This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.
This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth: elections news; Dallas HERO’s connection with the incoming presidential administration; the State of the City in Dallas; City Manager picks and issues in Dallas and Fort Worth; the first Prop S suit against the City of Dallas is coming; quick hits from the suburbs and local districts; more from the UNT Health Science Center body-selling scandal; the Dallas Black Dance Theater saga comes to an end for now; Christmas Sweater Day at Dallas City Hall. And more!
Not in this week’s post: everything going on with David Cook (R-Mansfield) and his bid to become speaker of the Texas House, because that situation is moving so quickly and unpleasantly that anything I write will be wrong by the time it’s published. What a mess!
This week’s post was brought to you by NPR’s best songs of 2024, which is a mixed bag but is introducing me to a lot of new artists. I still like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter best.
- Let’s start with the Dallas Observer’s choice of stories to follow in 2025: hiring a new city manager (more on that below) and Dallas PD chief; the 2025 May election; the STR situation; Cruise robotaxis (nope, as our host observed); what’s going on in the Lege (more on that below); and sports stories.
- We’re not over last year’s election yet: the DMN is big mad about Democratic efforts to destroy No Labels, which is exactly what you’d expect from an organization dedicated to the proposition that The Right Sort of Sensible People should make decisions rather than folks dedicated to nasty political parties.
- But we’re also worrying about the 2026 election. As noted by our host, John Cornyn is facing a possible MAGA primary from Ken Paxton, or worse, as mentioned in that Downballot post, Bo French of the Tarrant County GOP. I really don’t know which of French of Paxton would be worse as our Senator. Fingers crossed it’s the devil we know.
- Apparently Congressman Pat Fallon (R-Frisco) got into a screaming match with the head of the Secret Service during hearings on the Trump assassination attempt recently. I didn’t watch the video because I don’t like watching grown men have tantrums, but apparently it’s quite the thing.
- Speaking of the Trump administration, we apparently have a Dallas connection there, one I don’t want. Pete Marocco of Dallas HERO (more on them below) is on the Trump transition team helping recommend national security hires. I didn’t know but am unsurprised to learn that Marocco and his wife are J6ers.
- A couple of Lege items: LoneStarLeft profiles our new House Democrats, including Linda García of HD 107 here in the Dallas area. She’s replacing Victoria Neave Criado, who primaried Senator Nathan Johnson (my Senator). And in the Dallas Morning News, retiring representative Glenn Rogers (HD 60) tells us who’s controlling the messy Speaker vote. Spoiler: it’s the Republican megadonors.
- Moving on to the city of Dallas, we have the State of the City address from our increasingly irrelevant mayor, Eric Johnson. Take your pick over coverage: D Magazine, KERA, or the Dallas Observer. If you’ve been following Dallas politics for any length of time, you’ll see it’s a medley of Johnson’s greatest hits: all filler, no killer.
- Veteran political columnist Sharon Grigsby, who is leaving the DMN, spends one of her last pieces on the three things she thinks Dallas needs to do to get back on track: hiring a city manager (more on that below); fixing those pension fund shortfalls; and dealing with the budgetary implications of Props S and U (two of the HERO amendments, and more on S below). Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
- Speaking of that city manager job, and how Sharon Grigsby is going to be disappointed, it turns out that the search is frustrating council members and that the search firm kept at least 46 names from city council, just giving them the names of the finalists. To be fair, some of the applicants dropped their applications after the election, because who wants to deal with Props S and U? That said, Monday is going to be weird: City Council is meeting in the morning to finalize a candidate but the ad-hoc committee for the search is also meeting in the afternoon.
- I told you we were going to get back to Dallas HERO: they’re threatening to sue the city over homeless encampments that they claim are forbidden by state law. As you may recall, Prop S gives the city no way to answer this suit, even though the city is working on removing those encampments and housing folks who are unhoused. KERA also has the story. This is the first of what are going to be a lot of lawsuits trying to get the city to run things the way deep-pocketed jackasses *koff*Monty Bennett*koff* want them run. Dallas voters wanted this and they’re collectively about to get it good and hard.
- Another election outcome: thanks to Prop R, which decriminalized marijuana, Dallas’ vape ban now includes the devil’s lettuce. Details from KERA and the Dallas Observer.
- City park news: Fair Park is getting $8.6 million from the National Park Service to replace 18 acres of parking with a park. Also in the DMN and D Magazine. The City is also buying an amusement park in North Dallas with plans to turn parts of it into a city park and leave the amusements under their current operator. That’s something we’re about to stop having the money to do under Props S and U.
- D Magazine on how close Dallas is to getting rid of its current parking minimums, which date back to the 1980s and 1960s. City Council would like to replace it with a more flexible process. Check out that photo of Lower Greenville and the land that’s turned into parking lots! Related: this week I learned that my handicap placard means I can park free at any meter in Dallas. Useful to know.
