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Last week, we pointed to a mysterious item on a Dallas City Council committee agenda that at the time seemed to potentially involve the Dallas Mavericks. But now we have a new theory.

At the time, a joint meeting of the Dallas City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Professional Sports Recruitment and Retention and the Council Economic Development Committee included an agenda item slated for closed session, where the two committees met privately with attorneys. Dubbed “Project X,” there were just a few vague clues: “Discuss or deliberate the commercial or financial information that the city has received from a business prospect (“Project X”) that the city seeks to have locate, stay or expand in or near the city and with which the city is conducting economic development negotiations; and deliberate the offer of a financial or other incentive to such business prospect.”

The same day the committees met, we floated the theory that Project X was potentially about the city making plans to keep the Dallas Mavericks away from the suburbs. Now that the team has new majority owners and a deal with the American Airlines Center that ends in 2031, it would make sense that the city would want to begin negotiations sooner than later.

But a new team has entered the arena, thanks to a late evening tweet from Mayor Eric Johnson.

City of Dallas Warns About Eclipse Plans. City Hall hosted a whole press conference yesterday in the Flag Room to warn residents not to travel too far from their homes to watch Monday’s eclipse. They’re worried about traffic, mostly, and predict that 90 percent of the city’s 35,000 hotel rooms will be reserved by Monday.

Dallas Anesthesiologist IV Tampering Trial Underway. You’ll recall the bizarre, tragic story in 2022, when Raynoldo Ortiz was caught on camera tampering with IV bags before surgeries. Prosecutors say he injected the bags with dangerous drugs that led to cardiac events. Another anesthesiologist, Dr. Melanie Casper, died that June after taking an IV bag home to rehydrate while sick. His trial on 10 federal charges is now underway, and one of the five patients who had to be resuscitated testified that she feared she would die.

Hello, Beautiful Weather. It’s a chilly, sunny morning on a day when temperatures will inch no higher than the low 70s. The rain is gone for the rest of the week, although storm chances return Saturday night into Sunday.

Outgoing City Manager T.C. Broadnax could be leaving earlier than expected, a city council committee meeting agenda appears to indicate.

After seven years with the city, Broadnax in February announced he would be stepping down after a majority of the City Council requested his resignation. In a statement to the press, several council members said that the poor relationship between Broadnax and Mayor Eric Johnson made doing city business too difficult. In his resignation letter, he said his last day at City Hall would be June 3. 

That same month, Johnson tasked the Ad Hoc Committee on Administrative Affairs with most of the city manager search. That committee consists of Council Members Tennell Atkins, Cara Mendelsohn, Jesse Moreno, Paul Ridley, and Kathy Stewart. The lone item on the committee’s Tuesday agenda was a discussion to “deliberate employment of City Manager T.C. Broadnax and effective date of appointment of Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert.” The committee immediately went into a closed session.

Tolbert, who currently serves as a Deputy City Manager (Jon Fortune also has that title), has worked with Broadnax since he began in 2017. Her biography on the city’s website calls her “the City Manager’s top trusted advisor.”

In February, the Council voted 12-2 to appoint Tolbert to the interim position effective June 3, the date Broadnax originally provided as his last day at Dallas City Hall. Tuesday’s meeting is only a discussion, so any action by the full council would likely happen at an upcoming city council meeting. The draft agenda for the April 10 meeting does not yet indicate any action is planned.

Josh Jung Suffers Fracture. Last night, Jung hit a three-run homer as the Rangers beat the Rays 9-3, but in the ninth inning, a pitch hit him in the right wrist, adding another to a series of injuries to the third baseman. After the game, he was too bummed out to even talk about it. Here’s the video.

Rashee Rice Retains State Sen. Royce West. Rice is the Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver (and former SMU player) who is connected—gotta be careful with the word choice—to a vehicle that was involved in a six-vehicle hit-and-run crash on Central Expressway over the weekend. West said in a statement: “Rashee is cooperating with local authorities and will take all necessary steps to address this situation responsibly.”

