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Kyndall “Fire” Magyar must be the only cruise director who lives in Crowley, Texas. On December 23, she will sail from Galveston on the maiden voyage of the Carnival Jubilee, a $1 billion Excel-class ship that has 19 decks and carries more than 6,400 passengers. It’s her job to make sure they all have a good time.

No disrespect to Crowley, but that seems like an odd place for a cruise director to live. How did you wind up working on the high seas? I started cruising when I was 7 years old, back in 2002. It was our family vacation every single year, and then when I went to college at Texas A&M, I got a tourism management degree. We did a study aboard trip, and I did an eight-day cruise with 28 other students where we learned about what it is like to work in the cruise industry.

The Dallas City Council on Wednesday began the complicated, mundane work of sorting out competing priorities for how to spend $1.1 billion in next year’s bond program.

Voters will head to the polls either next May or November to vote on the bond propositions, for which the City Council was presented two very different funding plans. One was the result of 90 volunteers who served on community task forces and subcommittees, gathering public input over the last eight months and splitting the money between the various buckets. The other came from the city manager and his staff, whose work is generally the baseline for how the City Council considers divvying up the bond.

Those two bodies provided a pair of wildly different recommendations that caused confusion as to which the Council should be working off of. The marathon meeting Wednesday ended where it started, with a lack of clarity as to how this money will be spent.  

Judge Allows Dallas Woman To Have Abortion. Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra granted a temporary restraining order that allows Kate Cox, 31, to terminate her pregnancy because her fetus has an abnormality that is almost always fatal after birth. Cox and her husband wished to have the child, but the judge agreed that “the nonviable pregnancy posed a risk to her health and future fertility.” Texas’ abortion laws, which went into place after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, do not allow abortion except when the patient’s life is in imminent danger. The state argued that Cox “does not meet all of the elements” to quality for the procedure under the state law, but the judge disagreed.

Dallas Home Prices Increased 175 Percent in Last Decade. Researchers using Zillow listings found that Dallas was third in the country for home price gains over the last decade, trailing only Detroit and Tampa. The national average home price increased by almost double over that same period. The median home price here is now $306,877, up from $111,598 in 2013.

Former Sheriff Lupe Valdez to Run Again for Her Old Seat. Valdez, who endorsed her successor Marian Brown after resigning to run for governor in 2018, wants her old job back. She’s running on a platform of improving staff morale and fixing the jail’s capacity issues. Brown was the first Black woman to hold the seat, and Valdez was the first Latina.

Cold Front Coming. Today’s high is 77, but that drops to 61 on Saturday and 55 on Sunday. Next week, expect more of the same. The normal high is 59, and the record high is 80.

The email was direct and to the point. Kathleen Bailey let me know that she had recently published a collection of short stories. Would I like a copy of the book for a possible review? I was short on time, but something made me click on the Wikipedia link she included at the bottom of the page.

The Dallas native’s bio started with a brief summary of her career, which included serving as deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and assistant director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the height of the Cold War. I was now intrigued. Then I read her book, which included nonfiction tales about encounters with Elvis, B.B. King, and Queen Elizabeth. We must meet, I told her. So she invited me to her home.

I thought she lived in Mesquite, which is why the heading above was my working title for the story. Turns out she technically lives in Dallas city limits. And that Wikipedia page was just the tip of the iceberg. You can read about her incredible life story here, which was originally published in the December issue of D Magazine. It is online today.

Every few years, I put together a little thing known as “The 100 Most Expensive Homes in Dallas.” I don’t enjoy the work, but I’m good at it, sleuthing property records and so forth to discover who owns what and where. When we last published the list, in July, one of the properties gave me trouble. It’s the old Gene Phillips Estate in Preston Hollow, adjacent to President George W. Bush’s crib and the old Crespi Estate (formerly owned by Tom Hicks). The appraisal district puts the Phillips property at a little over 16 acres and values it at $42 million. The outline I’ve drawn here is not exact. Check the DCAD account for the actual boundaries.

Forget the property lines, though. The real mystery is who now owns the estate. DCAD says it is owned by a trust with the initials FGH, which is administered by a Dallas lawyer named Raymond Kane, who does not want to talk to me and who in September sued the owner of the old Crespi Estate, whose registered agent is Mehrdad Moayedi (a story involving drainage issues for another time). A real estate-watching FrontBurnervian told me this morning that he heard from a neighbor of the Phillips Estate that a Californian bought the property for tax reasons, but the wife refuses to move to Dallas. All of which suggests the estate needs a Kato Kaelin to look after the grounds and so forth, a role I’d happily fill. If only the property owner(s) would contact me.

My DMs are open.

Update (1:32 p.m.) Teamwork makes the dream work. The owners are Beth and Josh Friedman. Want to read what their enemies have to say? Start here. Looking for a rosier picture? Go here.

This weekend, thousands of runners will dash all around the city during the annual BMW Dallas Marathon.

