Name that Tune

This is from the Associated Press, see if you can tell WHICH city and WHICH project they are referring to -

An ___story skyscraper under construction at _________ will have to stop at seven stories unless the developer can line up more tenants, planners said Monday, adding to problems that have plagued the $___ billion _______ project.

________ Inc. said it is still looking for tenants to fill the first 10 floors of _______, the third-highest building in the planned office complex. Without those leases, the _________ and _______ will not guarantee the financing that _________ needs to finish the building.

Many companies in _______ are reluctant to invest in new offices because of the poor economy, and dozens are negotiating lower rents as five-year leases signed before the housing crash begin to expire. But both _________ and ________ said they are confident the developer can get enough tenants lined up.

"We are currently speaking with a number of potential tenants and remain fully optimistic that we will sign a lease in time to complete the tower as scheduled in 20___," ________, the company's chief executive, said in a written statement.

No, it's not the Trinity River Vision, it's actually the World Trade Center.  The big difference between New York and Texas?  The developers are paying in New York, their Mayor said the city would "not extend any aid to keep it going".  What a novel concept.  What a Mayor.  HOW do we get one of those?

Another difference, when the Port Authority raised its tolls to raise its credit rating, their governors raised the right to look at the "Authority's" finances.  WHO is looking at the Authority's finances here? Remember, it's YOUR money.

Coming Soon!

Wow.

Greedy Lying Bastards.  The movie. 

YOU can't afford to miss it.

It was filmed in several countries by a US filmmaker.  Why are we reading about it in news from another country? Hats off to the Guardian, again.

WHO owns America?

The answer should be WE, THE PEOPLE.

But reading through emails and articles today, it seems the correct answer is Rich Bullies.

And it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on.  It's happening to all of us.  Even those in the middle.  Pay attention to WHO is buying YOU.  Pay attention to WHO is buying the elections in your towns, state and country.  If YOU don't, you'll be sheep.

On the Guardian, you have a head gas industry lobbyist threatening the President over the Keystone Pipeline.

The head of the US's biggest oil and gas lobbying group said on Wednesday that the Obama administration will face serious political consequences if it rejects a Canada-to-Texas oil sands pipeline that has been opposed by environmental groups.

Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute, said TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline would definitely play a role in this year's national elections.

On the AP, you have billionaires trying to buy the President's seat.

As we've said before - those with the most campaign advertising, only means they've spent the most money.  WHAT do you think they'll do with YOUR money once in office?  They have favors to repay, you know.

It perplexes us that THE PEOPLE complain about how their representatives vote and spend.  But those very same representatives spend the most on their campaigns and THE PEOPLE vote for them again.  Does doing the same thing and expecting different results make you sheep?

Nothing ever happens...

Till it happens to you.

Guess WHAT?  It's happening.  All around you. Pay attention.

Read the letter to the Editor in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

It was only a matter of time until the ugly side of natural gas finally reared its head in my neighborhood. Just when I was getting used to the natural gas wells dotting the landscape, now the lords of natural gas want to put a compressor station several hundred feet from my front door along a bucolic stretch of Randol Mill Road in east Fort Worth.

You might not think much about the barnlike structure if you saw it. But the fact that this compressor station requires a zoning exception should tell you a lot. Not only is there the potential for a lot of noise, but these installations also emit benzene and formaldehyde, two compounds sure to dampen interest in buying a house in my neighborhood.

It's my understanding that ZC-11-098 is still under review. But if this is approved, it leads to one conclusion: The powers that be have decided a little collateral damage for the greater good is perfectly acceptable. That's all fine and good -- until you're the collateral damage.

-- Keith Sternberg, Fort Worth

There's a change...

Seems someone swiped money from a politician.  Talk about a switch.

Read about Betsy Price's missing campaign money in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

"Evidently, someone stole the account information and then created their own debit cards and a check," she said.

One debit card transaction was for $346.37 at a Walmart in Abilene; the other debit card transaction was for $291.50 at a Walmart in Oklahoma City, according to a Fort Worth police report.

