7 December 25 - 31, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Worst Politician To Receive Emails From Ken Paxton The subject lines of emails from the office of our state’s attorney general (and possibly next U.S. senator) read like a Fox News- branded Madlibs. “Attorney General Ken Paxton Launches Tip Line to Stop Woke State Entities from Allowing Mentally Ill Men to Invade Women’s Spaces,” read a re- cent press release from Paxton’s office. An- other reads “Attorney General Ken Paxton Defeats Repeat Loser Beto O’Rourke in Court for Third Time.” If they weren’t so frivolously cartoonish, they’d almost be iconic. The soon- to-be divorced dad lives in McKinney when he’s not in Austin, so he’s more local than we might want to admit. When he’s not “investigating” SHEIN, he’s making sure you know he’s “investigat- ing” the Discord app because Charlie Kirk’s assassin enjoyed using it. He also finds time to sue everyone from the Biden administra- tion to tech companies Sony and Samsung to — checks notes — gaming apps like Roblox. For all we know, he’s drafting up a subject line for a lawsuit press release with your name on it as you read this. Worst Social Media Follow Influencers Who Call Popular Places “Hidden Gems” Listen, we don’t even need to name any names here, because first, there are so many, and printing pages costs money. And second, if you’re from Dallas (or have even just called it home for more than a few years, really), you’ve already muted the worst offenders on your social media app of choice. You scroll and instinctively groan at a version of “Come with me to check out this hidden dive bar that more people should be talking about,” and it’s literally the long- celebrated, beloved Lakewood Landing. We’re excited to share our home with new- comers, to be sure, but we aren’t interested in being city-splained to by someone with a tiny mic and a CapCut Pro subscription. Worst Idea That’s Only Going to Get Even Worse in 2026 Potentially Moving Dallas City Hall The estimated cost to bring the iconic I.M. Pei-designed building — loved by some, hated by others — ranges from $152 million to $345 million. That’s a pretty hefty range for repairs. Imagine if your plumber gave you an estimate to repair a leak that ranged from $150 to $320. You’d call another plumber, right? The city now has a commit- tee in place to obtain a more accurate esti- mate for fixing years of deferred maintenance. (Here’s a koan for you: If a building is torn down before the mainte- nance is done, was the maintenance de- ferred? Sounds like one long demo to us.) However, the vibe on the City Council seems to be leaning toward finding a new home. Toss in talk of replacing City Hall with an arena for the Mavericks and/or a future casino. Consider the chance that city offices will be relocated to privately owned commer- cial properties and this promises to be the start of the municipal equivalent of a bench- clearing donnybrook at an MLB game. ▼ TECHNOLOGY GETTING BUZZED NORTH TEXAS IS EMBRACING DRONE DELIVERY, BUT IT CAN BE PRETTY ANNOYING. BY EMMA RUBY W hen Jonathan Pace works from his home in Richardson, he pre- fers total silence. No television runs in the background, no serene music plays. It’s just Pace, the sound of his keyboard clacking and the dull static of nothingness. At least, that was the case until a few weeks ago. In early December, Amazon Prime launched its drone delivery service in Rich- ardson. The program allows residents who live within around eight miles of Amazon’s distribution facility to receive packages weighing up to five pounds by drone, and the service is often much faster than a regular prime delivery driver could transport the or- der. In some cases, a drone can deliver a prod- uct within an hour of the order being placed. Pace lives less than a mile from the distri- bution center, and, evidently, his neighbors enjoy the service. So much so that he now finds himself noticing the buzz of drones humming over his home dozens of times a day. He compared the disruption to that of a mosquito buzzing around one’s ear — just annoying enough to wear a person down. “Last Friday, I counted nine that flew over within an hour. I stopped counting af- ter that,” Pace said of the increased drone traffic near him. “You can hear them com- ing, so it’s probably about four or five sec- onds’ worth of sound. So it’s not a drastic sound; it’s more of a consistent, high- pitched noise that happens pretty fre- quently. That’s the annoying part.” And it’s not just the Amazon Prime drones in his neighborhood, either. Last year, the drone delivery service Wing rolled out home deliveries for Walmart in the area. Pace actually thought the service was pretty cool. He used it several times before worrying that the delivery noise, which is a bit louder as the device hovers over a driveway while a product is dropped using a claw-ma- chine type arm, would annoy his neighbors. His wife was more skeptical, though. “She said this is going to become a big headache for everybody,” Pace said. Wing did not respond to the Observer’s re- quest for comment, but a spokesperson for Amazon noted that the company held meet- ings with local HOAs and sought community feedback before launching in Richardson. Pace said he was not aware of those meet- ings. According to Community Impact, a handful of Richardson residents questioned the noise during a City Council meeting in which the body approved the new service. A spokesperson for Amazon said no offi- cial complaints have been logged with the company since the service launched earlier this month. “We’re committed to being good neigh- bors in every community where we operate and serve. Before launching Prime Air in Richardson, we hosted community meetings and attended public hearings to listen to resi- dents’ questions and concerns,” said Steve Kelly, a spokesperson for Amazon, in a state- ment. “We also designed our MK30 drone with noise reduction as a core priority, achieving a nearly 50% reduction in per- ceived volume compared to earlier drone models. We welcome ongoing community di- alogue and encourage Richardson residents to reach out with questions or feedback.” Drones are regulated by the Federal Avia- tion Administration, and North Texas has been a test ground for how the agency plans to oversee drone delivery programs nation- wide. North Texas was designated a key site for the FAA in 2024, when, for the first time, the agency authorized multiple unmanned commercial drone operations to fly within the same airspace. While that initial authorization was for the delivery drone companies Zipline Inter- national and Wing Aviation, Flytrex, which delivers for DoorDash, and Amazon have since joined the fray in various North Texas cities. The result is an unprecedented num- ber of delivery drones zipping across North Texas airspace, although not all of the com- panies serve all areas; most companies serve a several-mile radius surrounding a launch site. Still, one Walmart-partner company, Zipline, recently told Fox 4 that the drones make 1,000 deliveries across North Texas each day and have completed 100,000 deliv- eries since April across the 19 cities where the program is active. Each company has slightly different delivery hours and policies, but for the most part, none of the North Texas deliv- ery services are available during nighttime hours. Pace said he typically starts to hear the deliveries flying by around 8:30 a.m. When a new drone company looks to launch, the FAA requires that they complete an Environmental Assessment, which out- lines the scope of the program and allows for a public feedback period. According to an as- sessment draft provided to the Observer by the FAA, Amazon Prime’s statewide Texas plan anticipated up to 1,000 MK30 drone flights each day from 22 delivery centers across the state. Delivery drones are permit- ted to operate between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. The FAA regulates drone noise, and any de- livery service would also be required to com- ply with local noise ordinances. Pace isn’t accusing any of the service providers in his area of breaking noise regulations; rather, the noise now exists, and that’s distracting enough. “I honestly can’t believe more people aren’t bringing up this issue,” Pace said. “My suspicion is that the technology is so new and not widespread enough that others aren’t getting annoyed yet like I am.” Amazon Amazon launched a drone delivery program in Richardson this month after receiving city and FAA approval.
