Dallas Blog

Abstinence-only sex education doesn't work. You know it. Bristol Palin knows it. Shoot, anyone who has ever been or met a teenager knows that telling them to "just say no" is the best and possibly only way to get them to says yes, yes, YES!

Still, it's nice that the folks at the Texas Freedom Network, a group that aims to counter the radical religious right, went to all the trouble to come up with their most recent report, Just Say Don't Know: Sexuality Education in Texas Public Schools. Drs. David Wiley and Kelly Wilson at Texas State University surveyed the state's public school districts to find out how the schools are meeting state mandates for teaching teens about sexuality. So, how are we doing?

Let's see: Ninety-four percent of districts provide abstinence-only information, and 2.3 percent simply ignore the state requirement altogether. Such information as is provided is often inaccurate, misleading and includes religious indoctrination. (One official in a rural district told the report's authors that his school didn't need to teach about human sexuality, because his farm-bred students can learn all they need to know by from their farm animals. We presume he meant by watching them.)

Oh, and Texas ranks third-highest in teen pregnancy rates in the nation. Surprise!

The report is long -- infuriating in parts, hilarious in others. Best of all, some locals who provide teaching materials to 150 districts statewide get a special shout-out:

If you haven't carefully checked the fine print in the city's proposed high-crime apartment ordinance, which the Dallas City Council will take up today, you might have missed this little gem: Apartment owners whose properties become too crime-ridden according to the city's calculations will be required to collect credit reports on future tenants and make those reports available on demand to the cops. Apparently, City Hall has found there's a correlation between credit-worthiness and crime. Unfortunately, it looks like the city has it backward. Bernie Madoff, for example, probably had a way better credit score than anyone forced to rent in one of Dallas' more dangerous apartment houses.

Kathy Carlton, director of government affairs for the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas, knew exactly what we were talking about when we called to ask about the curious credit-report thingy. "We had a lot of questions about that, and police tell us they are not going to be looking at [the credit reports] but want them to be done," she says. Yeah, we didn't buy that either, and Carlton didn't sound too persuaded herself, but as she points out, it's "a fine line we walk" these days trying to balance individual privacy with security. There's much more in this week's paper version of Unfair Park.

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

In this week's paper version of Unfair Park, which isn't yet online, I write a defense of KDFW-Channel 4 reporter Rebecca Aguilar, who was suspended last week after her controversial interview with James Walton, a West Dallas businessman who shot and killed two men breaking into his machine shop/home in separate incidents in the past month.

In my Buzz column, I defend Aguilar, who I write was just doing her job, asking tough questions of an unlucky man thrust into the spotlight. I now have a confession to make. I was incredibly drunk at the time and didn't know what I was saying. I hereby take it all back. Incidentally, my change of heart has nothing to do with the text message I received from Aguilar this morning telling me that she had been interviewed by Ed "Uncle Barky" Bark for his blog. This message came after our two off-the-record conversations Tuesday and her promises that'd she'd call me -- the first reporter she had spoken to at length, she said -- if she decided to talk.

Whew. We just spent a couple of hours reading the 166-page indictment from the feds' investigation into alleged bribery and extortion at City Hall, charges concerning a federal low-income housing program and other tax-supported real-estate doings. Thought we'd try to spare all you people with real jobs the trouble or reading it yourselves, though you really should check it out. It's a tough slog, but the payoff is well worth the effort. Sort of like reading a Faulkner novel.

For now here's what you need to know to sound knowledgeable around the ol' water cooler: The indictment essentially alleges that former city council member Don Hill sat at the center of a conspiracy to levy a street tax on developer Brian Potashnik's Southwest Housing Development Co., a tax Potashnik more or less willingly paid.

All of which leads us to two conclusions. First, we owe the feds, whom we've berated for taking so damn long to conclude its investigation, a huge apology. Good things come to those who wait. Sorry, guys, we're an impatient bunch in the press. Second, we are just heartsick that Hill didn't manage to pull off his run for mayor this year. Having a sitting mayor face this doozy of an indictment for the next several months or years would have provided us more entertainment than an Xbox, a Slinky, a case of Silly Putty and a bag of weed combined.

In this week's Buzz, which should appear online shortly, we take a brief look of some of the "truthy" -- i.e. bullshit -- arguments being made by proponents of the Trinity toll road. Let's cut through the crap and get some hard facts, Buzz suggests: If voters reject a highway between the levees come November, what will that really mean for cleaning up congestion in the Mixmaster downtown and for the new fancy-pants suspension bridge at Woodall Rodgers? And who can you trust to give you truthful answers?

