Later today, Mayor Eric Johnson will announce that Dallas jumped another five spots in the Trust for Public Land’s annual ranking of city park access. More Dallas residents have access to a park within a 10-minute walk from their home than all other Texas cities except for Plano, which has long been atop the state’s rankings. We’re 38th in the country, which is up from 54th in 2019.

About 74 percent of residents now live within that 10-minute radius from a park. Our median park size is 7.8 acres, more than 2 acres above the national median. Much of the credit for this growth goes to the Trust’s Texas chapter, which has become a critical component of policy, advocacy, and execution in building out parks big and small throughout the city.

Last year’s splashiest addition was Big Cedar Wilderness, a 282-acre spread near Joe Pool Lake that had been owned by Liberty Bankers Life Insurance and was donated to the Trust. Trails for hiking and mountain biking snake through the pecan, oak, juniper, and ash trees. But the smaller initiatives have an outsized impact on park access, building the types of neighborhood green space that attract families and connect neighborhoods.

The Trust teamed with Dallas ISD, nonprofit Texas Trees Foundation, and the city to rebuild school playgrounds and tear down their fences so they could be used by the community after hours. Mayor Johnson directed the Trust to analyze all 2,800 city-owned parcels and figure out five that would be good locations for a park. The winning parcels are all in communities that didn’t have access to a park within a 10-minute walk, which included North Dallas, Pleasant Grove, Far East Dallas, Lake Highlands, and the Kleburg neighborhood of southern Dallas.

Mayor Mike Rawlings was one of the first mayors in the nation to sign his name to the Trust’s “10-Minute Walk to a Park” campaign, and Johnson has continued the momentum. Parks received $345 million of the recent $1.25 billion bond package, which includes new parkland, rec centers, and amenities.

We actually score a bit low on amenities, and the Trust dings us for our below-average amount of dog parks, rec centers, and playgrounds. Which they’ve dinged us for in the past. But the interesting thing is looking back to 2021, in the throes of COVID, when the Trust called out Dallas for furloughing 235 parks employees and expressed concern that park funding would be an immediate casualty of declining budgets.

Now, in 2024, the results show the opposite. Dallas continued to invest in its green infrastructure and landed some significant federal funding for ambitious projects, such as Southern Gateway Park over Interstate 35, and is finding ways to put smaller parks in neighborhoods that need them.

Plano, meanwhile, ranked 16th in the nation, and we still have plenty parts of town that are hotter than they need to be because of the urban heat island effect. We still have work to do, but Dallas is steadily growing one of its most critical public amenities.

The photographer who reportedly accused Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice of assaulting him outside a Dallas nightclub earlier this month has declined to pursue charges, according to police.

Dallas Police Department spokesperson Kristin Lowman confirmed Tuesday the man has signed an affidavit of non-prosecution, but the investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Neither the victim nor the suspect were identified in the offense report obtained by KERA News, but the Dallas Morning News and WFAA have confirmed Rice was a person of interest in the case.

Lowman said it is not the department’s practice to release or confirm a suspect’s identity in an investigation.

According to the report, the photographer was attending a May 6 after hours party at the Lit Lounge & Feu Nightclub at 609 N. Harwood St. He left but returned at the request of a man who allegedly asked the photographer to look at Instagram messages on his phone.

While looking down, the man — believed to be Rice — allegedly punched the photographer on the left side of his face.

Texas senator and attorney Royce West, who represents Rice, did not immediately respond to a KERA News request for comment.

Nightclub owner Reza Dibaje told WFAA upon reviewing surveillance video from outside the club it didn’t look like the person a detective identified as the accuser was punched.

“We just want to clear our names because the report came out that there was a fight inside our place,” Dibaje told WFAA. “I was in the club the whole night, and I was even outside, and there was no fight in my place.”

Rice and suspended Southern Methodist University cornerback Theodore Knox still face eight criminal charges tied to a multivehicle crash on North Central Expressway in March.

Several victims in that crash are suing Rice in at least two separate lawsuits for millions of dollars in damages.

Got a tip? Email Toluwani Osibamowo at tosibamowo@kera.org. You can follow Toluwani on X @tosibamowo.

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