News from the Lone Star State

[TexasStooge]

Independents will appear on November ballot

AUSTIN, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) — Maverick candidates for governor Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn got the news they'd been waiting for Thursday—that they each collected enough voter signatures to make the November election ballot.

The announcement by Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams sets up a historic four-way race for the fall election with the two independents, Republican Gov. Rick Perry and Democrat Chris Bell.

The last independent candidate elected Texas governor was Sam Houston in 1859.

Both Strayhorn and Friedman turned in far more petition names than the 45,540 required by the May 11 deadline.

The signatures had to be from registered Texas voters who did not cast ballots in the Republican or Democratic primaries this spring. Strayhorn submitted some 223,000 signatures, and Friedman submitted 169,574.

Both campaigns acknowledged some signatures probably wouldn't hold up during verification but predicted they would have enough to make the ballot. Those signing the independents' petitions could only sign for one of the two candidates.

The Texas Secretary of State's Office began making final checks of the signatures Monday after the petition names were entered into an electronic database by the private firm TELA Technologies.

State election officials cross-checked to make sure none were duplicated on both petitions. They also checked to see if the names are on voter registration rolls and determined whether the voters cast primary ballots.

Earlier this year, Strayhorn sued the secretary of state claiming that his plan for examining the signatures individually was discriminatory. Strayhorn's campaign wanted state election officials to do a faster statistical sampling of signatures, in which only a portion of the total names would have to be scrutinized.

But federal Judge Lee Yeakel rejected that request and said the state's method for examining the petitions was reasonable and not discriminatory.

All along, Strayhorn's campaign criticized Williams, who was appointed secretary of state by Perry, saying he was showing political favoritism toward the governor and that he should be replaced. Williams kept contending he was treating all candidates equally.

[TexasStooge]

San Antonio's population tops Dallas

Houston still #1 in Texas

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) — It's cowboys over sunbathers, the Alamo over that "world-famous" zoo and the Spurs over the Chargers.

Population estimates released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau show San Antonio is now larger than San Diego—by just 969 people—and has leapfrogged to seventh on the list of the 10 largest U.S. cities. San Antonio's overtaking of San Diego was the only change among the top 10, the figures show.

San Antonio's population of 1,256,509 leaves it far behind Houston, the fourth-largest city in the nation and home to 2,016,582. Dallas is in ninth place with 1,213,825 people.

But the city-population estimates for July 1, 2005, are just that. Firmer figures won't be out until the 2010 Census, considered a complete count of the U.S. population.

As far as metropolitan areas go, San Antonio's is way down the list at No. 29, with Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Diego all ahead of it.

Still, said Texas state demographer Steve Murdock, "San Antonio has the economy to support the growth and the physical space to offer expansion."

San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger said the city's growth was a double-edged sword.

"It's a good problem to have, but it's a problem," he said. "Getting bigger is not as much of a challenge as getting better."

He said the city is falling behind on the amount of green space it offers, has to work to maintain social services and education, and is concerned about other urban problems.

On the upside, Joe Krier, president and chief executive of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said being one of only a handful of cities with more than 1 million people helps lure businesses.

"The good news of it is, it gives increased attention to our city when we are selling the city ... when we are visiting with people we want to move here," Krier said.

He noted that San Antonio has never really been a manufacturing city but nevertheless has attracted a Toyota plant, set to open this year, and the thousands of jobs that come with it.

Barbara Johnson, president of the San Antonio Conservation Society, said the need for bigger and better infrastructure can encroach on history and amenities like parks.

"We know that growth is inevitable," she said. "It's how we manage that growth so we don't look like every other city in America."

San Antonio's downtown area is already distinguished by the River Walk, a series of restaurants, shops and stone pathways that line the winding San Antonio river. The city is considering blocking some chain businesses to maintain the River Walk's look. Just blocks away stands the Alamo, more than 200 years old.

San Antonio's growth has swung up and down since its start in the early 1700s, said James Schneider, associate professor of history at the University of Texas-San Antonio. The city was once the biggest in Texas and remained so into the 20th century. But then San Antonio "lost its edge, he said, and fell behind, while Houston and Dallas reaped benefits from the growing oil industry.

The beginning of the resurgence can be attributed primarily to the HemisFair in 1968 that brought the city the Tower of the Americas and broadened the tourism base here, Schneider said.

Murdock said the number of people migrating to San Antonio from inside and outside the U.S. hasn't changed significantly in the past 15 years and the city's new growth hasn't been dependent on international immigration.

"San Antonio is an old Hispanic city," he said of the city that is more than two-thirds Hispanic. "This is one of the oldest cities in the country."

Elsewhere in Texas, Fort Worth, Denton, Killeen and Grand Prairie are also on a list of the 25 fastest-growing cities with populations over 100,000.

Austin, in 16th place, Fort Worth, in 19th place, and El Paso, in 21st place, round out the Texas cities among the 25 largest. Texas has more cities on the top 25 list than any state.

[TexasStooge]

WRR backers endorse frequency swap

By CHRIS HEINBAUGH / WFAA ABC 8

DALLAS, Texas - Another plan is being floated to change frequencies for classical music radio station WRR, 101.1 FM, which is owned by the City of Dallas.

In the past, this idea has proved to be politically radioactive at Dallas City Hall while striking a sour note with the station's loyal listeners. But this time, even some of WRR’s most rabid fans are listening.

WRR has a very enviable position on the dial. Under the latest proposal, it would swap its 101.1 frequency with Christian broadcaster KVTT, which operates at 91.7. This would also mean swapping WRR’s commercial status for KVTT’s non-profit status.

The deal woud net the city an estimated $50 million.

Larry Davis, with the city's Commission on Productivity and Innovation, said this is better than previous offers. The signal and reach of the two frequencies are almost the same, and the city would still own the station.

“I see no reason WRR can't continue to prosper and make a good profit operating under a non-commercial license,” Davis said.

While many council members and the mayor said they’re not interested in a swap, it’s getting some interest from a surprising quarter: The station’s support group, Friends of WRR. One reason: The $50 million cash infusion could establish an endowment to help the station meet costs.

“If putting money into WRR in an endowment, and putting some money into the arts helps save classical music for years to come, then that's what we want to do,” said Clayton Henry, president of Friends of WRR. He noted that as long as the station retains its prime spot on the dial, it will continue to be the target of offers.

While WRR’s audience is fiercely loyal, it’s shrinking, and future councils might not resist the impulse to swap—or even sell—the station.

Henry said the devil is in the details, but he recognizes the broadcast world is rapidly changing. A future deal may not provide as much money for an endowment.

Some believe this may be the best way to keep the classical format alive in the cutthroat world of commercial radio.

