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Local News

Leading Off (3/5/24)

Tim Rogers
By |

Time to Vote. Get familiar with the candidates, then get out there and cast a ballot. The Morning News has a pretty good widget where you can enter your address and see what’s what.

Dak Is a Dad. He announced yesterday that he and his partner, Sarah Jane Ramos, had a baby girl. Apparently her name is MJ. One assumes she will marry Spider-Man.

Park Board Remains in Control. As the city of Dallas reviews its charter, there was some question about whether the Park and Rec Department should be moved under the city manager’s purview. But the Charter Review Commission voted unanimously to leave the department under the control of the century-old independent Park Board.

The polls open Tuesday at 7 a.m. for the final day of primary election voting. Still, very few are taking the opportunity to cast their ballots in the Democratic or Republican primaries.

At the end of early voting Friday, 104,978 of Dallas County’s 1,425,409 registered voters had cast ballots. That’s roughly 7.36 percent. On that final day, 24,574 people cast ballots—14,219 in the Democratic primary and 10,355 in the Republican primary. Throughout the entire 10-day period, 60,458 people cast ballots in the Democratic primary and 44,520 in the Republican.

We can compare that to the last presidential election year. In 2020, 23.6 percent of registered voters in Dallas cast early ballots. On the last day of primary voting, 25,773 voted in the Democratic primary and 7,949 in the Republican. Election Day was also lopsided—primary voters cast 144,126 Democratic ballots and 44,399 Republican. Out of 1,343,067 registered voters, that’s 14 percent who voted in a primary election.

Local News

Cost of Trenching I-345 Balloons to $1.6 Billion

Matt Goodman
By |
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I-345, as seen from below. Via Google

On Wednesday, the Texas Department of Transportation will deliver its first briefing to the Dallas City Council since the body last year approved a plan to remove and trench I-345, the presently elevated highway between downtown and Deep Ellum. The biggest news in the presentation is the cost: an estimated $1.6 billion to pull down and sink 2.8 miles of highway between Interstate 45 near Corinth Street and Woodall Rodgers Freeway. That’s about $600 million above previous estimates, which were admittedly preliminary.

The freeway will be placed about 65 feet below grade and will connect with Central Expressway to the north and I-45 to the south. Wednesday’s presentation also confirms that city staff did not pursue funding through President Joe Biden’s Reconnecting Communities grant program, because it would compete with applications for Klyde Warren Park, the Southern Gateway deck park of Interstate 35 in Oak Cliff, and the Interstate 30 Canyon project. (Dallas was not awarded any grant money for those projects.)

As suspected, once the City Council signed off on the resolution in support of trenching, the state went to work. It has held a series of subcommittee meetings to discuss how the plans for I-345 fit within the City Council’s approved climate, housing, racial equity, and economic development plans as well as Dallas’ Street Design Manual. Another subcommittee has studied whether the state’s plans for Interstate 30 in the downtown Canyon coexist with 345’s trenching.

TxDOT and the city appear to still be studying the surface street grid—existing streets are planned to fly over the highway—and what to do with 8 acres of surplus right of way and another 10 acres of new land that would allow for things to be built on top of deck caps over the thoroughfare. The city will need to come up with the money for the decking; the state will only cover the highway itself.

The presentation is light on details for each of these matters, so we’ll have to wait for Wednesday’s discussion. In the meantime, the presentation is below.

Local News

Leading Off (3/4/24)

Zac Crain
By |

Mavs Have Hit a Rough Patch. Your boys finished up a 1-3 road trip that already featured an absolute all-timer of a gut-punch loss in Cleveland by getting spanked in Boston on Friday night. Back at home against Philly for a Sunday matinee, a hot 11-0 start pretty soon turned into a double-digit deficit. They almost came back, but had been aimless too long to make it up. A coaching loss, some are saying.

It’s Still Unseasonably Warm. And, for fun, let’s throw in the risk—marginal, but whatever—of severe thunderstorms.

Some Last-Minute Vote Prep. If you didn’t vote early, tomorrow’s the day. Here is what’s happening. I am looking forward to getting what I’m assuming is a brief respite from text messages from various candidates, most of them seemingly judges. I haven’t marked so many messages as junk since a particularly disastrous first (and only) date last year.