Price said investigators have asked Wal-Mart for surveillance video to try to identify the offender or offenders.

The fraudulent check for $300.94 was passed at a Lowe's in Fort Worth, the report said.

The former Tarrant County tax assessor-collector said account theft can happen to anybody and pledged to monitor her campaign account more closely.

On her last campaign finance report, Price had $14,538.81 in her account on June 30, the last day of the reporting period.

She did not...

We came across an article on WFAA.com in which Kathleen Hicks states the following,

"How is it that we are able to find money when we want to, and then other times we somehow can't?" Hicks asked. "That's the thing that really disturbs me."

Where has she been??  Does she not sit on the dias?  And the Trinity River Vision committee?  Has she slept through her latest term in office?  Is she surprised that elderly people are afraid to leave their house at night because their neighborhood which has no street lights is dangerous?  Did she know this the last time she went on a Sister Cities trip?  How much do those cost?  ASK.

We noticed Fort Worth staffers wouldn't comment.  More of the Fort Worth Way.

Don't forget to vote Saturday.  YOU can't afford not to.

Good question

In the Fort Worth Star-Telegram letters today.

All this while our infrastructure crumbles around us.

Questioning growth

Fort Worth brags about population growth like a parent who simply has generated more kids than anyone else.

However, if a corporate CEO announced to the board and stockholders, "We have increased our customer base by 25 percent, but we're losing money at all levels," there would be a lot more questions than applause.

If unqualified population growth is so wonderful, why do so many retailers and restaurants -- especially the unique ones -- still fail? Why do so many failed business buildings remain vacant? Why aren't houses selling to all these newcomers? With all this growth, why do newspaper and book sales decline?

The next time you're sitting in stalled traffic ask yourself, "What really meaningful new amenities has Fort Worth gained since 1980, when population was just half of today's?"

Then ask yourself, "Who profits from this growth, and who loses?"

-- Jim Atkinson, Fort Worth

Fort Worth's "Public" Energy Committee Hearing

More incoming from the "public" about the supposed "public" meeting...

I was lucky to be selected to represent one of the general members of the "public" to speak at the TX House of Representatives Energy Committee public hearing in Ft Worth today. This meeting was suppose to be targeting urban cities in the Barnett Shale so cities like Flower Mound doesn't hurt overall state efforts to "drill baby drill". It was clear from earlier dialogue of their concerns with neighboring states on board with drilling because they do not want Texas to lose any business to out of state competition. However, plenty of rural mayors showed up and was able to speak first, and much time was spent with their concerns such as that "although rural today, mudfarms and abandoned sites could be the future homes for new subdivisions".

I spoke about the SUP notification phase on this Truman/Cowboy Stadium site and how the sign was put on a road not visible to the general public (Truman Street by city ordinance is limited to commercial traffic). I presented over 275 petitions in opposition to this site from the area residents and businesses; they made copies of the petitions and are taking those back to Austin.

I told them that I have made it my full time job for the last six months putting in 8 to 10 hour days to learn about the industry since it has moved into our town. I said that it was a shame that a citizen has to do what an elected or paid public official should have been doing to do the necessary research to see how to better protect the public. I told them that the more I learned the more horrified I became.

I voiced my concerns of a one size fits all state Railroad Road Commission Ordinance because I don't trust the state to protect the public because the speaker before me representing the RRC just made a statement to Senator Davis that "produced water was just salt water". The RRC speaker was responding to a concern that Senator Davis had on the lack of oversight for pipelines that carry produced water for injection well disposal.

I said the whole industry is based on the lie that natural gas is the cleaner burning fuel. I cited a Cornell University study by Professor Howarth that accounts for the extraction, transportation, and methane leakage. This taken altogether makes natural gas as dirty as coal and that the industry & other stakeholders do not want the public to know this.

