Back Talk Lakewood/East Dallas

Need for neighborhood host families

I recently received an e-mail from a neighborhood parent about the AFS program for foreign exchange students. They're now lining up families to host these students for the next school year.
You don't have to be parents to host a student--in fact, couples and singles are also eligible.
Students arrive in mid-August and leave the following June. Hosts provide a bed (a shared room is OK), meals, and rides to school. Most students attend your neighborhood public school, and they're given their own spending money and health insurance.
I've personally never participated in something up this alley, but it sounds like it could be a fun way to share a bit of homeland culture with someone from abroad--and perhaps pick up a foreign language in the process.
If hosting a student is something you might be up for, just contact Diane Soto via e-mail or at 1.866.237.8721.

Link to silly Texas laws

Did you know it's illegal in Texas to take more than three sips of beer while standing? It's one of many unusual, outdated or just plain stupid laws we have in place. Learn about our state and city's most ridiculous laws via this slide show on the CBS site.

Free, indefinite handicapped parking at city meters to be revoked under a proposed Dallas council ordinance

Say what you will about the Morning News (and some of you occasionally have a lot to say), but I think Dave Levinthal — one of the paper's city hall reporters — does a good job of bringing out some of the important but mundane discussions that councilmen undertake to try and make the city a better place to live. Now that's not to say that they don't come up with some dopey ideas, but you can't blame Levinthal for that....

Anyway, there's a story in the DMN about a council committee considering whether to revoke the current privilege drivers with handicapped stickers have to park indefinitely in front of Dallas parking meters, presumably without paying the meter fee every hour. The stated reasons, according to councilmen studying the issue: It's one thing to let cars with handicapped stickers park at a meter occasionally, but all day? And there do seem to be an awful lot of bogus-looking "handicapped" drivers with stickers out on the streets.

City officials narrowly avoid criminal prosecution after trying to keep Dallas Stars jerseys

Now here's a conflict of interest issue you don't see every day: Cedar Park city officials won't be prosecuted for accepting Dallas Stars jerseys from Hicks Sports Marketing (special note" check out Hicks' website's self-reference to himself as "one of the premiere sports owners in the world") to promote the Stars' new AHL team in the city. Cedar Park is a city near Austin; the city is kicking in $43 million to help build an arena for the new Stars affiliate. Here's the real clincher: Knowing full well that the value of a hockey jersey far exceeded the $50-gifts-to-public-officials-limit law set by Texas, the Cedar Park city council passed an ordinance allowing themselves to accept gifts valued up to $250, only to have their ordinance snuffed in favor of the state law. Passing an ordinance to allow themselves to accept hockey jerseys ... now that took an amazing amount of courage, for lack of a better term, that I haven't seen anyone here in Dallas try. What is it about politicians: When people are elected, why do so many of them seem to lose track of why they supposedly wanted to be public servants in the first place? Anyway, let's hope no one here gets any ideas ...

The Belmont and Bennett area is being reshaped by demolition and a 465-unit apartment project

If you've driven by Bennett and Belmont lately on your way to Knox Henderson or somewhere else, you've noticed the neighborhood-changing demolition and construction going on. Steve Brown reports in today's DMN that portions of four blocks there have been mowed down for construction of a new four-story apartment project called Belmont. The project will have 465 units and is projecting rents of $1.30 per square foot ($1,300 for a 1,000-square-foot unit), with an opening in summer 2009. "As we start paying $4 per gallon for gasoline, it's more of an issue to have a close-in location," says a spokesman for the developer, UDR Inc.

James Fantroy stands up for his 'integrity' and accepts prison time rather than apologizing for stealing

Spend time in prison or admit you stole more than $20,000 from a college (you've already been convicted of the crime, and the evidence was pretty overwhelming): What would you do? Former Dallas city councilman James Fantroy decided to "do the time" instead of admit the crime, according to the DMN, saying: "I've said from day one, 'not guilty,'" later comparing his stand to Dr. Martin Luther King's tribulations and saying he didn't want to sacrifice the integrity he established during his public service career.

Fantroy, a four-term councilman, was convicted in February of stealing from Paul Quinn College. Prosecutors convicted him of pocketing more than $20,000 by writing checks from a college development fund to himself and relatives/friends for work they didn't do. When caught, he attempted to return the money, but didn't repay it all even though he had just sold an apartment complex for $300,000.

Last week, Fantroy told U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade prior to sentencing and while asking for leniency that "I probably have three months left. Kidney cancer, in my condition, there's nothing they can do about it." Whether that plea had anything to do with the judge's offer of prison or apology, who knows? But Fantroy will also serve 180 days of home confinement and has been ordered to repay $17,000 in restitution. Good thing his council term ended well before the jockeying on the convention center hotel begins...

Dallas residential burglaries on the rise just as the city budget shrinks: A recipe for disaster?

If it's summer in Texas, you can be assured three things will happen: The Texas Rangers will fold, it will be hot, and crime will rise. Well, the Rangers are hanging in there, but it's already hot, and crime is on the way up — way up, unfortunately, if the latest crime stats from Dallas police are to be believed. Here in our neighborhoods, residential burglaries were up 6% and business burglaries were up 37% over last year, according to a story in the DMN today. This comes despite more sophisticated crime tracking by police and, of course, Mayor Leppert's brilliant move to rescind the Verified Response policy keeping police from chasing their tails on false alarms for businesses.

Thanks to that change, which now results in a strapped police department forced to respond to thousands of false business alarms each year instead of chasing down real crimes, along with the city's ever-present shortage of officers (500 officers short of the 3 per 1,000 residents ratio the city has targeted) and tough economic times, the bad guys seem to be more plentiful and more desperate, and the police are harder to find.

Couple that with dwindling sales tax collections and a shortage in city budget funds, and we have all of the makings for a pretty stressful summer and fall — and that's not even taking into account all of the mud-slinging that's bound to occur as part of the national election cycle. Our council reps have demonstrated dexterity in spending our money lately (see: $500 million taxpayer subsidized hotel convention center owned by the city), but we all know it's easier and more fun to spend money than save it, so let's hope they have some Kevlar helmets downtown for the upcoming budget season. And let's hope crime doesn't increase so much we're going to need those helmets ourselves.

Bill Clinton makes a phone call

Delores Serroka, who has been reading the Advocate as long as we have had one, is a Hillary Clinton delegate to this weekend's Democratic state convention in Austin. So when she was told to wait by the phone at 4 p.m. Friday for a conference call with other Clinton delegates, she figured it was another one of those pre-recorded pep talks from someone in the campaign.

Turns out it was The Husband himself.

Memorial Day music: Amazing Grace

Who better than Willie Nelson to put today's holiday in perspective? This version comes courtesy of Neckywoudje at YouTube. It's a 2007 performance in Amsterdam, and two things, besides Willie, stand out: The Dutch audience singing harmony in English, and Dallas' Mickey Raphael, one of my favorite harp players.

 

Technorati Tags: Amazing Grace,Memorial Day,Willie Nelson,Mickey Raphael

The history of Dallas and how our city developed, 100 years after the Great Flood of 1908

Ever wondered just why it is the Trinity looks the way it does downtown or who came up with the idea to have a White Rock Lake Park in the first place? The Morning News published an interesting historical look at the development of Dallas after what is now known as the great flood of 1908. Among the things you'll find out by reading the story is why Central Expressway goes north but not south (a dispute over land prices with the railroads), how Union Station came to centralize Dallas' rail service, and who came up with the designs for Turtle Creek Boulevard and Stemmons Corridor. It's an informative look at how things came to be the way they are here in Dallas.