Keep Tabs on Eclipse Day Weather. The National Weather Service in Fort Worth hasn’t yet issued their daily update, but here’s what they said yesterday: “The forecast for Eclipse Day continues to be cloudy, however, not all hope is lost! There is still a medium chance of partial visibility across parts of North and Central Texas.” (UPDATE: Here is the what the Weather Service says today: “The forecast for Eclipse Day continues to be cloudy, however, not all hope is lost! Widespread upper cloud cover is likely, but dense low clouds look less likely!”)

Fairmont Hotel Has a New Chief Happiness Officer. It’s an 8-month-old dog named Bondi who hangs out in the lobby.

Before he toured the operation at Bonton Farms on Thursday, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn met with local nonprofits to discuss what happens after an inmate leaves the prison system.

He’s repeated this with varying backdrops across the state since January, when he announced he would advance the Workforce Reentry Act. This act seeks to make permanent Labor Department grants that provide job support to federally incarcerated people, including job training and housing upon release. 

A similar act was introduced in the House last November, but is currently in the earliest stages of the legislative process. Cornyn says he plans to introduce legislation in the Senate in the next few months. Bonton Farms, which provides jobs for formerly incarcerated people and tiny homes for those who need housing, is an exemplar of the kind of programs he’d like to see receive those federal dollars. 

“The legislation we’re working on is based on a pilot program that’s evidence-based,” he said. “It’s not based on wishful thinking or a pie in the sky. It’s based on things that actually work and have been proven to work.”

Cornyn says that about 78,000 inmates in Texas are released from prison each year. Federal research shows that those who engage in job training and housing programs are 43 percent less likely to return to prison.

“They can’t get a job, and they can’t find a place to live, well, that’s two strikes against the person,” he said Thursday.

Is Monday’s forecast optimal for viewing an eclipse? No, it’s not. Are we still going to party at Surf Camp, Nick Badovinus’ downtown rooftop joint? Yes, we are.

D Magazine subscribers got the first crack at tickets to our Totality Awesome Rooftop Rumpus. A small number remain. So I’m throwing it open to FrontBurnervians. Ten bucks gets you in to Surf Camp. Nick and his crew will serve a full menu and some cocktails created especially for people who like to stare at the sun (or at clouds). Drinks and lunch are on you. We’ll have free eclipse glasses for you (if needed). I’ll be there. Kathy Wise will be there. Worst case scenario? We skip work and do some day drinking together.

My guess is we’ll sell these out pretty quickly. Jump to it.

Rangers Get Rings. After an extra-innings win against the Cubs to start the season, Your 2023 World Champions received their championship rings in a pregame ceremony on Saturday (followed by another win). They couldn’t finish off the sweep Sunday, but still: pretty nice little start to a title defense.

Luka Doncic Scores 47 in Mavs Win. The NBA’s leading scorer hit two ridiculous shots—one pregame, one during. The latter helped take down the streaking Houston Rockets and nudged the Mavs up the Western Conference standings.

Stars Also Rolling. That is seven straight for the Western Conference leaders.

Eclipse-Viewing Conditions ‘Not Looking Good.’ According to the National Weather Service, there is a 15 percent likelihood Dallas-Fort Worth will have favorable conditions to view the coming total solar eclipse, thanks to storms and cloudy skies and so on. “If [the weather] were to pan out the way the models are showing right now, it doesn’t look like there would be anywhere in the path of totality in Texas that people could not be affected by the cloud cover associated with this system,” said Steve Fano, a meteorologist with NWS Fort Worth. That is, of course, subject to change.

In 1979, the writer David Bauer went down to Cedar Springs. The Old Plantation was the most popular gay bar in town, so successful that its owners had opened other concepts in Houston, El Paso, and Tampa, Florida. But it took a lot of resilience to get to that point. As Bauer wrote, “the Old Plantation’s life has been nearly snuffed more than once – by arson, by sabotage, by police harassment, by legal hassles, by cutthroat competition.”

His story, “Lords of an Underground Empire,” chronicles the rise of what became the city’s most important block for the LGBTQ+ community. The Old Plantation is today S4 and The Mining Company. Sue Ellen’s is one of the nation’s few remaining lesbian bars. The Round-Up Saloon still offers its daytime dance lessons and turns into a lively club at night. Newcomers like Roy G.’s have become stalwarts.

But it all goes back to the 1970s and the vision of Frank Caven and Charley Hott, who fought through the violence and homophobia and police brutality to provide spaces for Dallas’ gay community.

