The DMN City Hall Blog reports that Dallas City Attorney Tom Perkins says a Latino could win in the redrawn City Council District 1. He predicts Vonciel Hill could win in the new District 3. Unfair Park reports the six council members who voted against the redistricting map City Council sent to the Justice Department for approval asked the mayor for an “agenda item Redistricting Alternative be placed on the next voting agenda.”

A new restaurant, Driftwood, is going into the former ConFusion space at 642 W. Davis. It’s a high-end seafood place the owner describes as “The Hamptons meet Oak Cliff.”

Side Dish has written extensively about the Oak Cliff pop-up bar 828. This is the last weekend to check it out.

Bar 828 photo by Elliot Muñoz

Oak Cliff-based constable Beth Villareal has been refusing to serve criminal subpoenas, among other county clerk papers, because four of her deputies were laid off due to budget cuts. The District Attorney says it could prevent him from trying accused criminals.

Here is a DMN editorial about how invaluable Oak Cliff’s The Well Community is to our city.

Artwork from 60 Kessler School children is on display at the Oak Cliff Bank Tower. The art will be on display through the end of the year, and the public is welcome to view it during business hours.

The office building’s managing partner, Ralph Isenberg, is an art collector. And he has invited the students to create a custom work for the lobby of the building. That piece is expected to be on display for the holidays.

“We really appreciate the partnership between the business community and our school,” says Kessler School director Gayla Dobbins. “The children gain so much when their work is appreciated by others not associated with our campus.”

Bike Friendly Oak Cliff meets at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Eno’s for a ride over the bridge to Aurora.

The first of three Día de los Muertos celebrations in Oak Cliff is from 3-8 p.m. Saturday at the North Oak Cliff Library. A second one is Wednesday, Nov. 2, in the Tyler/Davis District.

Halloween Nights at the Dallas Zoo are from 5-8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 27-29. Activities include trick-or-treating, a haunted carousel, a trip to the reptile house and a stage show. Admission is $10, which includes candy and coupons.

The final Cyclesomatic event of 2011 is “Spooky Cross”, a cyclocross race, which starts at 10 a.m. Saturday at Rosemont Elementary School.

Pop-up bar 828, at 828 W. Davis, is throwing a Halloween costume party starting at 9 p.m. Saturday. Donate $50 and all your drinks are complimentary. Organizers report they have raised $2,000 so far for Oak Cliff-based Promise House.

Tyler Street United Methodist Church’s Trunk or Treat celebration is from 4-7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 31.

Oil & Cotton hosts a haunted house Monday, Oct. 31, from 6-8 p.m. Admission is $1 and goes toward providing scholarships to Oil & Cotton classes for children who could not otherwise afford them.

If you flipped through the print version of November’s magazine, you probably noticed that it looks, well, different. The section designs and fonts are updated, with the goal of giving readers more information while simultaneously giving the stories more room to breathe. Also, we’re hoping you saw quite a few invitations to visit our website. (Perhaps that’s how you ended up here.)

The last time we changed the look of the magazine was four and a half years ago, and much has changed since then — namely that we now have this robust, dynamic website with new stories, photos and videos added daily. If you’re reading only the print version of Advocate, you’re getting only a small portion of our neighborhood’s news. So we hope the more obvious, more colorful and more frequent mentions of website content will remind you to add us to your blog feeder, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, subscribe to our weekly newsletter or even make us your home page.

With our new apps, You can also peruse our redesigned magazine on your mobile device, whether iPhone, iPad or Android. (For the best user experience, make sure to download the entire magazine before viewing.)

Is there still room for improvement? Definitely, and we hope you’ll give us feedback on what you see in the magazine and what else you’d like to see. Email us or comment below.

For those of you interested in things like font choices and specific section approaches, listen to this special podcast with art director Julianne Rice and editor Emily Toman, who were the driving forces behind the Advocate print magazine redesign. Below we’ve excerpted a few of the highlights and provided the full audio version, which lasts roughly six minutes: (more…)

The annual program that brings together students and artists, who create art from the surroundings at the La Reunion TX campus, is wrapping up.

