Back Talk Far North Dallas

Council subcommittee considers a smoking ban in bars, billiard halls

A city council subcommittee is considering expanding the city's current smoking ban from restaurants and workplaces to bars, billiard halls and within 15 feet of entrances to publicly accessible villages, according to the DMN. A majority of the six councilmen on the subcommittee seem to be leaning in favor of the proposal, according to the News story and more comments on its blog.

I have to admit that when the city council first decided to restrict smoking in restaurants and other public places a few years ago, I had my doubts: It seemed like a draconian measure, and it seemed likely to drive business out of Dallas. Today, though, I haven't seen a single study indicating that significant business was lost to the more smoking-friendly suburbs, and the air in most places I go these days is cleaner and clearer.

Open auditions for "Oliver" at the JCC

If you think you can give Katie Holmes and Clay Aiken a run for their money, here's your shot. The JCC is hosting an open casting call for "Oliver" this week. OK, so it's not Broadway, but at least you still get a shot at the limelight.

Auditions will be Tuesday 8-10 p.m., and Wednesday 6:30-10 p.m. in the Zale Auditorium. They ask that you prepare 16 bars from "an upbeat number" (accompanist provided) and "dress to move." There will also be cold readings from the script. For an appointment, just call 214.239.7115.

Don't overlook 10,500-pound Jenny the Elephant in Texas Monthly

If you pay attention to city politics, even halfway, you've probably heard the recent ruckus over Jenny the Elephant in the Dallas Zoo. Rick Wamre blogged about the kerfuffle in July and followed up in August, and Lakewood/East Dallas columnist Jeff Siegel took the opportunity to write about Jenny (and all of the other things he thought the Dallas City Council should be spending its time on) in September's issue.

Jenny received broad news coverage, which included reports by The New York Times and the CBS Evening News, but I think that Preston Hollow resident Skip Hollandsworth told the story best in this month's Texas Monthly. He managed to invoke both humor and empathy as he described the various characters involved in the saga, everyone from Concerned Citizens for Jenny founder Margaret Morin ("a soft-spoken, middle-aged registered nurse from the suburb of Richardson" who is "hardly an animal rights activist") to an in-person plea to the Council from actress Lily Tomlin ("'Her one chance to live in peace,' Tomlin intoned in a serious voice, (not her 'one ringy-dingy' voice)") to Jenny herself. It's a great read with evenhanded coverage.

City budget: So much for the sales tax

The sales tax projections in the city budget, which seemed wildly optimistic in August, apparently are. The city has collected less in sales tax than it budgeted for three months in a row (and a tip o’ the reporting hat to Dave Levinthal at Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper). Sales tax receipts account for about 21.5 percent of city spending.

Levinthal notes that September’s collections were off almost 9 percent; the city has projected a 1.75 percent increase for the fiscal year. He doesn’t detail which other months missed projections, and I haven’t been able to locate month-by-month numbers in the city budget. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there, though, and I will keep looking.

However, in trying to find trends, some numbers from the state comptroller’s office could be useful. They show that Dallas got 8.7 percent more in August 2008 than it got in August 2007, before the stock market collapsed. But after the market meltdown, the city took 1 percent less in October 2008 than it received in October 2007.

Technorati Tags: Dallas city budget,sales tax

Back Talk is moving on Monday

And this is it -- http://www.advocatemag.com/far-north-dallas/blog. It's part of the magazine's switch to a new, updated, and all around spiffier website that debuts on Monday.

The new website includes current and archived issues of the magazine, local photos and videos, and more neighborhood listings (restaurants, businesses, garage sales, and events among them) than I thought humanly possible.

The new blog will have all of the features that the old one had, plus a variety of new things that you asked for. We're adding a users' guide, search function, more streamlined subscription options, top post listings, and an easier interface. We will continue to add requested features throughout the next couple of months, so if you don't see something you think we should have, let us know.

We will also be adding advertising, both to the blog and the website. I can guarantee that we won't have any pop-up or drop-down ads, and that we will add them in as user-friendly a manner as possible. If you're interested in in advertising on the blog or the web site, you can also let us know.

So what do you need to do to make the switch?

Around the web: Home foreclosures, sex pastor, cell phone boarding passes, interview suits

A regular roundup of stuff that wouldn't necessarily make it on the blog, but is worth noting.

• Dallas-Fort Worth home foreclosures set a record in 2008 -- some 50,000, 17 percent more than in 2007. This should give us an idea of how bad the foreclosure problem is in the rest of the country, since everyone keeps telling us that we've been sheltered from the housing crisis. Or, as foreclosure expert George Roddy noted, the market these days is twice as big as it was in the late 1980s, when the old record was set.

• How do you get on national TV? Advocate sex for married couples. That's the publicity path that Grapevine pastor Ed Young chose this week. " "I think our culture, sadly, has taken sex out of context, and we want to put it back in context," says Young. There's some great stuff on the church's web site, too.

• American Airlines is testing cell phone-based boarding passes at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. If you have a cell phone that can download something called a 2-D bar code, you don't have to print a paper pass. The airline's equipment will can the bar code displayed on the phone's screen.

• And, just in time for the recession, an article about the return of the interview suit. Said one expert: "We are back to a time when every company expected both women and men to wear suits and we didn’t have a Casual Friday. They are looking for a sharper style. I recommend a strong suit that says you are collected and ready to work."

Technorati Tags: Dallas home foreclosures,Ed Young,sex,cell phones,boarding passes,interview suit

Free seminar at Natural Grocers

This just in: there will be some freebies at the new Natural Grocers in our neighborhood this weekend. The store is hosting a Gluten-free Food Tasting Fair this Saturday at 10 a.m. There will also be a free lecture about why you should consider eliminating gluten from your diet. No reservations required, you can just show up.

New Mattel toy store now open

If you’ve got some tykes to buy toys for this holiday season, heads up. Mattel has just opened a seasonal outlet near us off Central Expressway and Spring Valley. This is location sells all the top name toys at warehouse prices, and it’s the only Mattel toy store in Dallas. Just make sure to check the website before you go because you can print some coupons to take with you before you shop. 

Easing credit crunch puts the convention center hotel back on track

Good news for fans of the taxpayer-owned downtown convention center hotel, as well as for the pending DISD bond issue: The credit market, at least for public works projects, appears to be easing enough to allow AA-rated and above public entities to obtain financing. A DMN story indicates the city of Dallas intends to close on $253.3 million in water improvement project bonds this week; a few weeks ago, this and just about every other bond project in the country were frozen due to lack of capital or political will or lenders — take your pick. The $550 million convention center hotel, which Mayor Tom Leppert and many city councilmen have vowed to fund in January, requires issuance of municipal revenue bonds to generate the cash, so now that the market is coming back, lack of available funding shouldn't hold back Leppert or the council. I guess we'll see if the May referendum on the project causes the council members any heartburn when it comes time to approve the bonds in January.

This weekend: free jazz concert and play

If your budget is a little tighter than your inner socialite would like it to be, here are a few fun FREE things you can do this weekend in our neighborhood:

This Saturday night at 8 you can catch a free jazz concert courtesy of the U.S. Air Force Jazz Band. They'll be putting on a special performance at Richardson High School. You can pick up your free tickets for the big band-style show at Café Marrakesh, Huffines Chrysler Jeep Dodge, or Brook Mays Music.

Or, you can catch a free performance of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” at UTD. The show runs now through Nov. 22 and there are performances Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 & 9:15 p.m. If you’re not familiar with this production, you can read up on it here.