Dear Congresswoman Granger -

Your letter to some of your "Friends" states -

America has had enough. Enough reckless, wasteful spending. Enough piling up more and more debt. You deserve to know the truth about America’s budget, and it’s my responsibility to make sure you have the real information. No budget tricks, no more gimmicks, and no more empty promises.

American families have had to tighten their belts and learn to do more with less. So should Washington.
 
Some people claim it's just more campaign rhetoric to cover yourself, some claim it's because you can't decide which side of the aisle you're on, some say they don't believe anything you say.

We say - Prove it.

Put OUR money, where YOUR mouth is.

You want us to believe YOU?

Then stop letting OUR water district spend OUR money and pay YOUR son to tell us (sell us) to get in the polluted river.  Stop letting them take taxpayers land to give to large campaign donors and developers.  Stop committing us and our children to more debt. Stop letting corporations suck water out of our drought stricken river.  Stop letting the Army Corp of Engineers try and move the course of the river.  Stop letting the NCTCOG (North Central Texas Council of Governments) spend OUR money.  Help your constituents in Tarrant County fix our roads, our infrastructure, our air.  Help us get our kids back to school and open the libraries and pools.

That grotesque amount of money being made from the gas drillers, if not going to benefit the taxpayers it belongs to, should instead be poured back in to finding solutions for when we run out of clean, usable water and to fix the flooding problems in Tarrant County and clean up the waterways that are full of trash, bacterias and PCB's.... Not so the New Kids on the Block can run up and down 7th street and jet off to Vancouver. 

So when you give up your billion dollar pet project (which is OUR money) for the good of ALL the citizens in your district, we might buy it.  Until then, business as usual.

Morons...

Just another example.  If they buy the media, the elections, control the information released/posted, and close or run the libraries, what are the odds YOUR kids will be smart enough to play the game?

Read about Fort Worth non-public libraries on CommonDreams.org.

All things public are under attack. The Fort Worth rebranding is an indication of how effective this attack has been. The city explained that it was dropping the word “public” because of its “potentially negative connotation”. The Founding Fathers would be disconsolate.

Privatization can undermine the public library’s mission: protecting the public’s access to information. The public library is a non-profit organization controlled by representatives of the users of the library. The mission of private companies is to maximize profits. They are controlled by representatives of their investors.

Would it be improper for me to mention the Fort Worth rebranding initiative was mostly paid for by a large oil drilling company?

We noticed the same thing in the FW Weekly shot of the Haltom City Library last week.  And looking just a little further, we weren't shocked to see who the largest donor was.

If YOU don't do something now, YOUR kids are going to be debt ridden dumb sheep...

Right on the Money

Another voice of reason from THE PEOPLE.  Read the Letter to the Editor in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Too bad no one "in charge" ever answers the letters.  Kind of like Rick Perry not wanting to debate.  The "leaders" must all use the same campaign manager...

Pie in the sky

What has happened in Fort Worth? I was raised in Fort Worth, and it used to have a can-do attitude that anything could be done!

Now all the talk is about what we can do to save money. Close pools, close libraries, do without this and that! We have to save money, yet we are going ahead with the Trinity River project and trying to reinstall streetcars, which were considered out-of-date 70 years ago! Have Fort Worth officials lost their minds?

If they knock off some of the pie-in-the-sky projects, they just might be able to fund the libraries, pools and other projects for those residents who really need them.

We elect our City Council and mayor to properly watch our budget and put the funds where they do the most good, not the most fun!

-- Ed Huff, Morgan

Anyone see a pattern here?

Another Letter to the Editor in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  You should ask your Congresswoman and Mayor these questions.  IF you get a response, share it.

Do people lose their common sense when voted into a political office? Or do they become so power-hungry that they don't consider what is best for their constituency?

Fort Worth City Council members are spending $821,000 on a study about streetcars at a time when they are talking about closing libraries. The council also is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on the Trinity River Vision boondoggle.

They seem to have lost track of priorities. It is a disservice to the north-side community to close a well-utilized and vibrant library in a lower income area. Each time I enter the Northside branch, it is full of people. The computers are all being used. People are reading and checking out materials, and the employees are helping patrons.

I am sure there are other areas where taxpayer money is wasted that can be sacrificed to keep vibrant neighborhood libraries opened.

-- Susan Blume, Fort Worth

Bought and Paid For

The Fort Worth Public Library has had a name change. It is now the Fort Worth Library.

Just another way the public has been removed. From the pics Don Young shared, maybe they should have named it the Chesapeake Library.

(the photo shows one of the Chesapeake Energy exhibits in the former Fort Worth Public Library, extolling their Barnett Shale drilling operations)

Don't miss Don's essay in the Fort Worth Weekly. Trust us, you can't afford to miss it.

In his Aug. 26 Fort Worth Weekly report, "The Big Takeover," Peter Gorman wrote about all the bad publicity that natural gas extractors have been getting lately. But the industry isn't worried: It has found other ways to generate good PR. Consider the following Fort Worth institutions and organizations that have recently partnered with or received funding from Big Gas:

The Fort Worth Convention & Visitors Bureau (Chesapeake Energy), the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (XTO Energy, Devon Energy, Enron Oil & Gas, Exxon Mobil, Encana Oil & Gas, etc.), the Fort Worth Independent School District (Quicksilver, Chesapeake, etc.) Texas Christian University (Chesapeake), the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (Chesapeake), Mayfest (Chesapeake), United Way of Tarrant County (Chesapeake), and the Fort Worth Zoo (Chesapeake).

The complete list is a lot longer, and I think it would surprise a lot of people.
Many of these organizations violate their own mission statements by accepting such money.

You need look no further than city hall to see how much silence can be bought with dirty dollars.