Elections are coming…

Funny how earmarks are a bad thing, unless they are yours.  Remember that come election day.

Read the letters in today’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

Reviews on movies and earmarks.  Neither receives a passing grade.

Restore earmarks?

I see where U.S. Rep. Kay Granger along with fellow House Republican deficit hawks Mike Rogers and Louis Gohmert want to reinstate Republican Party federal earmarking. I guess Granger feels it's worth the risk of ignoring her Tea Party constituents if she can ensure the endless continuation of her son's Trinity River Vision dole.

-- Preston Matthiesen, Fort Worth

Movie critic

We should know if our sacrosanct Trinity River visionaries will limit the films to be broadcast at their drive-in theater. "Visionaries" must protect children and those of us with vestiges of taste and modesty from whatever Hollywood is peddling as it, in the words of the late Daniel Patrick Monyihan, relentlessly continues "defining deviancy down."

Who will these movies attract? What will they term a 40-foot-tall, full-color, gangland killing seen by families driving on North Main Street or a steamy seduction scene displayed to children in the apartments on Samuels Avenue? What will the night-class students see from the windows up above in our expensive junior college lecture halls?

-- Joy Douglass, Edgecliff Village

The Latest in Flood Control

A drive-in.  On a river full of feces.

So far the Trinity River Vision flood control pork project has produced a wakeboard park (which flooded), Rockin' on the River (where you float in said feces filled river), a risk free taxpayer funded restaurant in the flood path of said river (built specifically for celebrity chef Tim Love), and a newly created LLC named after said project, purchased the Fort Worth Cats bankrupt baseball team, and now a drive-in theater in Fort Worth.

What does any of that have to do with flood control??    

An article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram actually makes some interesting points.  Not necessarily about the billion dollar, completely taxpayer funded, without a vote, earmarked, eminent domain, nepotism-laden, "flood control" project known as the Trinity River Vision, but interesting, just the same. 

The Tarrant Regional Water District next week will consider entering into a lease with Dallas-based Coyote Theaters for a drive-in theater on vacant land near LaGrave Field.

The drive-in would be there for about 10 years, potentially drawing 300,000 patrons a year to Trinity Uptown. It would also net the water district about $1.7 million in rent, according to information filed with the district.

The drive-in would be called Coyote Theater in Trinity Uptown and would be on part of the 34 acres that the water district bought in 2010 from LaGrave Field owner Carl Bell. The site is near North Calhoun and Northeast Fifth streets, north of downtown Fort Worth.

J.D. Granger, Trinity River development director for the water district, could not be reached for comment Friday. The district is scheduled to consider the proposal Tuesday.

Not much is known about Coyote Theaters, but the Fort Worth site will apparently be its first location. The company does not have a listed phone number.

Coyote Theaters filed incorporation papers with the Texas secretary of state's office Aug. 2 and lists its management as Todd Minnis, Brady Wood, Scott Wilson and Glenn Solomon.

There IS a reporter in the country

They happen to be at the Washington Post.

Check out what list YOUR Congresswoman made now.

Next time you complain about government spending in Washington, check your own city.

And is 'government spending' an oxymoron?  WHO's money do you think they are spending?

Don't be a moron.  Oxy or otherwise...

HE has a way with words

THEY have a way with your money.

A Letter to the Editor of the Fort Worth Business Press....

The Woodshed

News flash! Earmarks are back! Alive and well! No matter that our country is in financial rigor mortis with Chinese undertakers feeling our pulse while tenderly asking what more can we do for their country.

According to the winter propaganda screed put out by the Trinity River Vision Authority, the boast is made that Congresswoman Kay Granger has secured another $23 million of Federal funds for two Trinity Uptown bridges. Bulletin! Neither of the bridges is Uptown. Both are bridges to nowhere to be built over a yet to be dug channel. Which comes first? The chicken or the egg?

In addition, the screed bragged that the North Central Texas Council of Governments, led by Michael Morris and the Regional Transportation Commission chaired by Jungus Jordan, was able to secure an additional $15 million through “another Federal source.”

When it comes to picking Federal pockets, these three deft-fingered artists make Dickens’ Artful Dodger look like a ham-handed bumbling amateur. After the bridges are built, will they then find another obscure Federal pocket to pick in order to dig the ditch underneath the bridges to nowhere?

