City News Roundup

Dallas' city council districts are getting redrawn and more city news

Carpenter Park in downtown Dallas.

Courtesy rendering

This roundup of city news around Dallas includes a benchmark on the redistricting process, plus info about trees, parks, and an arrest made in the crime-laden fake paper license tag realm.

Here's what happened in Dallas this week:

Redistricting time
Redistricting — the process of redrawing the city council districts from which council members are elected which takes place every 10 years after the Census releases its data — has reached its next benchmark and the public is invited to weigh in.

The Redistricting Commission has two plans for review. In both plans, the outer suburbs stay pretty much as they are, but the more populated inner-city districts have been reworked. This is because of population shifts. Each district must meet a target of around 93,000 residents, but since the last census, District 14 — which has hipster areas including downtown, Uptown, Oak Lawn, Greenville Avenue — has grown to 106,927 residents, while District 1, which is North Oak Cliff, has 77,916 residents.

The COD – 017 plan (MAP HERE) takes Greenville Avenue away from District 14 and gives it to District 9 (AKA, Lakewood's district). In exchange, District 14 gets North Oak Cliff, but minus Bishop Arts, which stays in its current district, District 1.
The COD – 041 plan (MAP HERE) lets District 14 keep Greenville Avenue.

District 2 (AKA, Deep Ellum's district) gets the most altered. It's currently clustered in the center of the city, wrapped around District 14. In both new maps, it becomes a skinny, elongated district stretching from Love Field on the west to the very eastern edge of Dallas, picking up the Casa View neighborhood out next to Mesquite, which used to be in District 9 (AKA, Lakewood).

They're hosting a public hearing at City Hall – Council Chambers on Saturday, May 7 at 3 pm to get more public input. To offer feedback, register at bit.ly/2021RDCTH by 10 am that day.

Commissioners will select a final map during a meeting on May 9. The plan will be implemented at the next general election of Dallas City Council members conducted at least 90 days following the date the final districting plan becomes effective for the City, currently projected for May 6, 2023. For more information visit DallasRedistricting.com.

Abortion mania
Texas abortion rights organizations held rallies at federal courthouses across Texas on May 3, including a rally in downtown Dallas, to protest a pending decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that could knock down Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court's decision will come out this summer, but a draft was leaked to Politico, big mystery on who did the leaking.

If they do overturn Roe v. Wade, at least 26 states are teeing up to ban abortion entirely. Crazy wacky Louisiana is already crafting laws that would make abortion a homicide and grant constitutional rights to "all unborn children from the moment of fertilization."

Paper tags
The Dallas Police Department Auto Theft Task Force arrested Wayland Wayne Wright, 43, on the charge of Tampering with a Governmental Record with Intent to Defraud, a State Jail Felony. Detectives received a tip provided by a citizen, and conducted an undercover buy of a fake paper tag. Additional fake paper tags were recovered as well as $3,000 in cash. Wright admitted to printing multiple fake and fraudulent paper tags.

Rehab project
A neighborhood revitalization project is coming to West Dallas on Friday, May 6 when more than 25 volunteers from Republic Services will help on the construction of a new Women Build 2022 home. A release says that the team will move from a slab of concrete to constructing all the walls of the home. The project is funded by a $125,000 National Neighborhood Promise grant from the Republic Services Charitable Foundation.

Dallas ISD trees
The Texas Trees Foundation will celebrate the opening of seven new Cool Schools Neighborhood Parks at Dallas ISD campuses on Monday May 9. The celebration will spotlight the transformations of Dallas ISD school campuses that recently completed the installation of outdoor enhancements as part of the Texas Trees Foundation Cool Schools Program to encourage outdoor learning. All seven new Neighborhood Parks were funded by Lyda Hill Philanthropies, that includes playground equipment, a loop trail, new trees, outdoor learning area, and other outdoor resources. Neighborhood Parks being celebrated include Leila P. Cowart Elementary, Anson Jones Elementary, Esperanza "Hope" Medrano Elementary, Mockingbird Elementary, Anne Frank Elementary, Harold W. Lang Sr. Middle School, and Alex W. Spence Middle School and TAG Academy. The event begins at 9 am with speakers, refreshments, and a walk-through of the transformation at Alex W. Spence Middle School, 4001 Capital Ave.

Downtown park
Carpenter Park, a new park in downtown Dallas is now open. It's located at 2201 Pacific Ave., on the eastern side of downtown Dallas near Deep Ellum. Changes to the surrounding roads allowed for the development of what was a hit-or-miss series of grassy patches into a contiguous 5.75-acre park with new features such as an outdoor basketball court, dog run, interactive fountain, environmental play elements, gardens, walking paths, and two pieces of public sculpture: Robert Berks' statue of John W. Carpenter has been refurbished and reinstalled at the park entrance at Live Oak and Pearl Street. Robert Irwin's Portal Park Piece (Slice), which looks like a big rusty wall with a cut-out door, has been reconceptualized and retitled by the artist for the new environment the new title is Portal Park Slice.

