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First, let me say that for Christmas I got my mom a Solo Stove, and it’s great. I don’t know how the magic works, but it really does produce a smokeless fire. Five stars.

But the Grapevine-based company and its PR agency have come up with a stunt that I don’t understand. Here’s how I imagine the conversation went:

PR EXEC: “I got one idea that I’m especially psyched out of my mind about. As you know, National S’mores Day is July 22. Are you ready for this? We set a Guinness World Record for the Most People Making S’mores Simultaneously—using a Solo Stove!”

SOLO HONCHO: “How do we crowd all those people around a Solo Stove?”

PR EXEC: “Great question! I love where your head is at. Come with me on this journey. It’s not one Solo Stove. We use 400 Solo Stoves. The Mesa fire pit model. And we do it at Chicken N Pickle.”

SOLO HONCHO: “So you’re saying 400 fire pits. With fire. On July 22. In Dallas.”

PR EXEC: “Grapevine. The Chicken N Pickle is in Grapevine.”

SOLO HONCHO: “But you want to light 400 fire pits on July 22.”

PR EXEC: “And we call it Solo Stove’s S’moresapalooza!”

SOLO HONCHO: “That does have alliteration, doesn’t it? [thinks for a minute, stares out window at hellscape that is North Texas right now, with heat index of 120 degrees] Tell you what. If you get a Dallas Maverick to show up and sign autographs, we’re in.”

PR EXEC: “I know a guy who knows a guy who knows Theo Pinson’s agent. Let’s do this!”

Dallas City Council, Mayor Sworn In at Inauguration Ceremony. Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson got his way and there were no guests onstage at the Meyerson Symphony Center during the ceremonial swearing in on Tuesday. Municipal Court Administrative Judge Preston Robinson swore in each of the 14 council members, while Mayor Eric Johnson, who is a registered Democrat serving in a nonpartisan role, was sworn in by Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. The mayor hasn’t commented on his decision to pick Cornyn and largely played the hits in his speech: more parks, less crime, lower property taxes, and better infrastructure.

This Heat Is Now Dangerous. Our heat index will soar to between 110 and 120 today despite highs being in the upper 90s. Yikes. That’s all the humidity in the air. There are storms forecast for areas west of us, but it’s not clear whether that will make it all the way here. Stay hydrated.

And We’re Being Asked to Conserve Energy. It took the sun setting for ERCOT to get comfortable with the electricity supply. Expect more conservation warnings and alerts throughout the summer; another should be coming today.

For Oak Cliff began in a classroom.

Co-founder and CEO Taylor Toynes recognized a need in his community when he was teaching at W.W. Bushman in South Oak Cliff. Many of his students did not have school supplies. 

So he got to work. He helped organize the inaugural Back to School Festival in 2015, a now-annual event that equips students with the supplies they needed.

“Our community was in a space where [there was] always negativity,” says Toynes. The problems went beyond a lack of school supplies. Toynes saw systemic issues that affect the area. But he also saw plenty of positivity and potential.

In the years since that first Back to School Festival, For Oak Cliff has grown dramatically in scope and scale. The organization that began in a classroom now provides resources for Oak Cliff community members of all ages. They host job fairs and offer GED and phlebotomy programs, helping train residents for specific jobs.

These services are often held at the For Oak Cliff Community Campus, a 20,000 square foot former YMCA that sits on 10 acres of land. It has classrooms, a gymnasium, tennis courts, a pool, and an e-sports center.

“Our mission is to liberate Oak Cliff from systemic oppression by building a culture of education to increase social mobility and social capital,” says Xavier Henderson, For Oak Cliff’s co-founder and chief development officer.  

Hundreds of people packed into buses at Fair Park on May 20, but Patricia Perez had other plans. They were all heading to Juanita Craft’s house at 2618 Warren Avenue, to celebrate the reopening of a museum that took more than six years of work. Perez, 70, skipped the bus ride. She had her ride share driver drop her off at her aunt’s old house in South Dallas. She then walked the familiar three-block route to the freshly painted white craftsman on Warren, a trot she’d made hundreds of times before.

