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City Hall reporters Rudolph Bush and Steve Thompson provide political junkies with in-depth features, breaking news and off-beat tidbits through lively coverage of Dallas government. Readers are encouraged to join the conversation. March 2010
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Dallas City Hall Daily: Friday, March 19, 2010 Garbage pick-up controversy continues in East Dallas neighborhood Dallas City Hall Daily: Thursday, March 18, 2010 Dallas city leaders in Washington DC again today Don't trust FEMA as it redraws Dallas flood maps; see NBC Nightly News report Dallas Convention Center Hotel slammed as 'dubious project' Dallas City Hall Daily: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Fundraising season has come to Dallas City Hall Recent Comments
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March 19, 2010
Your daily dose of news and views from in and around Dallas City Hall: • Two lesser-known defendants who pleaded guilty in the Dallas City Hall public corruption case will be sentenced today. Read our Jason Trahan's report here. • There are no public meetings scheduled today. Have a news tip? We want to hear from you. E-mail Steve Thompson, at sthompson@dallasnews.com, or Rudy Bush, at rbush@dallasnews.com. Follow us on Twitter by clicking here.  Comments (0) Leave comment
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|  E-mail entryThe entry "Dallas City Hall Daily: Friday, March 19, 2010" is tagged: bridges , corruption March 18, 2010
This is what happens in the news business. You go out to the big head to head with the cameras and the notebooks and the pens and then everybody gets along and comes to agreements and sets aside differences. Then you leave and it breaks loose. Not sure, but that may be what's going on right now in the Peninsula neighborhood on the east side of White Rock Lake. A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Peninsula to attend a meeting between Dallas Sanitation director Mary Nix and residents about their unhappiness over having their trash pick-up moved from their alleys to the curb. When I left, it seemed like it was worked out. The residents would clean up their admittedly unkempt alleys, and the city would let them move their trash cans back behind their homes. Soon though, it became clear that not everyone was happy about the plan to clean up the alleys. Some people like their shrubbery full. And now comes word that the city's Sanitation Department has sent ballots to residents of the Peninsula and there will be some kind of vote on where to put the trash. Chip Northrup, a leader of the 'back to the alley' movement, said he is worried the city is using the ballot as a stall tactic to keep pick-up on the street. But Nix said the city decided to use the ballot to reach out to all the neighborhood's residents after she heard from several who weren't happy about the alley clean-up plan or who preferred curb pick-up. Nix said she still thinks garbage pick-up will be returned to the alleys unless a large number of residents come out against it. "I fully expect what we'll get out of this effort is a significant majority will agree with Peninsula Neighborhood Association leadership and say we would sure like to be back in the alleys and we will do what it takes to get there," she said. Comments (4) Leave comment
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| E-mail entryThe entry "Garbage pick-up controversy continues in East Dallas neighborhood" is tagged: Dallas , East Dallas , Sanitation
Your daily dose of news and views from in and around Dallas City Hall: • City Manager Mary Suhm and a number of council members are set to return to Dallas today. With any luck, they will call some kind of meeting. • U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions' Dallas district includes the most uninsured residents of any district represented by a Republican in the U.S., Dave Michaels reports. • I don't know, Jenny's style just seems so plastic and derivative. Where's the feeling? • There are no public meetings scheduled today. Have a news tip? We want to hear from you. E-mail Steve Thompson, at sthompson@dallasnews.com, or Rudy Bush, at rbush@dallasnews.com. Follow us on Twitter by clicking here. Comments (2) Leave comment
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| E-mail entryThe entry "Dallas City Hall Daily: Thursday, March 18, 2010" is tagged: Dallas , Dallas City Hall March 17, 2010
Dallas city leaders are in Washington DC again today for their annual trip to lobby for federal funding. Yesterday, they concentrated on Trinity River projects. Today they're concentrating on other stuff, such as public safety and housing. I talked with City Manager Mary Suhm yesterday as she was getting into a cab after the day's rounds. No big news came out of our conversation. But I'll put a bit of what she said after the jump for any of you who might be interested. Comments (0) Leave comment
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| E-mail entryThe entry "Dallas city leaders in Washington DC again today " is tagged: and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) , arbara Boxer (D-Calif.) , Byron Dorgan (D- North Dakota)
Last year, Rudy reported on one West Dallas neighborhood that may soon find itself in a flood zone. That's because FEMA is in the process of redrawing the city's flood map as if the Trinity levees do not exist. FEMA began the step after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rated the levee system unacceptable and withdrew its certification that the levees could protect the city from a 100-year flood. The city hopes to restore the levees' 100-year flood certification before the map is redrawn, a process that may take the next couple years. But don't be too shocked if FEMA screws it up; see Brian Williams last night on the NBC Nightly News. Click here to see NBC's 'Fleecing of America' report on what happened to one Los Angeles neighborhood. If you want more after that report, see Nightly News' web extra on the story here. Comments (1) Leave comment
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| E-mail entryThe entry "Don't trust FEMA as it redraws Dallas flood maps; see NBC Nightly News report" is tagged: Dallas , FEMA , flood map , nbc nightly news