Since the early 1970s, runners from far and wide have jogged and sprinted around Dallas in the annual 26.2-mile race. The marathon has evolved since its initial run in 1971, including pushing the race from March to December, moving the start and finish lines to City Hall, and adding other events, like the half-marathon and Mayor’s Race 5K. What began as a small event with 82 runners 52 years ago grew to more than 14,000 runners in 2022. 

With everything going on this weekend, the logistics are bound to trip you up—even if you don’t plan on running. Here’s everything you need to know about navigating the Dallas Marathon Friday through Sunday’s race day. Especially if you need to get around East Dallas and downtown.

Mike McCarthy’s Appendix Will Not Attend Sunday’s Game. The Cowboys head coach had an appendectomy Wednesday, but the organization says they expect he will be on the sidelines Sunday against the Eagles. 

Authorities Searching for Family of Abandoned Girl. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is looking for the family of a little girl left at Baylor Medical Center Dallas on Monday. The agency said that Alejandra, 6, may have been dropped off there by her mother.

Fairfield Fight Is Over. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will stop its attempt to seize the land that was purchased by a developer who wishes to turn Fairfield Lake State Park into a luxury residential development. The park was on land leased from energy company Vistra, who sold the property to Dallas-based Todd Interests.

Trash Talk. If you’ve been fretting about when to put your cans out during the holidays, Dallas’ Department of Sanitation Services says that crews will not pick up trash or recycling on December 25 or January 1. All collections on the weeks of December 25 and January 1 will be delayed by one day.

Last week, I wrote about the Dallas Open moving to Frisco in 2025 and the not-so-great message it sends about Mayor Eric Johnson’s Ad Hoc Committee on Professional Sports Recruitment and Retention, which, as expected, has done minimal amounts of the former and the latter since its establishment in May 2022.

Today, however, brings better sports news in Dallas, albeit on the college front: the Red River Rivalry game between Texas and Oklahoma will stay at the Cotton Bowl through 2036.

A Dallas County judge has temporarily blocked the city from enforcing its new short-term rental ordinance that the City Council adopted in June.

Operators of Airbnb and Vrbo rentals say Dallas effectively banned short-term rentals after years of debate. Council approached the issue with a one-two punch. It triggered new zoning to eliminate STRs from neighborhoods zoned for single-family residential, and limited their density in commercial and multifamily zoned areas. It also included an ordinance that regulated what was left of the city’s short-term rental market. It went into effect immediately, but was not due to be enforced until December 14.

When it passed, many council members seemed unfazed by the prospect of a lawsuit.

“I’m just saying, I don’t fear courts,” said Councilwoman Carolyn King Arnold, who represents portions of Oak Cliff. “Let’s dress up and go.”

In October, four short-term rental operators and the Dallas Short-Term Rental Alliance sued the city. The four plaintiffs—Sammy Aflalo, Vera Elkins, Danielle Lindsey, and Denise Lowry—are longtime short-term rental operators who say they abided by prior city requirements to register and pay hotel occupancy taxes.

You won’t see Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson at today’s marathon bond briefing. He notified the city secretary yesterday afternoon that he will be absent due to a “medical reason.” It’s the first time the City Council will get to debate how to spend $1.1 billion, and Johnson made his priority—parks—the center of last week’s State of the City address.

The mayor didn’t provide any other information in his explanation of absence, which his chief of staff emailed to his colleagues at 4:04 p.m. yesterday. The present “Council attendance year” began in June. Since then, the mayor has been present for 87 percent of the meetings, which is the lowest record among the City Council. An official is counted present if he or she stays for at least 50 percent of each meeting. The city charter determines that “good standing” is being present for 90 percent of the scheduled meetings. (Councilman Chad West is next lowest, at 93 percent.)

Johnson used the bond as the foundation for his State of the City address, urging Council to approve using $350 million to pay for parks. He’ll get another chance to ask questions next month.

Rylie Shooter Was Out on Bond, Cut Ankle Monitor. Byron Carillo, 21, is accused of shooting and killing three adults and a one-year-old in a house in southeast Dallas on Sunday. He was found dead from a self-inflicted bullet wound after fleeing state troopers in Austin. The Dallas Morning News found that Carillo had cut his ankle monitor minutes before the monitor stopped sending data to the state.

State Rep. Frederick Frazier Pleads No Contest, Gets Felony Dropped to Misdemeanor. Frazier, a state representative and the longtime No. 2 of the Dallas Police Association, was indicted in 2022 on two counts of impersonating a public servant. Police say he was attempting to get his opponents signs pulled up and misrepresented himself. The plea deal drops the charges to misdemeanors, which will allow him to continue to serve in the Texas House. He has resigned from the Dallas Police Department.

Dozens of Cars Broken Into In Carrollton. Police in the suburb say 58 cars were broken into on Tuesday, hitting the Meadow Ridge and Harvest Run neighborhoods. Homeowner security footage shows three people smashing windows, but some neighbors say as many as six people were involved.