Perez met the civil rights activist on Saturday, October 2, 1965. Her mother had sent her and her little brother from New York City to live with family in Dallas. When she picked the kids up from Love Field, their aunt said, “I have someone I want you to meet.” An hour and a half later, 12-year-old Perez was knocking on the back door of Craft’s home. The woman who met them was unforgettable.

“Mrs. Craft was a large woman in physical stature,” Perez remembers. “But whenever she opened her mouth, you realized if she had been four feet tall, she would have still been a large human being. And at 12 I knew that.”

The influence Juanita Craft had on Dallas, and across the country, was just as large. “I don’t think the city recognizes her impact and legacy continues today,” says HERitage founder Froswa’ Booker-Drew, who served on the museum steering committee and pushed the State Fair of Texas to donate thousands of dollars to the museum efforts. “The impact that Ms. Craft had is beyond South Dallas. It’s national.”

Over a period of 50 years, the longtime South Dallas resident registered thousands of people to vote, organized citywide cleanup campaigns, and served two terms on the Dallas City Council. She worked to integrate the State Fair, the Dallas Independent School District, and colleges like University of North Texas. As a leader in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she founded more than 180 local NAACP chapters and hosted a long roster of activists, politicians, dignitaries, and celebrities, like Thurgood Marshall, in her humble, 1,300-square-foot home.

“You’d be surprised the kind of people coming in and out of that house, everybody from presidents to senators to ambassadors,” says Peter Johnson, a Civil Rights activist and longtime friend of Craft. “I mean, it is a museum whether you want it to be or not.”

Craft donated her house to the city of Dallas after her death in 1985. It took nearly 40 years for her house to be officially opened as a museum and a monument to the local civil rights movement. Unlike other Dallas museums, the Juanita Craft house doesn’t tower over freeways or take up whole city blocks.

It sits, as it always has, quietly in the middle of the Wheatley Place neighborhood, ready to host anyone from a Supreme Court justice to a teenaged neighbor.

Juneteenth may have been officially celebrated Monday, but it was a weekend-long party in Dallas that included longstanding gatherings in the city’s historically Black neighborhoods and freedmen’s towns. There was also an inaugural celebration in Deep Ellum that acknowledged the history and contributions to the arts of Dallas’ Black residents.

Photographer Bret Redman went to two celebrations on Saturday—the 13th annual parade in a former freedman’s town —the Elm Thicket/Northpark neighborhood—and the Morney Berry Farm, which has hosted its 30 years of Juneteenth celebrations on land that was originally purchased by the formerly enslaved James and Kathy Morney with several bales of cotton and six years of savings in 1876. (Their descendants own it today.) On Sunday, he visited the brand-new Juneteenth Block Party in Deep Ellum that featured local artists, vendors, and an appearance by the R&B group Dru Hill.

Head to the gallery for images over the weekend.

Another Excessive Heat Warning. We’ll hit about 100 today, but factoring in humidity, it will feel more like 116. The National Weather Service out of Fort Worth says you should avoid spending extended periods of time outside. Hang in there, guys.

Highland Park ISD Buys House for Superintendent to Live In. Across the state, this doesn’t happen often, but HP has always made arrangements to allow its super to live within the pricey district. The previous super got a no-interest loan to buy a house. In this case, Mike Rockwood will get to live rent free in a $1.8 million house owned by taxpayers.

Gunman Kills 7-Eleven Clerk. The store is on North Hampton Road, near the intersection of Jefferson Boulevard. Yesterday a robber demanded cash and shot a 54-year-old clerk multiple times. Police are investigating and searching for the killer.

City Council to Be Sworn In. Two newbies and 13 vets on the Dallas Council will be sworn in today. In an editorial, the Morning News says the new Council should focus on the basics: “Dallas has gotten to the point where it isn’t very good at the basics. The resources the city has are stretched as it is. We just don’t have the money to address the growing needs of an aging city. There aren’t enough police officers. There are too many potholes. The traffic lights go on the blink when it rains. The public safety pension is in trouble. Even the garbage has been left sitting. The new council needs to put its energy and focus into addressing basic services before it signs off on massive social programs that the city has proved it isn’t very good at in the first place.”