Step by stealthy step the beat goes on. Now comes to light another soft-shoe step made under cover of darkness – $970,000 of local taxpayer money has been spent by J.D. Granger, executive director of the Trinity River Vision, on a sweetheart deal with a restaurateur to build a hamburger eatery called The Woodshed on the north bank of the Clear Fork near Colonial Country Club. What has this surreptitious money laundering to do with flood control and water supply, the primary duties of the Tarrant Regional Water District?

Looks like the taxpayers have been taken to the woodshed. Again. Saints preserve us!

Don Woodard, 

Fort Worth

Congrats to TRIP!

Good example of what THE PEOPLE can do when they come together.  Read the message below from the Trinity River Improvement Partnership. 

Dear Friends of the Trinity River,

TRIP is pleased to announce that our documentary video project, Up A Creek, has been selected by the Neo-Relix Film Festival in Glen Rose, Texas. It will be shown as one of the featured programs at 2:00 Saturday, September 3rd, and at 12:00 Sunday September 4th.

Up A Creek is a story about the real dangers of flooding that exist in the Fort Worth area, and seeks to inform citizens about the misplaced priorities of our elected officials and their plans to spend close to one billion dollars of tax money to benefit the development community.

Our presentation begins with a heartbreaking, true story of flooding, tragedy, and a lack of local governmental foresight and accountability. Local critics of the Trinity River Vision Project then pick up the story and cover a wide-ranging series of topics, from eminent domain abuse to TIF financing districts, legislative manipulation, lack of local media scrutiny, where flood control is actually needed. It addresses the role of the Tarrant Regional Water District and where our local and federal tax dollars are going with this project. The video ends with a call to action, urging voters to educate themselves about the project and help TRIP to offer a more realistic alternative.

TRIP... Our Mission: Support public and civic organizations to achieve maximum balance in preserving property rights, the environment, flood control, and historical considerations, while achieving reasonable development and a clean and adequate water supply.

Please join us. Visit us at www.savethetrinityriver.org

What was the plan again?

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram touts the new Trinity River plan in 2003.  Makes you miss Silcox, doesn't it?

River of Denial

Guess there is a reporter in the county, and his name is Dan McGraw.

Don't miss the Fort Worth Weekly article, Unleashing a Flood of Questions.  You know how we love questions. 

This isn't a PR piece brought to you courtesy of the Trinity River Vision or the Tarrant Regional Water District or the Congresswoman's office.  YOU can't afford to miss it.  After all, it's YOUR $909 million.  Every penny of it.

Projected costs for the project have ballooned to about $909 million. The economy is still in the Great Recession, and federal, state, and local governments are all facing severe budget shortfalls that will leave their mark for years to come. Congress has put a temporary ban on earmark bills, the strategy by which local project funding was routinely added to unrelated bills and that U.S. Rep. Kay Granger of Fort Worth used to get about $60 million for the TRV in the past. And the Corps, faced with continuing fallout from the Hurricane Katrina debacles in Louisiana and this year’s massive flooding along the Mississippi, is dealing with many projects much more critical than improvements in Fort Worth to a river section that hasn’t seen significant flooding in half a century.

The Trinity River Vision Authority is the governmental agency created specifically to oversee this massive project, but the officials on its governing board are appointed, not elected by the public.

WHO was appointed to head it?  Oh, that's right, JD Granger, son of the Congresswoman.

The federal funding component of the TRV is now $487 million of the $909 million. That includes the Corps’ flood control work, along with contributions from federal transportation, economic development, housing, and environmental protection agencies.

In the convoluted world of Washington, as in Fort Worth, it is hard to get clear answers on where the Trinity River Vision stands. The Corps has ruled that the project is “technically sound and environmentally acceptable,” but the funding must be approved on a year-by-year basis. In the past five years, about $29 million has been appropriated for it. But that is nowhere near the Corps’ $466 million price tag to finish it.

“I think this is becoming a bait-and-switch plan, something private businesses would be prosecuted for if they did it,” said Steve Hollern, a local accountant and former chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party. “What the TRV is doing is buying property, tearing down buildings, using eminent domain, and having very little chance of getting the federal funds they need to complete it.

