Are we beginning to see unfortunate patterns in our roundup of those on top and bottom of the week? Maybe.
Winners
A.C. Gonzalez
The career bureaucrat proved once again his adeptness as a City Hall survivalist by announcing his resignation as city manager on Memorial Day. Gonzalez had been beset by criticism of his work in the post even before the council officially granted him the title in January 2013, and that only intensified as other issues — the loose dog problem, the Trinity Wave, a no-bid sweetheart deal for TXU, among others — came to public attention. D Magazine called for Gonzalez to step aside. Just a couple weeks ago, a member of the city council took to Facebook to count up how many votes there were on the horseshoe in favor of firing Gonzalez. He was a man under siege (justifiably so, no doubt). So how is he a winner? Because by preemptively quitting and volunteering that he’ll stay on the job until next January, he likely gets himself to the three-year mark at his $400,000 annual salary, which will lock in a higher pension than if he got pushed out the door earlier. Nicely played. +60%
Luis Govea
Six years ago he emigrated from Mexico only able to speak a few words of English. Now he’s valedictorian of his class at Irving High School and got to pick among full-ride scholarships to Yale, Harvard, Rice, Stanford, Dartmouth, the California Institute of Technology, and Princeton. So, seriously, what’s your excuse? +378
TxDOT Sign Hackers
Am I condoning criminal activity? I mean, I guess, sorta. My defense: Donald Trump. +1,237
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Street signs hacked in #Dallas – featuring @realDonaldTrump & @BernieSanders . @TxDOT ? pic.twitter.com/rlx44uVjP5
— Jenny Anchondo (@JennyAFox4) May 31, 2016
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Jordan Spieth
The golfer already had fame, fortune, presumably good health, and the love of a good woman. This week he scored his first PGA tournament win in his home state of Texas, at the Dean & Deluca Invitational in Fort Worth. +1
Kent Rathbun
No, we don’t actually know whether or how the local celebrity chef comes out ahead in his parting of ways from the restaurant company that bears his name. But I’m chalking this one up as a win for the culinary mind behind Jasper’s, Abacus, and Hickory because running restaurants is hard. Almost as hard having to actually cook meals for finicky strangers in a busy kitchen. So any sort of break this affords Rathbun seems like it’s got to be a good thing. +5
Losers
Ken Paxton
The Texas attorney general lost his appeal of three felony fraud indictments out of Collin County for convincing other people to invest in a North Texas tech startup while failing to disclose that he was being paid by the company in stock. He can still take his case to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals before facing trial, and he has the fight to keep people from using bathrooms where they’re most comfortable peeing to distract him, but it wasn’t the outcome he was hoping for. -3
Red Pegasus Games and Comics
The little Oak Cliff shop ran afoul of one of the largest corporations in the world over its use of a red flying horse in its logo. Given the presence of ExxonMobil’s trademark atop the Magnolia Hotel and in front of the Omni Hotel downtown, it’s easy to see how shop owners Kenneth Denson and Gabriel Mendez thought of the logo as representing the city of Dallas as a whole rather than just an oil company. They’re going to come up with a new look for their own winged equine. -2
First Baptist Church of Carrollton
The religious institution was sued over $200,000 in allegedly ill-gotten donations made by a church member convicted of a botched murder plot. -200,000
City of Dallas
Starting to think I’m going to have to make our municipal government a permanent member of the loser’s list. Really I should have made room for this last week, but we learned just before last weekend more unpleasant details of a $200 million deal for a flood control tunnel in Uptown and East Dallas. An audit determined the project to this point has been mishandled so badly the whole process may have to start all over again. -26,400
Glenn Beck
The Irving-based radio host was suspended by the SiriusXM network for a week after he allowed one of his guests to advocate for the assassination of Donald Trump. But, wait, Beck was already scheduled to be on vacation for that week anyway? So all this “suspension” did was drum up a bunch of headlines providing free publicity to Beck and SiriusXM? Well, I’m already committed to my position of Beck as a loser, so I’m sticking with it. -0
