Another Woodard says....

Wake up, Fort Worth!

Water Board election: Blake Woodard's letter to voters

April 29, 2017

Breaking News: Cities of Fort Worth and Dallas merge pension plans

Fellow Tarrant Regional Water District voter:

I’m only joking about Fort Worth’s pension plan. Of course, no sane Fort Worth leader would recommend merging our city’s retirement plan with Dallas’ ailing pension plan. However, our Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD) leaders are physically merging TRWD’s precious lakes with Dallas’ water system with a $2.3 billion pipeline called the Integrated Pipeline (IPL).

Which is more important: Fort Worth’s pension plan or Fort Worth’s water?

You may have received a mailer from Mike Moncrief or read a Star-Telegram editorial written by retiring TRWD president Vic Henderson about the importance of local control of Fort Worth water. Henderson and Moncrief imply that if you re-elect our independent candidate, TRWD director Mary Kelleher, Fort Worth’s water will be taken over by Monty Bennett, who donated to Mary’s campaign.

Bennett, whose company owns the Ashton and Hilton Hotels in downtown Fort Worth, lives in east Texas and has sued the TRWD over its use of eminent domain to build Dallas’ portion of the IPL across his land. That’s right: Our TRWD Board is wasting millions of taxpayer dollars in a lawsuit over their construction of Dallas’ sections of the IPL.

And where does that litigated Dallas portion of the IPL go? It goes to Lake Palestine, a lake so distant that even TRWD engineers stated in a disturbing 2012 “Water Sharing Plan” for Fort Worth and Dallas that there is “little to no benefit . . . for TRWD to pump water from Lake Palestine.” Access to Lake Palestine was the box of beads Dallas gave TRWD for access to Fort Worth’s prize lakes.

The irony is that it is the other TRWD directors, not Mary, who relentlessly have pursued a water sharing plan with Dallas. That explains why numerous Dallas billionaires and millionaires have donated vast sums to TRWD board candidates (other than Mary) these past two election cycles.

Big D has big water problems. During the 2013-2014 drought, their water levels were much worse than ours, and Lake Palestine, their remote southeastern lake, has no pipeline connecting it to Dallas’ other lakes. Building a 50-mile pipeline is costly, as is the energy to pump water uphill to Dallas’ higher-elevation northern lakes.

TRWD has no such problems. It has two pipelines connecting its prized Cedar Creek and Richland Chambers reservoirs to Lake Benbrook, and these lakes require much less energy to pump water to Fort Worth or Dallas than would Lake Palestine.

The IPL increases TRWD’s pipeline redundancy but isn’t a significant source of new water for Fort Worth, as it adds no new Fort Worth lakes. Meanwhile, the IPL gives Dallas a connection to Lake Palestine and its first siphon into our lakes, creating the possibility that someday Fort Worth will be fighting Dallas for water.

Do you want Dallas to use Fort Worth’s water during droughts? The IPL makes the unimaginable possible: Once the TRWD and Dallas lakes are connected, we are but one legislative session away from a de facto merger of the two water districts.

As TRWD voters, we already have no input into our local water policy. We are told when to water our yards and what kind of toilets to sit on. How much say will we have with a DFW Water District?

It’s no surprise that when I wrote a letter like this two years ago the only hate mail I received came from Dallas. Stop by my office, and I’ll show it to you. Dallas desperately needs the IPL. Fort Worth doesn’t.

So if the other four TRWD directors are the ones helping Dallas tap into our lakes, why are Henderson and Moncrief telling us that re-electing Mary Kelleher will jeopardize control of Fort Worth’s water? Of course it’s a nonsensical statement, as Mary is but one of five directors. The other four still can win every vote 4-1. When the expensive mailers hit your mailbox, let logic guide your reading.

I think Henderson and Moncrief are telling you that Mary is a threat to Fort Worth water, because they can’t stand having an outsider in their exclusive club. Mary Kelleher is your candidate. She is our only sunlight on a shadowy government body with a long history of backroom, good-ol’ boy behavior. Let me be clear that I am not speaking of the dedicated TRWD employees who operate the lakes and pipelines and take care of the district’s daily business.

You may be familiar with some of the legendary TRWD management shenanigans, which are beyond the scope of this letter. The local media cannot keep an eye on these guys constantly. Mary Kelleher’s eyes are your eyes. Mary is you.

If we fail to re-elect Mary, we have lost our seat at the table of a Board whose other four directors all are recruited by the same people, funded by the same people, and influenced by the same people. The only way we can retain one seat at the table is if we vote in droves this TRWD election. The special interests will vote. Will you?

Combine the gerrymandered TRWD boundaries, which deny many TRWD customers a vote, with the 1960s-era at-large voting and a small turnout for a sleepy Water District race, and the special interests who profit from TRWD’s lucrative contracts easily can win an election with just their family, friends, and a few thousand mysterious mail-in ballots. (By the way, if you received a mail-in ballot that you did not request, please e-mail me.)

Everyone benefits from having one independent citizen at the TRWD Board table asking the tough questions the others may be too conflicted to ask. 4-1 is much better for Fort Worth than 5-0.

Let’s put Fort Worth first and turn out by the thousands in this year’s TRWD Board election on Saturday, May 6.

You get three votes: Please vote for Mary Kelleher and then discard your other two votes.

Sincerely,
Blake Woodard

P.S. This letter is going to a limited number of voters, so please e-mail me at blake@woodardcompanies.com for a PDF you can send your friends or post on social media.

(Blake Woodard is a Fort Worth insurance executive and serves as treasurer for incumbent water board member Mary Kelleher's re-election campaign.)

Blake Woodard says...

Fellow Fort Worth citizens:

I invite you to participate in a historic moment for our city. A sea change – or more appropriately, a lake change – is coming to Fort Worth on May 9 in the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD) election. This change is long overdue.