Their work will be on display for family, friends and La Reunion TX supporters during a reception from 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29. County commissioner Elba Garcia will speak at 2 p.m. Artist Jennifer Sereno and her students will follow with a brief performance piece. And then guests will be invited to tour the site and installations.
Art Chicas is in its fifth year, and La Reunion TX offered it to boys for the first time this year through Art Chicos. Six artists and 20 high school students participated, working every Saturday in October. During their lunch breaks, artists from the Dallas Art Dealers Association spoke to them about having careers in art.

Check out these photos by Allison V. Smith, taken at La Reunion TX.

La Reunion – Images by Allison V. Smith

The city has sent its redrawn maps to the Department of Justice for approval. That’s the map that drew Oak Cliff/West Dallas councilman Scott Griggs out of his district. And Oak Cliff councilman Delia Jasso thinks the new lines weaken the Hispanic vote in her district.

There is a four-point minority report that some council members are sending to the Justice Department, asking them to challenge the map.

It states that the mayor held private meetings, which led to a map that “ignores citizen input but also that of the Redistricting Commission.”

The map “decimates” the fabric of Oak Cliff, splitting three similar neighborhoods near Kiest Park into three separate districts: “This deplorable indifference to considering and respecting our communities of interest occurs throughout District 3, as far north as Pinnacle Park and as far south as Mountain Creek.”

The petition states that the Voting Rights Act isn’t being applied to other parts of the city, and that Oak Cliff’s districts were unduly disturbed, while other parts of the city saw few changes: “Why isn’t North Dallas’ District 10 that contains Hamilton Park and a sizeable Black voting age population, redistricted into a winnable Black seat? Why isn’t Northwest Dallas that contains a substantial Hispanic voting age population, redistricted to contain a winnable Hispanic seat? Dallas’s diversity is citywide and redistricting should reflect that reality.”

Anyone can sign the petition online.

At 35 years, Marietta is the longest-serving volunteer at the Dallas zoo. She tells us how different the zoo is today from 1976 and about some of the humorous moments she has with visiting children. We profile her in our November 2011 issue cover story. Read more about her and other interesting senior neighbors here.

Oak Cliff resident Jim Walston is part of a group of seniors that rebuilds classic airplanes from the last century. We profile him in our November 2011 issue cover story. Read more about him and other interesting senior neighbors here.

The city’s Gas Drilling Task Force is expected to make recommendations to City Council by the end of the year, and the panel wants to hear from Dallas residents.

A public forum on gas drilling is at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27 in the L1F Auditorium at City Hall. This could be the last time the public is invited for feedback before the committee makes its recommendations to City Council on whether to allow gas drilling in the city.

“The Gas Drilling Task Force has spent the past four months hearing from experts in the field, regulatory agency representatives, staff from area cities, and environmental and neighborhood leaders,” says task force chair Lois Finkelman. “It’s a good time to hear again from the citizens of Dallas on this very important issue.”

For more information, call 214.670.1200.

What a lovely month for riding bikes it has been. Cyclesomatic 2011 wraps up this week. Here’s what’s going down.

Wednesday, Oct. 26, bike to City Hall with Councilman Scott Griggs. Meet at Oddfellow’s at 7 a.m., and the group will ride across the bridge to Union Station at 7:30 a.m.

Oak Cliff Bicycle Co. offers a free bike maintenance class Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Learn how to change a flat tire and some basics of bicycle maintenance.

Saturday, Oct. 29, is the last day of Cyclesomatic, and there is a cyclocross race at Rosemont Elementary School. Cyclocross is a cross between a road bike race, a mountain bike race and idiotarod. It starts at 10 a.m., and this one has a Halloween theme, so they’re calling it “Spooky Cross.” There are free races for children and first-timers at 1:15 p.m. Show up to race or just to jeer the competitors. It’s a good time.