[TexasStooge]

Police: Man arrested for selling illegal driving certificates

By REBECCA LOPEZ / WFAA ABC 8

DALLAS, Texas - A Dallas man was arrested for allegedly selling official defensive driving certificates without his clients ever actually taking the required course.

Nazmul Chowdhury was taken into custody after a year long investigation. The Dallas Police Department sent undercover officers from their intelligence unit to an office building in North Dallas where Chowdhury had set up a business called EZ Concepts.

Posing as workers from a local auto dealership, undercover officers went in four times to make buys. Police said they found that for about $40, customers could buy defensive driving certificates.

News 8 watched as Chowdhury sold an officer a certificate during one of the undercover operations. While the officer bought a certificate, there was never a mention of the actual driving course.

Chowdhury took the officer's money and told him to wait four weeks for the certificate that would come in the mail.

"He's make a mockery out of the whole idea of gong to defensive driving," said an undercover officer.

Several weeks later, a certificate of completion from the State of Texas arrived as Chowdhury had promised. However, the state said it's illegal for someone to sell the certificates without providing a course.

The certificate itself says a person commits a crime if they use it for court or insurance purposes without having gone to a class for less than six hours.

Police served warrants on Chowdhury's business and his Richardson home.

Authorities said Chowdhury is also approved by the state to train bartenders and has also advertised he does tax work financial planning.

Chowdhury has been charged with tampering with government records and his business was shut down.

[TexasStooge]

Veteran Dallas officer faces child sexual assault charge

DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A veteran Dallas police officer was placed under indictment in Ellis County and faces one count of sexually assaulting a child and one count of indecency with a child.

Sr. Cpl. Joe Ramos was placed on a paid administrative leave and an internal affairs investigation is also underway.

The alleged incident was said to have taken place at his house Waxahachie.

Ramos worked with the Dallas Police Department since 1997, and he most recently was involved in helping the department with its recruiting and screening potential officers.

[TexasStooge]

Detective found guilty in fake-drug trial

DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A former narcotics detective was found guilty of perjury and document tampering Friday in connection with the 2001 fake-drug scandal that rocked the Dallas Police Department.

Prosecutors said Mark Delapaz committed aggravated perjury when he testified last year about watching one of his informants have face-to-face contact with a man who was arrested in an April 2001 drug bust. The bust resulted in a seizure of about 49 pounds of cocaine that was later found to be little more than crushed pool chalk.

Delapaz was taken into custody after the verdict. He was expected to post a $10,000 bond later in the day, but will have to return to court Monday morning for the sentencing phase of his trial.

"I'm happy that he's guilty. We've been expecting this for a long time," said an emotional Abel Santos, one of the victims of the fake-drug scheme. "I guess it's just another step on prosecuring him. Most of the guys are happy that he's been found guilty on both of the charges."

Delapaz faces two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 in connection with Friday's conviction. That's on top of the five-year sentence he received last year for lying to a judge about a search warrant.

On Monday, Delapaz's former police partner, Eddie Herrera, testified that details about a bogus August 2001 drug bust did not occur the way the detective described in his reports.

Delapaz also struggled to explain differences among written reports, evidence and accounts by other witnesses in the case.

Delapaz still faces more than a dozen felony indictments stemming from bogus drug busts in which crooked confidential informants working with Delapaz planted fake drugs on innocent people.

WFAA-TV reporter Brett Shipp and The Dallas Morning News contributed to this story.

[TexasStooge]

3 teens arrested in DeSoto theft ring

By ALAN MELSON / The Dallas Morning News

DESOTO, Texas - Three DeSoto teens arrested this week are believed to be part of a theft ring that swiped numerous high-ticket items from DeSoto High School and a nearby church, police said Friday.

Capt. Ron Smith said investigators have linked 15 burglary cases since September 2005 to the theft ring, which involved as many as 10 people. Two all-terrain vehicles, a golf cart, big-screen televisions, laptop computers and a refrigerator were among the items stolen.

Travis Gafford, 19, turned himself in to police on Thursday and now faces two counts of receiving and concealing stolen property. Marshall Fields, 17, and Anthony Ashton, 18, were arrested Thursday and each was charged with burglary of a building, Capt. Smith said.

Mr. Fields and Mr. Ashton remained in custody Friday at the DeSoto city jail. Mr. Gafford was in custody at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center in Dallas.

Capt. Smith said more arrests were likely.

Capt. Smith said most of the items were stolen from the high school, and investigators believe at least one suspect obtained a copy of a master key that allowed access to several areas of the building. Other items were stolen from Hampton Road Baptist Church, where multiple suspects were members.

None of the burglaries were captured on surveillance video, he said.

Capt. Smith said the suspects stored the stolen objects in a rental unit at a self-storage warehouse in Glenn Heights. After the most recent burglary occurred on Sunday, police received a tip that led to them to the self-storage unit, where they recovered most of the stolen items and returned them to their owners. The recovered property was worth at least $50,000, he said.

DeSoto ISD communications director Melissa Starnater said district officials are working with the police, and are glad everything has been recovered.

“We’re certainly disappointed if any students were involved,” Ms. Starnater said.

In a statement, Hampton Road Baptist’s pastor, Dr. Jerry Raines, said it was difficult for church members to imagine what the suspects and their families were experiencing, but he asked the public to pray for the suspects.

"As a church we face the challenge of living up to the standards Christ has set for us – to encourage, not criticize; to pray, not gossip; to understand, not accuse," the pastor's statement read.

Staff writer Herb Booth contributed to this report

[TexasStooge]

West Dallas gunman surrenders weapon

By YOLANDA WALKER / WFAA ABC 8

DALLAS, Texas - olice cordoned off a West Dallas neighborhood Friday night after a man with a rifle opened fire.

The man fired shots near the corner of Nomas and Bataan streets, just west of the Trinity River, at around 9 p.m.

Several homes in the area were evacuated as the man held police at bay at the home of a relative.

By 10:15 p.m., police said the unidentified man had surrendered his weapon and was talking with negotiators, although he was not yet in custody.

It was not immediately known what triggered the shooting.

There were no reports of injuries.

[TexasStooge]

CPS says mother's account about missing boy changed

Authorities receive different stories for how long children were out of sight

By KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH / The Dallas Morning News

IRVING, Texas - The mother of a missing 2-year-old let her sons play unsupervised in a park while she stayed in a truck with her boyfriend, Child Protective Services officials say.

As the search continues for Elian Majano, attention has turned toward his mother and how long her children were out of her sight at Irving's Lively Park.

The gap in question prompted the state agency to take custody of Yancy Majano's 4-year-old son, Alexis. A court hearing will be scheduled within 14 days.

Ms. Majano, 24, declined to comment late Friday on the advice of her attorney, who disputes the agency's claims.

