![\"Mike](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Mike-Hinojosa-Press-Conference-BW-photo-by-Austin-Wood.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMike Hinojosa announces his bid for mayor.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMike Hinojosa announces his bid for mayor.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Austin Wood<\/p>\n
Long before Mike Hinojosa saved the Dallas Independent School District from itself, he called in amateur baseball results a couple of nights a week during the summer to the sports desk at the old Dallas Times Herald. \u201cThis is Mike Hinojosa with the DABA,\u201d he said, and then one of us who worked on the desk would type in the scores from the Dallas Amateur Baseball Association as he recited them.<\/p>\n
What matters about this is that Hinojosa never missed a night. If baseball games had been played, he\u2019d call us. Which, given that he wants to be Dallas\u2019 next mayor at a time that is shaping up to be the worst in my 40 years living here, strikes me as perfect.<\/p>\n
We need a mayor who is going to call in the results, regardless of anything else. This would be in stark contrast to the city\u2019s past several mayors, most of whom seemed more preoccupied with boosting their careers instead of trying to save the city from itself.<\/p>\n
Because Dallas certainly does need saving, and it especially needs someone to save it who has the neighborhoods\u2019 best interests at heart. The city budget is a mess; police department hiring is mired in a legal quagmire that defies explanation; and the streets and their potholes remain the obstacle course they\u2019ve been for 40 years. Where else but in this incarnation of Dallas would we pay someone who helped put us in this mess, former city manager T.C. Broadnax, some $500,000 in Danegeld to leave? Meanwhile, the only solution to all of these messes seems to be closing rec centers and swimming pools, selling libraries, and turning the city hall site<\/a> into some sort of luxury Manhattan neighborhood because a bunch of real estate developers think it\u2019s a good idea.<\/p>\n Sign up for the This Week\u2019s Top Stories newsletter to get the latest stories delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n THANK YOU!<\/p>\n You’re all set.<\/p>\n CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Enter Hinojosa. Yes, it\u2019s true he has never run for public office, but anyone who can effectively manage an urban school district the way he did \u2013 and in a state where public education has been a second-class citizen for decades \u2014 has enough talent to make up for his lack of political experience.\u00a0Working in public education is about compromise, building coalitions, and keeping one eye over the shoulder to see who is lined up for the next backstabbing.\u00a0<\/p>\n In other words, not that different from politics \u2013 and especially Dallas politics. That\u2019s because, in our weak mayor\/council-manager form of government, a streetwise city manager can pretty much get the council to do the manager\u2019s bidding unless someone as streetwise can outmaneuver the city manager.<\/p>\n