When your city's dueling financial perils number in the with-a-B billions, it's easy to shrug off or forget those threats that are just — just, hah — in the tens of millions.

But with all this anguishing over a fast-failing police and fire pension fund, and with a trial looming in the near-horizon over a decades-old public safety workers' pay referendum, here's a grim reminder, courtesy of an appeals court's freshly minted ruling: Dallas could still be on the hook for around $30 million in long-expired gas-drilling leases.

You remember — that was money Dallas took about a decade ago, during the Great Recession, when city officials were having trouble balancing the budget and turned to gas drillers to fill the depleted coffers. (The good old days?) Ah, yes — must be time to cue up that golden oldie, Trinity East Energy vs. City of Dallas.

You know — the one where the city begged for $19 million from a company and gave it exactly nada in return? I'll admit I'd almost forgotten all about it, given the other more immediate menaces threatening to rain fire and pestilence from the sky.

Last I'd written, a state district judge had granted the city governmental immunity and sidelined most of the gas-driller's claims that 1500 Marilla committed fraud when City Hall pocketed $19 million for drilling leases it never turned into drilling permits. The court left just one claim standing over whether the city denied Trinity East access to parkland in a flood way along Luna Road between Northwest Highway and Royal Lane that it had lawfully leased. That was in March.

But 11 months later comes this bit of breaking news: On Tuesday a three-justice panel of the state Fifth Court of Appeals breathed new life into the entire case against the city.

Long story short: All of Trinity East's claims are back in play — fraud, negligent misrepresentation, inverse condemnation and a whole bunch of other nasty-sounding legal terms that could add up to a big payday for the Keystone Exploration subsidiary if the city winds up losing.

Justice Elizabeth Lang-Miers made it clear where the court stands in Tuesday's opinion: The city was entering into a business arrangement with Trinity East when it took the gas-driller's money. Which means, as far as the appeals court panel is concerned, "governmental immunity does not apply." So tossing a bulk of the case simply isn't an option, which is why the appeals court is sending the case back to the trial court once again intact.

"The opinion confirms that cities should be responsible for complying with the contracts they enter into similar to private party agreements," Trinity East's attorney Art Anderson said via a brief emailed statement. "It also recognizes that citizens and businesses should be dealt with fairly and honestly in city transactions."

This latest turn should surprise no one at this late date. But in case you forgot, let's review the tape from Aug. 28, 2013, when Mayor Mike Rawlings told the council and a chambers packed with anti-drilling activists that he didn't want to do what he was about to do, which was vote to give Trinity East the zoning permits it needed to drill.

The mayor gloriously mangled a bit of Ecclesiastes 3:1 — "There is a place for everything unto heaven, and I don't think that place for gas drilling is Dallas" — and said he didn't think it was safe, healthy or good for the city's growth. Rawlings also said he supported the City Plan Commission's decision to craft what eventually became a rigorous ordinance essentially banning gas drilling in the city limits, which the council approved in December of that year.

But then the mayor said the vote to give Trinity East its drilling permits wasn't "about new standards or how I feel" or some "theoretical issue." As far as Rawlings was concerned, the council was being asked to make a business decision because "we have a contract with a business." And that business, said Rawlings, was going to sue if it didn't get what it believed it had paid for.

"There is a chance that by voting no," he said, "we could cost the city of Dallas millions of dollars [in] legal and other expenses."

Rawlings needed 11 council members to side with him. He could find only eight.

When Trinity East made good on the mayor's prediction and sued the city six months later, Rawlings said, "I hope this doesn't surprise anyone, because this is what we predicted."

Now, the city has always maintained it did nothing wrong when it pocketed Trinity East's millions. Because as far as Dallas' in-house attorneys are concerned, the leases weren't a guarantee of anything. In interviews and court filings, they've always maintained that Trinity East knew it needed those permits to drill — and those weren't a done deal, because they'd have to come through the plan commission and then the council.

In essence, the city has been saying all along that Trinity East bought a lottery ticket for $19 million.

Where Trinity East had hoped to drill in northwest Dallas

Which isn't how Trinity East sees it for a couple of reasons. One, the city — which is to say, then-city manger Mary Suhm — actually went looking for gas drillers in 2007, when the city was having trouble finding money to, among other things, hire more cops. Trinity East didn't beg for the drill sites; rather, the city was holding its hands out, desperate for those millions.

Then there's that now-infamous Aug. 15, 2008, missive on Trinity East Energy letterhead signed by Suhm and Trinity East president Steve Fort.

In that letter, which was explicitly non-binding, Fort recapped his conversations with city staffers who said "they can make no guarantees" but were "reasonably confident" Trinity East would be able to drill on a 22-acre site near the Luna Vista Golf Course and Elm Fork gun range. Fort asked Suhm to sign it as a "good faith representation" that it wouldn't be wasting its $19 million.

Which she did — while, at the same time, Suhm and city staffers were promising council members there wouldn't be drilling on city-owned parkland.

Then-Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm at the Feb. 27, 2013, City Council meeting where she was asked about a controversial gas drilling lease she said she would help push through the council on 22 acres of city-owned parkland in northwest Dallas. (File Photo/Staff)

When asked during a deposition in December 2015 why she signed that letter, Suhm said it was "because we had been meeting with the council and presented things to the council, they had approved leases, I was reasonably certain ... though I couldn't give anybody any guarantees, that would happen. This is called no good deed goes unpunished, is what this is called."

Chris Caso, the assistant city attorney handling this case, said Wednesday that City Hall's not sure how it'll proceed: It could appeal to the Texas Supreme Court or let this play out in trial court. He remains "confident" the city will ultimately prevail.

Which ... OK. But how come every time I write about this story, I can't get that Dire Straits song out of my head? You know the one: