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Mark Melton stands in the eye of a storm, a waiting area outside the 1-1 Justice of the Peace Court, in the South Dallas Government Center, an uninspiring building off Interstate 20. Two other lawyers whip around the room, clutching clipboards and trying to reach about two dozen tenants in the next 20 or so minutes before court is called into session. Two legal assistants sit at a card table, hurrying through paperwork with clients. Melton, a partner at Holland & Knight who specializes in tax law, has the height and build of an edge rusher, one who prefers Maker’s Mark to protein shakes, with a charcoal beard and a fleeing hairline. Today, he’s wearing a tailored navy blue suit with a baby blue tie, a lighter blue dress shirt, and black Oxfords. If the outfit doesn’t make it clear enough, Melton, 46, is perched near a sign that reads, in English and Spanish, “FREE ATTORNEY FOR TENANTS.” 

Sixty-one cases are on this Friday’s eviction docket. Years of data show that without an attorney arguing their case, nearly all of them will lose their apartments in a matter of minutes. The attorneys are here to stop that, if they can. 

“This is a well-oiled machine now,” Melton says, still avoiding the fray. “I think I’ll fuck it up if I jump in.” 

The machine is the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, a team of 10 lawyers and seven support staffers. Housing experts have not been able to find another operation like it in the entire country. Legal Aid works in the same space but is federally funded and far more limited in terms of whom it can serve. Melton started this work with his wife, Lauren, in the first week of the pandemic. It began as a Facebook post to explain how business owners could navigate lockdown. Then it morphed into tenant advocacy and took over their lives.

Four years later, and three years after incorporating the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, Melton spends his time fundraising, educating justices of the peace about housing law, advocating to elected officials, and recruiting more attorneys, doing the work that makes the machine more efficient. Today that means convincing at least one client that she needs help. About half of today’s defendants will not show up at all, which is typical. Maybe they couldn’t find transportation. Maybe they felt the decision had already been made. In his 1-1 Court, Justice of the Peace Thomas Jones will issue immediate eviction judgments on every contested case where the tenant is absent.

With minutes to go, attorney Nichole Harden is trying to get a woman wearing pajama pants and Crocs to sign her retainer for the day, which will allow her to represent the woman pro bono. “I don’t know what’s going to happen if you go up there by yourself,” Harden says. “But I will represent you, and I believe I can get it dismissed.” The landlord filed the eviction under the woman’s middle and last names, which violates state property code. She eventually signs, and Harden wins a dismissal an hour later. 

Melton realized early in the pandemic that, without legal representation, tenants who face eviction were essentially being asked to argue in a language foreign to them. Their reflex too often is to narrate intimate tragedies rather than point out that their landlord didn’t give them enough notice or didn’t deliver the notice in a legal fashion or didn’t file notice with the court using a business name as it is registered with the Secretary of State. Judges need a legal argument, not an emotional one.

When he began, Melton suspected landlords weren’t following the law and that nobody was in court to check them. The first year proved him right. With three attorneys, they litigated 853 cases and won 96 percent of them, which saved taxpayers millions of dollars in support services that would otherwise have gone to evictees. 

“It’s easy to win when you’re right,” Melton says. “And landlords just don’t do it right. Ninety-six percent of the time.”

The city of Dallas once again wants to monetize its sidewalks. Later today, the Dallas City Council will be briefed on a plan to enter into a contract in June with a company that will plant interactive digital kiosks in downtown and other neighborhoods, likely on sidewalks. The vendor would make money from advertising and share the revenue with the city for permission to use Dallas’ right of way.

We’ve been through this before. There are 137 bulbous kiosks presently jutting out into walking paths all over the city, from downtown up to Forest Lane. The City Council unanimously approved them in 2005 and by the next year, then Mayor Laura Miller was complaining about the “giant spaceship[s]” on our public sidewalks. Whoops! Today, 18 years since their installation, some slump and lean. The plastic that covers the ad has turned scratched and cloudy, a decent canvas for quick graffiti. Some of them were placed, as the image above these words shows, right where people walk. The city can’t pull them up until 2026, when the existing contract expires.

I suppose it’s important to note that the kiosks the City Council will learn about today are not exactly like the tubes that we’ve learned to live with. They’re sleeker, about 8 feet tall and 3 feet wide, compared to the 6-foot-tall, 4-foot-deep stubs that don’t do much other than show you an Amazon Prime ad. The new ones will have wifi. They can provide directions and highlight events and other amenities. Some can have EV charging, which might work near parks. The presentation also lists such unbelievably vague and nebulous benefits as, in the city’s words, “limitless innovation” that promises “development of state-of-the-art content and features.”

So they’re like a bunch of really big, static smartphones that we may or may not have to dodge as we’re walking to work. And we’ll have them by the World Cup! And when the World Cup leaves, we’ll still have them.

Since 2006, the city has made $16.7 million from the kiosk program, which sort of sounds like the municipal version of a low-yield savings account. There are many people who don’t think the potential revenue is worth the risk of worsening our already subpar pedestrian infrastructure. Too, the Department of Public Works didn’t ask for public input before putting the matter out to bid. Downtown businesses, already frustrated by the existing obstacle course of kiosks, raised a stink. In February, the City Council ordered public works to pull the bid and hold a couple of listening sessions, which concluded this week.

They did not find much support for the idea.

UNT Students Join Pro-Palestine Demonstrations. A couple hundred students left class on Tuesday and gathered on the lawn outside the University Library, where they called for the school’s foundation to divest any assets tied to Israel or manufacturers supplying weapons to its army. They join students at dozens of other college campuses across the country who are calling for their university’s foundations to act. The peaceful protest ended at about 4 p.m. with no arrests or notable police response. The school says it “recognizes and supports the rights of free speech.”

American Cuts Longer Routes Due to Boeing Delays. Through at least 2025, American Airlines will no longer fly daily to Dublin and Rome out of DFW International Airport, and Hawaii’s Kona International Airport won’t have a direct flight from North Texas during the winter. It’s another example of how airlines are reacting to Boeing’s inability to meet the demand for new 737 Max 8 aircrafts; Southwest had also cut routes in response.

Expect a Headache Out West. If you can, you’ll want to avoid I-820, State Highway 121, and State Highway 183 out near Fort Worth and the Mid Cities. Construction on the North Tarrant Express Capacity Improvement Project began yesterday, and various closures are planned through the weekend.

Your Sports Schedule. The puck drops in Game 5 against the Dallas Stars and the Golden Knights at 6:30 p.m. and the Dallas Mavericks tip off in their Game 5 against the Los Angeles Clippers at 9 p.m. StrongSide will have more.

Today in the Dallas Morning News, Sharon Grigsby writes about something our Bethany Erickson tackled last week. Our headline: “Mayor Eric Johnson’s Revisionist History.” The DMN headline: “Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, We See Your Charade of a Fond Farewell for the City Manager.” A bit prolix for my taste, but that’s not what I want to address.

The mayor is making stuff up. That’s the first thing you need to know. The second thing you need to know is that the DMN recently announced that important stories in the paper will be accompanied by a sidebar of sorts labeled “Why This Story Matters.” From where I sit, this idea is silly. And insulting. Readers don’t need to be told why something matters for the same reason that watchers of Tropic Thunder don’t need to be told why the movie is funny.

Quick aside: I’m not going to actually identify five things to know about “Why It Matters.” That’s another dumb thing the paper has taken to doing recently. The other day, I saw four stories next to each other on the paper’s website that were all titled “5 Things to Know About [Something].”

So anyway. Here’s the way I imagine the explainer sidebar would go if the DMN were brave enough to attach it to Grigsby’s story:

“Why This Story Matters: The mayor of Dallas is an elected official. Lying is bad. When elected officials don’t tell the truth, citizens get hosed. If you pay taxes and elected officials say things that aren’t true, then kittens will be murdered.”

I apologize. I lost the plot there right at the end. Here’s why this blog post doesn’t matter …

Stars Beat Golden Knights. The score was 4-2, with an empty-netter at the end. The series is now tied at two games apiece. From the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Monday marked the third time in franchise history the Knights lost consecutive playoff games at home. They also did so during the 2018 Stanley Cup Final against the Washington Capitals and the 2021 NHL semifinals against the Montreal Canadiens. ‘Two good teams going at it, it’s going to be the little things that will decide it,’ [center William] Karlsson said.” Tomorrow will be a big sports day. The Stars play at 6:30, and the Mavs tip at 9. Get some rest today, folks. Ice your knee. Remember to stretch.

Cartel Members Sentenced for Smuggling $10 Million of Meth. Twelve members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel were sentenced for transporting 200 kilos of liquid methamphetamine from Mexico to Dallas inside the diesel tank of a big rig. They should have used buckets of Los Pollos Hermanos chicken.

Flight Canceled After Pilot Gets Drunk. A Japan Airlines flight from Dallas to Tokyo had to be canceled after a replacement couldn’t be found for a drunken pilot. The flight’s 157 passengers had to be rebooked on other planes with sober pilots.

