Blogs

Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway

As mentioned in yesterday’s wrap-up of the big convention center hotel vote, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway made a motion to amend the item right after council member Vonciel Hill’s motion to divide it narrowly failed. Caraway proposed changing the date for final approval of the land purchase from May 28 to either May 21 or May 28.

Dave Neumann said he was OK with the amendment, but he wanted an explanation from Caraway. Mayor Leppert quickly chimed in to explain that the paperwork might be ready in time for the May 21 council briefing, so this thing can get the green light one week ahead of schedule.

Why was Leppert answering for Caraway?

Well, the answer can be found in something else mentioned yesterday -- a tease about a conversation I had with Caraway on Tuesday afternoon. Let’s jump to find out why Caraway’s comments exemplify one of the biggest concerns many of the Friends appear have about the hotel project, which is: Most of the people voting on this issue have no idea what’s going on.

More

Had no idea we were smack dab in the middle of Texas Tourism Week -- but, yup, so says Gov. Haircut, who's sent the missus out to promote the state to the rest of the U.S. and A. with "a mobile, high-tech, interactive exhibit that uses the latest techniques in virtual reality." Says the TravelTex Web site, the exhibit's currently sitting over at Victory Park till tomorrow -- field trip! Because, really, as a native Dallasite, this is how I prefer to experience the rest of the state -- by driving no more than eight minutes, so I can ...

... explore the beautiful Texas coastline on a virtual beach, listen as a holographic cowboy shares songs and stories in the western dome theater, splash your way across the state in a virtual kayaking adventure, and so much more.

A heapin' helpin' of huzzahs and mazel tovs are in order today for two Dallas Observer staffers: Megan Feldman and Alexander Flores. Both are among the finalists in the 13th annual AltWeekly Awards, which will be handed out by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies during the first week of June in Philadelphia. Megan's among the three finalists in the feature writing category for her piece "El Tren de la Muerte," which ran last July. And three of Alex's covers are among those nominated in the design category, including the one pictured above. Incidentally, several of Alex's Observer covers and layouts are also up for an award courtesy the Dallas Society of Visual Communications, which'll hand out its accolades June 7. But they're not in this for the awards, only the exorbitant and wholly nonexistent cash prizes. --Robert Wilonsky

Man, I never thought I'd say this, but I kinda liked Steve Blow's and James Ragland's little dialogue on race this past week in The Dallas Morning News. Of course, the bar there is set pretty low -- at least they weren't writing about their love of Luby's.

I'm not saying I didn't cringe some when reading it. That was, um, mighty white of Blow to apologize on behalf of all white people for the historical wrongs done to black people. Taking the sins of a people on his own shoulders ... there was another guy that did that once, and Blow's not him. (I know plenty of white people who aren't sorry at all, including a few relatives and the state of West Virginia, for instance.)

Still, their exchange, while not exactly loaded with original substance, was much riskier and entertaining than what usually graces The News' Metro page. Risk-taking by columnist, what a concept. More please, News. Give us more. In thanks for the series, Unfair Park would like to offer the boys a little musical send-off. Here you go ... --Patrick Williams

More

Yet another conceptual drawing of a far-off project pushed further back on the calendar.

Last night at 10, WFAA-Channel 8 ran a good story on the growing delays in the Trinity River toll road timeline. According to Mayor Tom Leppert’s own metric for the cost of delays, the toll road price has already ballooned an additional $100 million, the report said. Completion is at least a year behind what Leppert promised during the campaign for last year’s referendum.

Look a little closer, and we see that Leppert’s promises not only were not true but could not have been honest even when he made them -- because everything about the toll road project is premised on an environmental impact statement that won’t be done for another year. And he knew that.

During the campaign, Leppert made the same kind of public vows he is making now concerning the convention hotel: that he has private sidebar assurances and agreements from “experts” and parties to the deal, so, hey, everything is going to proceed quickly toward success. Just trust him.

More

Steiner + Associates

This rendering of Glorypark's about as close as you'll get to the real thing for a long, long while.