"CPS is way out of line," Dallas attorney Raul Loya said. "The family is devastated. There's just no grounds for what CPS is doing."

Volunteers and trained searchers combed the 25-acre wooded park and surrounding neighborhood late Wednesday and all day Thursday for signs of Elian, but found nothing. Police believe he may have been kidnapped. They issued an Amber Alert late Thursday and on Friday set up a hotline to field tips in English and Spanish.

Ms. Majano initially told CPS officials that Elian ran off while she was taking Alexis out of the truck.

CPS spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales said Ms. Majano told investigators it happened quickly but later changed her story to say she was in the truck while the boys were outside.

"We don't believe it was just a minute or two – that's certainly not enough time for a 2-year-old boy to get very far away," Ms. Gonzales said. "We're not trying to say she's a bad mother, but it certainly appears she made a bad decision."

Ms. Majano defended herself to reporters.

"I've never left them alone," she told WFAA ABC 8 early Friday. "An accident can happen to anybody. Today it happened to me. Tomorrow it can happen to any other person."

She and her common-law husband, Gilberto Bercian, 52, appealed to the Salvadoran Consulate for help with their sons. They were referred to Mr. Loya.

He said Ms. Majano let her children out of the truck without getting out and noticed Elian was gone about 30 seconds later.

"It happened in an instant, shortly after they arrived at the park," Mr. Loya said. "Elian didn't disappear. We firmly believe he's been kidnapped."

Mr. Loya characterized the man with Ms. Majano as a friend, not a boyfriend.

Ms. Gonzales said Alexis hasn't said much but did tell investigators that his mother was in the truck while he was playing outside. He has been placed in a foster home, but CPS will consider placing him with other family members.

"He's a very shy little boy," Ms. Gonzales said. "We don't want to push him."

Melvis Majano, 29, said she hopes her nephew can be placed in her care, adding that it's been difficult for her sister to lose both children.

Irving police spokesman David Tull said officials waited until late Thursday to issue the Amber Alert because Elian's disappearance initially didn't meet the necessary criteria.

"We thought we were looking for a lost child," he said.

After the unsuccessful search, which employed helicopters, bloodhounds and police on foot and horseback, investigators considered it more likely the boy was abducted.

Officer Tull said a great deal of media attention before the alert helped to get the word out. In addition, Elian's photo is posted on the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Elian is about 2 feet tall with black hair and brown eyes. He was wearing a white shirt, flower-print shorts and Spider-Man flip-flops.

Irving police said Friday that they were receiving assistance from the FBI.

Officer Tull said police hope people will call the tips line with any information, such as any suspicious activity around the park.

"We're going to search according to the information that's gathered," he said.

Anyone with information should call 972-721-8080.

[TexasStooge]

Three Dallas fires leave residents homeless

By Bob Greene, WFAA ABC 8

DALLAS, Texas - Three fires and instantly dozens of families watch everything they own go up in flames.

The first fire sparked around 7 a.m. this morning at the Eastfield Village apartments on La Prada Drive in east Dallas.

A little more than four hours later, fire broke out at the Ivanhoe Apartments in northeast Dallas.

A third fire has also taken place at the Northgate Apartments, again in northeast Dallas.

"I don't know what the degree was but it was just excruciating heat," said Cornelius Conley at the Ivanhoe Apartments. "I'm saying the fire was already up the stairs, so I guess the fire was going on for about 15, 20 minutes before we even knew."

Shenell Hutchinson is also without a home.

"Everything I own is on my back...I have nothing," she said.

Firefighters say it's usual to have so many fires in such a short amount of time.

"It's not a normality to have back-to-back fires," said Anette Ponce of Dallas Fire and Rescue.

Ponce says it puts extra pressure on Dallas firefighters.

"We needed more man power, we needed more firemen to come out and relieve firemen that had already gone in."

But she says the people, the victims of these fires, feel the real pressure having everything they've worked for go up in flames.

"You work hard everyday and somebody calls you in two seconds and you pull up and it's nothing... just debris and smoke," said Hutchinson.

[TexasStooge]

Dallas sees crackdown on unpaid parking tickets

By Carol Cavazos, WFAA ABC 8

DALLAS, Texas - Parking ticket scofflaws owe the City of Dallas a huge chunk of change: some $40 million worth.

Strapped for cash, the city is ready to collect.

So, it has now given authority to the Dallas City Marshal's Office to impound vehicles belonging to anyone who has unpaid parking tickets.

This is what usually brings a parking ticket violator out when repeated knocks from Dallas city marshals do not.

Officers say Edward Lecamu owes $330 in unpaid parking fines.

He had no idea the city would try and collect this way.

"I'm going to have to pay about $500 to get my car out of the pound... it's not fair," he said.

Officers hope other violators will get the message.

"When you make us come for you, well then it's the full boat when we get here," said city marshal, Joseph Polino.

With three or more unpaid parking tickets, your car will be towed with any outstanding warrants you'll be towed to jail.

Sometimes officers have found other things, when collecting parking fines.

One man they arrested was in possession of problem crystal meth.

This is the first time Dallas city marshals have ever been involved tracking down parking ticket scofflaws.

Caught in their first net: a former Dallas Morning News columnist. She was arrested for an unpaid traffic ticket; but it was $1,000 in unpaid parking fines that brought her to their attention.

With more than $40 million owed in unpaid parking fines, the city hopes to recover whatever it can.

[TexasStooge]

No respite soon from Denton highway woes

By DAN RONAN / WFAA ABC 8

CORINTH, Texas - For several more months, a stretch of I-35 east north of Lewisville will be one of the toughest roads for motorists.

That section of highway from north of Lewisville to Denton is undergoing extensive renovation and widening and much of the work is being done near the lake Lewisville bridge.

Workers have been putting construction equipment and asphalt in the area so they can repair this important highway.

Motorists say they understand why the work needs to be done, but say it's frustrating.

Chad Pokorny of Denton is heading to Houston. He finds a short stretch of I-35 north of Lewisville is the toughest part.

"They finally got one of the lanes done in the feeder but I thought it should have been done six months ago. It has been there forever," he said.

"Five o'clock is horrible. And I usually get off work at five or six, depending on the day, and it's always backed up," he added.

TxDOT says it is not unusual to see mile-long back ups in either direction, as crews rebuild the southbound lane and exit ramp.

It took 14 minutes for Pokorny to negotiate the 1.5 mile construction and head south.

"Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere," he said.

"The main thing is like road rage - you see a lot of that and wrecks."

Drivers going northbound on I-35 also are having difficulty - and many motorists say they're adding 30 minutes to their schedule to get to work - either going to Denton or Dallas.

The repairs are also hurting businesses in the construction zone.

Friday is usually a big night at one BBQ restaurant.

