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Protesters Cited for Blocking Road in West Dallas. Janie Cisneros, whose Singleton United/Unidos has led the fight to force the shingle factory GAF to vacate her neighborhood, got a ticket along with four other protesters for blocking access to the plant. The five demonstrators tied their protest to Earth Day, raising awareness of what they say is too slow a timeline to vacate the neighborhood. GAF says it plans to relocate the plant by 2029. The official citations were for “pedestrians in [the] roadway.”

Man Arrested in Connection With Fatal Party Shooting. Christopher Jones, 28, was charged with deadly conduct and possession of methamphetamine days after a shooting at a party on Collins Avenue killed a 21-year-old woman and wounded another eight people. Cops were called a little before midnight, but the party broke up. Shots rang out after 1:35 a.m. after their departure. Police are investigating their response.

Plano Bans Short-Term Rentals. Existing Airbnb and VRBO operations are grandfathered into the city’s new regulations, but new rentals are no longer allowed. The Plano City Council has been debating the ordinance for over two years, which was prompted by the same concerns and frustration as in Dallas last year. Dallas was sued after failing to grandfather existing operators into its plan.

Stars Drop Game 1 to Knights. The 4-3 loss means that the Stars give up their home-ice advantage against the reigning Stanley Cup Champions. It took less than two minutes for the Las Vegas Golden Knights to notch a goal, and they never lost their aggression. Mike and the team will have more on StrongSide today. Game 2 is tomorrow at 8:30 p.m. (The Mavs tip off in their second game tonight at 9 p.m.)

Today marks the start of early voting for the May 4 election, and if history is any indicator, very few of the city’s registered voters will make it to the polls.

Last May, when all 14 city council seats and the mayor’s seat were on the ballot, roughly 6.6 percent of the city’s 650,607 voters visited the polls. Portland State University’s Who Votes for Mayor site gives further insight as to who is voting in May elections in Dallas: last year, the average voter was 62 years old. The median age in Dallas is 33.

This election may not have mayors and council members to vote for, but it is still no exception when it comes to important items on the ballot. Ten propositions for a $1.25 billion bond will attempt to address the most urgent of what city staffers say is $17 billion worth of unmet needs. We’ll provide a straightforward explainer on the bond tomorrow.

There are also three new Dallas Central Appraisal District board seats to vote for—Ekambar Kumar Singrikonda and P. Wylie Burge will vie for place 1, while Kendall Scudder and Alexandra Stewart are running unopposed for places two and three. In its second special session last summer, the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 2, which created three new at-large elected appraisal board seats in every county with a population of 75,000 or greater. 

Mavs Lose Series-Opening Game to Clippers. L.A. was playing without Kawhi Leonard, but it hardly seemed to matter, as Dallas had a 30-point first half (!), which included just eight (8) in the second quarter. They outscored the Clips in the second half, but they never really got that close. They probably didn’t need the week off after closing the season so strongly. I’m not too worried (yet). Much more on StrongSide shortly.

Puck Drops On Stars and Golden Knights Game 1 Tonight. Can Jake Oettinger and Co. win this rematch of the 2023 Western Conference Finals? Sean Shapiro has you covered on StrongSide.

Weekend Rain Sets Record. The new April 20 daily maximum rainfall at DFW Airport is 2.34 inches, breaking an 82-year-old mark. Other areas got as much as 4 inches. Today, it’s cool and dry and sunny. And, seriously, guys. It’s just one game. Mavs are gonna be fine. I’m sure whatever Iztok is posting on StrongSide won’t contradict that.

City Council May Vote Wednesday to Try to Lure Dallas Wings to Dallas. Specifically, to a renovated Dallas Memorial Auditorium, part of the convention center, which should be ready in 2026. The proposal calls for a 15-year lease. Also, Wednesday we will be looking back on Tuesday night’s Game 2, in which the Mavs evened their first-round series.

Details Emerge About Rev. Haynes’ Exit from Rainbow PUSH. Roland Martin is a journalist and the CEO of Black Star Network. He says that Rev. Frederick Hanyes III’s abrupt departure from leading Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition was because he didn’t have full autonomy in the role. Martin told a CBS affiliate that “Jackson hadn’t really fully ceded control of the organization he founded in 1971,” but said there was no “bad blood” or “anger” between the two men.

Murders, Violent Crime Continue Declining. There were fewer violent crimes in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the prior year, a trend accelerated by a steep drop in total murders. Violent crime has fallen nearly 20 percent compared to 2023, and there have been almost 30 percent fewer murders. Members of the City Council praise the chief’s violent crime plan, but there’s still concern about the seemingly annual summer increase.

Dallas Stars Draw Las Vegas Knights in First Round. The Stars are the best team in the Western conference, but they’ll have to go through the Stanley Cup champions to get to the second round. Vegas topped Dallas in 2023’s Western Conference Finals, so it’ll be the Stars’ chance to avenge last year’s ending. The series begins Monday at 8:30 p.m. The Mavericks, meanwhile, tip off in their first round series against the Clippers at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.

