More Startlegram Censorship

The Fort Worth Weekly gives you the scoop. 

Good thing there's a real paper in town.

No response

No surprise.

This attorney wouldn't call the FW Weekly back.  WHY not?

Call and ask him.  Check on the status of YOUR First Amendment rights.

And back up a Texas Hero while you're at it. 

Is there an attorney in the house?

Read about TXSharon and Range Resources on the Fort Worth Weekly.com.  They have the digits.

Catching on

The Fort Worth Weekly makes note of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram recent changes. Is it new?  Or old?  Are they targeting the young? Or old?  We can't tell anymore.

Though we like the fact the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is going to expand Cheers and Jeers over many days, since it's the "most popular feature".  That says a lot.  And as we've always said, if you want to know what's going on in Fort Worth, you go to THE PEOPLE, not the paper.  Now, let's hope they quit arguing with the Cheers and Jeers writers and print the darn things.

Editorial Director J.R. Labbe chimed in with her own column, saying the editorial section would run “Cheers & Jeers” four days a week instead of one. After all, it’s one of the paper’s “most popular features.” 

(Actually, the “Jeers” are a popular feature. Static’s never met anybody who reads the “Cheers.”)

So: The paper is changing by running more cheers, jeers, and columns written by you, the “readers.” Actually, that makes sense. A newspaper that’s bought out, laid off, fired, or otherwise gotten rid of much of its staff would do well to rely more on guest writers to fill space. Witt nailed it when he ended his column by saying, “This is your newspaper!”

Perry Polls

The media is saying Rick Perry dropped 10 points in the polls.

Maybe some folks picked up the Fort Worth Weekly Best of 2011 edition.  While the critics chose another of our local/Washington politicians (Kay Granger) for The Politician most likely to sell grandma to the highest bidder, the readers of Fort Worth chose Rick Perry. 

If the citizens of one of the largest cities in your state think you'll sell them out, WHY would the rest of the country want you for President?

Best of Fort Worth

The Fort Worth Weekly has released their Best of Edition for 2011.  Pick one up, check it out.

In addition to finding all the best spots in town, you can read about groups and people we've told you about - NCTCA, Clyde Picht, Ann Sutherland and Layla Caraway, just to name a few.

WHO was the politician most likely to sell grandma to the highest bidder?  YOU know WHO.

Oh, and Readers Choice for Locally Made Film - Up a Creek.  Congratulations to Bob Lukeman and TRIP and to all those out there making a difference.   Like the Weekly.

Lone Star salutes you all.

Bullies Beware

The Fort Worth Weekly is coming for you.

Read the latest on the FWISD fiasco.  WHO's next?

Fort Worth Bullies

Fort Worth Weekly does a good job reporting on the bullies in the Fort Worth School District.  It doesn't stop there either, Fort Worth is full of bullies from the classroom, to the ISD, from City Hall to Capitol Hill.

Is there a law against that?

Read the article here.  Don't miss the comments, those in the know tell you many things if you listen.

Kudos to the Weekly for racking up awards in Houston and New Orleans!  Keep up the good work!

Divided they fail

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's recent article concerning the Fort Worth School Board was so divided it was laughable.  Leave it to the Fort Worth Weekly to turn the lights on. What happens when you turn on the lights?  They scurry, quick.  Notice WHO didn't respond for the article.  The very same ones that "failed to show up" for a recent meeting.  Failed to show up?  For something they have been elected to do? Concerning our kids?  And these are the ones the S-T claims are above board?  The same ones that sent emails attacking the others by namecalling?  Elections can't come soon enough. 

No wonder the recent speaker at City Hall pointed out the difference of the "news" papers to Mayor Price.

Betsy Price ran this week’s city council meetings in the same manner she handles herself — she was pleasant, efficient, and confident. She remained calm after a resident took his turn to speak, lectured the council on how to vote, and told them not to believe anything in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram while urging them to take Fort Worth Weekly stories to the bank. Price smiled and joked with the guy about using her big gavel to keep the council in line. Former Mayor Mike Moncrief would have smiled in that situation too — but only after saying, “Release the dogs” and watching a pack of Dobermans maul the dissenter.

Back to the school board, be sure and read the article, otherwise, YOU don't know what you're missing.

After Johnson’s resignation, Vasquez, Sims, Sutherland, and Rangel asked board president Ray Dickerson to call a special meeting to name an interim superintendent; Dansby’s name had already been raised as the likeliest candidate. He had strong support from the local educational employees union and from a coalition of activists and ministers representing the city’s minority communities.

Needham, Norm Robbins, Christene Moss, and Jackson — all failed to show up. With no quorum, the meeting was cancelled even though the auditorium was full of Dansby supporters. A week later, on June 7, Dickerson called another special meeting, and Dansby was appointed.

