April Towery: I’m Taking my Big Dallas Energy to H-Town

After three years on the job as the first full-time City Hall reporter for CandysDirt.com, I’m off to a new adventure covering the Texas Legislature, criminal justice, and Houston municipal government for The Houston Press. 

I get it, I’m not Luka, and there won’t be any protests about my departure. I don’t need to tell you about the cool stuff I’ve done during my tenure in Dallas so I’ll use this space to talk about the plan going forward.

One reason I’ve been successful as a Dallas City Hall reporter is I’ve developed good sources and built public trust. Our readers generally know that they can talk to me off the record and when I get something wrong, I’ll correct it. I began my career in the late 1990s in newsrooms of daily and weekly newspapers and while I have gone to great lengths to expand CandysDirt.com’s coverage of deeply affordable housing and historically disinvested communities, I pride myself on being a just-the-facts, “here’s what happened” reporter. 

Candy Evans took a chance on me in 2022 and let me grow into this CandysDirt.com position that eventually led to the next step in my career. I was just an outsider with little knowledge of Dallas and the idiosyncracies of City Hall, but Candy let me do my “just the facts” thing (even if she had a strong opinion on the City Hall matter at hand). I’m tremendously grateful that she gave me a job and the freedom to bring a new skillset into this pretty “house porn” world.  

So What’s the Plan?

In my tenure here, I’ve published about 1,144 stories on CandysDirt.com (and I think about a thousand of those had ForwardDallas in the headline). Along the way, I discovered a community of readers who didn’t just stumble across our City Hall coverage — they sought it out, subscribed to the newsletter, and made it clear how much they valued balanced, in-depth reporting on the issues shaping Dallas and North Texas.

When I told Candy I was leaving, I shared how much that support has meant to me. It’s never been just about clicks or headlines; it’s been about serving a readership that counts on us to report without bias, break down complex policies, and hold decision-makers accountable. That kind of trust doesn’t vanish with a byline change, and under our editor Shelby Skrhak’s leadership, you can count on CandysDirt to continue delivering the thoughtful, detailed coverage you’ve come to expect.

If you haven’t met the fabulous, talented Dallas native Shelby, let’s remedy that now. Writing and editing here since 2018, Shelby took over as Executive Editor when our dear friend Joanna England left last summer to work in marketing at Southern Methodist University. We knew it would be a rocky road without Jo, who built this site with Candy from the ground up more than a decade ago.

I always told Jo she was a “player’s coach,” an editor who also wrote — sometimes to pick up the slack, sometimes because she was the best writer to do the story justice, but mostly because she loved the craft. She taught me to dig deeper and find the truth while always remembering that there are usually at least three sides to the story.

I remember working from Houston at my boyfriend’s house during spring break a couple of years ago. I was in the trenches assigned to a big story and consulting with Jo several times a day. She’d send the story back, I’d rewrite and make more calls. Finally, I got the narrative to something I was proud of, and at the end of the day my boyfriend said to me, “If I never hear the word ‘WOCAP again, I’ll die a happy man.” 

I’m pretty sure he heard about the West Oak Cliff Area Plan again. As I write this, we’ve just come from dinner at Kenny & Ziggy’s New York Delicatessen in West Houston. The dinner conversation over lox and bagels centered around why Houston doesn’t have zoning and if and when deed restrictions come into play. I’ve got a lot of homework to do before I start the new gig at the Houston Press on Monday. Also, spoiler alert: I’m going to marry that guy on May 24 and if he thinks he’s heard the last of area plans from me, well … he hasn’t.

But back to Shelby. In Jo’s absence, we all stepped up to a big challenge and discovered we had the chops to not only keep the site afloat but continue growing our reputation as a solid news source because we care deeply about journalism and delivering the news to our faithful readers. 

Onward!

I am confident that the team at CandysDirt.com will continue to carry the torch and cover the wonky zoning cases and real estate news out of City Hall that no one else is paying attention to.

Karen Eubank is an expert in historic preservation, conservation districts, architecture, and design. Mimi Perez’s Wednesday WTF column will have you doubled over in laughter and her neighborhood coverage reminds me of the way I like to write. It’s storytelling. Charles Grand has a nose for news and can dig deep into the data, financials, and commercial real estate deals that often sail over my head. Brenda Masse keeps our social media channels buzzing and can turn around a luxury listing post faster than anybody in town. And I have no doubt that Shelby will continue to lead the team and if deemed necessary, hire a new City Hall reporter to keep watch on what’s going down at Marilla Street. 

After Jo’s departure, Shelby and I started talking on the phone frequently to discuss story ideas and our editorial calendar. I knew her well as our podcast producer but it was during this sink-or-swim time that I learned we have similar philosophies on what we like to write about and how we want to write it. Lots of sources, documentation, accuracy, good quotes, and spicy headlines. 

I aim to bring to The Houston Press the same excitement that I brought to CandysDirt.com in early 2022. I hope the people of H Town are as good to me and as patient with me as the outstanding Dallas City Hall staff, the board appointees, the City Council members, and the most engaged and intelligent residents I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. 

Got a news tip? Send it to Shelby at [email protected]. Many of you have my cell number and I hope you’ll hang onto it. I’ll be closely monitoring the May council elections from afar and a piece of my heart will always remain in the big D.