Granger wholeheartedly disagreed. “I am not concerned about the federal funds drying up, because this is primarily a flood control water project, and those have been a top priority in Washington,” he said. “This is not a short-term solution to flooding issues on the Trinity River, but a long-term plan that solves a very real problem.”

There are a number of opponents to this project, but they are very much in the minority,” Granger said. “Most citizens of Fort Worth I talk to see value in this project. It will change this city in so many ways, all of them for the better.”

JD should get out more (we don't mean on 7th street).  The minority is growing.

Oh say can YOU see?

Excellent letter in the FW Weekly this week.  If you haven't seen Up A Creek yet, YOU should.  You can't afford not to. 

You can see it on TRIP's website.  Isn't half an hour of your time worth a billion dollars?  Skip a so called "news" program one night, trust us, you'll learn more from this.  Watch it, for YOUR kids, if nothing else.

TRV: A Vision Problem?

To the editor: Dan McGraw’s article “TRV’s Up a Creek” (April 6, 2011) was perfectly timed, with elections coming up. The Trinity River Vision’s supporters on the water board would rather spend money attracting tourists with that project than meeting the flood-control needs of other communities.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, knowing the flood potential from Big Fossil Creek, allowed land to be developed on the pretext that they didn’t have $6 million to fix the problem. And yet, as the article points out, they “found” $500 million for the TRV.

Don Woodard calls the TRV “pseudo flood control” and compares some politicians who advocate the project to bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde. His comments are apropos. Woodard was joined in his opposition by Libertarian Party Chairman John Spivey and by Clyde Picht and Louis McBee, who refers to the TRV as “Lake Kay Granger.”

Layla Caraway’s video Up a Creek is going to be a success story. She should run for city council. As for Granger, maybe she needs an eye doctor. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Delores Raikes
Fort Worth

They get it...

Do YOU?

The FW Weekly does another bang up job at putting it together.  Kudos to Dan McGraw!  And to all the people quoted in the article, wanting to learn more and DO something!

Don't miss the article.  It's got some good information on TRIP (Trinity River Improvement Partnership) and the local Tea Party, 912.  The Weekly gets it right by talking to many different folks with many different opinions.  Too bad our other "news" outlets only say what their told.

Enough already...GO VOTE!

"We keep hearing from city leaders how [Fort Worth] hasn't been affected as much as other cities by the national economic downturn" she said. "But then we can't afford basic city services like building better roads and keeping pools open. I guess I just want to find out how we got in this mess. I guess I'm here because I want to learn more."

He started coming to meetings earlier this year because "I would read the paper and watch the news at home, and I found myself having a fit," he said. "I wanted to see what I could do, to learn more about all the issues and not just sit at home and complain.
 
"The TRV is a big waste of money when we don't even have money to fix our roads. Granger puts her son in charge of it at a very high salary. This is mis-spending at its worst."
 
In Fort Worth ... no one has questioned authority in the past," he said. "We just did not get involved. The more I keep my eyes open and the more I see, the more I need to get involved.
 
TRIP and the 912ers have become close allies as they fight what they both consider crazy spending on a project that they believe is not needed and favors private development interests through the use of eminent domain. TRIP backs a plan that would spend about $60 million to improve river access near downtown, but members want the private marketplace alone to determine what kind of development happens along the river.
 
 "I am a member of both groups because no one represents the taxpayers anymore, and that has to change," she said.
 
"The TRV project is a perfect example of that," she said. "They want to spend more than $900 million of federal and state and local tax money, and voters haven't had any say in the matter. And believe me, the federal money is drying up because of the ban on earmark spending, and you know the burden is going to shift to local money.

Priorities

We've noticed that recently, on the "news", it's the same story in city after city.

Each city has had to cut services to the citizens, cutting jobs, closing pools, shortening library hours, cutting teachers in the school districts, no funding for infrastructure or police, fire, etc.

However, several of these cities (all?) want to raise taxes, or obligate the taxpayers to pay for new development. What is wrong with this picture? Did their parents not teach them any better?  You don't spend money you don't have on things you don't need.  Even if it's someone else's.

Then, last night on WFAA, we heard some in Dallas say they should give the earmark Trinity River bridge money back.  That's the best thing we've heard since Don Woodard said the same about the Trinity River Vision earmark money in Fort Worth, he said it might encourage every city across America to do the same.  That man may just be on to something.

