THE 1040 PARTY: On April 13, the Dallas County Democratic Party held their Third Annual Tax Relief for Working Americans Burger Bash, in the parking lot outside the party office. For a picture of some of the candidates who attended, see THIS PAGE.

This event was hastily put together to continue a recent tradition, when no signs were found of preparation to hold it. As a result, there was very little notice. It still drew over 100 people (112 signed in, but several others, including some elected officials, did not; the estimates range up to a total of 150), and raised a profit after expenses (including a small mailing to Precinct Chairs and others) of over $1200.00. The main purposes were to give some active Democrats a chance to have fun, meet candidates for public office (about 15 of them, mostly for judge), sign their petitions to get on the primary ballot, and hear the three candidates for County Chair. The optimistic good feeling manifested at the April meeting that elected Theresa Daniel as Interim County Chair continues to prevail.

It was unfortunate that this wound up being on a Wednesday, since that is a church night for many people (including some ministers who are Precinct Chairs), and no doubt hurt attendance. The idea was to have it close to the dreaded income tax deadline day itself, but this weekend the State Democratic Executive Committee was meeting in Austin, along with a state convention of the Young Democrats, and a teacher's conference there. All of these would draw away many wishing to attend on Friday. On Thursday, the Garland area Democrats were meeting, so Wednesday would up as the least evil date available with time for preparation.

Those who would like notices of the hopefully much more frequent events the DCDP will be having in the near future can write me at a new email address set up just to cover this: BILLHOWELLDCDP at YAHOO dot COM. You can also call me at the party office at 214-821-8331.