The dog never smells its own DISD board member Don Venable has a tendency to attach himself to nitpicky legal issues like a rabid chihuahua, running, yapping, ripping, and biting till he manages to score a bloody chunk of flesh. Venable has sued the district several times over the years,…

Tanks a lot, Mr. Loncar Tank-driving attorney Brian Loncar doesn’t see the inside of a courtroom that often. After all, as Dallas Observer staff writer Thomas Korosec revealed in his January 9, 1997, cover story “Smash ’em and smile,” Loncar essentially ran a lawsuit mill–where untrained, underpaid staff churned personal…

Winners and whiners Buzz has conducted its own statistical analysis and concluded that at least 1,643 pro-arena votes–last Saturday’s margin of victory, plus one–can be attributed to the ghastly presence of Sharon Boyd, treasurer of the It’s a Bad Deal! campaign. In numerous interviews, and most notably in a televised…

Parting shots The fat lady is warming up her voice, and by the time Buzz rolls around again, the Mavs and the Stars will be laying plans for a new Dallas arena or reserving a U-Haul to move out to the sticks. So, here it is, our last chance to…

Thin air Enough is enough. In the past, Buzz has tried to show compassion when KERA radio talk show host Glenn Mitchell dragged out his intro or lingered over an anecdote a little too long, obviously trying to fill what otherwise would be dead air. But this week, Mitchell hit…

Back of the line, pal Add Matthew Harden’s name to the list of people queued up to get their hands on the infamous Peavy Tapes. Lawyers representing the embattled DISD chief financial officer surprisingly came one step closer this week to hearing selections from the two-year-old tapes of former school…

Mending fences Pardon us while we strut our stuff. Two weeks ago, staff writer Thomas Korosec reported on the crappy state of a privacy fence at the home of City Manager John Ware. Neighbors complained that the 6-foot fence around the back yard had been tipped over for at least…

Empty calories Buzz got a peek at the slick mail-out put together by the pro-arena Yes! For Dallas Committee, and we must say it’s a…um, piece of work. It’s sort of the intellectual equivalent of a Rice Krispies treat: tasty, but low on nutritional value. You’ve got your simple-minded charts,…

God love ya, Dan One of the problems newshounds face when writing about scandalous or bizarre behavior by elected officials is that the reporting tends to drive the more entertaining politicos out of office. That’s good for government, but bad for the muckraking business. (Buzz once worked in a city…

Mea culpa Buzz doesn’t want to dwell on how we found this out. We simply want to warn our fellow motorists on the Dallas North Tollway. You may have, like Buzz, occasionally whizzed by the exact-change basket as you passed a toll booth even though you hadn’t found 50 cents…

A woman scorned It’s a proud moment for a reporter to learn that his or her work has driven some crooked bureaucrat to Nixonesque levels of paranoia. So Buzz was touched to read the deposition of Freda Jinks, the Dallas schools administrative assistant turned cheese-eater whose ratting led former superintendent…

Guess again, Kay Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has made her opposition to changes in the Wright Amendment clear. What a pity she hasn’t bothered to acquaint herself with the amendment’s history before weighing in on whether to expand flights from Love Field. In a letter to a constituent, Hutchison offered…

Mr. Schieffer goes to Austin For those Texas Rangers fans who want to know why their beloved baseball team fails year after year to live up to expectations, we advise you look only to the man in charge–general partner and president Tom Schieffer, a man who apparently never took to…

Paula, Bill, and the horn Buzz has watched with wonder the comings and goings of a sign on Hillcrest Drive outside a large house near LBJ Freeway. The sign says, “Honk if you believe Paula.” At first, Buzz noticed that the sign came down when a settlement seemed near between…

Stop the Insanity Susan Powter, former Dallas pudgy turned fitness guru turned bankrupt Californian, is back on the shelves with a new book: Sober…and Staying That Way: the Missing Link in the Cure for Alcoholism. The spiked, bleached ‘do is a touch longer, though still a long way from the…

No black-velvet Elvis? Yvonne Gonzalez, the jailhouse-bound former Dallas school superintendent, showed up attired entirely in black–a la Johnny Cash–for her arraignment last week at the federal courthouse. Unfortunately, such understated styling was not her way in January when she did all that furniture shopping for her home and office…

Go down Moses Paul Fielding, the former Dallas City Council member headed to the federal pen on charges of fraud and extortion, persuaded a judge last week to postpone his scheduled prison-entrance date. His excuse for delaying his trip to the pokey? Fielding wanted to be a free man to…

Neener, neener, neener Long before Dallas public schools superintendent Yvonne Gonzalez began being measured for a prison jumpsuit (size not-petite), Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price was going about town dishing out servings of crow. (The phrase “I told you so” tastes so sweet rolling off the tongue.) Price, in…

Soothing the savage beast Finally, something harmonious, melodic–hell, downright soothing–is emanating from 3700 Ross Ave., Dallas Independent School District’s central office–not to be confused with the set of The (Not So) Young and the Restless. What accounts for the sweet tunes? Well, it’s not that school board members have suddenly…

See no evil City Attorney Sam Lindsay never met a conflict of interest he couldn’t rationalize, especially if it involves Mayor Ron Kirk. The latest issue involves Kirk’s vocal opposition to nascent Legend Airlines, which is trying to get its 56 first-class seat planes off the ground at Love Field…