Buzz turned to the Texas Department of Transportation, which -- ostensibly, at least -- has the facts and nothing but. Turns out we weren't alone. Council member Angela Hunt, leader of the anti-toll road folks, was asking TxDOT many of the same questions, so the agency shared her answers with us. How nice it is to have an elected representative who's willing to build her politics on objective information -- or at least as close as you're likely to get in this fight. Maybe The Dallas Morning News should consider hiring her.

So, how do you take a candidate who has lived only a short time in a city, who has never held elected office there and is virtually unknown and get him to the top of the pack in the first round of voting for mayor? That’s what I wanted to know when Carol Reed, political consultant for candidate Tom Leppert, called me back yesterday.

“Magic,” she said.

Hey, I’m no fool. I work for the Dallas Observer...um...anyway, I’m no fool. I know how to ask a tough follow-up. “Really?, ” I asked.

“I got out my magic wand...and poof,” she replied.

If only that were so.

Well, thank you, Steve Blow, for clearing up why I shouldn’t sign the petition calling for a vote on what sort of road I want along the Trinity River. It’s because I’m far too dumb to have a say in how the city spends my money on the Trinity project. And it’s not just me. You, Mr. and Mrs. Dallas Voter, are too dumb too.

In case you missed it -- and since Blow writes for The Dallas Morning News, you probably did -- The Man from Sunnyvale has this stark warning against signing the Trinity petition being circulated outside polling places:

Beware. Those pushing the petition will undoubtedly use the wonderfully democratic line: “Why not let voters decide?”

That clever appeal absolves you of actually knowing anything about the issues. After all, you’re just supporting democracy!

Right, because it’s inconceivable that you could both know something about the issue and still be opposed to a high-speed, limited-access toll road running through what we big dummies thought was going to be a park along the river when we dumbly approved the Trinity project in 1998.

Cynthia Magnuson at the Department of Justice just e-mailed us a copy of the consent decree regarding the city of Dallas' violations of the Clean Water Act, which contains a few more specifics than the press release mentioned below. We'll read it a little more closely tonight (wow, what an astoundingly exciting life this has become), but here are a few of the details concerning the construction of the two new wetlands areas:

The Pavaho Storm Water Wetland, which will be a 60-plus-acre area along the Trinity River downstream of Sylvan Avenue, will cost the city no less than $675,000. The feds have told the city to "create habitat for wetland flora and fauna, including habitat that can be maintained during dry cycles." Same goes for the Zoo Storm Water Wetland, which will run upwards of $525,000.

For every day the city doesn't pay the $800,000 it now owes the federal treasury in civil penalties, it will have to pay the government $1,000 per day. It doesn't say, or I didn't see where it does, when the city has to fork over the cash. Also, there are significant penalties that increase exponentially if Dallas falls into noncompliance with the consent decree; for instance, for every missed inspection of a fueling or vehicle maintenance operation facility, the city owes $400, and should it happen more than 25 times, it bumps to $1,000 for every missed inspection. And should the city fail to construct the wetlands, it will owe about $150,000 for each, plus other penalties. So it's in the city's best interest to get cracking, or else it'll start paying. More than the $3.5 mil it owes already, that is. --Robert Wilonsky

In March we reported that the city was being investigated by the Department of Justice for violating the Clean Water Act by illegally dumping pollution into the city's stormwater system. Today, the DOJ and Environmental Protection Agency delivered their punishment: Dallas will be spending more than $3.5 million "in a comprehensive effort" to make sure it stops polluting our water, some three years after Environmental Conservation Organization, a locally based nonprofit run by James B. Riley Jr., filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the city was violating federal laws. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas, in December 2003; according to two sources interviewed by the Observer in March, it got the feds' attention, and in February 2004 the EPA issued an order claiming the city had failed to properly tend to its stormwater system. So, according to the joint release sent out today by the DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division and the EPA:

"The settlement requires the City to have at least 36 people working in the City's stormwater management section, a 25 percent increase over the number of people on staff when EPA issued its order. The consent decree also requires the City to inspect at least 500 stormwater discharge pipes per year, 500 industrial facilities each year and large construction sites every two weeks. Pursuant to the settlement, the City will prepare a formal environmental management system for 12 city-run facilities, including the city's service centers, and then have a third-party auditor review the management systems. EPA plans to conduct a full audit of the stormwater system within the next one to three years."

The city will also pay for the construction of two wetland areas: One will be a 60-plus-acre area along the Trinity River, downstream of Sylvan Avenue; the second will be smaller and run along Cedar Creek near the Dallas Zoo, where ECO alleged animal waste was being dumped directly from the animal holding areas into the city's stormwater system. The city also has to pony up $800,000, which a spokeswoman for the DOJ says will be paid to the federal treasury. --Robert Wilonsky