Former Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway has a way of making headlines. He resigned from his spot representing District 4 on the horseshoe at Dallas City Council Thursday after pleading guilty to federal corruption charges, and we’re running back these golden Dwaine Caraway moments.
5. When he proposed a Dallas River Walk
Dwaine Caraway has occasionally mentioned flooding main street to create a riverwalk Downtown. He wasn’t the first Dallas leader to do so (Ron Natinsky can be thanked for that), but Caraway thinks that Dallas could use a waterway lined with thematic restaurants and cafes just like San Antonio. “It may sound crazy, but it’s going to go down at some point,” he promised Dallas Observer.
4. When he gave a key to the city to Michael Vick
Michael Vick was an amazing football player before and after he served 19 months in prison for his role in a dog fighting ring (which, to his credit, he has worked hard against since), but when Caraway gave the then Eagles quarterback a key to the city when he was in town for Super Bowl Week in 2011, Mayor Tom Leppert looked to restrict the ability of councilpersons to give out token keys. “We don’t condone it and clearly didn’t approve it,” Leppert told the Dallas Morning News of the Vick award. “It’s unfortunate, and I would rather have not seen the situation.”
3. When he tried to get the youths to pull their pants up
In 2007, then Deputy Mayor Caraway got together with some hip hop artists and businessmen to launch Pull Your Pants Up, a campaign to get Dallas to keep its pants on its hips. He proposed an ordinance against sagging, but it wasn’t constitutionally viable. But he didn’t give up. Dallas rapper Dooney wrote an anti-sagging song, and Caraway tried to relaunch the campaign again in 2012. “You have some folks that don’t even have on underwear, period,” he told NPR.
2. When tried to fight John Wiley Price at a Christian radio station
No arrests were made, but when Caraway was running for Dallas County Commissioner in 2016 between stints on City Council, the two Dallas leaders rumbled during a commercial break of a debate at KHVN Heaven 97, ironically a gospel station. A third candidate began filming when the scuffle broke out, saying that Caraway threatened to kill Price, but Caraway says it was Price who was making death threats and grabbed him by the throat.
1. When he pled guilty to federal corruption charges
Caraway resigned from the City Council yesterday when he admitted to accepting $450,000 in bribes and other gifts from two leading figures in the deal between the now defunct Dallas County Schools and a company that built cameras to capture rogue vehicles who didn’t stop for school buses. He faces seven years in prison. In a letter addressed to the City Secretary, he wrote, “”I have dedicated much of my life to serving others, but have never claimed to be without sin. I am truly sorry that I must end my career as an elected official because I betrayed the public’s trust that I worked so very hard to earn.”
Bonus: When Caraway got Dallas to pay for an unwanted new chicken shack
Caraway lobbied for an $890,000 grant from the city to pay for a new restaurant for Rudy’s Chicken in his Oak Cliff neighborhood. But accepting the grant meant that the restaurant would move locations, something owner Rudolph Edwards didn’t want to happen. “I told [Caraway] I did not want my business on this lot … He did what he wanted to do,” Edwards told the Dallas Morning News.
Glad he is gone..Nicely done Will.