democratic geese is also bad for Republican ganders: the board president of Mansfield ISD endorsed a Republican candidate for the State House and is now in hot water because it might appear that the board is illegally supporting him.
  • It’s not too early to talk about the May elections for 2025. Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker has confirmed she’s running for her third term.
  • Two of our local congressfolks have questions for the medical examiners in Dallas and Tarrant counties following on from the UNT Health Science Center body-selling scandal. I hope Marc Veasey and Jasmine Crockett get some answers on how it all happened from the counties’ side and how to keep it from happening again.
  • The DMN has an interview with/profile of Michele Andre, Dallas’ new police monitor. It all sounds good in theory, but given how badly the previous police monitor did before she was pushed out, as alluded to in the piece, I’m not really confident Andre will be able to significantly improve police conduct or community relationships.
  • DISD is considering converting a historic Black elementary school in South Dallas whose campus closed in 2013 into a proposed $50 million career institute. I wish South Dallas good luck in obtaining and enjoying this school.
  • Plano ISD is closing four schools and will be selling three campuses: two elementary and one middle school. This is part of the ongoing story of demographics and declining enrollment in public schools in north Texas.
  • A side effect I hadn’t considered to the DEI ban for Texas universities: Tarrant College cancelled a Hispanic Heritage Month event because it might break the law.
  • Parkland Health, the public health system that operates Parkland Hospital here in Dallas, has had a data breach that may affect up to 6,500 Texans.
  • This report on Fort Worth’s annexation of some land in Parker County interested me because it reported that the fiscal impact for the first five years would be negative as infrastructure is built out. I’d be interested to learn when the tax increases would outpace the infrastructure increases, but the article doesn’t tell me that.
  • The city of Dallas does annual audits; next year’s audit will focus on, among other things, the failure of Dallas’ lead abatement program, the city’s zoning application process, and the creation of affordable housing.
  • Two items around north Texas water infrastructure came up this week. First, the city of Dallas broke ground on a new pumping station on the Trinity River that should reduce flooding in Dallas. Second, on Wednesday afternoon there was a public meeting about the upcoming Marvin Nichols reservoir in east Texas that saw more than 200 attendees and 38 public speakers, most of whom were against Marvin Nichols. The Star-Telegram also has the story.
  • The latest on the GAF shingle plant in west Dallas is that residents protested the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s upcoming renewal of the plant’s air permit at a public meeting last week. The meeting probably won’t have any effect on the renewal process, unfortunately, but at least they got to say their piece. Meanwhile, protestors who tried to block the road to the plant on Earth Day as an act of civil disobedience were found guilty of obstructing the roadway and fined $97 each. They plan to appeal.
  • The Arlington nun story has taken a turn this week. When last we left the nuns, they had rejected a Papal order to put themselves under the governance of Mother Marie of the Incarnation and instead affiliated themselves with the Society of Saint Pius X, a group that was so traditionalist Catholic that they were in schism with the Vatican for a while. The Vatican and Mother Marie have had enough, though, and they dismissed the women from monastic life over their refusal to follow Mother Marie’s directives. Part of the offense is that the nuns have put the property of the monastery in the hands of a foundation, which Mother Marie referred to as expropriating Church property. Her comments may be grounds for a civil lawsuit. The ongoing interplay of lay and canon law is absolutely fascinating to me. The DMN and the Star-Telegram also have the story.
  • The founding pastor of Koinonia Church in Arlington was arrested in July on sexual assault charges, and had been replaced by an interim pastor until this week. Now Ronnie Goines is back preaching and the interim pastor has resigned by request.
  • According to a volleyball coach and athletic coordinator for a Fort Worth ISD high school, Fort Worth City Council member Elizabeth Beck bullied them and threatened their jobs if they didn’t put her daughter on the volleyball team. It looks like Beck will be up for election again in May 2025, so Fort Worth voters may need to look into this case further and keep it in mind when voting next spring.
  • The War on Christmas is coming for Neiman Marcus, which is now calling its fantasy gift catalog the Holiday Book instead of the Christmas Book. I find this particularly amusing since Stanley Marcus, the name brand founder and long-time leader of the store, was Jewish by heritage and religious practice.
  • This week I learned that Cutting Edge Haunted House in Fort Worth is the spookiest haunted house in America according to USA Today.
  • You may remember that PETA made some allegations about animal abuse at the SeaQuest aquarium in Ridgmar Mall in Fort Worth. The aquarium has now shut down after police and federal agency inquiries.
  • KERA has a story on historic preservation in Dallas. I didn’t know that the Texas Theater, which is where we go for repertory films and live score silent films, played a role in the JFK assassination saga.
  • Restaurant Beatrice, a Cajun restaurant in Oak Cliff that the mister and I like, is the first restaurant in Texas to earn a B corp certification for environmental performance, accountability and transparency. I’m delighted for them and hoping to go back soon.
  • This is a lovely tribute to the retiring head of the Nasher Sculpture Center by a friend and fellow artist.
  • I went to Medieval Times, the cheesy faux-medieval entertainment with food that has an outpost in Dallas, recently. So I was really interested to learn about how falconry saved the falconer at Medieval Times. I’m not an expert by any means, but I’ve been watching people fly birds at fairs and festivals around the country for three decades now, and I was impressed by the Medieval Times’ falconer’s control and artistry. Now I’m even more impressed.
  • Speaking of JFK, as we were earlier, a Texas Monthly writer did the $800, 8-hour JFK tour on offer by a local obsessive. I’ve been to the Book Depository museum but I don’t need that much JFK, so I’m glad someone else did it and I could read about it.
  • Last, but not least, for our old skool Texans: if you want to eat a Lu-Ann platter just like the good old days, there’s a location on I-820 in Fort Worth where you can do exactly that.

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