Catching up after spending a week on the road (and yes, the airports were a zoo):
• AT&T. Yes, it’s big news that AT&T is bringing its corporate headquarters to downtown Dallas. But let’s not lose perspective. The company is only moving 700 of its 6,000 San Antonio-based employees, and it already has offices downtown and almost 13,000 employees in the area. This is not quite the same thing as American moving to the area, lock and stock and runway, in 1979.
• Restaurant coupons. Got another one over the weekend, this time for the Chic-fil-a on Central Expressway. There are three offers, all for free food with almost no restrictions.
• Lake Highlands tussle. Our friends in Lake Highlands had a spirited, almost East Dallas-like debate, over the city council’s approval of senior citizen housing at Skillman and Church. Lake Highlands is going to be the poster child for what city planners want to do with density in traditional neighborhoods, a role I do not relish for them.
• Sales tax revenue update. And who says Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper can’t learn from others? Last week, it posted Dallas’ sales tax revenue for the first six months of 2008. Just like we did here six weeks ago, when we discovered that the city projected a 5.9 percent increase. The actual increase is 2.4 percent. And its parent company’s stock hit a yet another record low last week, closing at $5.70 after going as low as $5.51.