- Moving along to Fort Worth and its City Manager, their city council has picked former Deputy City Manager Jay Chapa. Looks like he’ll be making $435K plus benefits, which is more than T.C. Broadnax made in Dallas. But Fort Worth didn’t use a search firm, which has led to allegations that the fix was in. Two city council members have asked to restart the hiring process, also covered by the Star-Telegram. They’re not unhappy with Chapa’s qualifications, just the way the decisions were made by council and the mayor.
- The next debate over hiring in Fort Worth is already lined up: the chief of Fort Worth PD is retiring at the end of May.
- For those of you following Nate Schatzline’s Mercy Culture Church and its trafficking shelter, Fort Worth’s city council approved it on a 6-4 vote. Also in the Star-Telegram. In unrelated news, the city also approved expanding a Buddhist stupa.
- Fort Worth City Council also approved a Media Production Development Zone, with the potential for a two-year use and sales tax exemption, for the Alliance development where Taylor Sheridan of Yellowstone wants to film.
- Quick hits from the suburbs and the schools:
- DeSoto may move to a four-day work week.
- The 26-year-old mayor of Rowlett is quitting to serve as the city’s emergency management coordinator. Why? The mayor’s job pays $467 a month.
- December 14 is election day in Princeton, where voters will pick a mayor in a runoff from the November election. KERA and the DMN have the details about the candidates and issues.
- Arlington wants its name on AT&T Stadium instead of Dallas’ for the temporary rebranding for the 2026 World Cup. The DMN also has the story.
- We have roundups of the North Texas districts and teachers implicated in the Houston fraudulent certification ring from the Fort Worth Report and the DMN.
- Highland Park ISD was hit by ransomware.
- Southlake Carroll ISD parents want the findings from the Office of Civil Rights investigation into the district that started back in 2021.
- The DMN has a list of area schools that are closing because of low enrollment, aka changing demographics.
- In two technically unrelated stories, Dallas County continues to have problems with its payroll system shorting jail employees overtime pay. The DMN also has the story. Sounds like it’s a training issue related to a policy change, but still, what a moment to announce that after a year, Dallas County has finally hired a CIO. Good luck to Justine Tran, who is going to need it.
- The Star-Telegram ran an op-ed on the new Bluebonnet Curriculum, the one Greg Abbott threw a temporary ringer on the SBOE to pass, by the VP of the First Liberty Institute of Plano. If that name doesn’t ring any bells, you may know some of its former employees and volunteers like Matthew Kacsmaryk and James C. Ho. Unsurprisingly, she’s in favor.
- The Dallas Observer has a piece on self-censorship and punishment at universities in Texas, focusing on UT Dallas.
- You may have seen this Texas Tribune story on high speed rail and its prospects in Texas. You probably did not see D Magazine’s short item about it, titled “Is high-speed rail doomed in Texas?”. This is the unusual case where Betteridge’s Law of Headlines does not hold.
- The Roberson shaken baby case earns a DMN editorial about the judge’s recusal. Also, Jeff Leach says that Ken Paxton wants to run the clock out on the committee subpoenaing Roberson’s testimony, since the committee expires with the new session in January.
- Here’s one for our host: Baseball winter meetings are coming to Dallas. They’re happening this week, so he probably knows more about the outcomes already than I ever will.
- Y’all certainly remember that gruesome corpse-selling scandal where UNT Health Science Center was making bank on unclaimed bodies. NBC has more on the body trade that UNT fed those bodies into.
- The DMN is shaking its finger at anyone who thinks the guy who allegedly shot the United HealthCare CEO is a hero.
- The National Transportation Safety Board has released its findings in the 2022 Wings Over Dallas midair crash that killed six people. It was inadequate planning. The conclusions of the report can’t be used in the lawsuits over the crash but facts from the report can be introduced into evidence.
- Dallas Black Dance Theater made peace with its fired dancers and the American Guild of Musical Artists with the assistance of the National Labor Relations Board. The peace is more than $500K of back and forward pay in lieu of reinstatement. It was too little, too late for City Council, though: DBDT did not get its funding back from the city and will have to replace $248K, or 7% of its budget.
- I’ve been following the leadership crisis at Daystar Network, a Christian media company headquartered in North Texas that distributes the shows of celebrity pastors like local hero T.D. Jakes and Houston’s least favorite, Joel Osteen. The ugly has finally come out: the son of the founder, who has been ousted by his mother and her new husband, alleges his toddler daughter was abused by a family member in 2020. I hope whatever happens to the adults, the child gets the care she needs. And I’d be disappointed in the adults, but in 2024 hearing someone pastor-adjacent in the Metroplex diddled a kid is unfortunately par for the course.
- Dallas-haters will enjoy this ChatGPT-generated roast of Dallas neighborhoods from Reddit. My neighborhood, Lake Highlands, didn’t even make the cut for mockery.
- A North Texas ring that stole more than $400K in Lego has been busted.
- Heritage Auctions, the Dallas-based company that sells all sorts of cool pop culture stuff, just sold one of the four surviving pairs of ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz for $32.5 million. Also on the block: the hoverboard from Back to the Future II, which went for $237,500.
- Last but not least: check out Christmas Sweater Day at Dallas City Council, with pictures.