Sunday, July 25, 2021

The Richardson Police are Hiring. Surprised?

If you're looking for the five Ws of journalism (Who, What, When, Where, and Why), this is not the post for you. But if you don't mind going for a ride through my disorganized mind, you're in the right place. I'll inevitably go off on a few tangents on our journey, but I promise to always get back on track.

For three days, I've been promising to write about Thursday night's special called session of the Richardson City Council, and I've kept putting it off. Oh, I wrote about Wayne Olson's verbal report and his written report of his investigation into Office Kayla Walker's complaint that the City operates an Illegal ticket quota system. But I didn't write about the City Council. Why was that even the venue? Why not a court of law? The councilmembers didn't take a vote at the end. They didn't take any action regarding the complaint at all. When I pondered why it all happened the way it did, I found my mind becoming a jumble of different thoughts. It's taken me three days to even begin an inventory of them. I'm thinking if I just start writing, maybe some semblance of order will come.

Saturday, July 24, 2021

A Quota System with a Moving Target

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the law is pliable, too, especially when talking about numbers. I know I promised I'd have more to say about what we learned from Thursday night's special called meeting of the Richardson City Council, and I promise I will still get to that, but first I have to talk about the written report itself, which wasn't available to the public until after the meeting.

Friday, July 23, 2021

Investigator Clears RPD of Illegal Ticket Quotas

In just five minutes, the amount of time members of the public are given to speak during the public comment section of City Council meetings, a 13-year veteran of the Richardson Police, Kayla Walker, kicked off a storm in Richardson in April, charging supervisors in the department of illegally using quotas to evaluate and discipline officers. Thursday night, in a special called session of the Richardson City Council, the public learned the result of the City's investigation into the charge. Spoiler: the City found nothing illegal about its own police department's practices.

Thursday, July 22, 2021

Paved A Way: Fair Park

Amazon

Unlike Tenth Street and Little Mexico, I felt I had a good understanding of the history of Fair Park in Dallas. Collin Yarbrough fills in the details.

I'm reading "Paved A Way: Infrastructure, Policy and Racism in an American City" by Collin Yarbrough. The city is Dallas, Texas. I'm blogging as I go, using whatever parts of the book catch my attention. Today, we look at how infrastructure development cut a path of destruction through south Dallas.

Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Sweet Tooth (TV 2021)

Rotten Tomatoes
Sweet Tooth (TV 2021): Pandemic triggers "Great Crumble." And human/animal hybrids. All about a deer-boy's quest to find his scientist mother. Lots of adventures, but not much plot resolution. Good guys good, bad guys bad, deer-boy precious. It's a kids' tale for whole family. B-