"There were three hours where there no customers here at all. For three hours and we have customers in and out all the time," said restaurant manager Sheila Blazewicz.

Pokorny made it through the back up and he knows he'll make this trip dozens more times.

The construction is also causing a slowdown for Denton County's commuter express service to Dallas. Southbound commuters are being told they could arrive late at work because of construction.

[TexasStooge]

The view from Victory

Will this high-end hotspot leave downtown down and out?

By DAVID DILLON / The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS, Texas - From the air, Victory Park looks like a long thin island off the mainland of downtown, with a scattering of towers, acres of parking and a freeway running in the distance like a shoreline.

For developer Ross Perot Jr., Victory is the beginning of a new city within a city, urbanism luxe, that will revitalize downtown and help shore up its wobbly tax base.

"In today's world, people want something special," he says. "Just to go to the usual stores has no great appeal. That told us what Victory ought to be – something new to Dallas."

Yet others wonder whether this eventual $3 billion concentration of hotels, condominiums and chic shops and restaurants will permanently skew the redevelopment of downtown, siphoning off its best resources and leaving the rest to fend for itself.

This is probably not the question people will be asking this week, as Victory pops the cork on the new W Hotel, but it will come up regularly in the future as downtown Dallas struggles to find a new center of gravity after listing perilously for decades.

"I was skeptical at first," says University of North Texas economist Bernard Weinstein, "but there is obviously a lot going on. My question is how many destinations can downtown support? Will Main Street be a destination? The West End and the Arts District? A lot of bets are being placed, but it's still a thin market."

The most impressive thing about Victory is its density, a dirty word in Dallas but the key to success in most great cities. Instead of scattering individual buildings across the landscape like confetti, it tries to cluster them in nodes so that serendipity has a fighting chance.

This, of course, is not the Dallas way. We like iconic objects in space, flashy stunts on the freeway and the skyline that look terrific at a distance but less convincing up close. Victory aspires to be different by emphasizing streets, blocks and squares, where individual buildings talk to one another in a shared language instead of shouting at the top of their lungs.

Victory was launched in the late 1990s with a plan from the Palladium Company for a low-rise development reminiscent of Boston's Back Bay, with plenty of brick and a very traditional retail plan. The tech bust and 9/11 took care of that, and when Hillwood returned to the project it had a radically different plan that called for more height, more density and a very different retail mix.

The new plan by Elkus and Manfredi is very solid on urban design issues, laying out a network of major and minor streets, lining them with understated residential buildings with shops and restaurants on the ground floor and dropping in a park or two that residents can actually use. It's basic stuff, yet so rare in Dallas that it seems exotic.

Architecture is part of the mix, too, and except for the steroidal American Airlines Center, things look promising. The W Dallas-Victory Hotel by HKS is a slick and smart exercise in classic modernism, while the forthcoming Victory Tower by Kohn Pedersen Fox, who got stiffed in the original arena competition, could be a handsome companion.

The centerpiece of the development, the place where things come together, is Victory Plaza, in front of American Airlines Center. Mr. Perot calls this Dallas' future "Times Square," which makes sense only if you consider Times Square as little more than electronic advertising.

Yet it could be an extraordinary public space, a grand outdoor room, with moving billboards and the latest LED technology – Blade Runner comes to Big D. It is also a public space created by buildings rather than in spite of them. The sleek modern wings that wrap it, by Orne Associates, frame views back to Victory and to the downtown skyline in the distance, intensifying the appreciation of both.

"Victory had an inauspicious beginning, with a bad master plan and a bad piece of architecture in the middle of it," says Lance Josal of RTKL Architects in Dallas. "Considering that, they've done a good job."

Victory is designed to be an island of privilege, focused on high-end shopping and entertainment, and inhabited mainly by professionals with expensive tastes and salaries to match. It's not a mix that most urbanists like, but it's not necessarily a bad thing, according to John Fregonese, author of Dallas' new comprehensive plan.

"Downtown is not dormant, but it is sleep-walking," he says. "It needs a concentration of things that people can't get anywhere else, and you probably have to be a bit more laissez faire about what that is."

In his view, the concentration of wealth is less the issue than whether the wealth filters to other parts of the city, following the rising tide lifts all boats philosophy.

Mr. Perot believes it will.

"Victory and Uptown are where the money is going to come from to save downtown," he says. "This is a product that works today, whereas downtown ownership is so fragmented that you can't get enough critical mass to make things happen."

If Victory flourishes, the energy will likely spread across Stemmons to the Design District, already abuzz with plans for residential development. Here's where the affordable housing that Victory and Uptown lack may begin to appear.

But Victory's success will also increase pressure on fragile parts of downtown such as the West End, which has been slumbering for a decade and with the loss of the West End Marketplace and several key restaurants is on life support.

That might not be so bad either.

"Many cities are struggling just to maintain the status quo downtown," says Dallas Planning Director Theresa O'Donnell, "whereas downtown Dallas is growing. Victory could scare downtown businesses into becoming more competitive and invest more in their properties, and in the long run that will fertilize downtown rather than drain it."

[TexasStooge]

Greenville Avenue's 'Barking Dog' still hot under the collar

By GRETEL C. KOVACH / The Dallas Morning News

Troublemaker. Party pooper. Media hound. He's been called all of them, and much worse.

But Avi Adelman's supporters say he is a guerrilla fighter crusading for residents' rights. He's an online muckraker aiming his computer and his 911 dialing finger at "scumbars" and drunken revelers stumbling toward their yards. His critics – and there are many – say the self-described "barking dog" of Lower Greenville Avenue is a rabid self-promoter in need of a muzzle, a jerk whose tactics disrupt the neighborhood. After laying low for a spell, Mr. Adelman popped back into full view last month when he was ticketed for 911 abuse after calling in a noise complaint. Later, a police officer was fired for sending him a taunting e-mail laced with profanity, and the ticket was dismissed.

No, Mr. Adelman's fight against crime, traffic and noise emanating from the popular entertainment strip hasn't always been appreciated.

"I don't even care. I've helped people," Mr. Adelman said. "Every neighborhood needs a barking dog."

His youngest "puppette," 6-year-old Shaina, explained it another way. She paused in mid-scamper up their front walk to whisper her assessment of her father:

"He's a little crazy."

The shadows were deepening amid the neon glow of Lowest Greenville one midweek evening when Mr. Adelman, 50, recounted his evolution as a neighborhood activist.

Near the strip of bars that has been the focus of his campaign, a chorus of young voices screamed out the window of a passing car. In the parking lot across from Mr. Adelman's home, a police cruiser waited at the corner for trouble.

Mr. Adelman sat on his porch with his laptop computer propped on a cooler and described his phases, from radical to collaborator to researcher.

