Dispatches from Dallas, November 30 edition

Posted on November 30, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth, we have a wide variety of topics: late election news; Lege bills; more bad financial news for the City of Dallas; a Fair Park update; a Dallas County juvenile justice update (it’s bad); public health in Fort Worth; the DMN wags its finger at Elon Musk; how the Bluebonnet Curriculum got passed on NTX votes; Dickies leaves Fort Worth; great news for a local musician. And more!

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Franz Ferdinand, who have a new album coming out in January.

Let’s dive into the turkey week grab bag while you enjoy your leftovers:

  • We’re still getting late election results nationwide, and here’s one from North Texas: Democrat Tina Clinton beat her Republican opponent for Place 9 on the Fifth Court of Appeals. Sometimes it takes a while to count votes!
  • If you were wondering how House Rep David Cook of Mansfield ended up as the front man for the Republicans who are ready to dump Dade Phelan as Speaker, the Texas Tribune has you covered.
  • In crazy bills our North Texas representatives filed for the next Lege session, we have two from Brian Harrison of HD-10 (R-Midlothian). First, he filed a bill to recall our Texas US Senators mid-term, which I somehow don’t think is going to come into play next time Ted Cruz is a national embarrassment. He’d also like to defund any of our public universities that offer LGTBQ studies.
  • KERA tells us how some of our Texas Democrats survived the red wave of 2024.
  • In more bad financial news for the City of Dallas, we’re on the hook to pay off the police and fire pension fund deficit in three years instead of five after the pension system won their case against the city. Now I wonder whether we can sell the money we put into the pension system as funding the police department under Prop U.
  • Mayor Johnson went on Fox News to kiss TFG’s … ring … and support deportation, which is a new stance for our MAGAfying mayor. No official word on any policy changes coming from this yet. The Dallas Morning News also has the story.
  • We have an update on the Fair Park First situation: the Dallas Foundation, a nonprofit with a long-time history of work in the city, will be taking over from the previous operator, the Oak View Group.
  • Three coyotes have been found dead in the Lochwood neighborhood, which isn’t too far from where I live. Two of them died from gunshot wounds.
  • The DMN has an editorial about the Builders of Hope gentrification report that came out recently. Unsurprisingly, they think the report has nailed the problem but they don’t like the idea that City Hall is part of the solution. I think the DMN is half-right; the current City Hall won’t be very helpful. Talk to us again in 2028 when we’ve ditched Mayor Johnson.
  • A West Dallas neighborhood would like its current infrastructure repaired before the city approves any more new developments.
  • This week I learned that in Dallas County only one third of young adults make a living wage. Combined with that gentrification report, we have bad news for young people who want to live in Dallas.
  • We all knew there was something really bad going on in the Dallas County juvenile justice system based on the investigation and the number of people who’d quit. WFAA finally got their hands on the Office of the Inspector General’s report and it’s damning. What Dallas County is doing to these kids is criminal (and there may be prosecutions over it).
  • Dallas and Tarrant Counties may be in trouble over air quality as federal regulations come into effect. TCEQ will decide next month whether we’re in non-attainment status for the new EPA standards. Or, we’ll wait until the new administration undoes those standards and go on as we are. Houston folks, don’t laugh too hard: Harris County is in the same boat.
  • The Tarrant County subcourthouse at Mansfield has a problem: it stinks. Literally, because its foundation settles an inch here and an inch there, rupturing sewage lines, even though it’s only halfway through its expected life. The courthouse is in a Democratic precint, so unsurprisingly the Commissioners’ Court doesn’t want to spend any money to replace it or move it.
  • The US Supreme Court has declined to hear a case that started when McKinney police raided a woman’s home to find a fugitive and tore the place apart.
  • Fort Worth PD is getting a $2.1 million federal grant to help clear their rape kit backlog.
  • Justice works slowly but it does sometimes get there: the last Dallas PD officer facing charges in the George Floyd protests in 2020 has pleaded guilty to assaulting a protestor and will have to give up his Texas peace officer license.
  • In school news, six districts in Tarrant County may be in financial trouble because their property appraisal values are too low. The state relies on accurate appraisal values when it awards funding, so these districts might lose state money because the values are too low. I know that seems crazy; the broke districts are the ones that probably need the money. But here we are nonetheless.
  • You may have heard about the Bluebonnet Curriculum, the new Bible-based curriculum that the State Board of Education just passed. It was passed with North Texas votes. Bud Kennedy of the Star-Telegram tells you how that happened. The teal deer is that despite having a Democratic SBOE rep outgoing and incoming, the outgoing rep had to resign because she was elected to the Legislature. So Greg Abbott handpicked a temporary replacement who voted for the Bluebonnet curriculum.
  • Some public health stories that I’m sure aren’t at all related: Two items from the Star-Telegram on how Tarrant County vaccination rates are down (and one explaining why they’re even writing about the topic). And here’s a third piece about how RSV is sending kids to the ER in Fort Worth.
  • The DMN has an editorial Elon Musk’s judge-shopping, where his terms of service require all cases be filed in Tarrant County or the the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas. Their take is that Musk does this because we let him.
  • If you want to know how the tariffs TFG is telling us he’s going to impose will affect your night out in Dallas, the Dallas Observer has you covered. It’s going to suck, you’re going to eat out less and in more, and you’ll pay more for all your food.
  • In a move that blindsided Fort Worth officials, Dickies, the iconic Fort Worth workwear company, is moving its headquarters to California. Some big questions from the move are whether they’ll maintain naming rights to Dickies Arena and why they moved. The Star-Telegram looks at the financials of parent company VF and how Dickies will be sharing facilities with brand-mate Vans; our rabble-rousing friends at the Barbed Wire claim it has something to do with VF’s corporate ethics and Texas’ anti-DEI climate.
  • Dallas taqueria Mami Coco gets a Texas Monthly profile.
  • This week I learned that Robin Wright is from Dallas in this profile in the Dallas Observer.
  • A new documentary about the influence of GM on the city of Arlington came out on Youtube this month. I didn’t know anything about this piece of Texas history so I’m intrigued.
  • This week I also learned about the Mansfield Philharmonic, a diverse ensemble of classical musicians in the Metroplex suburbs. I need to check them out.
  • And in our last item this week, something to be thankful for: despite a stage-four cancer diagnosis (which turned out to be wrong), local musician Joshua Ray Walker is cancer free. Fantastic.