Just nine days ago, the new CEO for the Arlington Convention and Visitors Bureau -- Jay Burress, still a senior veep at Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau for another couple of weeks -- told Unfair Park he would do his damnedest to get Tom Hicks' long-proposed Glorypark out of the ditch. "I've seen the plans," he said of Hicks' project, nicknamed "Soul of a New City" and situated next to the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, "and it'll be fantastic, if we can get it underway." Only, not so much: The $510-million project, which was supposed to be within walking distance of Jerryworld, is on hold indefinitely, as Hicks said yesterday he can't scrape up the spare change to build the danged thing.

Which is not only upsetting the locals plenty, but also folks in Liverpool, where last week announced that Hicks would finally build his Liverpool FC soccer team a new $600-million stadium, courtesy Dallas-based HKS. Problem is, Hicks and co-owner George Gillett Jr. are dueling over ownership of the team, and Hicks has had to refinance his initial loan -- to both stave off buyout attempts from Gillett and Dubai International Capital, and to finance the stadium. Saysl Liverpool Supporters Club secretary Les Lawson, "Today's news from Dallas only adds to our concerns because if he can't afford to finance a cheaper development in the USA how could he afford to build a stadium here?" Good question. --Robert Wilonsky

Vonciel Jones Hill

If it weren’t for two members of the city council yesterday, I don’t think the public would ever have known what just happened on that convention hotel deal. It wasn’t the price of the land. It wasn’t the location of the hotel. Those were red herrings. The important issue -- the one the rest of the council didn’t want you to notice especially -- was that the City of Dallas just went into the hotel business.

Thanks to council members Angela Hunt and Vonciel Jones Hill, the real issue of the day was clearly illuminated. Hill was especially eloquent. She pointed out that the mayor and council were doing a kind of sleight-of-hand by jamming the purchase of land for the hotel in with the same vote with the decision to make it a city-owned hotel.

“To own the land is a good idea,” she said. “To own the hotel is a bad idea.”

More

Because, really, what in the wide world of sweating is more Dallas than Inspa's "L.E.D. Sauna Room"?

The New York Times on Sunday reviewed the swanky Inspa -- better known as "A Funhouse Floating in a Korean Spa," located in Queens. And why should that peak Dallasites’ interest, given it's more than a few miles from our aching feet and stiff shoulders.

Because Steve Chon -- the architect and owner of Inspa, who sunk $25 million into the five-story water wonderland -- told The Times he plans to open 19 of these behemoths around the country, the first of which will go right here in Dallas. Which prompted many questions at Unfair Park HQ, some of which were answered this week by Inspa's attorney, Eric Palatnik, who tells us the expansion into downtown Dallas is “part of a larger plan.” And what, precisely, is that plan?

More

Ruth Sharp Altshuler

Now, Ruth Sharp Altshuler for the defense. In this week's subscription-only Chronicle of Philanthropy, Dr. Ken's missus weighs in on behalf of UT Southwestern Medical Center's prez, Dr. Kern Wildenthal, who, as you no doubt recall, has been pro'd and con'd to death in the mag's pages over everything from that list of VIPs to his taste in wine and gifts. She's furious over earlier allegations made by Pablo Eisenberg, a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute, who wrote last month that local media hadn't done enough digging into the doings at UT Southwestern, to which Altshuler responds, his are nothing but "scurrilous insinuations."

More

By now, you know you're the proud future owners of a convention center hotel; the only question left to ask is, would you like a happy ending with that in-room massage? Too soon? Then how about a recap of the day's events, which concluded with 11 council members agreeing to spend your hard-earned without your permission.

Early this morning approximately 100 business and political leaders showed up in support of the hotel, most wearing “YES Convention Center Hotel” stickers, which were passed around by Becky Mayad, Mayor Tom Leppert’s spokesperson during the Trinity River toll road referendum. As Jim noted earlier, former TXU chairman Erle Nye and Sen. Royce West were among the speakers. Other notables included Phillip Jones, president and CEO of the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau; John Crawford, president and CEO of DowntownDallas; and Jan Hart Black, president of the Greater Dallas Chamber and former city manager.

More

Angela Hunt

In a moment, Schutze will be along with something to say about Vonciel Hill -- the other council member "who has some brains," as Jim puts it. But first, some thoughts from Angela Hunt, who also voted against the city getting in the convention center hotel -- which didn't do much good, of course, as 11 of her colleagues gave Mayor Tom just what he wanted. Which is, plain as day on the council's agenda, a "publicly–owned convention center hotel."