The Philadelphia native moved to Dallas in 1980 after spending three years in Israel. But he really got his start in the neighborhood in 1998 with his barkingdogs.org Web site.

Mr. Adelman roamed the streets after dark, a portly 5-foot-3 avenger armed with pepper spray. Most famously, he snapped pictures of young female "whizzers" urinating in public and posted them online to the tune of "Who Let the Dogs Out?"

Some called him a pervert. But the media frenzy launched his fame, and police started issuing more citations for public urination.

"It was a blast," he recalled.

Later, Mr. Adelman seemed to mellow his approach when he tried to work with bars and developers in the area. That ended when Mr. Adelman was investigated, and eventually cleared, of allegations that he was extorting money from businesses in exchange for keeping quiet about suspected code violations.

The license plate on his old pickup still says "The Dog." He continues to post crime alerts and tart commentary on his Web site.

But Mr. Adelman doesn't get out much anymore. A gouty leg temporarily hobbled him last year, and he is busy with his first full-time graphic design job since he was laid off in 2001.

"I got worn out. I get more results if I'm behind the scenes. And it's not that honey-vinegar crap," Mr. Adelman said. "At the time, those tactics were appropriate."

Besides, "pepper spray gets expensive," he said.

On this night, a young man appeared at Mr. Adelman's rickety fence, a mug of beer in hand. Jeremy Nickel, 28, moved in a few months ago. "It's nice to have a neighborhood watchdog," he said.

But Mr. Adelman doesn't claim to be a dispassionate arbiter of residents' rights.

"It's always been personal," he said. "I've got one guy on Lower Greenville who'd like to beat the crap out of me."

That would be James Slaughter, a resident and owner of two bars and a restaurant in the area.

When Mr. Slaughter, 37, spots Mr. Adelman around the neighborhood, he barks. Loudly, like a dog.

Mr. Slaughter said he'd never lay a hand on him. But when Mr. Adelman was being investigated by police, Mr. Slaughter and his friends would whimper and yell, "Bad dog! BAD, BAD, BAD DOG!"

Mr. Slaughter has a long list of complaints about Mr. Adelman: He exaggerates the crime threat, wastes taxpayer dollars with unfounded complaints and abuses free speech by publishing erroneous information online.

"He destroyed the life of a friend of mine," Mr. Slaughter added, recalling how a young woman caught urinating in public was fired from her job and was so embarrassed that she moved away.

Mr. Slaughter formed the Historic Greenville Avenue Business Association and raised money for extra police patrols in the area. But he said the organization eventually fizzled because of Mr. Adelman's antics.

"We have a good relationship now with pretty much all the neighbors. Everybody except Avi," he said.

During their longstanding feud, Mr. Adelman has sicced everyone he can think of on Mr. Slaughter: the fire marshal, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, the health department, police, city code enforcers, investigative reporters. He even involved the attorney general's office and the secretary of state, said Mr. Slaughter, growing agitated at the thought of all the trouble Mr. Adelman had caused him.

Mr. Slaughter considered suing him for slander.

"Everyone has," he said. But lawyers told him Mr. Adelman had few assets, so it would be an expensive and futile gesture.

Mr. Slaughter, who was 26 when he started Whisky Bar in 1995, asked his parents for advice.

"I tried to listen to my mom and just ignore him, but finally it got to the point where the only way to fight a bully is to bully him back."

He put up signs in his bar encouraging customers to call Mr. Adelman at home and tell him how they felt about what he was doing for Lower Greenville.

Strangers with slurred speech would leave messages at Mr. Adelman's house at 4 a.m. asking: "Why can't we dance? We want to dance!"

Mr. Adelman complained to police, and the signs came down. But Mr. Slaughter said it might be time to put them back up.

"He's definitely had an effect on business," Mr. Slaughter said. "It's taken a toll on us."

It isn't just bar owners who hate him. Mr. Adelman has sunk his teeth into residents and the politicians who represent the area.

Several representatives of the Lower Greenville Neighborhood Association declined to comment about Mr. Adelman. One wanted to avoid his retaliation and noted that the last thing Mr. Adelman needed was more media attention.

"A lot of people tend to avoid him," said Cheryl Kellis, former president of another neighborhood association in the area. "He could do so much more if he could just tone it down."

Diana Souza thinks he has done a lot. Ms. Souza, a third-generation Lower Greenville area resident, said Mr. Adelman is a frontline defender in a war between residents and irresponsible business owners.

"Avi is like the neighborhood Marines," she said. "You don't have to be popular to really make some effective maneuvers on the battlefield."

"He's the hero of Lower Greenville," agreed Bob Helterbran, a real estate broker who lives a block and a half away from Lowest Greenville, an area south of Belmont Avenue. Mr. Adelman has helped him push out an unresponsive nightclub operator and replace "No Parking" signs.

"Most people don't step forward like he does," Mr. Helterbran said.

Bill Dickerson, 63, used to walk the streets with Mr. Adelman on weekend nights. They are two of the last holdouts from a crime watch group who haven't moved out of the area, he said.

"They lump us together in the same peanut shell, and we're not. My idea is that if we talk about it, we can resolve it," Mr. Dickerson said.

Allen Gwinn, publisher of dallas .org, agrees that sometimes "Avi is his own worst enemy."

"Everyone you talk to is going to tell you that," he said. "But I have never met anyone more passionate."

Mr. Gwinn, 45, said that if no one had cared to bark back for residents' rights, "there'd be a lot more people getting away with things."

Veletta Forsythe Lill, a former City Council representative in the area, said Mr. Adelman has helped shine the spotlight on the neighborhood's problems.

"But long-term success many times is dependent on an ability to find allies and build alliances," she said. "He certainly has allies in City Hall, as well as enemies."

Mr. Adelman said he doesn't regret anything he's done in the service of Lower Greenville.

"No, I regret we haven't fixed it yet," he said. "And I have regrets about the impact this has had on my family and my kids."

He's been cited four times by police. He's been assaulted. He's lost job offers.

When the police officer was fired, Mr. Adelman said, he felt ill. "Not for him. I could care less," he said, chuckling. "I was sick for what it had done to me."

A few days later, the historic Arcadia theater near his home caught fire. Flames and smoke were still licking at Lower Greenville when Mr. Adelman predicted a new development fight would rise from the ashes.

No, the Barking Dog of Lower Greenville won't heel. Not unless he moves to another neighborhood.

"And I'm sure there's an offer out there" to help him do just that, he said, grinning.

[TexasStooge]

Do healers have a place in the death chamber?

Courts may hear call for clinical execution, but doctors sworn to save lives

By LAURA BEIL / The Dallas Morning News

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - If convicted murderer Angel Maturino Resendiz, known as the Railroad Killer, is put to death on Tuesday, he will owe his quiet end to medical science. Had doctors not concocted a lethal series of infusions more than 20 years ago, Texas prisoners still would be dying by electrocution.

