Craig MacKenzie

HUD Whistle-Blowers' New Lawsuit about How Dallas Promoted Segregation Could Still Cost Millions.

New Lockey/MacKenzie Lawsuit Seeks to Reopen Can of Worms in HUD Case

The Lockey/MacKenzie federal whistle-blower lawsuit accusing Dallas of deliberate racial segregation, dismissed last year because the judge said I had already blown the whistle, is back in court in all new clothes, filed Friday, this time with less of me and more of former City Council member Angel ... More >>

Morning News Does Half-Hearted Correction on Editorial Slamming HUD Whistle-Blowers

Oh thank you, God of Lazy Non-Recyclers, for sparing that grocery sack full of this week's copies of The Dallas Morning News, hiding it in that corner of the bedroom from the eye of The Great Recycler with whom I live, so that I was able to retrieve from it a hard copy of last Wednesday's newspaper, ... More >>

Ignore All the Smoke Around HUD's Case Against Dallas and See Something Ugly in the Mirror

Suddenly, Dallas Says HUD Segregation Investigation Is a Blessing

Dallas to HUD: Stuff It!

Right after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development accused Dallas last month of massive racial segregation and housing fraud, Mayor Mike Rawlings was all for making nice. That lasted all of two weeks. Now he and the city attorney are telling HUD to go screw itself. Last month, days a ... More >>

Demon Possession or Just Good Thinking, the News' Segregation Editorial Was a Good Thing

Yesterday The Dallas Morning News carried a really tough, plain-talking editorial condemning City Hall policies that have produced deliberate racial segregation in Dallas. It was the kind of editorial that should be applauded and really doesn't deserve to be nitpicked. But when did that ever stop me ... More >>

Six Ways Dallas City Hall Screwed the Little Guy in 2013

In 2013, Dallas residents were treated to an unprecedented whiff of Dallas city government, and the experience was something akin to opening that long-forgotten Tupperware container wedged beneath your car seat. The fumes aren't going to kill anyone, but the noxious mix of incompetence and deceit is ... More >>

The Source of Dallas' HUD Problem

It's not me. It's the two whistle-blowers suing the city.

Dallas' City Staff Has Two Stories Why HUD Complaint Is No Big Deal, Both Stupid

The city of Dallas went to federal court earlier this week to stop a federal judge from expressing his opinion about a recent federal investigative report accusing Dallas of practicing racial segregation (the city's brief is below). Plaintiffs in a whistle-blower lawsuit will come back today with th ... More >>

Dallas and Its Housing Authority Credit Me With Uncovering Their Housing Scam. I Wish.

Not that you asked, but here's what it's like to be me. I'm walking my dogs, Penny and Dorothy, up and down alleys in East Dallas, and I've got my little cell phone ear-bug deal going so I can talk to people and keep my hands free for clean-ups. And this is what I hear in my ear: "... white scienti ... More >>

How Dallas City Hall Put Us Back Behind a 25-Year-Old Eight-Ball on Segregation

A scathing federal report on housing policy in Dallas, unveiled this week after two City Council members demanded copies from the city attorney, has stirred local debate about federal desegregation law. But that debate begs two questions. See also: The Feds Say Dallas City Hall Has Promoted Racial ... More >>

The Feds Say Dallas City Hall Has Promoted Racial Segregation in Housing Projects for Years

Elected officials and city staff in Dallas colluded over a decade to break federal housing and civil rights laws and promote and worsen racial segregation across the city, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has found, dealing City Hall a scathing, and potentially costly, blow ... More >>

How City Officials Keep Dallas Segregated, and the Two Developers Suing to Stop Them

Yesterday I wrote about Curtis Lockey and Craig MacKenzie, who were on my mind Tuesday night as I watched the final electoral votes for Obama click into place. Lockey and MacKenzie are real estate developers suing Dallas in federal court over what they claim is massive misuse of federal de-segregati ... More >>

More Subsidized Housing is the Last Thing Poor Neighborhoods Need

The Dallas Morning News owes me at least five bucks for all the business I steer their way -- and, believe me, I hate doing it -- but once again they have an op-ed piece in the paper today that's really a must-read for people who care about the city or have any involvement at all with City Hall. I ... More >>

In Dallas As in Miami, It's Time to Build Low-Income Housing Where the Jobs Are

​Who's a liberal these days, and who are the conservatives? I look in the mirror, I don't even know. I look in The New York Times this morning, I'm even more confused. The Times has a story out of Miami about major cuts in federal housing subsidies. The story calls them "some of the deepest c ... More >>

Whistle-Blowers Claim City Misused Housing Money

Federal dough meant for affordable housing went to downtown.

Federal Judge Unseals Suit That Asks: Did Dallas Screw HUD Out of Hundreds of Millions?

​On June 10, 2010, I wrote a column for the newspaper about an official complaint brought to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by two Dallas developers alleging a decades-old pattern of racial discrimination and fraud by the city of Dallas, the county and other local entit ... More >>

Dallas City Hall gets whopped upside the head for its low-income housing policy.

Top 10 Schutze Columns of '10

​Nothing slow about us, but just when you thought my third annual list of Schutze's best columns wouldn't take shape, Jim's check finally cleared, so I took the time to look back at his fine work throughout the year and picked out the 10 that made me fall in love with him all over again. As in ... More >>

How Affordable Is Downtown Dallas Housing? We Send Our Intern to Find Out.

Photos by Elliot Kaiser​Note from Jim: In the last week of April I asked the city to tell me how many guaranteed low-income housing units are available in downtown Dallas. There should be lots of them by now -a a couple thousand by some estimates -- because over the decades, the city has used hu ... More >>

A Hearing on Whether Dallas Discriminates When It Comes to Downtown Housing

The Atmos Complex, which the Hamiltons are intending to develop behind the old Statler Hilton​On Thursday we will get an interesting first official bite of the apple in complaints that the city of Dallas flouts federal law and practices racial discrimination in its downtown housing policies. The b ... More >>

City Hall Had Better Look Over Its Shoulder Because HUD Is Ready To Kick Some Fair-Housing Butt.

Locked Out of LTV Tower Redo, Developer Sends City Council a Very Pointed Letter Today

​Curtis Lockey and Craig MacKenzie, erstwhile developers of the LTV Tower 1600 Pacific Building and subjects of my column in the current edition of the paper, have sent to Dallas City Council members and city staffers a letter alleging deliberate discrimination against low-income persons and famil ... More >>

City Hall's Desire For A Fancy Downtown (Without Too Many Poor People) Costs Developers $30 Million

So Suhm Me

What's in store?

Plus: Rescued from the Reich