I said that there is so much room for improvement in the industry that can control emissions with vapor recovery systems. I told them that with compressor stations, they can use electric compressors, and if they have natural gas compressors in rural areas, that they can have catalysts to reduce emissions. I told them that formaldehyde was found near Lake Arlington's compressor station last May and I was able to have TCEQ retest last week, but that my friend who lived near there was buried last week. I didn't have to say cancer-everyone on the room knew or I could feel they did...I went on to say "we are getting there" because in following up on the four natural gas powered compressors on that site, I learned that they recently added three electric compressors. I cited this as a failed effort to have a TIMELY strong, local, protective ordinance that maybe could have made a difference years ago.

I ended by reminding folks that I knew that I was out of time but that I had so much to say, but what I did learn from all my research is that I will WANT to move away from all this drilling if that well goes in my neighborhood, but that I didn't know WHERE to move because drilling seems to be happening every where.

I felt some of the presentations by the industry were allowed more time than the "other-side" and Arlington Councilman Le Blanc read way past his allowed time. Some industry folks came in with a slide show showing how much money the industry has as if the energy committee was not aware.

We had representation from North Central Communities Alliance who was professional and calm as the polar opposite of my exit from the meeting as the TCEQ representative was allowed the closing speaking time (the majority of folks who came to speak were not allowed due to time constraints). The TCEQ person used the UTArlington site touting it as a training ground and a model for urban drilling.

Joe you would not have been proud of me...at that time, I then stood up and told the TCEQ speaker how that UTA site, with it's 22 wells, poisoned a lady living within 600ft of that site, that she tested positive for BTEX chemicals. I reminded them that TCEQ has fined Carrizo for that (at least that is what I recall a rep from senator Harris's office telling me). Of course I was exiting as I was setting the record straight on that "model" drilling site. I said my family has been living downwind of that site for 3 years now.

Yea today I was lucky, luck to speak, lucky to speak uninvited....and not be arrested.

Sincerely,
Kim Feil

If the price of natural gas

is too low to substain production, WHY the hurry in the Barnett Shale?

The land has been grabbed, the air and water polluted, HOW much was your royalty check this month?

Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

By continuing to drill despite weak prices, "we've been ignoring the free market," Nichols said. But today's depressed prices represent "the free market ... sending us a very powerful signal" that there is an oversupply of gas, he said.


Drilling activity has been sustained by companies needing to drill wells to retain leases, by hedging contracts that have enabled energy companies to receive prices for their gas that are well above market levels, by joint-venture agreements mandating certain levels of drilling and by Wall Street's willingness to pump money into the industry, Nichols said.

But drilling in a low-price environment inevitably will decline after energy companies have either drilled wells to hold leases or allowed them to lapse, as the beneficial hedging contracts expire and as Wall Street grows "weary of funding undisciplined growth" through companies' excessive drilling, Nichols said at the three-day event running through Thursday at the Fort Worth Convention Center.

Fort Worth Way under fire

Again.  Another fired whistle blower.  This one is filing a law suit.  THE PEOPLE are tired of the Fort Worth Way and are ready to take back OUR town.

Read part of the story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Catherine Davidson contends that city workers didn't deposit at least 17 checks from developers, totaling about $500,000, and that they didn't collect about $2.4 million in fees "in order to provide special treatment for certain developers such as Hillwood Development Company," according to the lawsuit, filed Thursday afternoon in Wise County's 271st District Court.

"I was fired by the city of Fort Worth for reporting illegal activity that was costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars and maybe more," Davidson said in a statement. "I was a very good employee for the city and no one deserves to be treated like this for doing the right thing."

People Paying Attention

Another great Letter to the Editor in the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Maybe the elected officials should start paying attention.

What budget priorities?

Mayor Mike Moncrief and some city staff spent $31,000 on a Super Bowl vacation. Are you kidding me? Yet the city of Fort Worth is furloughing staff and laying off others, city land is not being kept clean and Code Compliance is gutted among other harsh measures adopted by Moncrief and the City Council to balance the budget.

This is despicable. Why does Fort Worth need to spend more money than the host city of Arlington? For the Star-Telegram to write about this junket without noting that we are in a budget crisis is irresponsible.

This mayor and council always seem to find money when they need it, but what about the taxpayers? Enough with pork-barrel spending!