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Dallas History

D Magazine’s 50 Greatest Stories: Heartbroken at the Stoneleigh

Matt Goodman
By |
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The lions and the Stoneleigh. Photography by Leah Clausen

The Stoneleigh Terrace Hotel in 1977 sat across from a pharmacy that had been turned into a bar and grill, the Stoneleigh P, a few years prior. The P seemed to be where the action was, populated by “a real cross-section of humanity,” as “an earnest-looking fellow at the bar” described to a Dallas Morning News reporter around that time. Timothy Leary gave an interview at the P to a young Mike Shropshire. Retired Cowboys legend Duane Thompson sipped coffee with Randy Galloway.

Across the street was a different scene. Stoic, a little strange, sometimes sad. Two stone lions stared out at the 2900 block of Maple Avenue from beside the steps leading to the hotel. KSKY, the “station in the sky,” had broadcast from the penthouse for more than four decades, packing in 25-piece orchestras to record in the 1940s and hosting interviews with Bear Bryant and Lyndon Johnson in the 1950s.

And down on the ground level of the hotel was the Lions Den, the smoky hotel bar where “the really cute people” started filing out around 7 p.m. and left the lovelorn divorcees to their scotch and sodas. The writer A.C. Greene spent weeks drinking alongside these men, then turned it into one of the greatest stories we’ve ever published: “Heartbreak Hotel.”

This is a story about the past, one of those great moment-in-time pieces that captures a different stretch of Maple than the one we have today (not to mention the version that’s coming). Greene was good at that sort of thing; he was a columnist at both the Dallas Times Herald and the Dallas Morning News, and was unofficially known as “the dean of Texas letters” upon his death in 2002.

And so his snapshot is intimate and full of little details: “The Lions Den is, therefore, the bar at the Stoneleigh; dark interior with funny little red lights that twinkle dimly near the ceiling, so that you are tempted to sit and look at them for hours, speculating whether they are hooked up to some electrical relay that makes them blink, or if they were improperly installed and merely blink from a poor contact.”

The Stoneleigh, which was built in 1923, was purchased by the hotel chain Le Méridien in 2013. Marriott bought Le Meridien in 2016. And so the Lions Den is long gone. The hotel bar still is strangely connected to the lobby, but the space is flooded with light and the little nooks and hiding spots and the regulars have disappeared. It feels like a hotel bar, not like the Lions Den.

Change is coming to this block of Maple. The Stoneleigh P, which burned down in the early 1980s and was rebuilt, will move to the nondescript highway known as Lemmon Avenue after its landlord refused to renew its lease. It will replace a restaurant called Eggcellent. Maple Terrace, a historic location itself, will soon be a collection of expensive boutique office and residential space. Uchi is doing good business down the block, and Nick and Sam’s is seemingly always humming.

Cities change. Maple already looks radically different than it did when Greene was chatting up divorcées, and the departure of the Stoneleigh P will buff away even more history. But those two stone lions out front remain, watching the buildings and people come and go, go and come.

“Heartbreak Hotel” is one of our 50 greatest stories, and you can read it right here.

Developer Bails on Warehouse Plans Near Friendship-West. The megachurch sued to stop Stonelake Partners from building a warehouse near its property, which borders a neighborhood, a high school, and a government facility. Stonelake sued the city to argue that the project was within what the zoning allowed. A judge issued an injunction that temporarily stopped construction. Now, the two have reached an agreement that promises to work with the community to build something on the land that residents want.

City’s Plan to Slow Ferguson Road Does Not Include Narrowing. A traffic study found that the highly-trafficked East Dallas thoroughfare had about 1,000 crashes over the last five years. NBC 5 found that a consultant advised the city to narrow the road, but Dallas will instead install “pedestrian hybrid beacons” that will stop traffic at a few locations that lack pedestrian crossings. Neighbors don’t seem too happy.

AG Ken Paxton Goes After The Factory, Texas Trust CU Theatre. It’s the same deal as we reported earlier this week with the State Fair of Texas. Paxton is apparently suing any venue where he can find allegations that they denied entry to a police officer who tried to enter with their weapon while off duty. The law requiring entertainment venues allow them inside with their guns was passed in 2017.

