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Is Joe Biden in Town?

An alert FBvian who works high atop the Cityplace tower says that a few minutes ago he saw what he believed was Air Force Two headed to Love Field. It was a 757 with the U.S. seal on it. Anyone have intel? Comments are open.

Is The TABC Out of Control?

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is a powerful agency in the state of Texas. They regulate the sales, taxation, importation, manufacturing, transporting, and advertising of alcoholic beverages.

Over the years, I’ve heard some horror stories from bar and restaurant owners. Yesterday, I ran an interview with Rainmaker Restaurant Group owner Michael Costa. He manages Las Colinas Prime and claims that the TABC harasses them to the point of scaring away customers. During a recent raid, Costa claims an agent pulled a gun on one of the cooks in the kitchen because he had a knife in his hands.

Early Sunday morning, officers with the TABC and Fort Worth police raided the Rainbow Lounge, a gay nightclub in Fort Worth. It’s sounds like it was a nasty scene. One patron ended up in the hospital with a brain injury.  Last night witnesses to the ordeal met at Buzzbrews on Lemmon to share stories.

Yow. Zah. I’m having flashbacks to Lee Park in 1971. Where is Stoney Burns when we need him? (Much watch video.) Operators are standing by for your comments.

Leading Off (6/26/09)

1. There was some news and stuff yesterday. DISD approved its budget, the Legislature’s special session may not save funds needed for Dallas road projects, Public Utility Commission officials are scared the grid’s gonna get overloaded if we don’t stop using hair dryers, and the Mavs drafted a French guy, ensuring I will be talking like this for about a week. But all anyone wants to talk about today, let’s admit, are the following two things:

2. Farrah Fawcett (local link: Corpus Christi native) passes.

3. Michael Jackson (local link: songs played in greater DFW area, including at The Ginger Man last night) died, too. Why mention these? Because it just seems like the right thing to do. And we really need the web traffic.

Mayor Tom Says Dallas Is Almost Paradise

In his remarks today at the City Council inaugural ceremonies, Leppert proclaimed Dallas to be better than just about every other place your brain can think of:

“There is no better place to be today than Dallas, Texas.”

I’m not sure if that’s true. I think Vienna (and the 19 other cities on this list) might have something to say about that. But Dallas is pretty sweet. And, of course, so is this Mike Reno-Ann Wilson joint.

How Bad Laws Get Made In Texas, Ctd.

Rep.  Jerry Madden (R., Plano) authored the original bill that Tara Hill complained about on Wednesday. Originally, it was innocuous and uncontroversial. Then, Democrats added amendments that would allow Child Protective Services more leeway to abuse its already substantial power.

Today, Madden asked the governor to veto his own bill. The guv has until Sunday to decide.

Rick Perry and A&M: Hot Rumor Of The Week

The university’s president was fired to make room for the governor. An invitation by his hand-picked Board of Regents to lead Texas A&M would provide Perry with “a gracious exit” (source’s words) in the face of the almost-unanimous withdrawal of support by major GOP donors and Kay Bailey Hutchison’s huge early lead in a potential match-up.

Mayor Leppert Loosens Grip On His Effin Hat

At least, that’s my takeaway from this Rudy Bush post about how the council just authorized more than $500 million in bonds to build the Convention Center Hotel. The staff can now issue the bonds when interest rates become favorable. Which should be soon, according to Hizzoner:

“This is exactly the right time to move forward. We are expecting an upturn in the market…and we are positioned to capture that upturn.”

So we got that goin for us, which is nice.

The Worst Explanation for a Boondoggle Ever

Dave Levinthal has a great item over on the DMN’s City Hall blog about Councilwoman Carolyn Davis explaining her taxpayer-funded trip to Belize. She said today, “Belize has a lot to offer to the city of Dallas, just like Africa.” Awesome. I wonder what Cancun can offer Dallas. Maybe Davis ought to check out Ibiza, too. We need to get some trade going with those guys. (Keep in mind, this is the woman who doesn’t even know the names of the committees on which she sits.)

How Bad Laws Get Made In Texas

This time it is not the lobby’s fault. It is good intentions run amok. Tara Hill examines how a child-abuse law got passed and why it is dangerous.

Democrat Grier Raggio To Challenge Pete Sessions

Not exactly a scoop. It’s been reported by the Burnt Orange Report, the News editorial blog, and even our Park Cities People Overheard blog.  I don’t know Raggio, but the family has been a local Democratic powerhouse for years. However, I do know Sessions’ scorched-earth campaign tactics, so I imagine his opposition research with start with this.

Royal Masset on “The Lost Session”

Longtime Republican political observer Royal Masset is not impressed what he saw with Texas government in this Legislative session.  In the op-ed republished below the jump courtesy of the always-illustrious Quorum Report, he has many keen insights and a few words of sharp advice for his GOP colleagues. I’ll highlight two:

Suburban voters used to be the backbone of the Republican party. They now expect us to govern and help them with things like education, health care and employment.

