Breaking Dallas News – Page 56 – The Other Side Dallas

December 13, 2020December 14, 2020

Drinks On Brink Zoominar This Tuesday

24 Hour Dallas is holding a Drinks On Brink Zoominar this Tuesday, December 15, 2020.

Join 24HourDallas as they host Drinks On The Brink, a free Zoominar that explores Dallas’ independent bars and how they might navigate the coming months. Guest panelists include Dr. Eric Anthony Johnson of Dallas’ Economic Development office, Stephanie Keller Hudiburg, the Executive Director of the Deep Ellum Foundation, and Jeff Brightwell, a partner at Dot’s Hop House.

You can register for this event at no cost to you here.

Neighborhood pubs, taverns, bars, and saloons have played pivotal roles in United States history. Paul Revere was known to frequent Boston’s Bell In Hand while first President George Washington favored Williamsburg’s Christiana Campbell tavern. The ideas, treaties, and revolutions that have shaped our nation have often been crafted and confirmed with a tip of a glass.

COVID19 and public health issues are concerns, but independent bars, pubs, and restaurants need financial relief they need to weather the pandemic. A major concern is what ideas, treaties, and revolutions are being lost with independent bars being lost to a pandemic.

24 Hour Dallas: Drinks On Brink

This is just the latest effort by the 24 Hour Dallas coalition to bring attention to issues hitting the Dallas service industry the hardest. 24 Hour Dallas had Seize The Night – Carpe Noctem – and race consciousness events in the summer and has existed to assist the Dallas service industry since 2015.

December 13, 2020December 13, 2020

Democrat Audrey Moorehead Arrested For DWI

Dallas County criminal court judge Audrey Moorehead was arrested Tuesday night on a charge of driving under the influence, according to Farmers Branch police records.

About 10:43 p.m., Farmers Branch Police officers were called to the 13500 block of Midway Road. Upon arriving on scene they found a white Cadillac had struck a light pole. Judge Audrey Faye Moorehead was placed under arrest on a DWI charge and taken to the Farmers Branch jail.

Moorehead was released on bond the following day. It has not been determined if Judge Moorehead presided over other criminal cases in the days that followed.

Audrey Moorehead

Moorehead assumed office in Dallas County in 2018. She presides over County Criminal Court 3 and is also listed as member of the Dallas Bar Association Board of Directors.

Moorehead did not face opposition in the 2018 Democratic Party primary, but looks to have insider status. Earlier in the year statewide Democrats nominated Terri Hodge to be a representative of the Democratic Party in the Electoral College.

Hodge had previously served a year in prison for felony tax evasion secondary to bribery.

December 12, 2020December 12, 2020

Lawyer Richard Reynolds Sentenced

Lawyer Richard Reynolds who concealed bribes to officials in the Dallas County Schools system was sentenced this week to six months in prison.

In a June guilty plea, Reynolds admitted he used his law firm to help facilitate and conceal some of the bribe payments made by school bus camera company owner Robert Leonard to Dallas County schools superintendent Rick Sorrells. Leonard and Sorrells are currently serving seven-year terms in federal prison, for their roles in the scheme which involved more than $3 million dollars in bribes and kickbacks.

Dallas Independent School District may have similar issues. The former DISD Chief Internal Auditor stated that there were millions in overcharges and a former employee filed an affidavit stating overcharges were finding their way into the pockets of trustees.

Lawyer Richard Reynolds And DCS

Reynolds had no other connection to the school “system” that provided transportation to multiple school districts in the area.

Dallas County Schools (DCS) was a taxpayer funded school bus transportation government agency. It was founded in 1846 and offered full service and/or supplemental student transportation services to other government entities and localm private, and charter schools in and around Dallas County, Texas. They also served part of Denton County as well. DCS was one of the top student transportation fleets in the nation and operated a fleet of approximately 2,000 buses. They transported more than 75,000 children to and from school safely each day.

December 12, 2020December 12, 2020

Four Friday Night Shootings

There were four unrelated Friday night shootings in approximately twenty-three minutes that Dallas Police responded. The result is two people dead and two more injured.

Friday Night Shootings – A Reflection Of Larger Trend

Dallas has been a hotbed of crime all year long, prior to COVID19 becoming a contributing factor.

Earlier in the year members of City Council cut police overtime for arts and environmental projects despite Dallas’s murder and violent crime rates. Locally Dallas is on pace for more murders this year than last which broke local records.

Dallas Police have had issues staffing the 9-1-1 call center and there have been multiple allegations against Chief Reneé Hall that go unaswered by city officials.

December 10, 2020December 10, 2020

Reneé Hall Runs Away

Reneé Hall runs away from her controversial management of Dallas Police Department after we reported on of two subordinate officers accusing her of an inappropriate relationship with Dominique Alexander.

