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 redistricting; what Dallas city council is up to and facing now that it’s back from its summer holiday; deaths in the Tarrant and Dallas County jails; questions about local ICE conditions; the latest on who’s buying the Dallas Morning News; DART news that isn’t about the Lege; local school district and suburban updates, mostly about lack of money; public health news about COVID, STIs, and heat; the return of King of the Hill; and State Fair news, including the Big Tex Choice semifinalists.
This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Jessie Murph and Rose Betts, brought to me courtesy of the algorithms. Murph is a little rap-oriented for my taste but Betts is a folk-inflected singer-songwriter who is right up my alley. Maybe one or the other of them is up yours!
The biggest news this week is redistricting and the quorum break, which our host is ably covering, so I’m only going to drop a few links of local interest. First, Gromer Jeffers, Jr analyzes the effect of redistricting on Dems in North Texas, specifically the effect on CD 33, currently held by Marc Veasey in Fort Worth. In the new map, CD 33 is in Dallas County and I’d be in it (I live in northeast Dallas). And CD 32, Julie Johnson’s district, formerly held by Colin Allred, moves east into Fort Worth; her home is in CD 24, Beth Van Duyne’s district (which I’m currently zoned into). It’s worth reading if you’re interested in the slicing and dicing going on and Dallas politics.
The Star-Telegram reports that Beto O’Rourke and Joaquin Castro are rallying in Fort Worth on Saturday to support the quorum-breakers. (This is the kind of thing that’s getting Beto’s group Powered by People scrutinized by Ken Paxton) I’ll miss that due to other commitments but I may throw Brother Beto some scratch just to annoy the Attorney General. The other item I recommend, for some historical perspective on quorum-breaking, is Jim Hightower on the Killer Bees. Our institutional memory on the Democratic side does go back to 1979.
In other news:
- Dallas City Council is back in session after its summer break, and council has some business in mind. The five items the Dallas Observer noted: the $7 million budget shortfall; DPD’s relationship with ICE (regular readers will know I think this is why we got our current chief); DEI programming and federal money; zoning reform; and short-term rentals. More about all of those except zoning reform below! Also, enjoy this City Hall roundup from the end of the summer break by Candy’s Dirt.
- Did we mention the short-term rentals? The Dallas Observer has the deets on the latest court ruling on the STR ban, which got swatted down again in court.
- You may remember that along with the terrible Prop U, which requires all our money in Dallas to go to the cops, Dallas residents also voted Prop S into the city charter. It’s the one that requires the city to waive immunity if it’s sued by people who think the city isn’t following the law. The Texas Public Policy Foundation is representing three Dallas citizens who think 133 city ordinances are illegal under the Death Star law. As D Magazine notes, one of the plaintiffs is a newly appointed vice-chair of the Dallas County Republican Party and works for a PAC backed by Dallas HERO funder and local billionaire pest Monty Bennett.
- Speaking of DEI programming and federal money, the City of Fort Worth also faced that dilemma down and decided they’d rather take the money and run. They are instead creating a small business program.
- Part of the motivation behind throwing out the DEI programs is that Fort Worth is broke and facing a $16.7 million deficit even with the federal money. There are some hard choices facing their city council for FY 2026: they’re not capturing all of the increase in property values, property values aren’t increasing as quickly, and state laws may increase business tax exemptions.
- The Robert Roberson case is back in court: Roberson is appealing for a stay of his new execution date. Last month, Ken Paxton asked for the court to set a new execution date for Roberson, who was convicted under discredited “shaken-baby” junk science in 2003 in the death of his two-year-old daughter. Roberson is scheduled to go to the death chamber on October 16.
- Another inmate has died in the Dallas County Jail. 21-year-old Quinnetta Brinkley died of a fentanyl overdose on July 13. She and two other women allegedly got the drug from Daisy Zuniga, who smuggled the drugs into the jail and is now charged with murder. The DMN says the fentanyl wasn’t “detected by the X-ray scanner or during a strip search” which the slightly less decorous KERA article explains was because Zuniga “smuggled fentanyl into the jail in her vagina”.
- Unfortunately we also have to report that another inmate has died in the Tarrant County jail. The inmate was 61 years old and has not been named, nor has a cause of death been released. Pick your report: the DMN, KERA, or the Star-Telegram, and as always note the differences in coverage on jail deaths.