The profession charged with healing has worked to refine the business of killing since French surgeon Joseph Guillotin sought a more civilized execution for the condemned. In the more than 200 years since Dr. Guillotin's name became synonymous with beheading – an "e" was later added to the machine named for him – medical professionals have given guidance in making the death penalty more compassionate, whether by gas chamber, electric chair or, more recently, drugs.

Yet medical ethicists long ago determined this is wrong. Execution, which is hardly in the best interest of the patient, is not the practice of medicine, and doctors are sworn to save lives, not take them. With the latest court challenges to lethal injection – challenges that cite the possibility of significant pain for the immobilized prisoner – the criminal justice system might need medicine's help to keep the death penalty constitutional. Physicians could again find themselves at the nexus of two conflicting values: society's moral and legal obligation to execute without cruelty, and a doctor's sworn obligation to do no harm.

"The basic question is whether medicine has a role in addressing more competent and compassionate ways of executing people," Peter Clark, a medical ethicist at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, wrote this spring in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics.

Dr. Clark is a theologian. To him, the answer is clear. "I was appalled that the medical profession was even involved in this," he said in an interview.

Many physicians, though, are more ambivalent. In 2001, a research team described a survey of 1,000 randomly selected doctors from rosters provided by the American Medical Association, the professional society that has unequivocally said involvement in execution is unethical. The doctors were asked whether they would be willing to participate in 10 aspects of lethal injection, eight of which have been deemed wrong for physicians.

To researchers' surprise, 41 percent said they would perform at least one of the actions, which included placing the intravenous lines or supervising the administration of injections.

What about personally giving the final drugs? "I suspected that I'd find that no physician would be willing," said Dr. Neil Farber of Christiana Care Health System in Delaware. Instead, 19 percent said they would.

These doctors usually were not motivated by the belief that they might relieve the suffering of someone who was going to die anyway, Dr. Farber said, though some felt that way. Overwhelmingly, those physicians willing to kill cited their obligations to a state that has said execution is legal and correct.

"They're not seeing it as a conflict," Dr. Farber said. "This is a duty to society."

So it is not that surprising that corrections officials have found physicians willing to participate in capital punishment – some states even require their presence. Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, recently found four physicians and one nurse who would discuss their reasoning. Dr. Gawande wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in March that these medical professionals typically didn't make a conscious decision to assume the role of executioner.

"Virtually all of them were brought into the death chamber to pronounce death," he said last week.

Merely being present seems straightforward enough. But executions don't always go smoothly. Technicians can have trouble finding a suitable vein. The dosage of the drug may be inadequate.

"Suddenly all eyes turn to you," Dr. Gawande said.

Their participation was an incremental journey, as in many descents into questionable behavior.

Dr. Gawande supports the death penalty, as do the majority of doctors surveyed. But after talking to those physicians who have witnessed it, he says he began to wonder whether capital punishment is possible without medical supervision.

After 859 lethal injections, it is viewed almost as a rote act. "The trouble is," he said, "there is a large percentage of the time that there is some complication in that regimented approach that requires medical expertise to sort it out."

In 1982, during the first lethal injection in a Texas state prison, two doctors reportedly were on hand only to pronounce death. Yet they were asked advice about the proper injection site, Dr. Gawande said, and the prison official incorrectly mixed the chemicals.

What if a physician finds a heartbeat when it is time to declare a prisoner dead? Offer advice on how to finish him off?

If executions cannot be completed without physicians or nurses, Dr. Gawande believes the death penalty should be abandoned. Tending to the problems of lethal injection is not a doctor's job, he said, and violates public trust. He even would like to see physician involvement legally banned.

"Since the total responsibility for execution rests with the criminal justice system, it's up to the criminal justice system to deal with it," said Dr. Steven Miles of the University of Minnesota Medical School. Dr. Miles has examined the circumstances that lead doctors to have a role in torture and execution.

Corrections officials and the public desire a clinical patina to the administration of the death penalty, he said, largely to make people feel more comfortable. "We're trying to make it sterile," he said. "We're trying to tame execution."

The legal question now is whether it has been tamed enough to meet the requirements set forth in the U.S. Constitution.

Dr. Miles does believe that the current three-drug combination is probably a painful death, masked by an induced paralysis. If prisoners are suffocating, they would have the feeling of being buried alive, he said. If they are improperly anesthetized, the potassium chloride would send a searing pain through the veins as it flowed toward the heart.

As a human being, these scenarios bother him, but as a doctor, he would not offer a solution.

"The question of whether executions should be pain-free is a social policy question," he said, not a medical one.

For that reason, Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, believes that the profession should excuse itself from the entire debate. If people want flawless executions, he said, then states should create professional executioners.

"The state wants them there," Dr. Caplan said of doctors, "so the state can feel more comfortable."

Dr. Miles puts it this way: If a nation decided to punish adulterers by stoning, it would be wrong for a doctor to give the condemned anesthesia beforehand to lessen the pain. That would send a message of tacit approval and soothe the conscience of those imposing the sentence.

Because a white coat can make capital punishment seem more palatable, some doctors who are involved with executions ultimately find themselves troubled. After the introduction of the guillotine, executions became routine in revolutionary France. Dr. Guillotin grew appalled by his infamy from a killing device. But execution was by then the will of the people, and beyond the influence of medicine.

[TexasStooge]

Family shares Arcadia memories sweet and sour

Dallas: Siblings recall swinging on curtains, gorging on candy

By KATIE MENZER / The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS, Texas - Many people carry memories of the Arcadia theater in their hearts.

Ruben Medrano carries his on his arm.

That's where the 41-year-old displays the scar from his unfortunate run-in with the theater's popcorn machine three decades ago.

"I was tilting the metal kettle on the popcorn machine – it gets to 450 or 500 degrees – and I hit my arm against it," said Mr. Medrano, whose father ran a Spanish-language theater in the Arcadia in the 1970s and '80s. "I did that only once. I learned my lesson."

Still, most of his memories of manning the concession stand and working other odd jobs with his brothers and sisters at the Arcadia are sweeter.

The nearly 80-year-old theater on Greenville Avenue burned down Wednesday, but it played a central role in the Medranos' lives for almost a decade, and they said its big screen will always star in their family history.

But not their dental history.

The Medrano kids fondly remember locking themselves in the "candy room" – the old theater's supply closet – and making reductions in their dad's sweetest inventory.

"For some reason, I just remember Snickers," said Frank Medrano, now 42, the third eldest of the family's nine children. "Tons and tons of Snickers."