Since May 2010, the daily has written 30 editorials implying dirty dealings and collusion by Sutherland, Rangel, and Vasquez, in particular in the awarding of a lucrative tax collection contract to the Austin-based law firm of Linebarger, Goggan, Blair & Sampson rather than to the local joint venture of Perdue, Brackett, Flores, Utt and Burns. Perdue had the contract for 17 years but lost it after the election of Sutherland and Jackson, both of whom voted with Rangel and Vasquez to hire Linebarger. Sims and Needham voted for Linebarger as well but faced no criticism from the daily paper.

Promises - Part 2

Betsy Price has been making many promises.  Let's hope she doesn't follow Moncrief's Fort Worth Way with those.

Read about those promises in the Fort Worth Weekly.

However, Static must point out that Moncrief (who endorsed Price over his longtime friend Jim Lane) said the same thing when he was seeking the job in 2003. Back then, the average person felt excluded from the local political process; city officials wanted to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on a questionable downtown project (a luxury hotel); the school board was wrapped in turmoil; voters were pissed off. Any of this sound familiar?

(Brink said Moncrief had a solid record as a state senator, and the most controversial thing about him was personal rather than professional: He’d sued his uncle Tex Moncrief over the family oil money.)

Moncrief told Brink he had no “hidden agenda” (his staunch support for unfettered urban gas drilling would become quickly and painfully obvious). He wanted more collaboration between the city council and the school board (didn’t happen). He agreed with tax abatements in certain cases but said they should be hard to come by (ha!). He looked forward to moving from the legislature to the city council because local politics is “closest to the people” (many of whom he would later bully or ignore when they disagreed with him). He listed his priorities, beginning with a “user-friendly” city hall.

Breaking News

And a ray of hope.  From the Fort Worth Weekly.

Melody Johnson resigning from the Fort Worth School Board.

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

We ask

The FW Weekly answers...

People all over town were wondering how Jim Lane is able to use Molly on his campaign signs.  The answer from the city sounds like the Fort Worth Way. 

Fort Worth, we need a new way in a bad way.

Fracing "news"

The FW Weekly tells you about last week's tanker spill (we showed you the picture from a citizen) and about the radioactive dumping around these parts.

Notice what the Weekly says at the start of their article:

Unnoticed by most local news media, on March 9 a tanker carrying toxic wastewater from a gas field overturned just north of the intersection of I-30 and University Drive—between Trinity Park and the Fort Worth Botanic Garden.

Sounds along the same lines as what we mentioned this morning with the Paradise Center Scandal.

Ask your local media WHY they aren't telling you what's up.  YOU have a right to know.

There is a reporter in the house!

The FW Weekly house that is.  Read the Paradise Center update here.

Thanks FWW!!!

New Mayor in Fort Worth

Rumors have been swirling for months now about the candidates lining up for the Mayor's race in Fort Worth.

The FW Weekly Static on this is excellent.  Read it all!  Be sure and read to the bottom about Fort Worth's animal control, Oprah and the Fort Worth Cheerleader. 

We love when the citizens (even if it's "one woman") exposes the Fort Worth Way for what it really is. 

You good ol' boys better pay attention, the women are on their way.  You ever pissed off a Texas woman?  Not recommended.  Our advice?  Run, Forrest, Run.

Thinking about Hirt’s candidacy reminds Static of a time in 2003 when Hirt and Mike Moncrief battled each other for the mayor’s job. Moncrief quit the Texas Senate and came home to Fort Worth seeking a job. Coincidentally, every gas driller in Texas was also honing in on Cowtown, angling to exploit lax regulation to suck the most money possible from the Barnett Shale.

“Government must be a partnership between the people and their elected,” he told Fort Worth Weekly seven years ago (he stopped talking to the Weekly once he got elected).

He’s become the least inclusive mayor in living memory.

When people disagree with him, he tries to remove them from the conversation.

What Water Shortage?

So the FW Weekly is the only news source in town acknowledging our water woes.  We're glad they are back at it.

Funny...seems there is someone offering yet another alternative solution. Someone who knows the "pond" and the island, known as Trinity River Vision, are a waste of YOUR money and not what we should be focused on.  WHY aren't YOUR "leaders" listening?  Because their profit margin would take a hit?

WHO raised these politicians, by the way?  Their momma never told them, that you shouldn't spend money you don't have, on things you don't need, especially when you have other things to take care of ?

Check out the letter in the FW Weekly.  Then ask YOUR representative, WHY they are spending YOUR money on Trinity Uptown and streetcars, instead of YOUR future.  And WHY didn't YOU get a vote?  Ben gets our vote.

Wind-Inc. has created a system whereby we can produce fresh water from saltwater aquifers. Using pumps, wind turbines, and backup solar panels, the system can desalinate water at a cost of about 95 cents per 1,000 gallons, or about a fourth of what Tarrant County and the City of Fort Worth are pricing water at today. Our focus should be on modern systems that use renewable energy — note that there is an ocean of salt water available in Texas from 300 to 6,000 feet below the surface. It can provide the water we need for 300-plus years, if we don’t let the oil and gas companies corrupt it with pollution and poisons from their dirty hydraulic-fracturing drilling processes.