Thanks to frequent commenter Deep Ellum for pointing us to an article at RealClearMarkets that uses Dallas' own Convention Center Hotel as a sort of poster child for the "Bankrupting of the United States Bonds." Always nice to get a little national attention, I suppose. Steven Malanga writes: In January the U.S. Treasurer, Rosie Rios, traveled to Dallas to join local officials at the construction site of a new convention hotel being built with money raised through Build America Bonds. The purpose was to celebrate the success of the so-called BABs, which are federally-subsidized bonds created by the 2009 stimulus package. Of course, what no one at the Dallas "celebration" pointed out is that the $388 million in BABs that the city floated with federal aid were necessary because no private developer would cough up the money for the risky project. In fact, local officials wanted to build the controversial hotel because years of frenetic, publicly financed convention center construction by cities had saddled the country with much more meeting space than it needs, and now meeting planners are telling cities they must to ante up money for additional amenities, like new subsidized hotels, or risk losing business. Comments (4) Leave comment
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| E-mail entryThe entry "Dallas Convention Center Hotel slammed as 'dubious project'" is tagged: Dallas , Dallas Convention Center Hotel
Your daily dose of news and views from in and around Dallas City Hall: • The Dallas-Fort Worth area ranked among the strongest metropolitan economies in the nation during the last three months of 2009, according to a study to be released today by the Brookings Institution, a public policy think tank in Washington. Read our business reporter Brendan Case's report here. • Another slow day on the public meetings front. • DFW airport has earned the distinction of "Best cargo airport in North America" for 2010 from the mag Air Cargo World. That seems like good news in light of a column last year by our Jim Landers, in which an economist says air cargo is key to Dallas' advancement. Have a news tip? We want to hear from you. E-mail Steve Thompson, at sthompson@dallasnews.com, or Rudy Bush, at rbush@dallasnews.com. Follow us on Twitter by clicking here. Comments (0) Leave comment
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| E-mail entryThe entry "Dallas City Hall Daily: Wednesday, March 17, 2010" is tagged: dave neumann , vonciel hill , washington March 16, 2010
 This year, Mayor Tom Leppert's annual fundraising event, Giraffes, Monkeys and Lepperts won't raise money for his political campaigns but instead will go to Education is Freedom. Nevertheless, the event signals the start of fundraiser season here at City Hall. Jump for a look at the invitation I got in the mail the other day. Comments (1) Leave comment
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| E-mail entryThe entry "Fundraising season has come to Dallas City Hall" is tagged: Dallas , Dallas City Hall , Dwaine Caraway , Tom Leppert
 I like this idea that just came across from the city's Twitter account - a Spring Break trip to the Trinity River Audubon Center. It's soggy outside right now but the rest of the week is supposed to be really nice. So if the kids get worn out on Sponge Bob, I'd say this is the place to go. UPDATE: Just got an e-mail asking me to make a pitch for Fair Park's Museum of Nature & Science. Absolutely. My correspondent writes: What (Audubon Center) visitors learn about present-day Texas wildlife would be well-complemented by hearing about the now-extinct Texas wildlife at the nearby Museum of Nature & Science in Fair Park. On March 21st, former Dallas resident and 30-year collections staff member at Museum of Nature & Science (then Dallas Museum of Natural History) gives half-hour tours of the Museum's dioramas to illustrate his 4000-mile Texas journey depicted in his book, Exploring the Edges of Texas. In addition to sharing what he learned about now-extinct Texas wildlife, he also provides interesting first-hand accounts of the art and science involved in creating the dioramas themselves, several of which he helped build. Comments (0) Leave comment
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| E-mail entryThe entry "Spring Break idea: The Trinity River Audubon Center" is tagged: Dallas , Dallas City Hall , Trinity River Audubon Center
Your daily dose of news and views from in and around Dallas City Hall: • Jim Schutze is scratching his head over the city's new lobbying ordinance. There was similar head-scratching going on back in December. • Someone asked yesterday which council members didn't go to Washington for the National League of Cities meeting. Those not attending are Mayor Tom Leppert, Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway and Council Member Angela Hunt, according to my count. Correction: Mayor Leppert is attending. • Nearly a fifth of the Dallas-Fort Worth area's population is foreign-born, writes our Dianne Solis this morning. As the Census begins in full force this week, worries are high that immigrant, minority and young populations won't be accurately counted, • Karl Rove came to Dallas yesterday to promote his new memoir. In it, he is quick to credit Bush, writes our Wayne Slater this morning. But the problems of the Bush years, Rove says, were usually other people's fault. • Oncor officials, who while here at City Hall a couple weeks ago touted their accuracy of their smart meters, released the initial results of tests yesterday, but critics of the new electricity meters may not be satisfied. Check out our Elizabeth Souder's report here. Have a news tip? We want to hear from you. E-mail Steve Thompson, at sthompson@dallasnews.com, or Rudy Bush, at rbush@dallasnews.com. Follow us on Twitter by clicking here. Comments (1) Leave comment
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| E-mail entryThe entry "Dallas City Hall Daily: Tuesday, March 16, 2010" is tagged: Dallas , Dallas City Hall |
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It's just a bunch of trashy people caus
Even if the trash is picked up in the
one also wishes that if you want shoppi
Is Highland Park considered Dallas or P
They better send ballots to Little Fore
Will they be providing ballots for ever
@RruffPaw
As a smoker I don't l
Everyone who is against smoking acts li
one wishes Aldi would move south of the
I would like to set up a fundraiser for