This week, Vice President Kamala Harris hosted a Juneteenth concert at the White House and Fort Worth’s own Opal Lee was front and center.

Lee, known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” joined Tony-winner Audra McDonald, Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson, and Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man Tuesday in a concert on the South Lawn of the White House. Choirs and bands from historically Black colleges and universities also performed, including the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Hampton University Concert Choir, Morgan State University Marching Band, and Tennessee State University Marching Band.

The Vice President invited Lee to the microphone to share a few words as she opened the evening. “Make yourself a committee of one to change somebody’s mind,” she said to the crowd on the White House lawn. “If people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love.”

She also told them that it was “up to you to do it.”

Police Searching for Racing Truck Drivers. Dallas police Thursday said they need help identifying the drivers of two vehicles that were in the area of a hit-and-run crash that killed a pedestrian over the weekend on Lake June Road. James Stockton, 51, was killed in the incident, and surveillance images show two trucks speeding side by side near the area at that time.

Abbott Signs Bill Creating Athena Alert. Gov. Greg Abbott this week signed House Bill 3556, which allows local law enforcement agencies to issue an alert before a missing child meets the criteria for an Amber Alert. Information about the missing child will be sent in a 100-mile radius. It is named after Athena Strand, who was murdered last year in Wise County.

Garland Business Allegedly Sold Very Potent THC Products. Garland police arrested two men after confiscating more than 200 pounds of allegedly illegal THC products from the Bee Hippy Hemp Dispensary. Some products reportedly showed THC levels more than 300 times higher than the legal limit of 0.3 percent but were allegedly sold to customers as being within the legal limits. The store’s owner, Charles Fagan, and manager, David Lee Dranguet, are both charged with delivery of marijuana under five pounds.

New Fairfield Lake State Park Owners Ready to Fight. Just days after the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission voted to proceed with condemnation proceedings to acquire the land where Fairfield Lake and Fairfield Lake State Park sit through eminent domain, the property’s new owner says they’re ready for a legal battle. Todd Interests CEO Shawn Todd told reporters Thursday that he is proceeding with work on the property, and has not yet received a formal written appraised offer from the state.

North Dallas Starbucks Workers Won’t Unionize. Starbucks employees at the location on Inwood Road near the Dallas North Tollway voted this week 10-5 not to unionize. The store had filed to unionize last month. Stores at Mockingbird Station, Addison, Flower Mound, and Denton have also explored unionizing.

Dozens of attendees in the gallery of the Dallas City Council chambers spent their Wednesday waiting for a pair of measures that would drastically change the short-term rental industry in the city. 

At the end of a nearly five-hour debate, Council approved zoning that automatically makes 1,154 Airbnbs, Vrbos, and other short-term rentals illegal in single-family residential neighborhoods. Council also passed an ordinance that will provide the city’s code compliance team with a set of rules to apply to the roughly 300 STRs operating in multifamily residential areas. There could be as many as 3,000 more operating in the city without proper registration, spread across single-family and multifamily zoning districts.

Supporters of the ban branded their platform the Keep It Simple Solution, or KISS. That solution was to zone them out of single-family communities. Councilman Paul Ridley, of East Dallas, was their champion. He reiterated that short-term rentals are bad for neighborhoods, something he’s said many times over the past years of discussion.

“It is time to take decisive action to preserve the quality of life in Dallas neighborhoods and not to delay any longer what our residents tonight and previously have been clamoring for,” he said.

Before the discussion, City Manager T.C. Broadnax defended the work of city staff, which issued a late recommendation to allow STR operations with additional regulations. That recommendation largely failed.

“Unfortunately, there is no solution that is going to please everyone and we know that,” Broadnax said. “This is a challenging issue, and we have done our best to work towards a sensible solution, not a perfect one.”

The 12-3 vote will allow short-term rentals in commercial areas and caps how many can operate in multifamily, which are defined as plots of land upon which more than one housing unit is located. The rentals are banned in buildings with fewer than 20 units and can only occupy 3 percent of the units in larger developments. For commercial zoning, no more than 20 percent of a building can be used as short-term rentals.