-- Cissy Hernandez, Fort Worth

Where's Mike?

Last week community "leaders" held a Transportation Summit in Grapevine to discuss the many upcoming area freeway projects. We didn't see Mayor Moncrief in the standing room only crowd. Today he is in the Fort Worth Star Telegram saying we need money for transportation and the Trinity River Vision.

Read the comments left by real citizens living in the real world.

WHO? WHEN?

Jerry Lobdill and Don Young. 2007.

Too bad our city leaders wouldn't listen then. Prime example of nothing was done, it just got worse.

Make sure they hear YOU tomorrow.
The time is NOW.

I've been looking back at my email traffic since August 2007 when I first got into this urban gas drilling fight. Here's an email I wrote way back on September 13, 2007 talking about what I learned about the gas drillers' plans in one single evening at the Trinity Trees forum. I got the bit about rubber-stamping high impact wells wrong, but now even that part is correct.

And our City Council and Mayor want us to believe that they innocently never considered anything but the economic benefits when they were considering opening the city gates for this industry. They didn't just fail to do due diligence. They deliberately didn't think about it.

Why?

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:08:26 -0500

To: Jerry Lobdill
From: Jerry Lobdill
Subject: About Trinity Trees
Bcc: Don Young

Hot off the press news:
http://thecaravanofdreams.blogspot.com/

DY

I posted to the blog the following comment:

We are facing a blitzkreig in the next year. Let's get real. The mayor has told all council members "I'm a very vindictive guy, and if you don't go along with me I'll get you." All but Silcox are scared of him. Moncrief's a gas industry shill and profiteer. His Barnett Shale profits this year will hit $1M. Know your enemy.

Now let me explain what the industry wants. They say they want about 3000 wells inside of Loop 820. At the Trinity Trees forum it was said (and not disputed) that they wanted a drilling pad every 7000 ft inside the city limits. These numbers are astonishingly consistent if one thinks of about 6 wells per drilling pad. This density would place 15 drilling pads on every MAPSCO page of the Fort Worth MAPSCO book. Look at any page and tell me how many pad sites you can place there that will not require a high impact variance. It sure as hell isn't 15.

So what this means is that they will be coming to council daily with applications for high impact variances. So far these have been rubber-stamped. Doing this makes a complete mockery of the ordinance. That is what is going to happen unless we can mount a strong grass roots attack to stop it. They're going to need about 400 or so to produce the city.

The ordinance is based on a desire by industry to create a moral hazard so that they cannot be held liable for the almost certain disaster that will come in the form of an explosive blowout followed by fire. There is no body of data that supports any given set back (300ft, 600 ft, whatever). The function of the law is to indemnify the producers and drillers. So let's not kid ourselves into thinking it's a safety measure. With the rubber-stamp "high impact" variance they can have their cake and eat it too. What do you think will happen to our taxes, our insurance, our property resale value?

We have to get organized on a city-wide basis, or we're going to have a city that is not fit to live in.

Just my $0.02

Jerry Lobdill

Gas Everywhere...

If you haven't been reading TXSharon lately, you should.

In the past week she's written about the leaked memo in which the industry stages their employees as rallies, the death of many animals due to contaminated water, owning your mineral rights, the millions spent on lobbying by the industry, Railroad Commissioner Williams seeking a senate seat and why a major public relations firm is stalking her blog.

As always we salute Sharon and her efforts to protect our air, water and sanity.

"Texas is a big state"

A local news channel questioned Senator John Cornyn on his travel expenses, being as they are higher than any other Senator, including Texan Kay Bailey Hutchinson (good timing for her).

He’s now known as the U.S. Senate's biggest spender on domestic travel, according to official travel records found in The Report of the Secretary of the Senate.

"His excuse is, ‘Well, it's a big state,'" said Tom Smith, of the watchdog group Public Citizen. "I agree senator. It is a big state, and most big cities where he's spending most of his time have real good airline service. He should be flying coach with the rest of us."

CORNYN: I think it was a little bit of a cheap shot.

