DMN INVESTIGATES

College presidents quit in mid-semester all the time, right? Two weeks' notice is standard, right?

So there's no need for the University of North Texas and its president, Gretchen Bataille (pictured here), to explain why she is suddenly resigning, right?

The taxpayer-funded school's Wednesday press release and Bataille's "message to the UNT community" total 755 words and explain nothing.

The stonewalling continues today at the UNT Board of Regents meeting, as the Denton Record-Chronicle is now reporting: "When approached at the meeting for comment as to why she is resigning mid-year, with only a few weeks' notice, Bataille only shook her head, making it clear she did not want to discuss her reasons for leaving."

Can somebody please shed some light on this situation?

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Dallas-Fort Worth commuters have begun paying tolls in recent years because, they were told, tax dollars were too few to expand all the congested roadways and build new ones.

The Star-Telegram did a nice job this weekend showing how there has been, in fact, public money to spare. Since 1991, nearly $1 billion has been dedicated to projects that had "little to do with mobility," the newspaper reported.

Two examples: $16.1 million for the Battleship Texas restoration project on the Texas coast and $262 million spent on highway rest stops across the state, including one for $10 million off Interstate 35 with Wi-Fi connections (shown at right).

Who's to blame? Texas transportation officials say the federal government ties their hands by requiring spending on enhancement projects, as these are called, in order to get a much larger chunk of construction change. Once the money is here, state lawmakers then push to use it on pet projects, such as $2 million for a Houston fire museum.

Do you have thoughts on how government is deciding to spend these transportation dollars? Leave a comment or e-mail me.

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An environmental group says yes -- and that adds to the list of concerns about gas drilling activity in the lucrative Barnett Shale covering western Dallas-Fort Worth.

The News' Randy Lee Loftis writes that companies can use a certain type of unregulated fluid that has high levels of benzene -- which can cause leukemia and other disorders -- as part of the drilling process. Some residents in Denton and Tarrant counties were already worried about drilling's impact on the air, drinking water and safety. In some cases, research backed up their worries.

A spokeswoman for the Texas Railroad Commission told Randy that state rules have prevented cases of groundwater contamination. So the agency "does not see a need to monitor fracturing fluids," she said.

Do you have thoughts on drilling in the Barnett Shale or have tips on other stories? Leave a comment or e-mail me.

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A new report Tuesday reiterates what anyone who drives by the Trinity River in Dallas and inhales already knows: It's icky. Filled-with-junk-from-sewage-treatment-plants icky.

The News' Randy Lee Loftis reminds us in his story that this is merely the latest dinging the Trinity has taken.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality -- an agency frequently accused of having a light touch -- previously deemed the river unsafe for extended human contact because of a high level of pollutants.

Not the kind of assessments Dallas city leaders want to hear as they seek to develop the Trinity into a business and recreation destination.

A decade ago, federal transportation officials hired Traffic.com to install high-tech sensors that measure freeway speeds and volume. The data can trigger traffic-jam alerts to electronic signs and other equipment.

But state and local governments can't post the alerts unless they pay the contractor a fee, The New York Times reports today, citing a non-yet-public audit by the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general.

Never mind that taxpayers have committed more than $50 million to the project.

The transportation department responded to the audit, according to Times, by citing "nine letters from members of Congress -- many of whom had received frequent campaign contributions from executives at Traffic.com -- who demanded, among other requests, that it skip a competitive bidding process and give more money to Traffic.com."

The story does not identify the politicians. It says Traffic.com, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Navteq, didn't respond to a request for comment.

In case you're wondering, yes, Traffic.com alerts do appear on dallasnews.com.

Do you have a tip about traffic? Government contracts? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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The air near a North Texas natural gas drilling operation had over five times more benzene than the state considers safe for short-term exposure, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports today.

A Texas Commission on Environmental Quality official told the paper that the level "is the equivalent of a person sniffing a can of gasoline." Benzene can cause leukemia and other disorders.

The air sample was taken near a tank that collects drilling byproducts. The tank was described as being seven miles west of the tiny Denton County town of DISH (right) -- near the Denton-Wise county line, in other words, and a few miles north of the Tarrant County border.

DISH commissioned its own tests and posted results on its Web site.

TCEQ says it doesn't know how widespread the problem is and wants to do more tests. Drilling has become quite common in the Barnett Shale gas field, sometimes very near homes.

Drilling companies say they support more testing. Some have questioned whether their wells emit hydrocarbon vapors.

Do you have a tip about drilling? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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At DLA Piper, Dick Armey (right) made $750,000 a year lobbying for clients such as a wind farm that sought tax credits under the Obama stimulus package.

At FreedomWorks, the former House majority leader from Denton County makes $500,000 a year to proclaim, among other things, that "billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies have done little to make alternative energy sources more practical."

Dave Michaels, a reporter in The Dallas Morning News' Washington bureau, takes a long look today at Armey's dual roles.