After the customers went home at night, the younger kids would roll log-style through the lobby, which then sloped down toward the door. They'd melt pennies under the lamp of the movie projector.

And they'd twist themselves tight in the thick velvet curtains that hung in doorways and swing.

"My dad didn't like it and would yell at me that I was going to tear the curtains," said Anna Garza, Medrano child No. 5.

They'd also have "adventures" exploring the old air ducts and dressing rooms in the basement, which were holdovers from the earliest days of the theater. Although the old building served many functions over the years – from stuff house to concert venue – the Arcadia had opened in 1927 as a combination movie house and vaudeville theater.

Ruben Medrano – who is now a lawyer living in Richardson – said his dad began renting the theater in 1974, a year after Dallas vice officers staged raids on the Arcadia because its operators were showing the adult film **** ******.

He was only 9 then. The movie tickets were $3.25 each, and the first film they showed was Tonta Tonta Pero No Tanto, loosely meaning Dumb, Dumb, But Not Too Dumb.

"Dad gave me a stack of fliers and sent me to hand them out up and down Greenville," he said.

The movie starred María Elena Velasco, also know as La India María, a celebrated Mexican comedienne. She was one of many Mexican celebrities who also performed at the Arcadia when the Medrano family managed it.

Ms. Garza, who now lives in Lewisville, said she grew to love the Mexican actors through their movies, although she rarely understood them. The family ran a Spanish movie theater, but their parents spoke to them only in English.

"Movies would run for a week, and by the end of the week, I knew what was going on," Ms. Garza said.

But as the years passed, Ms. Garza said she began to pick up some of the language. The phrases she learned probably wouldn't be found in a traditional Spanish vocabulary book.

She said her first words were "boleto, por favor," meaning "ticket, please."

But her most vivid memories are of a "creepy ladder" behind the screen that "seemed to lead to nowhere."

"I remember being little and looking up at the ladder, and it just seemed to go on forever into darkness," she said. "I used to try to climb it, but I'd only get halfway up before I got too scared and had to come down."

Ms. Garza's brother, Ruben, said the mystery of the ladder wasn't too hard to crack, especially for the older kids who were more responsible for running the business. He and his two older brothers had to climb it all the time.

It led to the roof, a pigeon coop and a view of the parking lot. Their father would tell them to stand up there and watch for criminals trying to break into customers' cars.

"Since we were so high up, there's not much we could do if we saw something happening but yell," he said. "It was more to frighten people."

What Ruben Medrano found frightening was the women's bathroom, which was sometimes his duty to clean.

"There were things in the ladies bathroom that, as a kid, I didn't know what they were," he said. "I'd get in there and I'd be like, 'Holy cow, what happened in here?' The women were much dirtier than the men."

The memories make him smile now, but he said he recalls being pretty angry as a kid.

"This wasn't a summer job," he said. "We worked all the time, after school and on weekends all year round."

The worst jobs seemed to involve the theater's marquee, an enormous triangular sign that jutted out in front of the building and announced the movies playing that week.

Perched at the top of a shaky, 12-foot ladder, they'd have to carefully remove and reattach letters to the marquee weekly.

"Rain, snow or sleet, we'd have to change the letters," Ruben Medrano said. "My father would now say I'm exaggerating, but I have the memories of the ladder swaying in the wind."

Then there were the pigeon droppings that would find their way to the sign's hollow middle. One of the sons would periodically climb the ladder, jump inside the sign and shovel out the pounds of pigeon waste.

No one volunteered for that job.

"It was nasty, nasty work," Ruben Medrano said.

His father retired in 1983, and the family left the theater. Now their parents live in Harlingen in South Texas. Frank Medrano lives in a small town nearby.

Ruben Medrano said his mother cried when he called her Wednesday to tell her of the fire.

"That was a long time to be there, 10 years," he said. "There are a lot of memories."

[TexasStooge]

Motorists can soon use 121's new lanes

Path from Coppell to The Colony to open in July, sans toll collection

By BRANDON FORMBY / The Dallas Morning News

DENTON, Texas - Beyond the barricades that keep them on the access roads, Denton County commuters can see it: six miles of paved highway. Lanes of brand-new concrete running from Coppell to The Colony surely would ease their rush-hour woes.

Though the work looks finished, for weeks motorists have had to remain on the service road of the portion of State Highway 121. It's left them confused, frustrated and asking officials just when they'll be able to hop on the toll road.

The answer: next month.

That's when the Texas Department of Transportation will open the main lanes of that stretch of highway and allow commuters to use the new toll road. Officials haven't nailed down an exact date, but they're aiming to get rubber on the road in early July.

Tolls probably won't be collected until early September.

"We don't want to build an asset and not allow the public to use it," said Bob Brown, a deputy district engineer for the transportation agency. "That's our worst nightmare."

He said that although 121 may look finished, there are some small details that need attention. The construction, opening and eventual tolling of this portion of 121 have been mired as much in red tape as in orange barricades.

"There's a long story to this," Mr. Brown said.

State and federal officials approved the project years ago as a free highway. Construction began in 2003, and a year later, state and regional leaders decided to collect tolls on the highway.

The state transportation agency then said it would divert money already dedicated to 121 to other projects, including the widening of Interstate 35E through southern Denton County and FM423 in The Colony.

The decision to impose tolls on 121 required federal approval. As that worked its way through the bureaucratic pipeline, construction continued and was accelerated by several months of unusually low amounts of rainfall.

But even though construction neared completion this spring, state officials couldn't move forward with anything else until they received federal approval.

That came in April, and since then, officials have rushed to bring together all the final details, including highway signs, electronic toll collectors, guardrails and road striping.

Another wrinkle was that the electronic toll collectors probably won't be running until early September.

Regional leaders have a long-standing policy stipulating that any road that opens without tolls cannot be converted to a toll road. Such a conversion would also require countywide approval in an election.

But the state transportation agency says that when the main lanes open next month, 121 will technically be a toll road.

Mr. Brown said the first several weeks are a "marketing period" in which tolls will be waived for commuters.

"It's opening as a toll road; it's not opening as a free road," said Chris Behnke, an assistant area engineer for the transportation agency. "There just won't be any collection until the equipment is collecting."

Once collections begin, 121 will be the first toll road in the nation without tollbooths.

Motorists will be able to use their North Texas Tollway Authority TollTag in addition to the transportation agency's TxTag stickers and the Harris County Toll Road Authority's EZ TAG.

People who don't have toll tags, though, won't have to stop at a booth. Instead, video cameras will capture their license plate number and send them a bill, though that will cost about 33 percent more than toll tag users will have to pay.

The cost of tolls has not been decided.

The only progress commuters have seen on 121 is what they drive by every day. In recent weeks, they've contacted Carrollton, Lewisville and transportation agency officials to vent their frustrations and ask why they can't drive in the main lanes yet.