NEWS 8: In what sense was it a cheap shot? They were using the Secretary of the Senate information.

CORNYN: Oh yeah, not every state is the same. When you represent a state as big as Texas and traveling home from Washington D.C. every weekend, it unfortunately costs some money.

But, Texas' senior senator, fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, only spent $88,000 during the same time period. That’s a little more than half of Cornyn’s bill.

You can read the entire article on WFAA.com here.

Moral Courage

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram daily newspaper had yet another Letter to the Editor that speaks volumes about the greed that is affecting us all.

Pollution killing us

I wonder how much longer we’re going to run away from making the hard decisions on the environment and global warming. We’ve made half-decisions and passed half-measures since the ’70s that have not solved our problems but made it easier for companies and utilities to kill and sicken hundreds of thousands of people of all ages and levels of health in the name of "jobs" and "the economy." How many more people will have to die or be made seriously and permanently ill in the name of "business breaks"?

If we don’t solve this problem now, if we just keep passing it on to our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, we’ll be condemning those innocents to shorter and harder lives, not only economically but also physically. We’ll be continuing to pass on the decisions we should have made long before now to make ourselves, but not our heirs, more comfortable.

There should be no "right to pollute" in the name of "jobs and the economy." Polluting should be so economically and morally costly that no one can get away with it.

But we lack the moral courage to do any differently.

— John Hightower, Fort Worth

We salute Mr. Hightower.

Who knew?

While we usually participate in Texas only issues, this is such a glaring example of the "Nothing was ever done, it just got worse" scenario we couldn't help but share.

Seems someone tried to warn them about Madoff, too bad some were too busy to listen. Now lots of people are out lots of money and Madoff will be in jail for 150 years...

Below are some highlights from the Washington Post article, you can read in its entirety here.

An investigator at the Securities and Exchange Commission warned superiors as far back as 2004 about irregularities at Bernard L. Madoff's financial management firm, but she was told to focus on an unrelated matter, according to agency documents and sources familiar with the investigation.

Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot, a lawyer in the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, sent e-mails to a supervisor, saying information provided by Madoff during her review didn't add up and suggesting a set of questions to ask his firm, documents show. Several of these questions directly challenged Madoff activities that much later turned out to be elements of his massive fraud.

But with the agency under pressure to look for wrongdoing in the mutual fund industry, she wasn't able to continue pursuing Madoff...

Walker-Lightfoot's supervisors on the case were Mark Donohue, then a branch chief in her department, and his boss, Eric Swanson, an assistant director of the department, said two people familiar with the investigation. Swanson later married Madoff's niece, and their relationship is now under review by the agency's inspector general, who is examining the SEC's handling of the Madoff case. (Madoff boasted at a business roundtable discussion about his close relationship with SEC regulators, saying "my niece just married one." )

The SEC's inability to detect Madoff's fraud was a high-profile embarrassment for the agency, which was already under scrutiny for the collapse of investment banks under its watch, helping fuel the financial crisis. SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro, who took over shortly after the Madoff case came to light, has acknowledged that the agency's performance was a failure, saying the SEC needed to improve enforcement and its surveillance of financial markets.

At least five times over nearly 20 years, the SEC has investigated Madoff's business, but it never discovered the tremendous fraud. In 2007, for instance, the agency reviewed his activities after warnings from a one-time rival, Harry Markopolos, that Madoff was probably running a Ponzi scheme.

She asked, "Should we just focus on mutual funds and return to Madoff when we're done?"

The next morning, Donohue responded: "Concentrate on mutual funds for the time being."

Walker-Lightfoot left the SEC in 2006 after filing a complaint with the agency alleging that she'd been subjected to a hostile workplace. A person familiar with the complaint said it was settled in Walker-Lightfoot's favor.

"Nothing was ever done. It just got worse,"

Is what a former city employee told the FW Weekly. Her quote sums up so many current issues in the area.

Last week lots of people were "embarrassed" about the Fort Worth HUD financial fiasco.

Guess so...