Despite pledging to serve the remainder of 2020, her resignation was announced earlier today with Lonzo Anderson, appointed Interim Chief of Police starting December 15, 2020.

City officials from the Mayor’s Office and City Manager’s Office continue to avoid questions about her tenure or the most recent allegations.

Reneé Hall Runs Away Again

Hall has been under heavy criticism since it was learned she was not providing proper supervision to officers during the June Gorge Floyd protests and lied about the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge events both at the time and later in official After Action Reports.

Hall’s resignation has led to thirty-six applicants for the Chief of Police position.

City Manager T.C. Broadnax invited the group of seven candidates chosen from a pool of thirty-six applicants from across the U.S. The candidates named finalists are:

Albert Martinez – Director of Security for Dallas Catholic Dioceses/Former DPD Deputy Chief
Avery Moore – Assistant Police Chief, Dallas Police Department
Eddie Garcia – Chief of Police, San Jose, California
Jeff Spivey – Chief of Police, City of Irving, Texas
Malik Aziz – Major, Dallas Police Department
Reuben Ramirez – Deputy Chief, Dallas Police Department
RaShall Brackney – Chief of Police, Charlottesville, Virginia

Interviews between candidates and council members will be pre-recorded and published on the city’s social media and cable TV next week.

An additional fifty-five organizations ranging from police unions to neighborhood nonprofits will participate in stakeholder panel interviews with the candidates beginning December 15, 2020.

Broadnax says he expects to select and appoint the next chief before the end of the year.

Mayor Johnson has recently emphasized public safety including his state of the city address: “We need more robust law enforcement strategies,” Johnson said in his speech at Fair Park, in South Dallas. “The violent crime reduction plan that I asked for last year simply has not worked. … It is my expectation that whoever becomes the next police chief will be accountable to you and will work with you to make our city safer.”

December 10, 2020December 10, 2020

Other Side Dallas Wants You And Your Tips

Other Side Dallas wants you!

Other Side Dallas appreciates its readers, but we want you to continue to help us inform the larger Dallas community about problems within our borders.

We all know Dallas can be a culture of backroom handshakes and certain neighborhoods making policy for their neighbors less well off. Our goal remains to have a debate about these issues and require accountability and transparency from local city, county, and school officials. These issues may be about the Dallas City Council, Dallas Police, or Dallas Independent School District.

Contact Other Side Dallas’ Writing Team

Our writing team uses ProtonMail for secure messaging with those providing information to OSD. Email us at OtherSideDallas [at] protonmail.com. We will get back in touch as soon as we can.

You can provide details about issues you are aware of without fear we will make whistleblowers public. We intend to write about corruption in city hall and force local officials to be accountable to their citizens.

December 9, 2020December 8, 2020

City Fines Impact

The City of Dallas is launching a survey to understand city fines impact on our community and has launched a community survey to better understand their important to residents. They are seeking how fines, imposed fees and financial penalties impact community members.

The survey is part of the City’s efforts to address the problem of fines and fees as a means of revenue. The City of Dallas was selected to join the inaugural class of leaders in the Cities & Counties for Fine and Fee Justice network earlier this year.

The network, established by PolicyLink, the San Francisco Financial Justice Project, and the Fines and Fees Justice Center, was established to unite local places committed to meaningful fine and fee reform, that works better for people and for government.

This work is part of a growing national movement recognizing the disproportionate fines and fees have on people of color and people who are struggling to make ends meet. For residents living on low incomes, a cascade of consequences sets in when they cannot pay: their debt can grow, their driver’s license can be suspended, their credit score goes down, and their employment and economic mobility opportunities are diminished.

The survey seems aimed at helping those who break the law face no consequences and appears to be part of a larger “Get Out Of Jail Free” system that is happening in Dallas and continuing to promote a social justice focus from the City Council rather than protection of the community.

Questions included are below and in some cases do not seem to relate to city fines impact, but they appear to justify larger social justice goals.

The questions above also seem to focus on student debt and car loans – again necessitating the question – does the City of Dallas have fines for purposes of a stick to encourage compliance or are we focused on elimanting any hardship citizens may find.

City Fines Impact Beyond The City Limits

“Since being accepted into the cohort, City staff across multiple departments and external partners have been working diligently to evaluate and assess our current fines and fees structure,” said Chief of Equity and Inclusion Liz Cedillo-Pereira. “Community feedback from the survey is essential and will help us develop a strategy to equitably address fines and fees”

The city fines impact survey is available in English and Spanish and is open to the public until December 18. It can be found here.