"We get call after call every day on this," said Sgt. Patrick Murphy, a Carrollton police spokesman. He said most callers complain that the access road gets congested near main lane exits, which force the left lanes of the service road traffic to merge. It angers people, Sgt. Murphy said, because they have to merge for an exit lane that isn't being used.

Mr. Brown said that's a design issue that won't be a problem once the road opens because there will be far fewer cars on the service roads.

Carrollton Mayor Becky Miller said people have been asking her about the road just about everywhere she goes.

"I think it's great they're going to go ahead and open it and let people drive on it," she said.

In Lewisville, the access road's construction in the 1990s drew developers, retail, businesses and what will soon be the city's first convention hotel to the city's southern sector. Lewisville spokesman James Kunke said the opening of the main lanes will probably create an additional economic spark.

"That area is already hot, and it's going to get hotter," he said. "And from a traffic standpoint, it's going to be a vast improvement."

[TexasStooge]

San Antonio tower gets four-star upgrade

Landmark reopens after renovation

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (The Dallas Morning News/AP) — Lila Cockrell can't remember how many times she's made the trip to the top of the Tower of the Americas, but she remembers vividly the construction of the 750-foot-tall structure nearly 40 years ago and the anxiety that ran through the city as the circular top piece was raised up the center column.

To Cockrell, who was on the City Council in 1968 when the tower opened as the centerpiece of HemisFair, the tower reflects San Antonio's character.

“HemisFair was about the confluence of ... the Americas,” Cockrell, 84, said of the world's fair for the Western hemisphere. “San Antonio of course is a confluence of different cultures.”

The tower reopened this week after a $13 million, 18-month renovation project by Landry's Restaurants Inc. The city pitched in another $6 million.

Cockrell, a former mayor, said it is a spectacular rebirth.

“They've brought the tower to new heights, so to say,” she said.

The Tower of the Americas is the second-tallest observation tower in the U.S., trailing the 1,149-foot Stratosphere in Las Vegas but beating a more recognizable tower, the 605-foot Seattle Space Needle.

Landry's Chairman and chief executive Tilman Fertitta said he wanted to create at least a half-day experience for visitors with a revamped rotating restaurant, bar and observation deck featuring state and local history at the top and a ride, coffee shop and retail space at the base.

“This is going to be a have-to-do thing when you come to San Antonio,” Fertitta said.

In recent years, it hasn't been.

“It needed some fresh ideas, let's just say,” Cockrell said.

Ron Smudy, assistant director for the city's Parks and Recreation department, put it more bluntly: “We needed an upgrade, we needed a face lift and we needed heart surgery.”

The tower had lost popularity and so had the surrounding HemisFair Park, prompting the plans for a renovation, said San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger. Letting one entity take over operations for the whole tower, instead of just the restaurant area, seemed the most advantageous thing to do.

“It is the first thing that people see when they come to San Antonio,” Hardberger said. “I kind of think it's the new symbol of a new San Antonio, which is a city with lofty ambitions just like the tower itself.”

[TexasStooge]

Summer camp programs oozin' Oz

Irving: Movie's themes pave youngsters' road to learning at arts center

By DEBORAH FLECK / The Dallas Morning News

IRVING, Texas - The Irving Arts Center is the Land of Oz this summer.

She is the center's gallery curator. But she also wears the hat of youth programs coordinator. In that role, she conjures up a rich mixture of summer camp programs to keep youths busy during the doldrums of summer.

This year's theme is The Wizard of Oz because there's no place like the center for kids in the summer, according to a camp flier.

The one-week camps are named after famous themes from the much-loved film, such as "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" and "If I Only Had a Heart."

The "Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My" camp will be a production of The Jungle Book by the Missoula Children's Theatre. "That camp sold out pretty early," Ms. Inman said about the popular session.

As director, Ms. Inman said she aims to offer a different spin on the arts with her curriculum.

"I try to keep it fresh and not replicate what they are taught in school," she said.

She also heeds the advice from surveys she hands out after each session. That led to several new offerings this year, including a class on culinary arts and yoga.

Monet Shinohara, 7, said the cooking class is her favorite because "I get to eat the food."

Classmate Sarah Freeman, 6, said she loved art the best. "We are making a self-portrait," she said.

Camp instructors are a mixture of artists and teachers, with many from the Irving school district.

Kimberly Watson of The Academy of Irving ISD said she was glad to participate. With a home economics degree from Texas Tech University, she took on the culinary arts class.

"I made sure we made things the students could eat since the best part is eating," she said.

Junanne Peck, an artist affiliated with Big Thought, Junior Players and other youth arts groups, teaches the trash art class. She's helping the students make art out of old and recyclable materials.

"While creating art, I slip in some education," Ms. Peck said. "I will stress something about our planet, such as telling them how long something takes to decompose."

She loves working with children, she said, because they always show her something new.

Dianne Tucker teaches a creative writing class, and Barbara Lee of Elliott Elementary helps students learn to read music. Teresa Parsons Morgan from the Richardson school district teaches yoga.

Shane Green, 7, a soon-to-be second-grader at Good Elementary in Irving, said that was his favorite class.

"I liked learning how to be a frog," he said as he wrapped his arms around his curled-up legs and hopped away.

[TexasStooge]

Garland authorities warn of pricey water scam

By BERT LOZANO / WFAA ABC 8

GARLAND, Texas - The city of Garland has sent out a warning after they said people have posed as city inspectors as part of a water scam that preys on Hispanic and elderly people in east Garland and Mesquite.

Juanita Ramos and her husband said a water filter that was installed in their new home cost nearly $7,600.

"I feel like these people lied to me,"

The couple said a man claiming to work for the city of Garland visited their home to sell them the filter. They said he then scared them into the purchase through pictures of rats in a water line and a fake test of the couple's water from their sink.

"The water turned black and he come show it to me," "And he said, 'You want to drink this water for your family? This is the water from the city."

The man warned her the tap water was dangerous.

"He said later, 'You are going to have cancer or be sick from your kidneys,'" "He had to have some chemical to mix it with or the water would have stayed clear."

Garland officials warned that the phony inspectors are tricking residents into paying for expensive water filters they don't need.

"There's not a thing wrong with the city water,"

Maricela Pacheco and her family said they found that out too late.

They had the same water filter installed when they moved in next door to the Ramos couple.

"He said he represented the city and told us the water was dirty," Pacheco said.

The families must pay $126 with an 18 percent interest rate for five years to pay for the filters.

While the two families are trying to get their money back, the city said they have an idea who the fake inspectors are and may take legal action.

Officials ask anyone approached at home by someone claiming to be with the city's water department to contact the Garland Water Utilities Department at 972-205-3210.