What's downstream of the Fort Worth Trinity River Vision earmark?  Oh, the Dallas Trinity River bridge earmark...

What would not change is the $92 million in federal earmarks to pay for the remaining arches — and for anything else beyond the cost of a basic bridge over the Trinity.

Suhm said Dallas still deserves the earmarks.

But with the Washington debate about debt and cutting spending, Phillip Dennis — who is on the steering committee for the Dallas Tea Party — said earmarks for a designer bridge can't be justified.

In a written statement to News 8 on Tuesday, Hutchison wouldn’t say whether the earmark is still appropriate or should still be spent — only that the federal share “has been met.”

The Tea Party's Dennis accused Sessions of talking out of both sides of his mouth on the earmarks issue. “If he's against them now, then he should be against this $92 million," Dennis said. "Let's use it toward paying off our record $1.65 trillion deficit this year.”

Making Waves

The Trinity River Improvement Partnership (TRIP) has been making waves, and it ain't in the wakeboard park.  They also aren't using your tax dollars to do so.

They have held meetings and movie screenings recently and today they are in the FW Weekly.  YOU can't afford to miss it.  Be sure and note their next free event next week!

The Fort Worth Way...

Good letter to the editor from Don Woodard in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

Brings up some other questions we have received concerning the race for Fort Worth Mayor.

How is Jim Lane able to use Molly the Longhorn on his campaign signs?  Doesn't that belong to Fort Worth?  How is he able to put his signs on Tarrant Regional Water District property?  Is anyone else able to advertise on property owned by the taxpayers?

WHY would Kay Granger ask Betsy Price to run when Jim Lane is a champion of the Trinity River Vision / Mirage?  Because Lane is a democrat?  WHY would Betsy Price take a $100,000 a year pay cut to be Mayor?  WHO will make up that difference?  WHAT will it really cost? WHO will she answer to? 

Below is Mr.Woodard's latest -

Hawaii's state motto is "The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness."

Is it right for Kay Granger to practice nepotism with a $140,000 job for her son?

Is it right for Tax Assessor Betsy Price to run for mayor while collecting a $140,000 salary?

Dan Barrett says, "It does not pass the smell test."

Here is how Shakespeare would say it: "There's something rotten in the State of Denmark."

Elect Cathy Hirt mayor -- our last best hope to kill the Trinity River Vision boondoggle.

-- Don Woodard Sr., Fort Worth

"News" Flash

You can miss a lot around here in a day or two.  Apparently all kinds of video... stuff YOU can't afford to miss. 

We learned more about the Trinity River Vision, flooding, TIFs, earmarks, eminent domain, etc. than all the "news" we've seen combined.  Ever.  Bravo.

And guess who has it?  The "news"? Hell no. Durango, who else?

Bravo.

Watch both links.  YOU can't afford not to.

Trinity River Improvement Partnership

Kudos to TRIP for a great event at the historic Stagecoach Ballroom last night!

Very informative, very friendly folks!  Even the "plants" were friendly. 

We love it when a group of citizens take the initiative to right the wrongs.  THE PEOPLE are listening. 

Carry on, TRIP!

For Durango's review on the presentation go here.

For more information about the Trinity River Improvement Partnership go here.

We hear the video will be out and about for all to see soon.  YOU can't afford to miss it!

Trinity River Mirage...

Read Don Woodard's Letter to the Editor in the FW Weekly.

And come on out tonight!  You might learn something...it could save YOU millions!

According to press reports, scores of officials from Tarrant County descended on the state capitol last week to tout a range of legislative priorities and to sound off against state budget cuts (“The Deficit Monster,” March 2) threatening to ripple through cities, school districts and the county government.

One of the visitors was County Judge Glen Whitley, who called on lawmakers to tap into the state’s rainy day fund to help offset some of the reductions. “If it’s not raining now,” said Whitley, the county’s top official, “I don’t know when it would be.”

Reductions that could be felt in Tarrant County government include cuts in criminal justice grants, mental health and mental retardation services, and reimbursements for indigent defense and juror pay. At other levels of local government, cities are facing reductions in homeless programs, police training, park improvements, and a statewide database used by public library patrons. Schools will be hit hard with possible teacher layoffs.