"I am very disappointed in the lack of intellectual curiosity from this council and from the mayor," Hunt tells Unfair Park. "We had a single two-hour closed-door meeting in which the issue of public ownership of this hotel was first discussed. And the fact that we, the city, would not simply move forward, but so do with such haste and without any public discourse saddens me and tells me a lot about this mayor and his lack of respect for public process and public input. ...

More

This just in. At this point, it's easier to tell you who voted against the city getting into the convention center hotel business rather than who voted for it: Vonciel Hill and Angela Hunt. (Mitchell Rasansky and Elba Garcia had to recuse themselves, as both own Citigroup stock, turns out.) Everyone else voted yea, yay. Tom Leppert, you, sir, are a winner. More to come shortly from Schutze and Merten, who've been at City Hall all day, lucky bastards. --Robert Wilonsky

All week long, VH1's been running the Sex: The Revolution mini-series, a doc done in conjunction with the Sundance Channel about doin' it through the decades. Noted Dallas blues guitarslinger and occasional but always welcome Dallas Observer contributor Josh Alan Friedman was interviewed for the series -- and though he's yet to appear, Josh certainly qualifies as a sexpert, having formerly been an editor at Screw during its, ah, glory days. Josh is also the so very noted author of When Sex Was Dirty and the just-reissued seminal work Tales of Times Square, the original version of which served as source material for this documentary.

Josh says he will make his debut in tonight's episode, which is about sucking in the '70s. But no matter the length of his appearance -- and it's not the size that matters, right -- there are several lengthy interviews with Josh available, courtesy VH1, on his MySpace page. We've included one, about porn movie theaters in NYC, after the jump. Watch your feet; floor's kinda sticky. And, yes, the guy's kind of everywhere these days -- like, just last week, he joined Krys Boyd on KERA's Think, where the twosome discussed Bruce Jay's little boy's brand-new book, the very must-ready Tell the Truth Until They Bleed: Coming Clean in the Dirty World of Blues and Rock 'N' Roll. Hey now. --Robert Wilonsky

More

Erle Nye, former chairman of the board at TXU

The dynamic this morning at city council, as they debate that city-owned convention center hotel, kind of tells the whole story about how things work in Dallas. Speaking in favor of the hotel was an all-star line-up of business and political leaders, everybody from State Sen. Royce West to former utilities mogul Erle Nye. It also happened to be a cavalcade of every suck-up who stands to make a buck off this deal. The other element is this: an elaborate plan to make sure the minority community is cut in on the deal through "fair share" contracting agreements.

Noting wrong with any of that, but it effectively precludes consideration of the arguments somebody like Mitchell Rasansky would have made, had he not been silenced by a bogus conflict-of-interest allegation: that a city-owned hotel is not in the public interest. In effect, the public ain't even in the room. They will decide this in moments, when they reconvene from a lunch break. --Jim Schutze

The cover of this week's Economist. Oh. Wait.

So, it's ... official? Because, OK, look. For the past few days, stories have circulated that ... um ... Tonessica? ... are kaputs. Been everywhere -- and thanks, New York Daily News, for your morning rumor round-up. Jessica Simpson went on Extra yesterday to deny the stories; her publicist has sent out myriad missives claiming same. Jezebel just figured Simpson cursed herself in that Glamour interview, in which she said of Tony Romo: "This article could come out and Tony and I could be broken up, but he still deserves all the accolades for bringing me back to who I am."

Only now, while the council breaks from its convention center hotel vote, comes the, ah, ultimate confirmation ... or something? "Alan Peppard: Jessica Simpson, Tony Romo break-up confirmed." Courtesy "two people close to Tony and Jess [who] have told me that the the glam couple is over, splitsville, kaput, put a fork in it." Though, really, the fact Dallas' Only Daily kept from using an exclamation point in the headline shows remarkable restraint. So, we're done here? Awesome. Because, no doubt, there's some other song somewhere Tony Romo will slaughter while killing time 'twixt fembot hook-ups. --Robert Wilonsky