John Kanelis

By JOHN KANELIS

This is a story I didn’t see coming.

Texas long has been known as a sort of unofficial “capital” of the prison-construction industry. Now the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is closing some of the units, apparently for good.

The reason? A decline in the state prison population and an apparent inability to staff the prison units adequately.

By JOHN KANELIS

I am inclined as a general rule to oppose Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s world view on most matters.

However, on the issue of seeking to remove one state’s non-essential travel ban to Texas because of our state’s strong stand in favor of “religious liberty,” I believe he is onto something.

What constitutes “essential travel”? I suppose one example would be in the event of a natural disaster emergency, in which firefighters or other first responders travel from California to Texas to lend aid.

The Super Tuesday Democratic Party primary presidential race is just a shade less than a month away.

On March 3, Texans will get to vote for who should be the next Democratic nominee for the presidency. The Texas ballot is going to include a name that’s been missing from ballots that will precede this huge political event.

Michael Bloomberg is the man of the hour. Or at least he wants to be the man of the hour – or the man of the primary – at the end of that quite important election.

Local control is best. That’s the mantra of city governments everywhere, regardless of location or the political leanings of its governing body.

So it is, then, that Farmersville – a growing Collin County community – is beginning to wrestle with the best way to achieve complete local control. Its City Council wants to enact a home rule charter, moving the city away from the “general law” rules mandated by Texas statute.

By JOHN KANELIS

A little more than a year ago, my wife and I made one of the key decisions of our married life when we found a house in Princeton, Texas and, with the help of our Realtor daughter-in-law, purchased it.

We knew going into this purchase that we were moving into a community on the move. It is a fast-growing city that over time will cease being an insignificant burg that straddles U.S. Highway 380 in Collin County.

Three Texas communities -- Big Spring, Colorado City and Rusk -- have thumbed their collective noses at a legal activity that I acknowledge fully has its sworn enemies.

You want transparency in local government? You want to see how a certain city in North Texas handles any potential questions about whether its elected governing body is meeting in "secret," or conducting public business "illegally"?

I could have lived an entire lifetime without hearing the words that opened our Sunday morning worship service in church.

Recycling is a way of life in many North Texas communities, although many other communities have yet to get into the game.

Farmersville and Princeton are two Collin County cities that have discovered the benefit of recycling and the environmental awareness that the activity promotes within individual families.

I guess the verdict is in on Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen’s secret meeting with a right-wing activist.

The speaker likely broke a campaign finance law when he met with Empower Texans guru Michael Quinn Sullivan, offered up the names of 10 fellow Republican legislators that Empower Texans could try to defeat in the 2020 election and then offered the right-wing PAC a media pass, giving the PAC immediate access to House members working on the floor of the chamber.

The House General Investigating Committee issued the report, then closed its investigation.

My retirement journey has brought my wife and me to the Dallas-Fort Worth Mega-Metroplex, where we now call home.

Farmersville Independent School District trustees have decided to take a bit of a leap of faith.

Do not ever tell the Rev. Chet Haney that God doesn’t answer prayers.

Farmersville residents are getting a chance once again to see what the city’s police force must do to serve and protect them.

I guess I missed out on a lot of “fun” while attending college back in the day.

Fannin County Judge Randy Moore is what one might call a pragmatic idealist.

Farmersville City Council gets an earful on occasion from residents who contend they don’t always know all there is to know about what the council is doing on residents’ behalf.

When you ascend to the role of speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, you preside over a body of disparate political views. Republicans and Democrats seek to work together -- most of the time -- for the common good. They need a speaker they can trust to say and do the right thing at all times, in public and in private.

Dennis Bonnen is toast as speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.

If not, though, the Angleton Republican should be toast. As in, he appears to be losing favor with Republicans who comprise most of the lawmakers in the Texas House. Pressure is building for Bonnen to resign his speakership; I won’t endorse a notion that he quit the House, given that his role in the Legislature is up to the voters who sent him there.

The speakership is another matter. He became speaker at the start of the 2019 Legislature because a majority of House members voted him in.

Imagine that you’re running a public educational system. Parents with school-age children are moving into your community in a steady, almost breakneck pace. Where do you put those children? How do you accommodate your school system’s new neighbors?

I stumbled upon an item in the Dallas Morning News online edition that, to be honest, made my jaw drop damn near into my lap.

Here it comes, sports fans.

Hell must have frozen over during the night. Or … the sun rose in the west. Or …  something else totally out of the ordinary occurred.

Cokie Roberts was born to do what she did.

Ross Ramsey, one of the top guns at the Texas Tribune, has it exactly right. Empower Texans main man, Michael Quinn Sullivan, needs to release the full recording of a meeting he allegedly had with two key Texas legislative Republicans.

The plaque pictured below offers an important civics lesson. It tells of the late Sam Rayburn's role as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and also as a rank-and-file member of the legislative branch of the federal government.

Princeton City Hall is a non-descript structure on U.S. 380. The City Council meets there. The city administrative offices are located inside the structure the city leases from the building owner.

School is about to begin in Texas, which means that football season also is nearly upon us. I don’t know about you, but I might be looking with just a little bit more interest than usual at Mount Vernon High School, waiting to see how the team performs in its first season under the coaching leadership of a guy who – although he is a brilliant coach – shouldn’t have this job.

Sam Rayburn might well have been the greatest Texas politician of the 20th century. Greater than Lyndon Johnson, or John Connally, or Ma Ferguson, or Ralph Yarbrough, or Ann Richards.