This has been a debate filled with tension. But around 10 p.m., it became clear that some version of the KISS option would be passed. At that point, the council members who lobbied hardest for the measure visibly relaxed. They accepted concessions that banned the operations in single-family residential while allowing caps in other zoning districts. (In addition to Ridley, the most vocal supporters of a ban included Preston Hollow’s Gay Donnell Willis, Far North Dallas’ Cara Mendelsohn, east and southern Oak Cliff’s Carolyn King Arnold, and West Dallas’ Omar Narvaez.)

Council members Chad West and Adam Bazaldua attempted to soften the blow of the KISS option by grandfathering in existing, registered STRs that were current on their hotel tax payments. They also pushed a provision that would allow STRs in single-family residential if a caretaker was on site. 

Both members said that responsible operators were being punished by the actions of a few bad ones. They argued that it would be more financially responsible for the city to retain those owners and continue to collect fees and taxes.

West also said he felt that the zoning wouldn’t hold up in court or against a state legislature that is seemingly trending toward bills that hamper local control.

Dallas Bans Short-Term Rentals in Single-Family Neighborhoods. It took until just about midnight for the City Council to decide on what to do about Airbnbs and Vrbos. In the end, they are now illegal to operate in single-family neighborhoods, but are still allowed to operate in multi-family. Properties must register each year and pay fees and taxes and have someone on-call who can be on-site within an hour should any problems arise. City staff told the Council that eliminating them in residential neighborhoods would ban about 95 percent of those currently operating. Bethany will have more today. Want to know the people who pushed the City Council for the ban? I wrote about them in the magazine back in March.

It Will Be Hot Today and It May Be Stormy. Counties south of Dallas got hit with hail and severe weather yesterday. Today, the National Weather Service has Dallas, Collin, Denton, and Tarrant counties all at a “slight” risk for severe weather. Storms would come in along the Red River late this afternoon, so there’s a good chance the worst of it will stay north of us.

School Libraries Begin Paring Their Shelves. Republican Frisco Rep. Jared Patterson’s House Bill 900 was signed into law by the governor this week. It directs K-12 schools to remove “sexually explicit” and “sexually relevant” books that have to go through a ratings system. Beyond the obvious censorship concerns, librarians are nervous about “chaos and confusion” amid the fuzzy guidelines. A reminder: Patterson is the guy who has never read Lonesome Dove but would ban it anyway.

After a messy hours-long back and forth about leverage and legalese, the Dallas City Council clenched its collective jaw and voted to accept an agreement with Dallas Area Rapid Transit to accept about $90 million in excess sales tax revenue.

The 12-3 vote ended a debate that began about four months ago. DART in February abruptly reneged on its vow to pay Dallas $111 million that could be used to fund transit-adjacent projects such as sidewalk fixes, traffic signal upgrades, ramps compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act, a trail through Oak Cliff, and about a half dozen other projects.

Instead, the agency’s top officials told Dallas that the payout would actually be closer to $30 million. DART saw a chance to recoup $36 million it says it spent on “project enhancements” for the Silver Line train project through Far North Dallas. Too, permitting and project review delays for the rail line had cost the agency close to $50 million, it argued.

The money was presented as a green olive branch to its 13 member cities. Because of all the federal coronavirus relief money DART received, it collected about $234 million extra in sales tax revenue. It decided to give it back, with the disbursements based on how much each city paid into the agency in sales tax. Dallas would get $111 million and the rest would be split among the 12 suburbs. DART doesn’t control infrastructure in its partner cities, and the money would be used for projects that could help its riders once they exit a bus or train.

DART also saw an opportunity. Because it didn’t have to give up that money, it could define the terms of the agreement. It became a rare chance to invoice Dallas for what it presented as overages for the Silver Line project. That didn’t go over well with the City Council, which, after getting the news in February, directed staff to work with its partners to reach an agreement.

The North Central Texas Council of Governments helped negotiate a deal that jumped the $28 million to $90 million.