From the website Deadline: “William Hutchinson, who appeared on the Lifetime series Marrying Millions as the suitor of a woman 40 years younger than him, pleaded guilty today to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl at his Laguna Beach vacation home and was sentenced to 90 days of home confinement in Texas. The Highland Park, Texas, resident, 65, pleaded guilty to a count of misdemeanor sexual battery and was placed on three years of formal probation and ordered to register as a sex offender.”

I checked in with the public information officer at the DA’s office in Orange County. She explained that California has a scale for sex offenders, and that scale will require Hutchinson to register for 10 years. The PIO also told me that the district attorney didn’t prosecute Hutchinson on the felony rape charge because the office lacked sufficient evidence to do so.

For more context, you should read this story we published in 2021 about Hutchinson titled “The End of a Playboy.”

Update (4/30/24): Michelle Simpson Tuegel is a lawyer who represents three women who have civil cases pending against Hutchinson in Dallas County. Those cases are set for trial in November. She issued the following statement, referring to the woman whose complaint in Orange County led to the plea deal yesterday: “I applaud the courage of this survivor, whose bravery in coming forward not only led to a measure of justice for what she went through, but also helped shine a light on the actions of a man who is now a registered sex offender. It is not easy to come forward against a public person and stand in your truth waiting years for a court date, but this survivor’s courage shows the potential impact of every voice.”

Update (5/1/24): Hutchinson’s lawyer, Levi G. McCathern, II, sent the following statement via email: “We are pleased to announce that the Orange County District Attorneys and my client Bill Hutchinson have reached a plea agreement in return for a dismissal of 5 very serious charges. Mr. Hutchinson is pleading guilty to a single misdemeanor, which sentenced him to probation with no jail time and a $150.00 fine. He and his family are relieved to have this matter behind them.”

The mysterious “Project X,” which involves city council members figuring out how to retain or recruit an unnamed pro sports team, is still floating around Dallas City Hall.

We thought this was a settled matter after sports mayor’s big win last week. The City Council unanimously approved a $19 million deal to rehab the old Memorial Auditorium to lure the Dallas Wings from Arlington. But this, apparently, was not Project X. Or there’s a new Project X. Hard to say. Attorneys are involved, and the official discussions are happening in private. (“Executive session” is a real buzzkill.)

The Ad Hoc Committee on Professional Sports Recruitment and Retention will be back in session on Wednesday, and, once again, the only item on the agenda involves discussing “commercial or financial information that the city has received from a business prospect (“Project X”) that the city seeks to have locate, stay or expand in or near the City of Dallas and with which the City is conducting economic development negotiations; and deliberate the offer of a financial or other incentive in connection with Project X.”

Councilmember Paula Blackmon, one of the seven committee members, tells me it is “another project” separate from the Wings. She wouldn’t comment further. Councilmember Jaynie Schultz, another committee member, says, “I honestly don’t know.”

Let’s get to speculating.

Mavs’ Comeback Falls Short, Clippers Even Series. Dallas was on the verge of making one of the biggest comebacks in playoff history, erasing a 31-point deficit late in the fourth quarter. But a Paul George corner three (after really great defense by Derrick Jones Jr.) put the Clippers back on top and that was pretty much that. (No more Sunday 2:30 tipoffs!) Game 5 happens Wednesday in Los Angeles. And yes, that was our own Matt Goodman you briefly saw on the ABC broadcast. More on StrongSide momentarily.

Wyatt Johnston’s OT Goal Gets Stars Back in Business. The 20-year-old became the youngest player in Stars history to score an overtime goal on Saturday night, and it couldn’t have come at a more important time, with Dallas on the verge of falling into a 3-0 hole to Vegas two seasons in a row. More on the game here. The Stars have a chance to tie up the first-round series tonight.

Drier Start to the Week. After a rainy weekend, with flooding all over, we are looking at mid-80s, no precipitation until Wednesday, when an “unsettled pattern” returns. “Unsettled pattern”—so dramatic!

Less than two years removed from its 2022 launch, 97.1 The Freak is apparently no more. According to at least two reports on Friday, the station’s owner, iHeartMedia, announced a format change and several firings on Friday.

Athlon Sports’ Richie Whitt reported that employees were summoned to an emergency meeting to discuss The Freak’s unremarkable ratings over the last 18 months, since the frequency abandoned its former identity as The Eagle and longtime status as a home to heavier rock music. Whitt, citing unnamed sources, was the first to relay the news that staff will be let go and that a “change in direction” is coming. 

