By Avi S. Adelman, PhotographerOnBoard.com (revised with new page counts @ 4/5/26)

In all the years I have lived in Dallas, I have attended only ONE Mavericks game – the very first game they ever played at Reunion Arena in 1980. I was working at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and management was giving away tickets like candy. I remember sitting about five rows behind Don Carter and his big cowboy hat, but I have no idea who won the game.

For the record, I think I have been to five or six Stars games. Maybe.

Why am I putting all this out there? Because I really don’t give a damn if either team leaves Dallas. If Plano wants the Stars so bad, let them pay for a new stadium.

The Mavs say they want to stay in Dallas, but only if we pay for their stadium AND give up our City Hall. And sadly, we have a City Manager and a number of council members who are more than happy to do that.

When the Adelson’s purchased the team, everyone in Dallas (except Mark Cuban) knew they wanted the Mavericks to be their foot in the door to a gambling complex in North Texas. And no matter how much money the Adelson’s drop on our state reps, that is just not going to happen. So yeah, in a few years, if the Mavs don't get their new stadium, they will probably move to Las Vegas and really, that would be fine by me.

When Jim told me he had the City Hall emails and wanted me to build a website in order to make them public, I thought – Dear God, this is why I earned a degree in Journalism! This is going to be the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the Panama Papers, and the Pandora Papers all rolled into one.

After a few hours of reading, let me summarize these docs in a few words:

• Garbage.
• Bad fishy smell.
• Useless information.
• A big waste of electrons.
• Nothing relevant to the big questions.

Folks, we are being played by the City Manager. She threw this pile of crap out to us, hoping we would be distracted long enough to stop asking for more documents, let alone asking the hard questions that right now, only a few City Council members are asking. Read – What the Fuck???

The only thing missing is Ms Bizor-Tolbert standing on top of City Hall, yelling “LOOK OVER THERE - A SQUIRREL IN A BLUE MAVS UNIFORM!”

What will you find in these docs?? A lot of duplicate emails. A lot of duplicate emails. A lot of invitations to be on panels or attend events. A ton of articles clipped from local media publications that were attached to emails.

Emails about the City’s Bike Plans. Stuff about the City’s Pump Stations. City Manager updates on the most mundane stuff that keeps the City going. There's rezoning, parks, streets, luncheons, historic preservation, windows, paint colors, parties, arts events, and council member newsletters.

I did not read all 4,060 pages (updated 4/5/26). I did key word searches – Mavericks, Basketball, Welts, Dumont. Not one email to or from City staff about meetings with the Mavericks about a new stadium, crushing City Hall, giving the land to the Mavs, etc.

To make sure I was not missing anything, I ran all 4,060 pages through ChatGPT. Simple asks, simple summary replies. These are not the pages we are looking for (click here to read the ChatGPT summary).

OneMansDallas - who clearly is way geekier than most of us - has built a searchable database of all the emails in these documents. Of course, none of them are the smoking guns about demolishing City Hall - yet.

Look at that number – 4,060 pages. The number everyone else is talking about is 5,000. That’s NOT 5,000 emails, but 5,000 pages. Where are the other 940 pages? You know, the ones with all the emails the Dallas Morning News has been writing tons of stories about?

Just keep driving, nothing to see here.

The City Attorney is retiring soon. It would be a better deal if the City Manager were to leave at the same time, if only to save a few bucks paying the headhunter firm to find their replacements. Everyone in the City Manager's office has been ethically compromised by this mess, and they all need to leave.

Update 4/5 - The first one to leave the sinking ship is Assistant City Manager Donzell Gipson, who (per the DMN subhead) oversaw departments related to the facilities and real estate management, procurement services and the civil service department. He was promoted to the role just over a year ago.

Dallas official overseeing City Hall repair research retiring after more than 25 years of service

The search for replacements is going to be difficult - what kind of smart, sensible city management kind of person would accept a job at Dallas City Hall working for this City Council? Yeah, I know, there is always someone at the bottom of the barrel.

There are emails from constituents mixed in between all the invitations to be on panels, moderate panels, etc. My favorite is this one, sent to Chad West:

I live in District 1, so you are my councilman. I am writing to you today to express my horror, disappointment and dismay at the skullduggery going on at the council with regard to our iconic city hall building.

The sheer amount of lying that has taken place alone is enough to open an investigation. All for what? Greed? How much ARE the Adelsons paying you? For yet another boondoggle of an arena right down from where we already have the AAC, which we the taxpayers are still paying for?

Kindly keep your developer-loving hands off of our city hall, and make the necessary repairs that should have been taking place all along. Leave our library alone, too, while you are at it.

It’s really enough to warrant a FOIA request into all of this mess

Oh, one more thing. Whoever did the redactions must have attended the Pam Bondi School of Hiding Shit. Texas open records guidelines mandate all email addresses be redacted. But hey, if you really want to send an email to Mavericks GM Rick Welts…IJS.

When the dust finally settles, we will have a list of Council members who voted to tear down City Hall and should not be re-elected next go-round. Whether we still have the I. M. Pei City Hall is another question.