“Oh my god,” a friend texted me Monday morning. “Have you seen the DCAD appraisals yet?” A few minutes later, I got another message on Facebook: “These appraisals are insane.”

And so I looked at mine. Casa Erickson is in North Dallas, just off of Forest and Marsh. For the last two years, the valuation of our three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,900-square-foot home built in 1961 has been exactly the same. This year, it increased by more than $85,000, or 26 percent over last year.

“WTF is DCAD’s deal?” another friend asked. Indeed.

So I asked around. A coworker in Oak Cliff’s Elmwood neighborhood didn’t see any increase, but a friend who lives just three blocks north saw her market value go up by almost $71,000, with most of the increase attributed to land value. My land value didn’t go up at all—the increase is solely in the home itself, which hasn’t seen any substantive improvements since last year. 

I’ve talked to people throughout Dallas who saw their property values go up substantially. A homeowner in Old East Dallas saw her home’s improvement value go up by $64,000 and the land by $95,000, but she says in reality, “My house is falling apart around me.” Another who lives off of Westmoreland and Jefferson in Oak Cliff says after her protest was denied last year, she made about $8,000 in repairs and saw her market value go up by $102,000 over last year. A homeowner in Capella Park in southwest Dallas says that homes “are not selling” but says his valuation went up by $212,000. Another property in South Oak Cliff jumped from $117,000 to $230,000. 

And it wasn’t just single-family homes, either. A condo-dweller near Mockingbird Station saw her valuation increase by 18 percent. Bisnow reported that commercial property valuations in Dallas County increased by an average of 21 percent, despite the fact that transactions were down by almost 60 percent last year.  Multifamily property valuations were up 20 percent, retail was up about 10 percent, and industrial properties were up a whopping 50 percent. Offices, which have stagnated the most among these non-residential uses, rose between 5 percent and 10 percent.

So why such large increases?

Prepare to Pay $$ to See Caitlin Clark. Fresh off the NCAA tournament and the WNBA draft, Caitlin Clark’s debut with the Indiana Fever will happen May 3 in Arlington against the Wings. Tickets went on sale today, and season ticketholders got first dibs on that preseason opener. The Wings-Fever game will be subject to dynamic pricing, which means that tickets are already going for more than $120. 

Fruitcake Happening, Probably. A movie based on the Texas Monthly story about the erstwhile Collin Street Bakery accountant who embezzled millions will now star Jennifer Garner. Filming will start this summer in North Texas.

Weather Will Get Very Weathery. We’re due for storms starting this afternoon, and they won’t really go away until Sunday. Hope you mowed your lawn yesterday, and don’t forget to turn off your sprinklers.

You don’t need a demographer to see that Dallas isn’t sharing in the rapid growth of its northern suburbs. This reality is beginning to settle in at City Hall, where, in discussions around land use and other policy decisions, planners wrestle with how to encourage more people to move, and afford to stay, in the region’s largest city.

The trend affects transportation decisions, too. Dallas is now staring at a future where it no longer controls a majority of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board, whose seats are appointed based on the population share of Dallas and the transportation agency’s 12 suburban partners.

DART and the City Council’s transportation and infrastructure committee held a dual meeting on Monday to explore the region’s changing demographics. The population trends show the board makeup flipping as soon as 2025, the next time apportionment gets reviewed, and almost certainly by 2030. (The makeup of board seats is adjusted every five years based on how many people are living in DART’s service area.)

Why is this important? The state statute that created DART tipped the scales to allow the region’s largest city to have a critical eighth seat on the body that sets policy. But since 2010, Dallas’ population has increased by only 9 percent while the surrounding service area has jumped by 40 percent. By 2030, projections show that most of DART’s service population will live outside the city of Dallas for the first time in the agency’s existence.

“I’ve been on the board, at the pleasure of the City Council, for almost three and a half years,” said Trustee Rodney Schlosser, a Dallas appointee who put the report together. “In those three and a half years, I have picked up on what I think is obvious for any of us who are watchful of what’s going on in the region, which is there are differences of opinion between what someone in Dallas might consider to be a priority and what someone in a suburb might consider to be a priority.”

Rev. Frederick Haynes Resigns as CEO of Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Three months after the Rev. Jesse Jackson selected him to succeed him as head of the important civil rights organization, Haynes announced he would be resigning. In a statement to WFAA, the Friendship-West Baptist Church pastor did not detail a reason for his exit but said “[r]est assured that my work in the fight for liberation and freedom continues.”

Sexual Assault Lawsuit Dropped Against Dak Prescott. Attorneys for a woman who sued the Cowboys quarterback for an alleged 2017 sexual assault in the XTC Cabaret parking lot asked the judge to dismiss the case. Prescott has denied the allegations, but the woman can still refile the case later.

