Hal Barker has been protesting parking on the grasslands at Winfrey Point for years. Now people care.

UPDATE: “Officially, today, the 192nd Civil District Court of Dallas County dissolved a Temporary Restraining Order and Temporary Injunction that was brought against the Dallas Arboretum earlier this week. The injunction was an attempt to halt parking at Winfrey Point, an area of White Rock Lake Park,” from a press statement by Dallas Arboretum. We will post the video of the press conference later this evening. 

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UPDATE: The Arboretum has called a press conference for 2:30 this afternoon. We will be there. I will tweet twitter.com/chughesbabb

At 9:45 a.m. today (Friday) about 50 people are gathered at Winfrey Point awaiting word from a court hearing.

“We just received a call from the courthouse. They are coming to mow the grass,” a woman, phone in hand, shouts.  The people — all donning savewinfreypoint.com T-shirts — begin mobilizing a protest.

“Do not park your cars on the grass,” longtime White Rock activist Ted Barker says. “They will ticket you.”

The Save Winfrey Pointers are fighting, immediately, the Dallas Arboretum’s plan to build a temporary parking lot for overflow Chihuly-exhibit parking.

But there’s more, says Hal Barker, Ted’s brother and, according to the brothers, the “document expert”.

Hal acquired documents through an open records act that show a study and a proposition for a large parking structure at this part of the lake.

“All the grassland you see from the old folks home at Emerald Isle to the lake north and west will be paved,” he says.

In the open records filing, he received about 25 engineering maps. The one he describes is the “worst-case scenario”, but he fully expects it to come to fruition if we the community doesn’t do something about it.

“I think it’s very possible that in 20 years the Arboretum, at the rate it is growing, will need this.” It is entirely possible, too, he says, that public outcry will make a difference.  “The public response is key,” he says.

I am following this and will report soon with more photos and video. Meanwhile, here’s a quick, raw interview with Hal Barker.