The only neck in this part of the state that seems safe from the government guillotine is that of the billion-dollar Trinity River Vision. The feds are on the line for half of $500 million. However, they’re digging in their heels and may renege on the deal. All local governments and an iffy Bonnie-and-Clyde tax increment financing district are obligated for the other half of the egregious pseudo-flood-control earmark. Why is this project — which we don’t need, don’t want, and can’t afford — immune from the squeeze?

The executive director of this eminent-domain earmark boasts that he has enough money to last for 18 months. Spend! Spend! Spend! Many who remember Waxahachie and the ill-fated superconducting supercollider have long been warning that federal funds for Trinity River Vision might turn out to be a similar unfulfilled promise, after millions of local taxpayer dollars have been wasted on it. Big-spending visionaries from Congress to city hall to the chamber of commerce have snickered at our skepticism. Will Trinity Vision turn out to be Trinity Mirage?

Don Woodard
Fort Worth

Q & A

We just received an email from one of our contributors concerning a meeting Jim Lane, Fort Worth Mayor candidate, spoke at this morning.  Sounds like it didn't go well, we are told Mr. Lane "danced" around answering questions.  And then tried to explain a TIF to a room full of people who already know what TIF's are made of.  THEIR money.

He also made a statement that due to gas drilling, the Tarrant Regional Water District has a "phenomenal amount of money".  Our question is HOW MUCH is phenomenal?  How much property does the Tarrant Regional Water District own?  (We'd tell you from the TAD database, but since they don't pay taxes...they ain't listed).  How much has the Tarrant Regional Water District made off gas drilling in the Barnett Shale?  If each well fracked uses 3-5 million gallons of water, how much are the gas drillers paying for the water they obtain legally? 

If Lane was Mayor, would he still spend taxpayer money (they don't have) on things they don't need?

One more question, is there a real reporter in the house??

Show us the money!

Read about the Trinity River Vision and their shortfall of earmark funds (again), in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Tell us again, WHO pays?  Be sure and read the comments from THE PEOPLE.  The ones the politicians and developers want to foot the bill.

With the current congressional moratorium on earmarks, Trinity River Vision Authority officials have been told not to expect any federal funding in the current fiscal year for the flood control and economic development project.

"Do I hope we can get some money this year? Yes," said J.D. Granger, Trinity River Vision's executive director. "Do I know if we can get some money? No. I do know we've been told that earmarks are not being accepted for the Fiscal Year 2011 continuing resolution."

"As a board member, we have always known the only hard stop on this project is if federal funding is not available," Maenius said. "Is it a concern if the federal dollars stop? Obviously it is."

"I'm curious when we reach the tipping point where we don't have to be worried," said Maenius, who added that he has been unable to receive a clear-cut answer. U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, who has secured earmarks for the project since its inception, cannot seek funding for the project since Congress has instituted a moratorium on earmarks. Her son is J.D. Granger.

Since the Senate joined the earmark moratorium, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison also can no longer seek an earmark for Central City, the Army Corps of Engineers portion of the project.

The Fort Worth project is not in President Barack Obama's budget -- nor was it in President George W. Bush's budgets -- but has been funded through earmarks championed by Rep. Granger.

"Obviously, when the question of funding arises, we are dependent on what happens in Washington," Moncrief said. "But I'm confident that Kay Granger, in her leadership role, and her colleagues and both of our senators in their leadership roles will prioritize this project and continue to focus their energies on completing the task."

Although both Granger and Hutchison are on the appropriations committees in their chambers, the earmark moratorium is intended to keep members from using their influence to target funding.

Trinity River Border Fiasco

Don't miss Don Woodard's letter in the Fort Worth Business Press today.  Texas, tell your friends in other states - they too are paying for it.

Fencing Fiasco

A recent headline read, “Border Fence Scrapped, Called a Fiasco.”

Several members of Congress, among them Sen. Joe Lieberman, have said that the “virtual fence” project along 53 miles of the Arizona – Mexican border, costing at least $15 million per mile, was a waste of taxpayers’ money and should have been stopped sooner.

The fence, initiated in 2005, was to be a network of cameras, ground sensors and radars that would be used to spot incursions. It was supposed to have been operational this year. At a cost of $15 million a mile, the 53 mile abandoned project cost us $795 million.