Dallas ISD Trustee Speaks After School Walkout. Students at Wilmer-Hutchins High School staged a walkout on Monday, two days after a fellow student snuck a gun past the school’s metal detectors. Ja’Kerian Rhodes-Ewing, 17, shot another student with a .38 revolver in the leg. The district’s trustee, Maxie Johnson, held a community event to question how the incident occurred. Dallas ISD isn’t commenting, pending the ongoing investigation.

More Grumbling Over City Manager Payout. Mayor Eric Johnson doesn’t like that City Manager T.C. Broadnax is getting a year’s salary, $423,246, as he heads to Austin to be their city manager. Johnson wants state lawmakers to ban such payouts. But City Councilmember Adam Bazaldua said the mayor has a “whining tone,” and Councilmember Jaime Resendez said part of the reason Broadnax is leaving is the mayor’s “consistent dishonesty and self-serving agenda.” So it seems like everything is going fine.

Inwood Tavern Gets Pub Thanks to Scheffler. I think we are the last outlet in town to mention that the night Scottie Scheffler won the Masters, he flew back to Dallas and went to the Inwood Tavern. This photo on the bar’s Instagram has been everywhere. Good for the bar. And good for Ryan, who wrote “pee pee poo poo” on the wall behind Scheffler.

Andy Reid Comments on Rashee Rice Hit-and-Run. But he didn’t really say anything. The Chiefs head coach said, “As far as Rashee Rice goes, his situation, I’m leaving that, like we’ve done with most of these, for the law enforcement part of it to take place and then we’ll go from there with that.”

Giraffe Born at Dallas Zoo. The birth happened April 1, but the Zoo officially announced the news yesterday. The baby boy doesn’t have a name yet. My suggestion: T.C. Broadnax.

Dallas’ update to its land use plan, which includes reexamining the city’s predominantly single-family zoning, has been met with significant pushback among vocal residents. But if some conservative state policymakers have their way, the debate could become moot. Lt. Dan Patrick has indicated a desire to at least discuss zoning as it relates to housing affordability in the next legislative session. Some conservative groups have also indicated their support for this legislation.

ForwardDallas, the city’s not-yet-adopted plan, would only inform the city’s land use and zoning in the future. A great deal of concern around single-family neighborhoods centers on where and how to allow for more density—specifically middle or “gentle” density like triplexes, duplexes, and the like. In our April issue, Matt Goodman wrote about how Dallas needs density to survive, and about just how nasty the fight over density has become. 

At a public information session at Samuell Grand Recreation Center recently, a mostly hostile audience took turns at the microphone, reiterating their distaste for the idea of eliminating what they felt protected “the character” of their neighborhoods: single-family zoning. 

There are very real questions about how and where to introduce middle density. But state Rep. John Bryant, D-Dallas, issued a warning before the discussion began: the harsh reality is that Dallas might not have the final say in its zoning updates. Bryant warned that there is an effort to change zoning “at the state level,” too. He couched this as another way Austin would wrest local control from cities and counties.

“The Legislature passed over the vigorous opposition of myself and others in this last session a bill that began the process of limiting the ability of cities to deal with a large number of matters that relate to us as local citizens,” he said. Bryant was referring to House Bill 2127, the so-called “Death Star” bill that limits city’s abilities to create ordinances that are more strict than state law.

While urbanists and historians have long pointed to the racist history of exclusionary zoning, removing lot size minimums has long been considered somewhat of a “liberal” idea. In fact, four years ago conservative policy analyst Stanley Kurtz warned in the National Review that then Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden planned to “abolish the suburbs” by eliminating single family zoning.

“It will mean the end of local control, the end of a style of living that many people prefer to the city, and therefore the end of meaningful choice in how Americans can live,” he warned.

Scottie Scheffler Wins Masters. That makes two Green Jackets already for the 27-year-old Highland Park grad. Pretty decent. Scottie, quit ducking us and come on EarBurner.

Wings Pick No. 5 in Tonight’s WNBA Draft. Consensus of the various mocks I’ve looked at suggests UConn forward Aaliyah Edwards will be the choice here. (The Wings also have the No. 9 pick in the first round.) Aaliyah, quit ducking us and come on EarBurner.

Mark Cuban Reveals Tax Bill. He said he would wire $288 million to the IRS today, which is obviously tax day, as well as my nephew Jonah’s birthday and the day that Joey Ramone died. Mark, quit ducking us and come back on EarBurner.

‘Mavs’ Lose Big. They rested their entire playoff rotation in the regular-season finale, so the 49-point loss, the second-biggest in franchise history, should have an asterisk. (Their first-round series against the Clippers tips off Sunday.) Anyway, Brandon Williams had a season-high 22. Brandon, quit earing us and come on DuckBurner.

Verne Lundquist Retires. The veteran broadcaster, who got his start in Dallas, signed off for the last time at the Masters yesterday. Here is a great story about how he met his wife at Arthur’s. Verne, enjoy your retirement. But also come on EarBurner and show Tim how to stop interrupting guests.