Talk about substantive ideas of governing. Stop chanting the word “conservative” like a village idiot. The word has lost its meaning.

Read the whole thing: 

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Leading Off (6/16/09)

1. The judge has issued a gag order in the Dallas City Hall public corruption case scheduled to go to trial next week. Which is fine with me: I’m never comfortable with speculation about criminal proceedings. Let the case against former Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill, developer Brian Potashnik, and others play out first. Then we speculate, and we speculate hard.

2. The good news: recently there have been fewer battles between developers wanting to tear down historic buildings and preservationists wanting to save them. The bad news: that’s because developers are holding onto their effing hats.

3. A White Rock Lake lighting plan has been approved to bring to the Park Board. It calls for more lighting in parking lots and piers, and increased lighting along the parts of the trail that run near roads. Nearby residents didn’t want full lighting along the trial, because they feared more people would use the park at night. Me, I wouldn’t feel any safer with keeping part of the trail in the dark, as it just encourages Trey and his “infrared naked night jogging” workout plan.

National Review’s Pick For Texas Attorney General

AG candidate Ted Cruz has friends at NR. First, Mark Hemingway wrote an effusive piece in the May 4th print edition. Then, Jay Nordlinger chipped in with a long and oddly rambling post on the website. Unfortunately, neither one of them can vote for him.

John Carona: Profile In Courage

The Dallas state senator has come into his own. He tops the “best” category in Texas Monthly’s biennial Best and Worst rankings, and for very good reasons. The senator surprised me from the very start (although I shouldn’t have been surprised at all) by opposing his own party’s ham-handed change of Senate rules to pass voter I.D., which he supports but not at the expense of overruling the customary privileges of the minority in the Senate (a move that will come back to haunt the GOP when it becomes the minority).  It’s tough being the lone voice of reason when the mob is screaming. For more on Carona’s excellent performance during the session, read the piece by Paul Burka and Patricia Kilday Hart.

Angela Hunt Wants You to Know the Budget Cuts Are Looming

She also wants your feedback on what should and shouldn’t be cut. My suggestion: Every sixth line item. Only way to make it fair. From Ms. H:

Next year’s City budget (Oct. 2009 - Sept. 2010) is going to require serious budget cuts. I have opposed a tax increase because too many residents and families are struggling right now. I want your input on next year’s budget, and would like you to get involved in the process as soon as possible. Because of the dire state of next year’s budget, the city is holding early meetings to give a budget overview:

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Leading Off (Deleted E-mails Item), Ctd.

Okay, one more, and then let’s stop:

Just wanted to respond to your post on this subject.  I’ve been an email system administrator for years.  This is not as simple as plugging in a 1 Terrabyte drive from Fry’s.

City of Dallas likely has Microsoft Exchange, probably a very current version as a back end. End user clients likely use Microsoft Outlook to connect to it.  Exchange is VERY complicated to set up in a very large organization as Dallas must be.  Exchange is far and away the market share leader in “enterprise class” email servers.  It has many rules about how many users can be on a server, and how large their mailboxes must be. Routine maintenance on servers is very slow, and very dependent on the size of the mailboxes.  Although I have never maintained an Exchange system, I’m somewhat familiar with the process. Other software is not as complicated, and can scale much larger.  As an email admin, I can see wanting to delete at 90 days, particularly if you’re having to do a lot of “repair” to the mail store.  It’s somewhat common even in other mail systems.  Less to maintain, repair, etc.  It is amazing what people email to each other, and how large it gets, how quickly.

However, as a taxpayer, this stinks to high heck!  Gmail for applications (the link posted) is what our company uses now, and may not be able to all the open records/retention requirements of state & federal law.

Leading Off (Deleted E-mails Item), Ctd.

You know, I was mostly kidding about the city of Dallas using Gmail so it wouldn’t have to worry about storing its old e-mails. But this e-mail from a computer-savvy FBvian is making me think I’m not that far off. Warehousing all those e-mails just should be that difficult.

As someone who has worked with computers his entire life, the notion of deleting e-mails (especially government e-mails) is absolutely fraudulent. You mentioned Gmail. It’s a service I am quite familiar with. After 5 years of heavy use, I’m not even above 25% of my usage.  But that is beside the point: it is well known in the IT industry that hard drive space is cheap, cheap, cheap compared to everything else (hence why Gmail just gives it away). I just checked on frys.com, and a 1TB hard drive is $100. That’s ridonkulous! Unless you’re attaching 1,000-slide PowerPoints to every e-mail, that will last forever.