- We also have news about two previous deaths in the jail. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards is still missing three minutes of footage in the death of Chasity Bonner, who died in the jail in May 2024. And the daughter of Kimberly Phillips, who died of starvation and dehydration in May this year, is trying to get answers from the jail about how it happened. Three other deaths since 2020 have been linked to dehydration, but this is the first starvation death. As a reminder, more than 70 inmates have died in the jail’s custody since Bill Waybourn took office as Sherriff in 2017.
- Oops! Tarrant County says a clerk accidentally redacted all the names of donors on the July campaign finance report of Republican Commissioner Manny Ramirez. It has now been fixed and the other campaign reports have been checked to make sure they’re correct. By law, the addresses and other information about donors can be hidden but the names of donors must be made public.
- You may remember that Keller ISD was going to split itself until they figured out they couldn’t, and hired an expensive lawyer to cover the butts of their board earlier this year. The Tarrant County Commissioner’s court is considering hiring the same attorney to defend the Tarrant County District Clerk in a suit to remove the clerk from office for obstruction. It turns out that the attorney has also been chief counsel of the Tarrant County GOP and he’s on the hospital board.
- Dept. of no surprises, item one: As soon as people stopped yelling about Tarrant County GOP Chair Bo French’s bigotry, he doubled down. As far as he’s concerned, the problem is people saying he’s a bigot, not him actually being one.
- Dept. of no surprises, item two: State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione of Southlake announced that he was dropping his reelection bid. Three days later, a conservative news site interviewed a former exotic dancer who said she’d been his mistress for seventeen years and he’d paid for “several abortions for his own personal gain” (though she declined to say more). Capriglione admits to an affair a long time ago but says the rest is untrue. This story got its fifteen minutes and then was forgotten between redistricting and the quorum break.
- Dallas ICE has been holding alleged migrants at its office for days on end instead of sending them on after 12 hours as required by procedure. Apparently the field office doesn’t have sufficient space, beds, running water, reliable air conditioning, or other facilities people in holding need. Local Democratic congressional representatives have asked ICE to investigate; DHS officials are blustering and denying everything.
- I hate that this is news: US Rep. Keith Self (R-McKinney) held a town hall during the Congressional recess and talked to 60 of his constituents, including some Democrats.
- The Dallas Observer asked a local political scientist and a Democratic activist whether a Democrat can beat Ken Paxton in the general for Senator. They’re both optimistic despite Betteridge’s Law.
- Speaking of our Attorney General, the Dallas Observer also has the latest on Paxton’s property shenanigans that have come out as a result of his wife filing for divorce. Apparently they have mortgages in three places (McKinney and two Austin suburbs) and the Paxtons declared on all three that the house was their primary residence, which gives them lower interest rates. This is highly illegal, but we all know consequences don’t apply to Ken Paxton.
- The City of Arlington is facing a $25 million budget deficit and may raise taxes by $0.03 per $100, or $12 and change a month to avoid service cuts. Also in Arlington news: the City Council approved more natural gas wells because the Lege won’t let municipalities ban fracking. And with the end of RAPID, Arlington’s self-driving rideshare, in May, the Arlington Report looks back at the project’s four-year run.
- I promised you at the top of this list that we were going to come back to cooperation with ICE, and here it is: Keller City Council signed up with ICE this week despite protests from locals. Mayor Armin Mizani, who’s running for HD 98, open with the retirement of Giovanni Capriglione (mentioned above), thinks Keller voters will approve and besides, we were already doing what they wanted and we should get the money anyway. Protestors think Mizani is using his local office to kiss the right rings as a stepping stone to the statehouse.
- Here’s a timeline of McKinney’s airport expansion from the 1970s up to now from the DMN.
- Here are a few items about DART, and they have nothing to do with the Lege for once. First, the Fort Worth Report looks at how proposed service cuts will hit the Trinity River Express, which commuters between Fort Worth and Dallas use. Second, KERA did some number crunching and learned that Irving, one of the cities that signed on to getting money back from DART, actually gets more back than it sends to DART in tax. The mayor disagrees. And last, but not least, at the end of July, a fire on the downtown Dallas light rail line shut down services for a week. More than a dozen people were injured including a half dozen who were sent to hospital with minor injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
- Meanwhile, if you’d rather drive, the North Texas Toll Authority increased rates by $0.01 per mile for TollTag users. Folks without a TollTag pay double.
- The Dallas Morning News is really interested in letting Hearst buy it and not at all interested in the Alden Capital bid. D Magazine explains the game theory of the most recent moves in the back and forth. They also cover the DMN’s lousy web traffic.
- In school news across North Texas, we have quite a few stories:
- The latest flip-flop by the White House on school funding means Dallas ISD will get $22 million they thought they’d have to go without.
