6 January 2 - 8, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents announced recently, and current interim City Manager Kimberly Tolbert is on the short list. Both Broadnax and Garcia are in Austin now, working together in the city manager’s office while Big D aims to fill their spots . It’s Never Not Election Season Before you know it, Dallasites will be going back to the polls to pick city council mem- bers. This is especially important thanks to the aforementioned high-profile job open- ings, as well as the introduction of the new charter amendments that require a massive increase to the police force. We know it will look at least a little different after May 3: District 11’s Jaynie Schultz has announced she would not seek re-election, and Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins’ seat and that of Council Member Omar Narvaez will also be open due to term limits. Lingering Questions Over Long- Term Neighborhood Drama Some controversies we were looking for- ward to seeing resolved in 2024 will have to wait until 2025 to be settled — possibly. The battle over Dallas’ near-total ban on short- term rentals reached a dramatic high in 2023 when the city council voted to outlaw Airbnb and VRBO properties in all single- family neighborhoods. Thanks to a lawsuit from local STR owners, the issue has dragged on throughout this year and is now in the hands of the Texas 5th District Court of Appeals, which will likely rule just after the New Year. Dude, Where’s My Robotaxi? Remember those Cruise robotaxis that seemed to be darting around Dallas a good bit in 2023? They disappeared from Texas streets after the company experienced a range of technical and safety problems in other markets. But if you’ve been paying at- tention, especially around downtown lately, the little white and orange Chevy Bolts with a bunch of cameras strapped to them have been puttering around city streets lately after soft-launching a new trial program in June. Will the Stars, Mavericks Get Over the Title Hump? Forget the Cowboys — there are two other pro teams in town that have been contend- ing for championships in recent years. The Dallas Stars went to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2020 and to the Western Conference Fi- nals in each of the past two seasons. Mean- while, the Mavericks enjoyed a remarkable run to the NBA Finals last season. Both teams returned for the 2024–25 seasons with arguably better rosters than the ones that saw success in previous years. Perhaps 2025 will be the year Dallas adds to its tro- phy count. The Next Session Odd-numbered years bring the predictably odd happenings of another Texas Legisla- tive session. The 89th session begins on Jan. 14 and is scheduled to end on June 2, but you might recall that the 88th session resulted in four special sessions that stretched into au- tumn. There’s a good chance those extra ses- sions will be avoided in 2025. The reason Gov. Greg Abbott called them in 2023 was a proposed school voucher program. It just might pass his time around thanks to a num- ber of key primaries that went the gover- nor’s way in 2024. Again, bills regarding the LGBTQIA+ community and school library books will be debated heavily, while Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick takes his battle against intoxi- cating hemp products to the next level. ▼ WEATHER POLAR VORTEXES AND HEAT DOMES THE MOST EXTREME NORTH TEXAS WEATHER DAYS IN 2024. BY ALYSSA FIELDS W hiplash weather is nothing to tried-and-true Texans, who are used to the roller coaster of tem- peratures that rocket us to insufferable highs and catapult us to frigid lows, with the occasional head-spinning 360 in the middle. The weather is notoriously unpredictable here, and sometimes even severe. Almost ev- ery year, the Dallas area will experience the entire spectrum of weather events, from tor- nados to freezes and floods to droughts. Here were the most extreme North Texas weather days in 2024: The Hottest Day: Aug. 6 We had a mild summer in some ways, relatively speaking. Mild still means just above boiling point for us, though. The high- est temperature this summer was 104 de- grees, which isn’t nearly hot enough to cook an egg on the sidewalk but is hot enough to be appropriate for shorts at the office. The Coldest Day: Jan. 15 Dallasites were rightfully traumatized by the freeze of 2021, so when the temperature drops below freezing now, pearls are clutched. A January arctic blast brought less than an inch of snowfall but still managed to shut down roads, schools and society in North Texas. It’s a good thing we have the country’s best meteorologist to guide us through the winter weather. Though the freeze wasn’t as bad as years past, it still stung, and in the words of WFAA’s Pete Delkus via Twitter: “7 p.m. update: Air hurts.” The Windiest Day: May 25 The windiest day of the year culminated in 165 mph tornados that hit the uppermost part of DFW. Four cyclones touched down across Cooke and Denton counties, causing massive destruction across rural towns and killing seven people. “It has been a harrowing week with lives lost, property reduced to rubble and the hopes and dreams of Texas families and small businesses ... crushed by storm after storm,” said Gov. Greg Abbott while visiting Valley View, one of the affected towns. Days later, high winds and rain caused regional power outages that lasted days. Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins signed a declaration of disaster when 322,000 people were left without power from the storms. “The damage itself is not unusual because we do have straight-line winds frequently here in North Texas, but the extent of the damage and the number of the customers affected is unusual,” Lewis Jenkins said during a news conference about the outages. “I’ve been doing this for 14 years, and I don’t remember ever having a multi-day event quite like this one.” The Wettest Day: May 30 Currently experienc- ing a moderate drought, you’d think we wouldn’t get much rain, but you’d be wrong. The year just ending was one of the rainiest in Texas history. Some areas of Dal- las witnessed up to three inches of rainfall in a single day. Bad news for a city that turns into a mini Schlitterbahn at the sight of a light sprinkle. The Day With the Most Hail: March 14 A hail storm that ripped through parts of Den- ton County took no mercy on the windshields of North Texans. Baseball-sized chunks of ice fell from the sky and ravaged roofs in their wake. The storm intensified into a small tor- nado. No fatalities were recorded. Honorable Mention: July 26 Though not extreme weather, it just doesn’t seem right to reel off disasters without mentioning the series of earthquakes that shook the ground downtown in July. The Dallas Morning News reported that the seismic activity was likely caused by oil and gas work. Still, it was pretty crazy. ▼ YEAR IN REVIEW KEEP ON THE SUNNY SIDE THE MOST POSITIVE OBSERVER STORIES OF 2024. BY KELLY DEARMORE E very year, what we call the news con- sists primarily of information that isn’t exactly positive or hopeful. It is what it is. Here at the Observer, we find that pointing out where things are going wrong or where danger might loom is more than a worthy pursuit. For many Americans, though perhaps not the majority of voters, the news has been full of not-so-uplifting stories since the Nov. 5 elections. We thought it would be nice to look back on 2024 and, specifically, point out some of the positive things that we’ve reported on here in the news section. Dallas Is Full of Winners Aside from disastrous periods at both ends of the 2024 calendar for the Dallas Cowboys, the local pro sports landscape enjoyed a re- markable, thrilling year. We stayed on top of it from beginning to end by following the NBA Finals run of the Dallas Mavericks, the repeat trip to the Western Conference Finals by the Dallas Stars and the blockbuster World Cup schedule announcement. Big de- velopments in women’s pro sports took place in 2024, and even though the Texas Rangers didn’t make the playoffs this year, the club did get to visit the White House to celebrate its 2023 World Series title. Affordable Housing for LGBTQ Seniors In June we reported on a new living facility that will help senior citizens in the LGBTQ community find affordable housing that’s close to services and medical facilities. From our article: Oak Lawn Place will have 84, high-qual- ity rental units for adults 55 and older, in an environment also intended to support the LGBTQIA+ community. The apartments are available to tenants of any sexual orienta- tion, but the people behind the project hope to make welcoming place for LGBTQIA+ residents there through community art and various programs. The apartments will serve residents who earn from 30% to 60% of the area’s median income. More than half of the units are reserved for people making below 50% of the median income. Don’t Look Directly At It! Remember that total solar eclipse in April? Yeah, that one! We had a really clear view of it from Dallas, and it ended up being one of the events that everyone could agree was pretty cool. Three Decades of Radio Gold In January, local sports radio titan 1310 The Ticket celebrated its 30th birthday. The sta- tion, which mixes a bit of sports talk with its goofy guy talk and pop culture discussion, has racked up massive ratings and turned many of its on-air talent into local super- stars. Also in 2024, former Ticket personali- Unfair Park from p4 Kim George In 2024, North Texas had extreme weather ranging from floods to tornadoes to extreme heat waves.