You’ve found the flyers on your door or in your mailbox, or perhaps you’ve seen the ads in the Star-Telegram, with Mayor Betsy Price and former Mayor Mike Moncrief warning you that a Dallas businessman is trying to take control of Tarrant’s Water Board. The businessman is my friend Monty Bennett, whose company owns two landmark downtown Fort Worth hotels that pay far more Fort Worth property taxes than either of the mayors, and who, like me, is supporting Michele Von Luckner and Craig Bickley for the TRWD Board.

Betsy and Mike are trying to divert your attention away from the real Dallas threat to Fort Worth citizens. Here’s what Betsy and Mike don’t want you to know:

• Moncrief raised $500,000 (so far) from an exclusive group of North Texas millionaires & billionaires, cashing in chips with his richest friends. If the incumbents get re-elected, these are the people who will continue to influence the Water Board. It sure won’t be you and me.
• Yours and my names were not on Mike’s Rolodex®, but five Dallas billionaires were. Don’t you think it’s hypocritical of Mike and Betsy to stuff our mailboxes with mailers warning about one Dallas businessman when they have stuffed their coffers with donations from five Dallas billionaires?
• Why are five Dallas billionaires eager to hand former Fort Worth Mayor Moncrief hundreds of thousands of dollars to finance his friends’ perpetual control of Fort Worth’s Water Board? Perhaps it’s because the TRWD Board is planning on spending $2.3 billion of your money to build a pipeline that forever will connect Fort Worth’s two prize east-Texas lakes to Dallas’ suffering water system. You’ve seen the severe water restrictions that Dallas-area residents have suffered the last two years. Some communities can water their lawns only once every two weeks. Thanks to the TRWD leaders from the 1960’s and 1970’s who built Cedar Creek and Richland Chambers reservoirs, Fort Worth is in much better shape. Once that “Integrated Pipeline” (IPL) is built, Dallas forever will have access to Fort Worth’s water. The IPL adds no water to TRWD lakes. TRWD’s own needs assessment shows that the IPL is a big win for Dallas but could exacerbate Fort Worth water shortages. Does that sound like a good deal to you? Isn’t buying Dallas a $2.3 billion pipeline to Fort Worth’s lakes like giving North Korean hackers the password to your computer firewall?
• Given Mayor Price’s and the TRWD incumbents’ passion for regional (Dallas-imposed?) water restrictions, this permanent connection of Fort Worth’s lakes to Dallas should concern you greatly. Dallas’ new pipeline into TRWD’s lakes + Mayor Price’s regionalism = Loss of Fort Worth’s water sovereignty.

In another flyer, Mayor Price tells you that we have the best water board in Texas. The best? I have higher standards than Mayor Price. Here’s my TRWD Board report card:

• They get an A for their east-Texas wetlands project.
• They get an inherited A for the outstanding employees of the Water District, many of whom, including one of my friends, have worked there decades to provide us water.
• They have failed to buy Oklahoma’s surplus water, dealing so poorly with our neighbors to the north that they ended up in a costly, losing federal lawsuit.
• They have failed to supervise the TRWD’s general manager, who among other incidents interjected himself into the 2013 TRWD election by sending hateful, belittling emails to one of the candidates from the TRWD’s email server. You might have gotten fired, but the incumbents did nothing. I think the incumbents are intimidated by this man. I think he needs supervision.
• They have failed to respect your private property rights, lobbying State Rep. Charlie Geren to sponsor a bill that gave the TRWD exclusive eminent domain rights to take your land for economic development, even if miles from any water. They then abused these eminent domain privileges to take your neighbors’ land for the $1 billion Trinity River Vision project.
• They have failed at transparency, only lifting the veil slightly when Mary Kelleher joined the TRWD Board in 2013. Mary needs two more votes on the board to effect change.
• They have failed to focus on water supply and flood control and have been distracted for years by Trinity River Vision, a sweetheart-deal restaurant, and other economic development.
• They have failed at conservation, insisting on top-down, big-government water restrictions, window-dressed with a silly Lawn Whisperer campaign that is pointless when citizens have no flexibility. Conservation works best when the citizens buy in. Yet in 2014, TRWD officials and Bryan Eppstein (TRWD’s lobbyist and the incumbents’ and Mayor Price’s political consultant) aggressively lobbied your city council to reject even a pilot project to test my conservation plan, the Woodard Plan1, which may increase conservation with less government.
• They have failed to trust you. Ask the incumbents if they trust you enough to give you the Woodard Plan. They were desperate to kill the Woodard Plan, because they are afraid that you will waste water if given the slightest flexibility. So they told the City Council on 4/8/2014 that if it approved the Woodard Plan, the state would deny any more inter-basin pipelines and lakes for Fort Worth. This assertion was completely fabricated, but it succeeded in swinging the Council’s vote against the Woodard Plan. You are seeing similar scare tactics in their campaign. When leaders don’t trust you, they do desperate things. Michele Von Luckner and Craig Bickley represent change. They are smart young business people, who like you and me are raising families in Tarrant County. None of their donors hopes to make a buck off of TRWD contracts. They want transparent government. They are passionate about conservation and ample water supply. They don’t want the TRWD taking your property for its next economic development idea. They want TRWD focusing on water, water, water. And they trust you. You will be proud to have Michele and Craig represent you on the TRWD Board. You get two votes for the TRWD Board on May 9 (early voting runs April 27 through May 5). Please join me in voting for Michele Von Luckner and Craig Bickley. I encourage you to visit their websites to make a donation or request a yard sign: www.michelevonluckner.com and www.craigbickley.com.

Blake Woodard
1 - For a copy of the Woodard Plan, please e-mail me at blake@woodardcompanies.com.