Quite frankly, Google offers these services for cheaper than Dallas is currently paying to host themselves: http://www.google.com/apps/ Why geographically distributed organizations like the city of Dallas aren’t using services like this is mind-boggling. It could easily save the taxpayers tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in IT infrastructure alone. Plus they’d get to keep all their damn e-mails.

Legislature May Have Snuffed Out Smoking Ban

Looks like a Texas-wide smoking ban isn’t going anywhere this legislative session. Thank goodness, at least some state leaders still have their heads screwed on straight.

Rick Perry Entry Found On Dickipedia

Noted blogger, commenter (sigh), and wordsmith Bethany alerts us to the genius of Dickipedia, and the entry on our illustrious governor. Sample quote from the bio:

Leathery and blow-dried, Perry easily lays claim to the title of “Most Bouffant U.S. Governor,” especially now that Rod Blagojevich has officially been barred from holding the office ever again.

Joe Barton Maybe Should Rethink Using Poker Terms To Discuss Important Legislation

Or not. Me, I know poker, and I love incorporating its jargon into my daily life. Nothing more fun (nor more dorky) than working phrases like “re-raise” or “clock” or “rebuy” into your day. But if you’re Joe Barton, and you’re trying to be taken seriously, you don’t want to end up looking silly on Wonkette or YouTube. Therefore, you may want to think about how you use the term “the nuts.”

Allen Gwinn’s Plan to Keep the City on Budget

Allen Gwinn has a suggestion for a referendum. In short: tie city leaders’ salaries to the success or failure of these public projects. Curious.

If CBS Fires David Feherty, I’m Boycotting Two and a Half Men

As Glenn noted over the weekend, we are indeed receiving a bit of attention for something David Feherty wrote in the “print product.” Michael Hiestand has suggested in USA Today that David might lose his job over this thing. To recap, David contributed an essay to our April cover story about George W. Bush moving back to Dallas. In it, he wrote:

From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.

Yesterday David apologized for the remark, which I understand. I’m sure his CBS bosses told him that if he wanted to keep his job, he needed to say he was sorry. And no joke — no matter how funny — is worth losing a job over. But I’d bet that David is most definitely NOT sorry.

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Fewer Voters, And A Prop 1 Phone Blitz

So, somebody said today’s election day. There were no lines at Merriman Park’s Hotchkiss Elementary School at 10 a.m., when my better half and I became the 48th and 49th people to vote there (Precinct 2220). For comparison’s sake, last Nov. 4, I was the 102nd person to vote at the school at 8:30 a.m. Not long afterward this morning, I got a cellphone call from a friend in the commercial real estate industry, downtown variety, urging me to go vote No on Proposition 1. Part of what Mayor Tom Leppert must have meant when he said, “We’re trying to do everything we can to get the vote out.”

Wick Allison Pulls Himself Out …, Ctd.

A meetings-savvy FBvian responds to another commenter about the convention-center hotel fight. And sort of tweaks the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau, which yesterday released a list of future conventions contingent on an attached hotel:

That’s an interesting comment from the poster as it pertains to the Dallas Safari Club, in light of the fact that the Safari Club convention is an international event and is moving to the Dallas Convention Center in 2010 and 2011. The move is not contingent on the hotel being built.

The Dallas Safari Club is not the hunting group mentioned in the latest release from Phillip Jones (describing groups that have committed to Dallas contingent on the building of the hotel), and interestingly, the Dallas Safari Club has been asking for a contract for 2012 at the DCC, but can’t get one.

Wick Allison Pulls Himself Out of the River, Ctd.

A Dallas Market Center-loving FBvian objects to Mayor Leppert’s contention in today’s DMN about Harlan Crow’s motivation in the hotel fight:

The Mayor, at least according to his column, thinks that the market center is a direct competitor with the City of Dallas and the DCVB for conventions and tradeshows. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Mayor clearly needs a quick lesson in the business of tradeshows and conventions. Let me oblige: we are complementary not competitive. The Mayor’s enthusiasm has again outreached his logic.

The market center, now 20% owned by the Crow family by the way, works hard together with the DCVB to attract and maintain tradeshows and conventions. We conduct nine major wholesale markets per year that attract more than 200,000 visitors. These markets take place, by design, across all of the market center buildings because the permanent showrooms are here. This type of trade event could not take place at the convention center.

Our venue for small format trade events and consumer shows is Market Hall, which at 210,000 square feet and 49 years old is not exactly comparable to the 1 million square foot convention center. Market Hall hosts local events such as the Dallas Boat Show or Safari Club—each one important and together drawing several hundred thousand people but hardly an international convention or trade event that could (and should) be hosted by the convention center.

We are proud that we create and manage events that contribute mightily to the local economy (to the tune of about $1 billion). However, the Mayor’s claim that the Dallas Convention Center is somehow in direct competition with the market center is both ill informed and shooting inside the fort. We always appreciate the chance to work with and to educate our local leaders—but he didn’t ask.