While FreedomWorks is often "antagonistic to politicians of both parties ... the general disposition of the lobbyist is to be sweet to officeholders," Armey acknowledged. "This is always a problem, and people have struggled with it in Washington.

"Few have mastered it as I have."

Do you have a tip about lobbyists and lobbying? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Our blog has featured a couple of items on complaints with the North Texas Tollway Authority's billing system. The most common we've received: The agency doesn't keep track of toll payments then assumes drivers haven't made good, levies a stiff late fee and sics a bill collector on them.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's watchdog columnist, Dave Lieber, reported this weekend on similar complaints he's hearing. One reader was told he could be arrested if he didn't pay up.

A top NTTA official says the fees -- $25 per toll violation, plus other costs -- are needed to cover its collections operation. But state Sen. Jane Nelson is skeptical.

"It's gotten out of hand," she told Lieber. "What really bothers me is this is not supposed to be a revenue source for the NTTA."

The implication: Funding is tight as NTTA expands with more toll roads. Nelson also told Lieber that when she's made inquiries about this with agency officials, "They've been very defensive."

Do you have an experience with NTTA's billing system? Post a comment.

The state's academic testing program in grammar and high schools has fed a running argument over whether it puts emphasis more on scores or learning. Critics surely will seize on this data analysis by The News:

1. Holly K. Hacker's Sunday story found half of college-bound graduates from some North Texas high schools earned less than a C average their freshman year. That includes middling results from kids at Dallas' nationally recognized magnet school. The state's higher education commissioner said it was a "serious problem" that students are "stunned when they arrive on a college campus." Look up your school with this online database.

2. Current and former members of the non-profit that runs the Alamo has been squabbling over finances. That brings this to light: The state may own the landmark, but no agency provides management oversight. That worries San Antonio's mayor, The News' Marjorie Korn reports.

3. News reporters aren't the only ones who fight for records. An audit released this morning shows the FDIC wouldn't share documents with the State Auditor's Office as part of a review of the Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending.

Do you have thoughts or tips to share? Leave a comment or e-mail me.

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That's probably a trio of topics you wouldn't have expected to see in a headline. Let's read on:

1. Good news, bad news at the Dallas City Hall bribery trial, The News' Jason Trahan tells us. If you're Don Hill: You probably look more favorable to jurors after you were heard doubting the ethics of your co-defendant, D'Angelo Lee, on phone conversations secretly taped by the FBI. If you're Lee: Your co-defendant is heard doubting your ethics on phone conversations secretly taped by the FBI.

2. Supporters of the federal stimulus package said it was a chance to make $65 billion in repairs to crumbling, aging bridges. Want to guess where I'm headed next after that set-up? The Associated Press found that nearly half of the ones slated for funding are in good shape and wouldn't have qualified for money in normal circumstances. Best use of the stimulus?

3. This isn't our typical watchdog story to highlight: Lewisville High School cheerleaders had illegal drugs, such as Ecstasy, at a weekend clinic, KXAS (NBC-5) reports. As school district officials investigate, they should ask this of themselves: When was the last time they tested cheerleaders for drug use? District policy allows it, and athletes have been subjected to it after reports of steroid abuse.

Do you have thoughts or tips to share? Leave a comment or e-mail me.

Use social-networking media to get your news? Follow the blog or me on Twitter, or join our Facebook group.

Today's Hot Links are about two things you cannot escape in life: death and databases.

1. Here's the most interesting proposal I've heard in a while: a a national database of undiagnosed diseases. The idea was inspired by the mysterious death of a suburban Austin boy named Charles August "Cal" Long, the Austin American-Statesman reports. It summarizes the goal this way: "doctors and scientists could describe symptoms, exchange information and compile data that could be used to solve medical mysteries." Two Texas legislators recently introduced a bill in Congress -- Rep. Michael Burgess, who is a physician from North Texas, and Rep. John Carter of Central Texas, who long ago lost one of his own children to an unknown disease.

2. The Social Security Administration is not only paying benefits to the dead, it's also denying aid to living folks who are misclassified as deceased. Here's the inspector general's report on which McClatchy Newspapers based its story.

Do you have a tip about death, or databases, or another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

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Several readers frustrated by roadwork have called and written to complain. For instance, Samra Jones Bufkins asked about construction on Loop 288 in the Denton area, saying the process has been "interminable."

"Stores and restaurants have gone out of business because the access was impossible, and traffic backed up horribly," she said. "In fact, it looks complete, but orange barrels and barricades block off up to two lanes in each direction. It's a finished road, but we can't drive on it. Why has this been allowed to go on so long?"

The $39 million project has been underway for more than three years, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.

"We understand motorists' desire to use the new section of Loop 288, and we hope to have the portion from Interstate 35E to McKinney Street open by the Fourth of July weekend," said spokesman Tony Hartzel. The entire project should be completed by September.