That Wasn’t Hail Yesterday. The great Jesse Hawila is here to sort this out: the stuff that pinged off your house yesterday was graupel, “small ice particles that form around raindrops.” The water droplets freeze onto snowflakes as they fall toward the ground, which generates circular pellets of what looks like Sonic ice. Anyway, we’re back in the low 70s today and 80s tomorrow and Sunday.

Local News

City Council Repeals Ordinance That Allowed Easier Demolitions for Historic Homes

Bethany Erickson
By |
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A home at 1008 Betterton Circle overlooks an empty lot where a home burned nearby in 2023. Eboni Johnson

The Dallas City Council, which met for the third time in as many days Wednesday, voted unanimously to repeal an ordinance that advocates say allowed the demolition of dozens of historic homes in Black neighborhoods.

Since 2010, a section of the Dallas Development Code allowed for the demolition of homes smaller than 3,000 square feet within a Landmark District. Homes within these districts are designated as historic, and the distinction comes with design guidelines and preservation criteria meant to protect the existing structures.

The small piece of the code has disproportionately impacted Black neighborhoods, like Tenth Street, which began in the 1880s as a Freedman’s town. The clause was also immediately unpopular with preservationists and the neighborhood, both of which accurately predicted the ordinance would be used to bring down habitable homes that needed repair.

“The default for these homes became demolition, rather than consideration for rehabilitation,” assistant city manager Majed Al-Ghafry wrote in a memo about the matter earlier this month. The 3,000-square-foot rule, he said, “is unnecessary and has in effect, resulted in unintended consequences and disproportionate impact on communities of color.”

Local News

Dallas Zoo Debuts Teeny Tiny Baby Monkeys

Bethany Erickson
By |
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Emperor tamarins Lettie and Roger became third-time parents to twins in early February. Dallas Zoo

The Dallas Zoo showed off their newest editions last week: tiny little Wilford Brimley-looking baby emperor tamarins born February 1 to Lettie and Roger.

The zoo says their father most often carries them, but occasionally, mom and sisters Killari and Cuzco can also be schlepping them around the tamarin habitat. The family lives in the Zoo’s Tamarin Treetops habitat, which is also home to Bella and Finn, who were briefly abducted from the Zoo last year.

But the tamarin twins aren’t the only baby monkeys at the Zoo. Bolivian gray titi monkeys Juniper and Biscuit became new parents on February 3. Their offspring is the first titi monkey born at the Zoo since 2012.

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Council Approves Settlement in Timpa Case. The Dallas City Council approved a $2.5 million partial settlement with the family of Tony Timpa, who died in police custody eight years ago. A Dallas County jury awarded Timpa’s son $1 million in a wrongful death lawsuit last year. Three of the four plaintiffs in the suit settled with the city.

Judge Says Jones Must Take DNA Test. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones must take a paternity test to settle the question of whether he is the biological father of Alexandra Davis, who sued him in 2022. Davis says Jones had a relationship with her mother, Cynthia, in the mid-90s and that Jones had agreed to support them as long as they didn’t name him as the father.

Rangers, MLB Announce All-Star Week Schedule. The region will host All-Star Week in July, with a week of festivities culminating in the 94th Midsummer Classic happening at Globe Life Field on the final day. It will be the second time the Rangers have hosted an All-Star Game—the first was in 1995.

Local News

AG Ken Paxton Has Sued the State Fair of Texas

Bethany Erickson
By |
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Bad news for Big Tex.

Updated at 7:50 p.m. to include comment from the State Fair of Texas.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit against the State Fair of Texas last week, alleging that the organization violated a law that allows police officers to carry their firearms inside the fairgrounds even if they are not on duty.

The suit, which was filed on February 23 in Dallas County district court, accuses the State Fair of denying at least two off-duty officers entry with their weapons after they displayed their credentials. 

When reached for comment, State Fair spokesperson Karissa Condoianis said that the suit had “just been brought to our attention,” and they were unaware of the details of the alleged incidents.

“The State Fair of Texas takes seriously its legal obligations to allow peace officers to lawfully carry their weapon at the fairgrounds,” she said. “To that end, the State Fair requires at least one Dallas Police Officer to be posted at each admission gate to check credentials and ensure compliance. This policy allows peace officers to deal face-to-face with fellow peace officers to ensure compliance and safety for all our guests.”