In May 2020, the partners announced ten jurisdictions selected to join the network to pursue bold, innovative solutions to reform unjust fines and fees over the course of 18 months. Dallas joins Allegheny County, PA, Chicago, IL, Durham, NC, Philadelphia, PA, Providence, RI, Sacramento, CA, Seattle/King County, WA, Shelby County, TN, and St. Paul, MN.

December 9, 2020December 8, 2020

Risqué Reneé Hall

Risqué Reneé Hall may be the new moniker for outgoing Dallas Police Chief Reneé Hall.

Hall who is about to leave as the embattled police chief of Dallas may have more to answer for than just her lack of leadership and supervision during the Dallas George Floyd protests and the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge debacle. Internal reports at the time showed Hall lied about the events around the bridge event.

Those may be minor issues in comparison.

A year and a half ago there were media rumors about her relationship with Dominique Alexander and the conflict of interest it posed in the Dominique Alexander case. She has often publicly put him out front in an advisory role for the Citizens Police Oversight Board.

Additionally, he brags regularly about his close ties to her. It appears those ties are closer than previously known as two current Dallas Police officers noted Hall and Alexander have been intimate and that the relationship has clouded her judgement.

Alexander has multiple arrests to his credit outside his activism. A year ago when he and Hall are reported to have been involved, Alexander was being arrested on a felony assault charge in a domestic violence case involving his girlfriend.

Alexander faced charges of assault causing serious bodily injury and a misdemeanor assault in the cases.

Alexander was convicted of shaking a 2-year-old baby in 2011. He was sentenced to five years but released on probation shortly after his sentencing. Alexander has also been convicted of theft, making a false police report and evading arrest. He’s also been indicted in Denton County for felony theft.

This is one of the people the police chief chooses to spend time with in both official and unofficial capacities.

Risqué Reneé Hall Continued…?

The behavior in this case calls into question why TC Broadnax is following the same plan as last time.

In the previous search for a new police chief, TC Broadnax used a secret panel to determine who would be selected as Dallas’ new police chief. He is doing the same again – calling into question is he incorporating the assistance of Dominique Alexander or other convicted felons into the process.

Neither Broadnax, nor Jon Fortune, Assistant City Manager for Public Safety, returned emails seeking comment about the police chief’s judgement or these allegations coming from inside the department.

It is clear there is no leadership coming from their offices or Risqué Reneé Hall on the crime rate which is exploding in Dallas where parents are shot on their way to pick up a child from childcare or members of cult groups are allowed to graffiti hate symbols on city parking garages.

December 8, 2020December 8, 2020

Laura Bush – First Lady of Dallas?

The Laura Bush Foundation gave Dallas ISD families a little more to be thankful for. The foundation granted $500,000 to the school district for library materials.

The pre-Thanksgiving break grant allows Dallas ISD to both serve schools hit hard by last year’s tornado and also support schools in South Dallas also.

The donation is meant to help respond to last year’s major disaster. Meanwhile Dallas County and Dallas ISD are still responding to this year’s COVID19 pandemic. The most recent numbers show almost 1700 cases across Dallas ISD.

Laura Bush – Continuing To Lead At Home

The former First Lady has been a regular supporter of Dallas ISD, despite former colleagues at the Texas Education Agency withholding dollars from federal CARES Act funds for local school districts.

December 7, 2020December 7, 2020

School Board Election Gaslighting

This weekend there was more school board election gaslighting. Jim Schutze who is writing for D Magazine disclosed a website: www.choosedisd.org is directing to his D Magazine author page.

This would be innocuous enough, but earlier in the week Schutze had accused Nancy Rodriguez of hurting black and brown children’s ability to find equity because another website (www.choosedallasisd.com) redirected to her page. He said at that time that Rodriguez would not return his messages, but Rodroguez offers different facts.

From her Facebook page: “I cannot tell you on what date I acquired it because I never acquired it. You had your facts wrong on the story about my party affiliation and you appear to have your facts wrong here as well.”

Schutze who has made known his affinity for Rodriguez’s opponent appearsa to be working not as opinion writer, but PR person for the pro-reform movement. Like, the Dallas Morning News, which launched its own attacks againsts against Rodriguez following Schutze’s lead has done scant coverage of the auditor report issues from February or why Marshall avoids responding to questions about his federal referral on the matter.

School Board Election

The school board runoff election is Tuesday, December 8, 2020. The race pits Dustin Marshall – the incumbent – behind Rodriguez who only raised $27000 going into the general election, but who took nearly 28,000 votes to marshall’s 24,775.

While the races are officially nonpartisan, Marshall has received large support from Empower Texans and other hard right interests. The campaign season has been noticably bereft of any serious discussion as to why students are failing in Dallas despite a decade of pro-business reform movement policies.