Kim Butler, director of leasing for HALL Group,  grew up in a football family. As a child, she’d travel with her dad to watch his alma mater, the University of Houston, play in the Astrodome. When her younger brother began playing college ball, she’d religiously attend his games, too. But it was her time on the sidelines as a cheerleader—middle school through college at Texas Tech University—that solidified her love for the game. “It was so much fun,” she says. “Once you’ve been down there on the field, that close to the action, it’s hard to go back to sitting up in the stands.”

Along with Texas Tech, her No. 1 team, Butler follows three other programs: Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University, and the University of Georgia. She got her master’s degree at SMU and her brother played there until the school was hit with a “death penalty” for NCAA violations; he played his senior year at Georgia. Her oldest daughter attended TCU. “I cover three conferences,” Butler says. “My adopted PAC 12 team is Washington State, because of Mike Leach. It gives me a reason to stay up late.”

It’s Cold! Quite a drop from yesterday. It’s about 35 degrees. And this morning we might even get a bit of snow. But don’t get your hopes. It’s not going to stick.

City Runs Short on Funds to Deal With Inclement Weather. Dallas will once again open the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center tonight for people who need shelter. But according to the woman who runs the Office of Homeless Solutions, “the city’s emergency shelter operations are unsustainable and just not a viable option.”

Dallas PD Has Spent More Than $10 Million on Police Misconduct. Over the last five years, the department has spent $7.4 million on settlements and $2.4 million on fees for outside attorneys. And CBS Channel 11 says there are more than 30 cases still unresolved. (For comparison, the station reported, in the same time frame, Fort Worth spent a little more than $2 million.)

North Texas Home Prices to Drop in 2020. That’s what Realtor.com is forecasting.

Mayor Eric Johnson gave his State of the City address on Monday, taking questions from NBC 5’s Julie Fine in front of 800 people at the Hyatt Regency downtown. He discussed his recent directive on violent crime, anti-city efforts in Austin, and his love for SMU athletics. Let’s hop to it.

The Mayor Doesn’t Want You Reading Between the Lines of That Letter to City Manager TC Broadnax. This would be the letter, sent last Tuesday, in which Johnson asked Broadnax to produce a “comprehensive, written plan to reduce violent crime in Dallas by a time certain.” It represented a noticeable shift in tone for the mayor.

A little over two months ago, at the Texas Tribune festival, Johnson downplayed the violent crime statistics and talked about how the spurt of 40 murders in May skewed the year’s stats.

On Monday, Johnson said he’d resisted pressure to play into scare tactics while on the campaign trail. We were merely halfway through the year at that point, he said. With a month left and with the highest body count in more than a decade in view, Johnson called the issue “a significant concern.”

In his letter, he called out the disproportionate effect on the city’s African American population. About 64 percent of gun violence victims in Dallas are black, according to our analysis of five years of city data.

He maintains this isn’t about setting the stage for a resignation, and that the letter “was not meant in any way to be disparaging of TC Broadnax.” (He says he hasn’t met with him since, but he had a regular, weekly meeting on the books with Broadnax for Monday afternoon. Broadnax said in a statement Wednesday that he and Chief U. Reneé Hall are on it.)

“If I wanted to call for someone’s removal, I’d call for their removal,” he said.

As we began evaluating contenders for 2019 CEO of the Year, Steve Demetriou’s qualifications quickly stood out. Although he doesn’t have the name recognition of past winners like Jerry Jones (2017) or Randall Stephenson (2016), he has quietly engineered a stunning, multibillion-dollar transformation of the global technical and professional services giant Jacobs, where he serves as CEO and chair (preferring the genderless title, versus chairman).

Jacobs’ stock price has climbed about 120 percent since the day he took the reins in August 2015. A series of mergers and acquisitions opened up new avenues of business for the company, driving revenue from $11 billion in 2016 to nearly $15 billion last year. Demetriou streamlined operations by selling off an energy and chemicals unit for $3.3 billion, and moved Jacobs’ corporate headquarters from Pasadena, California, to downtown Dallas.

But, writes Jason Heid, who put together our cover story, if you talk with others in the company about where Demetriou has had the most significant impact, they don’t point to the numbers: “They all mention the same thing. All the good he has done, they’ll tell you, began with his transformation of the company’s culture.”

Read Jason’s profile here.

In 2009, Richard Miles was released from prison. It would be 2012 before the state of Texas deemed him actually innocent, clearing his name from a mid-1990s murder and attempted murder. Soon after, he lopped off a sizable chunk of his compensation check from the state and started the nonprofit Miles of Freedom, based at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in South Dallas.

Having gone through the difficult transition back to a life outside the bars, Miles wanted to help others in similar situations thrive. And he didn’t forget about those who had committed actual crimes, choosing to aim his work at all inmates re-entering society. Seven years later, his organization continues to provide re-entry resources and equip the formerly incarcerated with steady jobs. Miles, who I wrote about in 2016 for Longreads, remains one of the most inspiring people I’ve had the honor of talking to.

Which is why I was thrilled to see he received a CNN Heroes award last night. He gave a heck of a speech, as well. That and CNN’s telling of his story embedded below, a good way to start the week:

About 25 years ago, I worked in Deep Ellum, directly across Elm Street from where the enormous Epic development now stands. I have my doubts about whether Uber will ever put 3,000 people in the place, but someone will. That sort of change can be dizzying. Our own Peter Simek has a good story about a radical shift underway in Deep Ellum that you should read if you haven’t.

But one thing Peter didn’t address—and you can bet this will come up in his annual review—is the giant robot head that was recently painted on the 17-story Case Building, on the other side of Deep Ellum from The Epic. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the robot head is dumb. I sometimes commute on a bicycle through Deep Ellum. In September, when the robot head appeared, as I was pedaling east on Main Street, I stopped at the light at Hall Street, looked up, and thought, “Why did they paint a 17-story robot head on The Case Building? That looks dumb.”

Actually, no, I take that back. The first time I saw it, I thought, “What is that yellow thing with all the green creepers painted on the building? That looks dumb.” I took a picture and showed it to a co-worker the next day. She said, “That’s obviously a robot. Why do you hate it so much?”