 In the past decades, town after town has simply lost population, industry, and business because of declining water sources. Fort Worth would do well to allocate energy and money to a new water supply instead of doing recreational and “pond development” to decorate downtown Fort Worth.

Ben Boothe
Fort Worth

Volunteers Needed

To save Prairie Fest!!

Read about it in the FW Weekly.

What do THE PEOPLE say?

Check out the Letters in the FW Weekly.  Good ones on YOUR water supply and bullying in Fort Worth.

Our favorite? Check it out.

The Rest of the (Ethics) Pie


To the editor: Clyde Picht’s letter in response to “Has Fort Worth Lost Its Moral Compass?” (Sept 22, 2010) was so comprehensive in detail that it reminds us of Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story.” Clyde is articulate and knows his politics, especially when it concerns the Moncrief Mafia.

Thank you, Clyde, for giving us the “rest of the pie” (not just a slice), and thanks to Fort Worth Weekly for publishing his letter.

Sharon R. Stroud

Fort Worth

Turkey's done!

The FW Weekly's annual Turkey awards are out.  What are we thankful for this year?  The FW Weekly and most of their Turkey awards.  WHO wasn't on the list that you wanted to see?

Here are a few highlights, don't miss them all at the FW Weekly!

That’s right, folks. From mostly the same crew that’s been laying eggs in this town and around Texas for awhile now has come another year of greed, wrongheadedness, corporate butt-smooching, and just plain refusal to listen to the people. And next year, it seems, is going to be way too much like the last one, only more so. Maybe they ought to call this edition of the Weekly the Groundhog Awards instead of the Turkeys.

This year’s sweepstakes award, to Fort Worth schools superintendent Melody Johnson and her minions, should be cast in brass. What else do you call it when they send a guy out to accept complaints from the troops and then, when he discovers a laundry list of illegal and tawdry activities, fire him –– even though almost all of the charges that he brought forward proved to be true? The recent firing of that whistleblower, former Arlington Heights assistant principal Joe Palazzolo, is just part of the district’s campaign to cover up one of the most dishonorable and salacious scandals in the district’s history. What should be as embarrassing to district voters is the fact that Johnson got six board members to go along with the firing.

Take a good look at Fort Worth City Council members, city budgeters, City Manager Dale Fisseler, Mayor Mike Moncrief, and all of the other mostly middle-aged, middle-class, white bureaucrats who determine how the city spends its money. Now think back in time a few decades. Imagine them as children, ecstatic about enjoying a day at the local pool, paddling around with smiles on their little faces. It’s true — children’s favorite memories often involve swimming at a public pool on a hot summer day. (OK, Little Lord Moncrief probably had a heated pool in his bedroom.) And yet those same bureaucrats whose innocent pleasures were provided, way back when, by city taxes, are now ready, willing, and able to close down every swimming pool in town to save money. In honor of Thanksgiving, let’s fill one of those abandoned pools with boiling water, throw Moncrief, Fisseler, and all the other heartless budgeteers in it, add sliced carrots and celery, a dash of salt, and serve up some curmudgeon soup. Just be sure to wait 30 minutes after eating to go swimming –– if you can find a pool.

A floating turkey carcass goes out to Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners for laying a natural gas pipeline along one side of Mary Kelleher’s 12-acre property line on Randol Mill Road that raised the ground level several inches and turned Kelleher’s property into a lake when the remnants of Hurricane Hermine flooded the Trinity River in September. Kelleher, who has a petting zoo on the property, lost an alpaca, two rams, a lamb, and several other animals in the flooding.

The problem is that the 30-inch pipeline is not buried deeply enough, so that it blocks the path by which water formerly drained from Kelleher’s property, in the Trinity flood plain. Worse, Enterprise denies there is a problem, even though the ground elevation difference is visible to even a casual passerby.

Updates

Thanks to the concern of many citizens, Mimi, the Veteran's dog is being saved!  Excellent work Texas Star's!

"I just spoke with Randy Turner's paralegal assistant in Fort Worth and ALL THE MONEY needed HAS been raised and THEN some. Randy's representation was done on a Pro Bono basis with no ac...t...ual expenses incurred. Additionally, Mimi is going to be released after she is spayed AND a veterinarian has agreed to provide free medical service for life for Mimi. Steven Woods is going to be able to keep the dog and arrangements are being made for her release! THANKS to everyone who took an interest in this case! NOW, for those of you who SERIOUSLY considered donating to this effort, take that money and find ANOTHER worthwhile effort to help those of us less fortunate! God bless you all"

And for an update on the Fort Worth Monument mistake, check out the FW Weekly.