Articles for August, 2009
TXU Has Trouble Restructuring Its Debt
An alert FrontBurnervian points us to this NYT DealBook story about TXU’s financial maneuverings. Short version: when KKR took TXU private and formed Energy Future Holdings, it was the largest leveraged buyout ever. That leverage was $44 billion of debt. Now they’d like to restructure it. But some of their lenders aren’t so sure about all that. Is this a big problem for TXU? Naw. Not at all. Right?
Cowboys Stadium Gets Arty
After the jump, you can read about all the new art Jerry Jones is buying for Cowboys Stadium. A laudable move on Jerry’s part. And the advisory board that helped choose the 14 artists certainly is impressive (Michael Auping, chief curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth; Charlie Wylie, the Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art at the DMA; and Howard Rachofsky and Gayle Stoffel). There’s a media tour of the first installations on August 11. Well, unless you’re the New York Times. In that case, you’ve already had the tour.
Dallas Band Gives Me An Excuse To Post the Tales of the Black Freighter Trailer
Tales of the Black Freighter, the comic-within-a-comic that appeared in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ (rightly) celebrated Watchmen, was notably absent from the film adaptation. At least in theaters. It was produced as a separate animated short, and it’s on DVD now — and, actually, has been since late March. Around Christmastime, you can buy a new version of Watchmen with the Black Freighter footage woven in, and I, of course, plan to. What does this have to do with Dallas, you ask? Well, one of the directors of Black Freighter, Daniel DelPurgatorio (great name) is also the man responsible for the striking artwork on the last two albums by the Paper Chase, Now You Are One of Us and Someday This Could All Be Yours, Vol. 1. Why am I telling you now? Because I just found out.
Apocalypse Now, Ctd.
Our DMN delivery person must have read yesterday’s post and decided to fight back. The paper was very late this morning and, this time, lacked the NeighborsGo section. Meantime a whistleblowing FBvian chimes in on the subject, calling The News‘ classified section a “nightmare.” He once spotted a jewelry ad there placed by a “convicted felon” who had more than $1 million in ongoing civil lawsuits over alleged senior-citizen ripoffs, he recalls. When he notified the classified staff of this he says they literally yelled at him to get lost, because the jeweler was paying on time. Then he adds:
Well, a few years later [the jeweler] went to prison and for what? Conning old people out of their savings — selling diamonds and eventually investment jewelry. By the way — the Fort Worth Star-Telegram pulled his ad after one phone call.
Dallas Dentist Offers ‘Cash For Chompers’ Program
Never underestimate the power of a dumb marketing idea. In this case, a Dallas dentist’s said to be getting national attention riffing on the federal “Cash for Clunkers” program with a “Cash for Chompers” offer: Turn in your old false teeth and get a $250 rebate on a new set. Hey; whatever works.
Leading Off (8/7/09)
1. A TABC investigation found fault with the officers responsible for a June raid on a gay bar in Fort Worth that resulted in one man suffering a serious head injury. They were faulted for several things, but mostly for acting like TABC agents. Also, the U.S. attorney’s office told the Star-Telegram it would not conduct a special investigation into the Rainbow Lounge raid, presumably concluding, “Hey, they acted like TABC agents. Whadya want us to do about it?”
2. A 13-year-old girl police thought was 17 was mistakenly held for nearly two weeks in the Dallas County Jail with adult inmates. Police are now trying to determine how they didn’t know she was that young, especially since she claimed to be 14, then 17. Also, I should point out, she was caught stealing clothes and candy. I’d call that a clue.
3. To save money, Dallas will probably reduce its trash pickup schedule to once a week. The person most upset about this? Glenn Arbery.
Cantrell: Dallas County Will Gets Its Stimulus Share
County Commissioner Mike Cantrell kindly takes time to explain how federal dollars are flowing, how Dallas County will fare, and why ProPublica’s and others’ numbers are wrong, at least as far as transportation goes:
Our region continues to work together on transportation projects as evidenced by the Regional Transportation Council and the actions we took regarding the federal stimulus dollars. The RTC is the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for our area. The MPO’s share of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funds for transportation purposes was $44.61 million for the Western Region and $99.29 million for the Eastern Region. Staff of RTC proposed a funding allocation method to help equalize Regional Toll Revenue funding, effectively utilize the ARRA funding, and to provide a way to build projects sooner in both regions.
Because Western RTR funds have not been expended because of legal obstacles, the ARRA funding provided an opportunity to move the Western RTR funds of $158 million to the East, and move Eastern ARRA funds of $99 million and $58 million in gas tax funds to the West. By doing this, there was no change to the commitment on existing projects. In the East, the funds will be 100% RTR funding and the western funds would become federal. This would allow the projects in the east to move more quickly and it resolves the 69/31 eastern/western funding allocation issue.