"In fact, Walker's misdeeds were outlined two years ago in stories by Fort Worth Weekly that won a statewide investigative reporting award. The illicit practices, questionable funds use, and provision of shoddy housing and home repairs by city-paid contractors had been reported repeatedly by citizens during that period to Moncrief and other members of the council - most of whom are still serving.

City spokesperson Jason Lamers said that the city knew of "long-standing issues with the housing department" but "believed that things were being fixed." Yet in case after case, specific problems pointed out by the Weekly in 2007 were never fixed.

Two former city housing employees, who were instrumental in bringing the department's failings to the attention of city officials, the federal government, and the Weekly, aren't satisfied. Fired by Walker for, they say, pointing out the problems in his department, Theresa Thomas and Lisa Weaver still want their jobs back.
And they also want to know why no one would listen to them.

Neither Moncrief nor Chapa would speak with the Weekly to answer those questions.

And in what may prove to be an even bigger headache for Walker as well as the city, Chapa wrote that he had evidence that Walker's department had authorized rehabilitation work on homes without obtaining building permits "as required by the city's own regulations." Worse, the department was found to be authorizing payment for permits that contractors had never obtained. That could mean the city will have to repay HUD for all the money spent on the phantom permits and could also result in the city being investigated by the federal government for fraud. According to the city's legal department, violating the ordinance regarding construction permits is a misdemeanor that carries a $2,000 fine for each day the offense occurs.


"There is no excuse for the mayor or any city council member to act 'shocked' that Jerome had been fired" for mismanaging federal funds, Weaver said.

She and Thomas went to all of the council members plus Moncrief, then-city manager Charles Boswell, and then-assistant city manager Fisseler. They were ignored by everyone except council members Chuck Silcox, now deceased, and Donavan Wheatfall, who is no longer on the council.

The women also raised questions about the legality of a nonprofit construction company formed by Walker and his assistant Don Cager under the umbrella of the Fort Worth Housing Finance Corporation, through which all HUD money flows. That company, City Construction Company, built or remodeled numerous houses with HUD funds - in the place of private contractors who formerly did city work.

The board of directors of the FWHFC is the city council.

Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks and Fisseler are named in the City Construction Company's incorporation papers as managers of the company.
In an earlier interview both said they had no involvement with the company."

Read the entire article, A House of Cards in the Fort Worth Weekly. Trust us, read it all.

Clyde's Two Cents

If you haven't read Clyde's comments lately, you should.

We keep hearing how Fort Worth is in financial trouble but when you attend council meetings, it sounds like we have all the money in the world.

We still have issue with spending millions to move so many things that are "in the way" of the Trinity project. If it ain't broke (and you are) don't fix it. We aren't the only ones...

"Next on Mr. Harwood's list of essentials was the police and fire training facility which will be in the way of Trinity Uptown. Therefore it will be necessary to build a new facility utilizing 75-300 acres (a rather flexible estimate) elsewhere about town. A previous estimate of the cost was in the stimulus request and amounted to $111,000,000. That would buy a helluva training facility. We'll see what it costs when we spend our own money. Harwood indicated a need to have an operating firing range within 2.5 years, dependent on Trinity Uptown construction."

Money MIA

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper is full of interesting items of late.

The Editorial Board saying they are embarrassed by mayor and council due to the latest HUD fiasco, saying "few officials realized it or they ignored it or, worse yet, perhaps didn’t care enough to do something about it."

This coming from the same Editorial Board that supported all Fort Worth incumbents for relection this month?

"In addition, the government’s concern over the HUD allocation has caused officials to wonder whether the city is capable of handling money it would receive from the federal stimulus package".

Does this mean the government is catching on to what the people have been saying?

The newspaper also claims Fort Worth's budget is now $61 billion dollars short and growing. "Unlike the federal government, cities are prohibited by law from running deficits. The options for closing the gap aren’t pleasant.
This year’s budget shortfall is presenting a reality check for Fort Worth politicians and the populace. You can’t spend more than you bring in, and if you aren’t bringing in as much as before, you have two options: Raise taxes or cut services".