Axios Dallas

January 06, 2022
Happy Thursday! Apologize when you're wrong.
💨 Today's weather: Cold and windy, with a high of 41 and a low of 26.
🎵 Sounds like: "Peaches"
🎄 Situational awareness: Today is the Epiphany, the traditional feast day, the twelfth day of Christmas. At the stroke of midnight, all holiday decorations become tacky.
- Except inflatables. Those were always trash.
Today's newsletter is a feastly 857 words — a 3-minute read.
1 big thing: Boys Scouts of America sex abuse survivors reject $2.7 billion settlement
Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images
Irving-based Boy Scouts of America failed to reach a financial settlement with tens of thousands of alleged sex abuse victims, after not enough survivors voted to approve a $2.7 billion offer.
Why it matters: Parties to the proposed settlement, which includes religious organizations, insurance companies and attorneys representing victims, will likely have to start a new round of negotiations with BSA.
By the numbers: More than 50,000 survivors cast ballots on the proposal.
- About 73% voted in favor of accepting the proposal, but it needed 75% to pass.
- While $2.7 billion might seem like a lot, it would have broken down to approximately $31,000 for each sex abuse survivor.
Context: USA Gymnastics paid hundreds of sex abuse survivors around $700,000 each in a settlement last year.
Flashback: Boy Scouts of America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 2020, after several states changed laws that allowed victims to sue over decades-old allegations.
What they're saying: "We are encouraged by these preliminary results and are actively engaging key parties in our case with the hope of reaching additional agreements, which could potentially garner further support for the plan before confirmation," the Boy Scouts said in a statement.
The other side: "We hope the BSA and the lawyers who supported this plan will take this result as sending a message that the plan they proposed was fundamentally unacceptable to a large bloc of survivors," Irwin Zalkin, who represents more than 150 victims, said in a statement.
- John Humphrey, the co-chair of the committee representing abuse claimants in the bankruptcy, called the settlement "historically low" from the perspective of individual victims, according to Reuters.
2. 🚗 Dallas has the second-highest U.S. traffic fatality rate


Dallas has the second-highest traffic fatality rate among the most populous cities in the country, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
- Fort Worth ranks fourth.
Why it matters: Dallas City Council has already adopted the goal to eliminate traffic deaths and reduce severe injuries from crashes by 2030.
Details: The rate of traffic fatalities per 100,000 people was much higher in Dallas than the national average between 2015 and 2019, according to data presented to the City Council yesterday.
- In Dallas, there were an average of 14.11 deaths per 100,000 people compared to the national rate of 11.22.
By the numbers: In Dallas, 88% of transportation occurs by vehicle.
- 36% of severe crashes involve pedestrians.
- 60% of severe crashes occur on just 8% of Dallas streets.
What they're saying: "We have to become pedestrian and cycling and scooter-centric," said council member Omar Narvaez during the briefing. "We have to become less car-centric."
What's next: City staff will look at adding speed control measures, including speed bumps, along particularly dangerous stretches of road.
- Backplates with reflective borders are being added to traffic signals.
- City staff will evaluate speed limits throughout Dallas and present recommendations to the council by the end of next year.
Our thought bubble: We're walkers. We want to be able to safely walk in this city without getting honked at while crossing the street in a crosswalk, or worse, having to run for our lives because drivers aren't paying attention to pedestrians.
3. 📈 Texas just keeps getting bigger

The Texas population added more people than any other state last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau data.
Why it matters: As a whole, the U.S. saw only a 0.1% population growth in the year that ended July 1, the slowest rate since the nation's founding.
- The Texas population grew by more than 1%.
Details: Most of the state's growth came from migration from other parts of the U.S., with more than 170,000 people moving in.
- 27,185 people moved to Texas from another country, according to the bureau.
What they're saying: Overall, the country saw little population growth which "can be attributed to decreased net international migration, decreased fertility, and increased mortality due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic," the bureau said.
4. 📰 Burnt ends: Bite-sized news bits
Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
🏟 AT&T Stadium in Arlington could serve as a backup location for the Super Bowl. (WFAA)
🧑🏫 The Dallas ISD superintendent said the district will not close schools as coronavirus cases increase, but students and staff must wear masks on campus. (NBC DFW)
🏈 Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons missed practice yesterday after he was put on the COVID list. (CBS DFW)
🏢 A California software company is relocating its headquarters to McKinney. (Dallas Business Journal)
🗳 The Arlington, Dallas and DeSoto mayors signed a letter urging the U.S. Senate to pass voting rights legislation. The Fort Worth mayor did not sign the letter. (DMN)
5. One sweet treat to go: 🍑 Peach cobbler at Celebration
As a great poet once wrote: Gonna eat a lot of peaches. Photo courtesy of Cormac West
If you’ve never been to Celebration, the 50-year-old restaurant close to Love Field, read the rest of this newsletter then immediately get in the car and go there.
- The DMN had a nice story last year about how the farm-to-table comfort food dispensary became a staple of Dallas.
What we ordered: Everything we've ever had is awesome, but this visit included some delectable peach cobbler.
Where: Celebration, 4503 W Lovers Lane
Cost: $8, with ice cream.
Pro tip: Get the ice cream. You've already gone this far.
Six word review: Toothsome end to a tasty meal.
🍰 Know a delicious dessert we should be sampling? Hit reply and let us know.
Correction: Yesterday's newsletter misstated the location of Toyota's North American headquarters. The company is in Plano. Toyota Stadium is in Frisco, and the Toyota Music Factory is in Irving. Point is, Toyota is big in North Texas.
Our picks:
❤️ Mike is putting up his Valentine's Day inflatables early this year.
💏 Tasha is reading about a scandalous kiss.
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