We continue to work as a region as we deal with these issues to address mobility. I can assure you that Dallas County is not asleep at the wheel and has not been shortchanged.
I know it is difficult to wade through the acronyms, but what the Commish is saying is that it makes no sense to measure Dallas County or Tarrant County or Collin County as discrete units in comparing stimulus dollars, as ProPublica has done. It might be accurate for other parts of the country, but almost all transit projects here are regional, as they have to be. The regional mechanism, i.e., the North Texas Council of Governments, was already in place and is allocating the stimulus money as appropriate to projects already in the works.
How about those Fort Worth, Oak Cliff, and downtown Dallas streetcars, Commissioner? Can we allocate any spillover there?
Will NorthPark Mall Belong to the Caruth Family?
I just stumbled across an interesting fact: in 1965, Ray Nasher built NorthPark on land he leased from W.W. Caruth. Something like that would be a — what — 99-year lease? Does that mean in 2064 (or whenever) when the lease runs out, the Caruth family will own the improvements made to their land? Great excuse to turn on comments.
Update: the answer is now in the comments section. Spoiler alert: the answer is no.
Behind the Scenes at D Magazine (With Apologies to Sam Wyly)
Just had a quick meeting with my boss, the great Glenn Hunter, and something in the corner of his office caught my eye. Atop the pile of business bios was Sam Wyly’s 1,000 Dollars and an Idea, and atop Wyly’s bio was our office mascot (pictured). I shrieked, Hunter shrugged (I think he said “It’s been there a couple of days. Sorry.”).
Now, maybe I was naïve when I decided to leave newspapers for the glamorous world of magazine publishing, but I never thought roaches would be commonplace. Hopefully the roaches won’t follow us to our new digs downtown. That reminds me: Want to intern at D Magazine this fall? Click my name below and send your resume. Previous experience with roaches is not required.
Plano-based Frito-Lay Names Park After Tasty Salty Snack
At least, that’s the plan in Galveston, where county commissioners are trying to change the name of Fort Crockett Park to SunChips Seawall Park at Fort Crockett. Frito-Lay wants to do this because it plans to donate $1 million to enhance the park. A link-sending FBvian says:
Seriously, change a historic name to commemorate a snack chip? I mean, if you’re going to do that, just make it the Cheetos Seawall Park. At last some onomatopoeia.
I don’t see a problem with it. In fact, a suggestion: The DORITOS® COLLISIONS® Cheesy Enchilada and Sour Cream Flavored Tortilla Chips Trinity River Project. Makes me want some, like, right now.
Apocalypse Now; The Joys Of Hassling With The DMN
If The Dallas Morning News wants reasons for its continuing struggles, here are a couple of possibilities. First, despite calls to get on “the list” to receive F/D Luxe–our ZIP code isn’t ritzy enough to get the slick supplement as part of our subscription–the paper hit the driveway this morning F/D Luxe-less. That’s small potatoes, though, compared to our hassles trying to place a display ad for a real-estate property in the DMN classified section recently. First, it literally took days–and countless voice- and e-mails–to reach a warm body who would even take the order. When we did finally reach one, he apologized and said, “You don’t know how bad it is here.” Then, to top things off, it took another two or three weeks of begging to get an invoice e-mailed. Messrs. Decherd and Moroney, is this any way to run a railroad?
Cox Decides To Keep Austin’s American-Statesman
After exploring offers for its Austin American-Statesman, Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises has decided to take the daily paper off the market.
Dallas County Gets Hosed On Stimulus Dollars, Ctd.
In our last installment, we told you how Dallas County is receiving less money than any other metro area in Texas. Now we have this handy chart, courtesy of ProPublic, that shows Dallas County is receiving $117 per capita vs. $181 nationwide, even though our poverty rate is 16.6 percent vs. 13.3 percent nationwide.
The Dallas County Commissioners Court seems to have been asleep at the switch. But then again, they’ve had other things to occupy their minds.
Glenn Hunter, Country-And-Western Enthusiast, Ctd.
After reading our story on Larry McMurtry and Archer City, a book-loving FBvian recalls her own encounter with the Pulitzer Prize-winning author:
[My husband] and I have been to McMurtry’s book stores and enjoyed the trip. We also managed to catch him ambling out of one of the stores and spoke to him. We gave him our biggest grins and hellos, but he ducked his head, mumbled and slunk around the corner. Maybe he thought we were local aliens.
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