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Hemp news

Texas cannabis businesses sue state to block ban on smokeable hemp

Photo by CRYSTALWEED cannabis on Unsplash

Texas is cracking down on smokeable hemp.

Texas hemp industry leaders and advocacy groups have sued the state to block new regulations that eliminate natural smokeable hemp products and increase licensing fees.

The Texas Hemp Business Council, Hemp Industry & Farmers of America, and several Texas-based dispensaries and manufacturers filed for a temporary restraining order in state district court in Travis County against the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission on Tuesday, April 6. They argue that the agencies have overstepped their constitutional authority by rewriting the statutory definitions of hemp established by lawmakers in 2019.

“Under current Texas law, hemp is defined by its delta-9 THC concentration of not more than 0.3 percent,” said David Sergi, an attorney for the hemp coalition, in a press release. “These Texas officials and state agencies are clearly attempting to create new law in direct contradiction to what the Texas legislature intended.”

The background
Even though Texas law bans marijuana, lawmakers legalized hemp in 2019. State law defines hemp as containing less than 0.3 percent levels of intoxicating Delta-9 THC.

To get around the law’s Delta-9 THC restrictions, manufacturers started cultivating hemp plants with another type of THC, called THCA, that, when ignited in a joint or smokeable product, can produce a high. Many lawmakers have said this legal loophole has allowed a recreational THC market to appear overnight without direct approval from the state.

Last year, the Texas Legislature voted to ban the products out of fear that these intoxicating products were consistently getting into the hands of children. But, Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed the decision last summer, before asking the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and DSHS to increase regulations on the industry instead.

The Texas Department of State Health Services released regulations on consumable hemp-derived THC products that went into effect on March 31. These new regulations include child-resistant packaging, a significant increase in licensing fees, new labeling, testing, and bookkeeping requirements. The rules also codify the legal purchasing age to 21, which went into effect last year as an emergency directive.

Why the hemp industry sued
Also under the new rules, laboratories tests now measure the total amount of any THC in a product. If the THC levels exceed the 0.3 percent threshold, even if it’s only activated upon being smoked, the product will be noncompliant under state regulations. As a result, some of the most popular hemp products, like THCA flower and pre-rolled joints, have been banned.

Hemp businesses caught selling noncompliant products face a range of penalties and fines, including license revocation and up to $10,000 in violation fees for each day these products were sold in stores.

“An administrative agency may not substitute its own policy judgment for the outcome produced by the constitutional lawmaking process,” the lawsuit states. “The Texas Constitution vests legislative power in the Legislature, not administrative agencies.”

Retailers cannot sell hemp to out-of-state customers either.

The rules also increase licensing fees for manufacturers of hemp-derived THC from $258 to $10,000 per facility and retail registrations from $155 to $5,000, which industry leaders say will fulfill the ban by forcing businesses to close. The hemp business community’s lawsuit is not challenging the other new regulations, including the age verification or ones they say protect consumers.

“Texas hemp businesses wholeheartedly support those regulations, as they fall within the agency’s authority,” said Sergi. “We are seeking to halt rules that would effectively end the in-state production of hemp and the sale of hemp products — items the Legislature chose not to ban during recent legislative and special sessions.”

What the state says
Concerns about the safety of these high-THC products among youth led lawmakers to attempt to ban hemp-derived THC products outright last year. While the overall ban didn’t succeed, lawmakers successfully banned vape pens containing THC and other hemp-derived intoxicating chemicals.

Data provided from the Texas Poison Center Network confirms a sharp increase in cannabis-related poisoning calls starting in 2019, a year after hemp-derived THC was legalized by the federal government, from 923 to a 10-year high of 2,592 in 2024. Calls climbed to 2,669 last year. The majority of these calls involve suspected poisoning of children under the age of five and teenagers.

Drug policy experts said these numbers seem alarming, but it is natural for poisoning calls to increase when a drug has become legalized, and the data needs additional context before making conclusions from it.

Jennifer Ruffcorn, spokesperson for HHSC, directed questions about the lawsuit and what it means for the new hemp regulations to DSHS.

Lara Anton, spokesperson for DSHS, declined to comment on pending litigation.

What’s next
The hemp industry’s battle to stay alive in Texas started back in 2021 when the state health agency classified any amount of a natural intoxicating hemp compound called delta-8 THC as illegal. The hemp industry sued the state over its ban on delta-8 and the Texas Supreme Court is expected to consider the case this year.

The delta-8 lawsuit will have an impact on the outcome of the most recent lawsuit over the smokeable hemp ban because both lawsuits challenge the authority of a state health agency to make changes to the market without approval from lawmakers or the public.

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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

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