Listeners began speculating on social media. A video was posted on a fan-run Facebook page that appears to show the station’s flagship voice, Mike Rhyner, pulling up a yard sign promoting the station and then saying, “Thanks, y’all.”

Rhyner, a Texas Radio Hall of Famer and one of the founders of The Ticket, came out of retirement to join the new station and its “free-flowing” talk format. (He talked about that decision in this episode of EarBurner.) He confirmed to the Dallas Observer that he and the rest of the on-air crew for his afternoon show, The Speakeasy, were fired Friday, including Jeff Cavanaugh and Julie Dobbs. Rhyner also said that staff was told that the station would revert back to its original rock programming and Eagle branding on Monday.

“I know that everyone on our show is gone,” he told the Observer. “I’m not sure about the others, but I would imagine the same thing holds true for them,” referring to the rest of The Freak’s lineup, which included The Downbeat with Mike Sirois, Danny Balis, and Kevin Turner and The Ben and Skin Show with Ben Rogers and Jeff “Skin” Wade. “Like I said, this was a thing where that radio company, especially the branch of it here in Dallas-Fort Worth, is not well equipped to handle us and what we did, and they really weren’t into it at all.”

The station is also the Dallas Mavericks’ radio broadcast partner, with Chuck Cooperstein providing play-by-play. Judging from his tweet this afternoon, tonight’s playoff broadcast will air.

Last July, Ashley Brundage led the first of many rallies in which she called on the city to fund affordable housing in this year’s bond. Her group, the Dallas Housing Coalition, pushed for a $200 million spend. The bond wound up allocating about $70 million for help with financing and infrastructure improvements near affordable housing. Even though it fell short of the more ambitious ask, this is still a significant achievement for housing advocates, if only because the city of Dallas has never viewed a bond program as a way to directly invest in creating more places for people to live.

This month, Brundage was announced as the new leader of the Dallas chapter of Habitat for Humanity, one of the region’s largest homebuilders. She’s spent the last 19 years with United Way, and, for the last 17, was the organization’s executive director of housing stability. That meant, during the pandemic, Brundage helped raise and disburse $40 million of rental assistance that helped people stay in their homes.

Habitat has had a rough go of it in recent months. The former CEO, William Eubanks III, parted ways with the organization after a Dallas Morning News investigation found that his wife earned a $24,000 commission on land purchased by the nonprofit. (Eubanks denied wrongdoing.) Too, the City Plan Commission denied Habitat’s plan to build 30 homes on an old ballfield following pushback from the community.

Brundage sees her role as rebuilding trust with the communities Habitat serves—it owns land in Joppa and Pleasant Grove, and is working in Irving and Kaufman County—and using her knowledge and background to position Habitat as a thought-leader and policy advocate. Too, the organization’s finances are in a much different place than they were in 2018, when the News floated that the organization “might be failing” following years of losses.

Philanthropist Mackenzie Scott, the ex-wife of billionaire Jeff Bezos, gave the organization $9 million in 2022. “That allows me to be able to come in and not feel like we’re in any kind of crisis,” Brundage says, which will allow her to hire her team and create a new strategic plan.

With early voting on the bond ongoing through next Tuesday, April 30, Brundage talked about the need for housing, her vision for Habitat’s Dallas chapter, and how important community involvement is for the organization’s projects. The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity. (Afterward, head here to read our guide to the bond package. It includes details about the housing allotments.)

Roosevelt High Students Shot Off-Campus, School Closed. Dallas ISD says it discovered a “credible threat” directed at Roosevelt High School in Cedar Crest and closed the school for the day. Two high school football players were shot and hospitalized following a drive-by shooting near the Cedar Crest Golf Course yesterday evening. They were riding home with the team’s coach when a car pulled up next to them and started shooting. One player was shot in the arm and the other was hit in the neck, but both are stable and expected to recover.

Tarrant County Commissioner Calls for Federal Investigation Into Jail Deaths. Two people have died following medical emergencies over the last four days while in custody at the Tarrant County Jail, in Fort Worth. Sheriff Bill Waybourn calls the incidents “horrific” while Commissioner Alisa Simmons has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation into conditions at the jail. A 31-year-old man died in a medical facility after being sprayed with pepper spray during a fight with a detention officer. A 42-year-old was found unresponsive in his cell on April 18.

Rain Is Coming This Weekend. Meteorologists expect as much as three inches of rain this weekend, beginning this afternoon. Hail, damaging winds, and possible tornadoes are all in the cards, so keep your eyes on the forecast.