It is difficult to understand why Congress have their ruffles up over the waste of $795,000 for this 53 mile border security project and yet have remained silent regarding the waste rampant in Fort Worth’s nepotistic one mile long economic development, pseudo-flood control project called Trinity Uptown. At last count, the eminent domain land grab earmark was pegged to cost nearly a billion dollars.

When the Tea Party people newly-arrived on scene in the nation’s capital get wind of the Fort Worth boondoggle that, in the pungent description of John Randolph, “shines and stinks like rotten mackerel by moonlight,” I foresee a reprise banner headline proclaiming, Trinity Uptown Project Scrapped, Called a Fiasco.”

Don Woodard, Fort Worth

A Streetcar Named Conspire

We were just forwarded this email written by Adrian Murray.  Write on, sir.

The exalted leaders of Fort Worth seemed determined to develop a streetcar line whether the city needs one or not. In fact, they are so determined to get a streetcar they're going to commit to one before they even decide where it should start, where it should end and what, exactly, they will even do with the darn thing. We just got to have it.

Was this on the horizon three or four years ago? Was anyone chomping at the bit to get an electric streetcar? Were Fort Worth citizens saying amomg themeselves over lunch, "What this city really needs is a streetcar?" Did we somehow miss the pickets outside City Hall from angry taxpayers wondering where their streetcar is? Why the sudden panting and moaning for a street car now?

Money. Lot's of it. $25 million in federal grant money, to be precise. With another $25 million in funding confiscated from the citizens of Fort Worth, that's $50 million for the old boy network downtown to divide amongst themselves. $50 million for site preparation, surveys, engineering costs, legal fees, construction. A $50 million jackpot for the legions of corrupt elites sucking the life out of the citizens of this city and a $50 million kick in the groin for those citizens struggling to get by in a city rank in corruption and greed.

Just the other day J.D. Granger, spawn of Kay and General Manager of that ill-conceived, poorly planned quasi-criminal construction project known as the Trinity River Vision, came out publicly stating that streetcars have been an essential part of the TRV plan from the very beginning. Conveniently for Granger, Star Telegram uber-stenographer Bill Hanna merely joted down J.D.'s claim without even a perfunctory follow-up like, maybe, "Hey , J.D., can you cite just one time JUST ONE TIME YOU LIVING BREATHING MOMUNMENT TO NEPOTISM that the subject of freaking STREETCARS ever came up?"

Of course, J.D. now has a bit of a sticky problem. Mama's been funding junior's pet project with earmark money stolen from the American people. But mama had to swear off earmarks when the Republican House leadership committed to ending the process. So Kay Bailey Hutchison had her back and swooped to the rescue by committing to earmarking money for the Trinity boondoggle in the Senate. Now that source is about to dry up as Mitch McConnell vows to end the practice entirely.

Gee, if only the TRV had a streetcar, we could maybe partake ourselves of that glorious $50 million in free money and steer it towards the toxic island being created north of downtown. Streetcars are important, we are told, because they increase density in development. Since people can take the streetcar wherever they want we won't need as many parking places, garages, etc., so that open up land for profitable development. Without streetcars, building can only be three stories tall. With streetcars, they can be over seven stories. All we need is a gullible reporter intellectually vacant enough to write this up in a story without questioning the obvious vacuousness of such a statement and we're off to the races. Someone get me Bill Hanna on the line!

And so on Thursday, just outside the downtown offices of the Trinity River Vision, folks will be invited to see our magnificent new streetcar. Never mind the $77 million budget shortfall. Never mind crumbling infrastructure. Never mind the closing of libraries and parks and pools. Never mind staff and pay cuts. There's $50 million in free money for the folks in River Oaks to divvy among themselves. J.D. has a brand new toy and a new lease on life. Can life get any better than this?

To keep up with all the streetcar mania going on across the country, just google "federal streetcar grants".

Mayors ask Granger for money

However, there is none.  Maybe we should take the Trinity River Vision money and spend it on things cities and citizens really need.

Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  Read the comments too.

North Texas has benefited from earmarks, such as those set aside for the $909 million flood-control and economic-development project known as the Trinity River Vision. An earmark places a certain amount of money in a funding bill and tells a federal agency specifically how to spend it.


Granger said the federal government may be too big to work well, something she hopes can change if Republicans regain a majority in Congress.

"We are so big and so out of control," she said. "I think it will take major changes. ... It's going to be one tough job and one that won't be popular."