Condoianis said that the organization would now look into the incidents to see how they unfolded.

According to the State Fair’s website, only people who are licensed to carry a gun are allowed to bring their weapon to the fairgrounds, and it must be concealed. The law Paxton cites in the suit says that armed, licensed peace officers are allowed entry to a variety of establishments—restaurants, bars, retail establishments, sports and entertainment venues—”regardless of whether the peace officer is engaged in the actual discharge of the officer’s duties while carrying the weapon.”

The suit says that on October 8, 2022, Abilene Police Department Lt. Michael Perry was not allowed to carry his gun into the fair as he tried to enter Gate 1. In February 2023, Paxton’s office sent a letter to the city of Dallas, which then sent it to the State Fair. By the end of the month, both the city and the fair had responded to Paxton’s office, saying that they would comply with the law.

But on September 30, 2023, an Ector County Hospital District Police captain, Tommy Jones, also tried to enter the fair with his weapon to attend the State Fair Classic game. Paxton says Jones was also not allowed to bring his weapon in.

It is unclear how Paxton was alerted to the incidents, but there is a link to a report form on the Attorney General’s website.

Local News

Raul Reyes Jr., Fierce Advocate for West Dallas, Dies at 50

Bethany Erickson
By |
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Raul Reyes Jr., seated, with neighbors, other advocates, Dallas environmental director Carlos Evans, Dallas Environmental Commission Chair Kathryn Bazan, and Council District 6 liaison Laura Cadena. Courtesy Omar Narvaez

Raul Reyes Jr. was a dependable fixture in West Dallas, whether as a sounding board or the person neighbors trusted to represent their interests in rooms with powerful people and entities. 

On Tuesday, Reyes died at the age of 50. And with his passing, the community he loved so much now grapples with its loss and mourns for his family.

He grew up in the Los Altos neighborhood, the son of Mexican immigrants. He became an indefatigable voice for West Dallas as he championed the causes of his neighborhood, as well as La Bajada and others. He fought against environmental polluters and advocated for housing to prevent the displacement of longtime residents. He pushed for access to healthy food. He made sure his community was heard at City Hall. He served on several city boards and commissions, too, most recently the Dallas Public Facility Corporation.

When facing down the GAF shingle factory, which had operated and polluted the community for decades, Reyes worked alongside various community groups—including Singleton United/Unidos—to communicate their expectations to the company. When the spigot of information from the company dried up, it was West Dallas 1, the organization helmed by Reyes, that stepped into the void to help provide information to residents. 

Many communities have their passionate advocates. But West Dallas had a champion in Reyes who understood the stakes for his rapidly gentrifying community and the constant environmental threats it faces. He never stopped fighting for his neighbors.

And that’s how many eulogized him Tuesday and Wednesday. Singleton United/Unidos member Janie Cisneros, who frequently worked with Reyes as they negotiated with GAF, said he “became my sounding board.”

“I could count on him to keep it 100 and give me the advice I needed for all things West Dallas,” she said. “That connection has now been cut—and cut way too soon. The gloominess outside accurately reflects the mood in our community.”

Local News

Leading Off (2/28/24)

Matt Goodman
By |

West Dallas Advocate Raul Reyes Dies at 50. Reyes was the head of West Dallas 1, a conglomerate of neighbors and neighborhood associations that made sure City Hall and other powerful entities heard them. He fought for fair housing and against environmental polluters in West Dallas, carrying on a long history of activism in the communities just a few miles west of downtown. He was born in Los Altos and represented the interests of La Bajada and the other neighborhoods that make up West Dallas. Reyes is survived by three children.

Arlington Briefly Belonged to the Goats. Hundreds of goats escaped an enclosure in the Crystal Canyon Natural Area where they were chomping up invasive plants and dry underbrush. They took to the streets, spreading out in neighborhoods around Brown Boulevard and Winding Hollow Lane. It took a few hours for the cops and their owner to wrangle them and get them back to work.

It’s Cold Again. We broke the record for warmest day in February earlier this week, and now highs are back in the low 50s and lows are in the 40s. Expect winds of up to 30 mph throughout the day and not very much sun. Rain chances return tomorrow, with about 40 percent of the region getting some sort of precipitation.

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