He said that even when roads look finished, there can be additional work items to complete. "In this case, contractors are working to finish irrigation work and safety-related issues such as pavement striping and signal light timing before the road can open

Here's a look at public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere that raise serious questions about building practices:

1. Dallas Cowboys officials knew before building their practice facility that a new, similar structure erected by the same contractor had recently collapsed, I'm reporting today in The Dallas Morning News.

2. Another disaster killed three construction workers yesterday in Austin. The project's developer, Gary Perkins, has deep ties to the Dallas and Denton County areas.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

I recently got an email alerting me that I had some unclaimed money in an IRS account. Wow, that sounded too good to be true.

And, in fact, it was.

Turns out that my email is a perfect example of a modern scam called "phishing," which involves the criminal use of the Internet to try to gain access to sensitive information, such as credit card and social security numbers.

In this case, the fake IRS message attempted to trick unsuspecting victims, like me, into revealing personal information that could then be used to access the victims' financial accounts.

"This is a big topic," said Clay Sanford, an IRS spokesman in Dallas. Taxpayers have forwarded more than 33,000 of these scam e-mails to the IRS, he said, and there are more than 1,500 different schemes to date.

Here's a sign that the federal stimulus package is reaching into North Texas: Funding for local transportation projects.

In the latest installment of our Citizen Watchdog column, Jennifer LaFleur shows us a new online tool that we can use to keep track of the $2.2 billion in funding for new roads, bridges, bike paths and walking trails due to Texas.

The Texas Department of Transportation is operating the site. The information is organized by county. After clicking on a particular project, you can pull up a construction schedule, location map, funding breakdown and construction company in charge.

Jennifer used the TxDOT site to find that Harris County leads the state so far in the number of projects with 18. Tarrant County has the highest dollar amount, more than $1.2 billion.

Did you find the TxDOT site helpful? Did you spot an interesting trend? Leave us a comment and let us know.

With ozone season kicking off Friday, it's time for a review of how North Texas is doing on knocking smog out of the skies. ("Smog," by the way, is a non-technical but apt word for the gunk in the air. In most places, including Dallas-Fort Worth, ozone is the main component of smog, so many people swap the terms in casual usage.)

The main problem is that there's no one right way to measure progress against smog. The official version says Dallas-Fort Worth is making pretty good progress. The American Lung Association, in its 10th annual State of the Air report being released Wednesday, finds things getting worse.

As is so often the case, both versions of reality arise from the same raw data. It's just shaken and stirred with different goals in mind.

Here are a few public-interest stories catching our eye in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. OK, the good news first: No one has been hurt since stadium lighting poles (like the one pictured here) started falling at Texas high schools. But the rest of this investigative report from Cox Newspapers is terrifying. Denton, Tarrant and Ellis counties are among those where tragedy nearly has struck. The steel poles have a common -- and unregulated -- manufacturing lineage.

2. Bedford resident Jan Tidwell, a reader of this blog, sent us a frantic post yesterday. The local power company wanted to chop down her old oak trees. Dallas Morning News reporter Sherry Jacobson and videographer Nathan Hunsinger hustled to craft these balanced looks at the situation. Is Oncor overzealous in cutting trees near power lines? Or are homeowners like Jan putting shade ahead of safety?

3. We've been trying to avoid the White House puppy story, reasoning that there were too many other reporters covering this trivia. But Dallas Morning News reporter Jeffrey Weiss changed our mind today with a look at the risks associated with the Obamas' North Texas-bred pooch.

News reporter Sarah Perry tells us that a "bridge over State Highway 114 near the Texas Motor Speedway could be closed for nearly two months for emergency repairs."

"The bridge on FM 156 was closed Wednesday after crews discovered a damaged beam on its underside, said Keith Nabors, a maintenance supervisor for TxDOT."

Bridge and roadway quality was thrust into the national spotlight when the I-35W bridge across the Mississippi River collapsed Aug. 1, 2007, killing 13. The collapse was caused by design flaws.

More than 1 in 4 of America's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

So take some time and check the bridges near where you live and drive on our new searchable database.

Do you see something interesting in the data? Send us an e-mail.

If you're new to the blog today, welcome. Here are some of today's interesting stories from The Dallas Morning News and around the Web:

1. Our 2006 "Road Hazards" investigation of Texas truck safety found that a fourth of the 953 drivers faulted in fatal crashes earlier this decade had been previously convicted or sentenced to deferred adjudication probation. Now the FBI has linked long-haul truckers to serial killings claiming 500 victims across the U.S., the Los Angeles Times reports. Grapevine police are pursuing one of the truckers.

2. Gas wells tapping into the Barnett Shale have grown by the thousands in D-FW's western counties. Proposed Senate Bill 686 would try to lessen safety risks for residents by letting energy companies run pipelines along state highways rather than through neighborhoods, the Star-Telegram reports.

3. Talk about sticker shock. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal bailout of the financial sector will be about $356 billion, nearly twice as much as previously stated.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.