- I learned this week that the STAAR essay exams are graded by computer. This came up in a DMN article about how a third of the Dallas ISD exams rescored by the state went up. Last year the number was 43%. When the tests are scored a second time, they’re scored by humans.
- Denton ISD faces a shortfall of $15 million for 2025-2026 even with additional state funding from the Lege this year.
- Fort Worth ISD parents are organizing against a possible state takeover. And the Star-Telegram also dives into how parental activism affected school closures in FWISD.
- FWISD is also keeping schools that received a D or F in the recent school ratings open for an extra month next summer to address learning loss.
- Frisco ISD is still dealing with the fallout of the Karmelo Anthony murder case. They’ve been asked to name students at the track meet where the stabbing occurred. The judge in the case issued a gag order and an order of protection for one of the parties. We don’t know who it’s for, but since the victim is white and the accused is Black and the case has been the subject of online controversy, it could be either family.
- Richardson ISD is changing its lunch policy so kids with overdrafts of more than about $25 in the lunchroom get served sun butter and crackers instead of a regular entree. I need to call my board member to complain about this. Yes, other districts do it; yes, the district is broke; no, feed the kids anyway.
- Turning to public health: the Nimbus COVID variant is running through the country but Dallas County is scaling back on vaccinations due to funding cuts. Friends, get vaxxed and get your kids vaxxed. Even not-so-bad COVID sucks and risks long-term impairment. Click through if you’re in Dallas County to find out how to do it.
- We’ve also had our first heat-related death of the season here in Dallas County. And since 2012, the number of kids in the area hospitalized for heat-related illnesses has soared 170%. For those of you trying to stay cool and safe, the DMN explains the criteria for heat advisories and extreme heat warnings.
- Last but not least, Dallas County lost $400 million in economic detriment in 2022. 95% of that money was spent on HIV care and the rest on other STIs. Click through for all the bad news about HIV in Dallas and what we’re not doing to prevent its spread (and the federal money for it that’s going away).
- A Dallas company run by a Bass family member owns more than 11,000 acres in East Texas in Anderson, Houston, and Henderson counties. They’re going to drill into the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer and hope to ship about 16 billion gallons of water every year to other parts of the state, at least until they dry out the aquifer. The locals don’t like this any better than the proposed Marvin Nichols reservoir.
- Bradford William Davis, the Star-Telegram columnist, is going to get himself fired if he keeps writing op-eds like this one: Texas’ Ten Commandments rule shows sharia law is closer than we think. Good for him for doing it anyway.
- In absolutely not related news, the Dallas Observer has updated their timeline on the Gateway Church scandal to include the latest news: they’ve set a trial date for the defamation suit by Cindy Clemshire, the tween girl former pastor Robert Morris abused in the 1980s, against the church and Morris. See you in June 2026.
- Local phone oligopolist AT&T has its primary stock listing on the New York Stock Exchange, but it’s now also listed on the NYSE Texas exchange now. Other names on the Texas exchange you might know: Halliburton, D.R. Horton, and Whirlpool.
- Waymo is coming to Dallas next spring with its driverless rideshare cars. We have enough people on Central driving like nobody’s paying attention to the road as it is, thanks.
- D Magazine says the quiet part out loud in its article about the proposed $15,000 visa bond: that’s going to be a problem for the players and the fans wanting to come to World Cup soccer in North Texas next summer.
- Local chef Kent Rathbun had his smoker stolen and has issued a $12,500 reward for it. Good luck; I hope he finds it soon.
- A survey found out that Texas Ranger fans often leave games early. It’s because the lines are too long and too slow.
- In somewhat related news, this week I learned that the only company making baseball gloves in the US is located in Nocona.
- King of the Hill is back. I’ve never watched it but I may have to give it a chance now that I know it’s loosely based on Richardson, which is right across the city limit from my part of Dallas. Every outlet in the city is anxious to tell you how great it is, but I like this somewhat mixed Dallas Observer review. The D Magazine review is also comprehensive and addresses some missing faces. I knew about Jonathan Joss’s death but I had no idea Tom Petty had been a voice actor on King of the Hill.
- Big Tex sent his Luccheses to the Smithsonian for an exhibit on State Fairs starting this month and lasting through next September. He won’t have to go barefoot at the State Fair this year though: he got a new pair of boots last year.
- And last but not least, the State Fair has also released its shortlist of Big Tex Award Finalists. This year we have fifteen finalists: savory, sweet, and drinks. Check them out at Eater Dallas with photos, or for the short version, try the Dallas Observer’s six-word reviews.