In 2021, Caven Enterprises sold its holdings to developer Mike Ablon, who wants to build mixed-use towers behind the old buildings. He says those buildings won’t come down, and he’s keeping the tenants, because of the history of the block and its sense of place. He says he recognizes how important it is to Dallas, even as the city changes around it.

His project is on hold until interest rates come down, per the Dallas Voice, but it’s telling that Caven wanted to find a developer who would promise to keep that history intact while working around it. That intent starts in the 1970s, and it comes through today in Bauer’s story. It’s one of the 50 best we’ve ever published, and you can read it here.

Major Prostitution Sting in Northwest Dallas Nets 30. They ranged in age from 21 to 62, and Dallas police scooped them up as part of a sting targeting “people soliciting prostitutes” in northwest Dallas. It follows a similar effort earlier in the month that ended with 29 arrests in the Northwest Patrol Division, home to the city’s “main corridor for sex work.”

Avoid Westbound Interstate 30 This Morning. The incident occurred between Country Club and Bridge Street at the eastern edge of Fort Worth, near Arlington. A driver struck a pedestrian who was apparently on the highway, but officials haven’t provided an official narrative. The westbound lanes are closed while police investigate.

Appeals Court Acquits Woman of Illegal Voting. Crystal Mason is the Tarrant County woman who submitted a provisional ballot in the 2016 election despite being on supervised release for a tax fraud conviction. Her ballot was rejected, and she said she was unaware that she was ineligible to vote. Mason got caught up in the hysteria over voter fraud, and was charged, tried, and convicted of a second degree felony despite maintaining that she didn’t know she couldn’t vote. An appeals court has now agreed with her, overturning her conviction two years after initially upholding it. It was ordered to review the evidence and found nothing that contradicted her prior statements.

Programming Note. The D Magazine offices are closed today, so the content will be flowing a little slower than usual.

I’m sure you’re aware that the United Football League begins its inaugural season Saturday and that your Arlington Renegades, coached by Bob Stoops, are going to do some football things. The always engaging Joel Klatt will be in the booth with Curt Menefee on the Fox broadcast. He was kind enough to pop on a podcast with us and talk about why he’s so cheap that listens to ads on Spotify. We also talked about why his dad wouldn’t let him play football when he was younger. And, of course, what to look for in the game Saturday. Subscribe with your favorite podcatcher, or listen with the player below.

Depending on the poll, Colin Allred is either the 6-point underdog in his U.S. Senate race against incumbent Republican Ted Cruz, or he’s neck and neck. 

The attorney and former NFL player has been here before, he argues. In 2018, he bested incumbent Pete Sessions for the District 32 congressional seat. Sessions had been in Congress since 1997, first in District 5, and moving to the then newly created D-32 in 2003. When Allred kicked off his campaign to represent his hometown, Sessions was one of the most powerful Republican members of Congress, running the National Republican Congressional Committee for two successive campaign seasons and leading the House Rules Committee.

Sessions was expected to win, as usual. (He drew 71 percent of the vote in the 2016 election, and Allred had to escape a runoff election with Lillian Salerno in the 2018 Democratic primary.) Instead, Allred would beat Sessions, 52.2 percent to 45.9 percent.

“You believed in us when all the pundits didn’t, when the experts said it wasn’t possible,” Allred told his watch party gathered at Dallas’ Magnolia Hotel Park Cities that night.

Last May, Allred announced his candidacy for Senate with a video that highlighted some of Cruz’s actions in the past couple of years, including the junior senator’s infamous flight to Cancun while most of the state sat in the cold thanks to power outages from Winter Storm Uri.

“We don’t have to be embarrassed by our senator,” he said. “We can get a new one.”

In the March Democratic primary, he faced eight opponents, including state Sen. Roland Gutierrez and state Rep. Carl Sherman. Allred avoided a runoff with 60 percent of the vote, placing him directly in the path of Cruz in November. The last time the Democrats won a statewide race was 30 years ago, in 1994, when Bob Bullock won the lieutenant governor seat with 61 percent of the vote.

Last week, just days after President Joe Biden told Dallas supporters to “elect Colin your next senator,” Allred sat down for a quick chat about his campaign so far. Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.