INSIDE SPORTS
INSIDE
Mitchell expected to announce whether he’ll enter NBA draft Page 1B
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Denton Record-Chronicle
An edition of The Dallas Morning News
DentonRC.com
Vol. 109, No. 227 / 36 pages, 4 sections
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Denton, Texas
One dollar
TODAY IN DENTON
Cloudy and cooler High: 68 Low: 59 Weather report, 2A
LOCAL Blotter: A fire significantly damaged a man’s mobile home late Friday in the Vacation Village area. The blaze was caused by a trash fire left unattended, according to a county official. Page 2A
STATE
Call it much ado about Algebra II. The math class of exponents and imaginary numbers has become a key point of contention as the Texas Legislature grapples with overhauling high school graduation requirements statewide. Page 5A
Easy credit flourishes Apparent need lures lending storefronts to city
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Team from UNT to run relay for funds By Rachel Mehlhaff
University of North Texas history professors and students are commemorating Texas independence next weekend with a 200-mile relay that will kick off in Gonzales, where the Texas Revolution started, and end at the San Jacinto battleground in Houston, where Texas won its
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ON THE WEB
To support Team TSHA, visit http://supportteamtsha.com.
Staff Writer
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of neighborhood blight around the storefronts with the Denton City Council in December. They requested that Denton adopt regulations similar to those now in effect for short-term lenders in Austin, Dallas and San Antonio. Since then, El Paso has also adopted local regulations. In response, the RecordChronicle began an investigation as part of Sunshine Week 2013. Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote public access to government records. The investi-
gation examined both the number of lending storefronts in Denton and public data, both crime and census data, related to neighborhood blight. According to the uniform crime data the city has reported to the FBI, nearly all categories of financial crimes increased in Denton in 2012. Those categories included burglaries, vehicle theft, embezzlement, credit/debit card abuse, forgeries and other fraud. Robberies and aggravated robberies, which had been declining steadily since 2008, shot up nearly 52 percent in 2012. Other thefts and larceny decreased in 2012, but only after rising steadily for the past three years.
Clustered, and increasing
Of the 39 businesses identified,
See LENDING on 3A
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
This is the first in an ongoing series on short-term lending. The Denton Record-Chronicle news staff gathered a number of government records under Texas open-records laws for these stories as part of Sunshine Week 2013. To determine the scope of payday and title lender presence in Denton, we first gathered information from Reference USA, available through the Denton Public Library. That database uses information reported to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on types of businesses and later confirmed by Reference USA. We checked that data not only by requesting registration and compliance records from the Texas Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner — a year-old law requires payday and title lenders to register with the state — but also by driving to listed and known locations. We also requested Uniform Crime Reporting data, as reported by the Denton Police Department to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for 2008 through 2012. We used database and mapping tools to examine the data. Sunshine Week began in 2002 with the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors after the Florida Legislature proposed scores of exemptions in that state’s open-records laws. Since then, Sunshine Week has grown into a national initiative to promote the importance of open government and freedom of information.
Handbook of Texas UNT turns up star power Eagle gets a few legs up Emerald benefit will honor
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Most of the storefronts have opened in Denton in the past decade, with 14 of the 39 businesses opening in the past five years and half of those operating in the city a year or less. The investigation also found that less than twothirds of those storefronts appear to be licensed with the state. In addition, the storefronts appear to cluster in and near Denton’s poorest neighborhoods. Denton for Fair Lending, a group of concerned residents and nonprofits, shared their concerns
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ARTS & COMMUNITY BUSINESS CLASSIFIED COUPLES CROSSWORD DEAR ABBY DEATHS OPINION REAL ESTATE SPORTS TELEVISION WEATHER
Staff Writers
Denton Record-Chronicle investigation has found payday and title lending locations proliferating in Denton near lower-income neighborhoods. At the same time, though a link was not immediately evident, financial crimes in the city have increased, records show.
INTERNATIONAL
It’s been more than six years since a bomb ripped away the eyes from Shams Karim, killed her mother and left the little girl, now 7, blind and disfigured for life. Throughout Iraq there are tens of thousands of victims like her whose lives are forever scarred by the violence of war. Page 12A
By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe, Rachel Mehlhaff, Karina Ramírez and John Harden
DRC/David Minton
ABOVE: Speedy Cash lights up as cars streak past on University Drive on Wednesday.
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independence. “We’re retracing the length of the revolution back to San Jacinto, where it ends,” said Andrew Torget, a history professor. Besides professors and students, the team of 12 includes See HISTORY on 14A
famous alumni By Rachel Mehlhaff Staff Writer
The University of North Texas is moving its Emerald Eagle Scholars fundraising event to Dallas and changing the format to mimic the Kennedy Center Honors. In the past, UNT conducted the Emerald Ball to raise money for the program, which
helps academically talented students with financial need pay for their schooling. This year, the UNT Rycroft Fo u n d a t i o n will present “Emerald Eagle Honors: Recognizing a Lifetime of Contributions to the American Landscape” on April 15 at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. The event will feature famous alumni, including
hosts Melissa Rycroft, who won Dancing With the Stars: All-Stars in November, and actor Peter Weller, who starred in RoboCop and Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite. Lynne Richards, director of special events for the UNT Foundation, said the foundation wanted to ramp up the event. UNT is “painting Dallas green for one night,” she said. The event is tailored along the line of the Kennedy Center See HONORS on 14A
V O T E online only
BEST OF DENTON online @ DentonRC.com
Deadline to vote is March 24th ~ Winners revealed on April 19th
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