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    One Response to Dispatches from Dallas, November 30 edition

    1. Wolfgang P. Hirczy de Mino says:
      November 30, 2024 at 11:05 am

      WHERE TO LITIGATE

      “The DMN has an editorial Elon Musk’s judge-shopping, where his terms of service require all cases be filed in Tarrant County or the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas. Their take is that Musk does this because we let him.”

      Comment: There is nothing unusual about such forum selection clauses. They are contractual. If improper legally speaking, this can be challenged once a suit is brought.

      It’s not even “forum shopping” as usually defined, namely as manipulation. The forum is specified ahead of time and the judge can’t be specified by name, only the district/location. Let the lawyers here correct me if I am mistaken.

      In any event, even the real forum-shopping, it’s very common. Professor V. has been railing against forum shopping by conservatives, but liberals do it likewise. Alas, law profs typically lean left and don’t want to acknowledge it, or don’t see it as a problem when their policy preferences are favored by the choice of forum/district/judge. Goose-gander type of dynamic. Who complained that Judge Pitman (W.D. Texas in Austin) heard the offensive litigation against Texas abortion laws?

      An example of tactical forum-shopping: The first-filed case in the Texas Heartbeat MDL litigation (n=14), was filed in Dallas County, then nonsuited when the randomly assigned judge turned out to be a Republican. Then all fourteen (a dozen copy-cat suits) were filed in Travis County on Democratic territory. They were assigned to different district courts until Texas Right to Life went to the MDL Panel to seek consolidation and appointment of an appointed pre-MDL judge [seeking to get a different judge that might be more favorable to them]. The Plaintiffs then suggested their favorite Democratic judge among the ones they had drawn in Austin, but the Judicial MDL Panel snubbed them. It’s against the mores to lobby for a particular assigned MDL pretrial judge, if not against the rules outright. They got Judge David Peeples, and he actually ruled in favor of the abortionists and advocates, but thanks to a recent SCOTX ruling the declaration that the civil enforcement mechanism of S.B.8 is unconstitutional is now in doubt even though that ruling wasn’t appealed because it was interlocutory and couldn’t be appealed. Go figure.

      Wolfgang P. Hirczy de Mino, PhD (Political Science)

      PS: I apologize for posting my comments on the spat involving Chief Wisdom Center Judge Edith Jones vs. Professor Steve Vladeck under the wrong Kuff post last week (one on abortion). Mea culpa.

      If I got something else wrong, by all means, correct me. Motto: Knowledge is good, error-corrected knowledge even better.

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