How dumb can some people be?

Wait, don't answer that.

Nowhere in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article (probably the bill itself either) did we see that part of the reason Kay Granger wants to keep Trinity River Vision funding in the bill is to keep her son employed.

And isn't the Trinity River Vision, formerly known as Trinity Uptown, Central City, blah, blah, now called the Panther Island District?

With an East Island, West Island and a Houseboat District?

Let's see, TRV Boondoggle vs. Flint, Michigan water crisis.  These shouldn't even be in the same ballpark, let alone the same bill.  We're curious as to how our frequent Washington blog visitor sleeps at night.

Flood control my Fat Aunt Fanny.

And a special welcome, Rep Veasey.  We look forward to your next election!

Democrats threatened to hold up the spending bill if funding to resolve the Flint, Mich., drinking water crisis wasn’t somehow provided. Republicans agreed to let Flint funding be considered in the water bill.

The local funding appeared at risk earlier in the week because Rep. Pete DeFazio, D-Ore., was upset that a provision impacting a harbor maintenance trust fund was removed. So he asked for an amendment to cut the Army Corps of Engineers funding for the TRV because the project included recreation facilities.

This $526 million of federal funds is a key part of fully funding and completing the project. Critics maintain this project is not about flood control, but about economic development.

Fort Worth lawmakers working to protect Trinity River Vision funding

Give it up

Instead of saying, “we can’t add”, the Star-Telegram chooses to call the call out on them “grumbling”. 

And don't miss the comments on Durango's boondoggle post.  They keep getting better.

Drive-in grumbling

A "back to the future" drive-in movie theater promises to reap a profit of $1.7 million over a 10-year contract with the Tarrant Regional Water District. The enlightened Star-Telegram Editorial Board says this "sounds like a way to jump-start activity along the Trinity River -- and at no risk to the taxpayer."

A 1.8 percent return on $909 million may sound like a good deal to the dim bulbs at the water district, Trinity River Vision Authority and Star-Telegram, but it sounds to me like yet another departure from a flawed Trinity Uptown plan that includes a flooded wakeboard park (what is the profit from that?), and a no-bid, one-time good-deal restaurant lease. And at no risk to the taxpayer, you say?

A couple hundred million to remediate flood potential caused by a half-billion-dollar rechanneling of the river, all to return far less than it costs. That's visionary?

-- Clyde Picht, Fort Worth

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?

Toal Roads...

We found an amusing letter to the editor in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram today. 

James Toal, a long time leader of Gideon Toal, had something to say.  Seems he wants more of YOUR money.  For those of you who don't know Gideon Toal, here are some tidbits found online at Gideon Toal and various sites. 

Gideon Toal has been retained by Tarrant Regional Water District, in conjunction with Streams and Valleys, City of Fort Worth, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Tarrant County to guide the planning and implementation of “Trinity Uptown™”. Our firm is hired to do phasing, implementation and funding strategies, including establishing a TIF District.

The plan aims to revitalize an 800-acre area north of downtown Fort Worth with a combination of public improvements and private development. Its goal is to provide a vibrant, stimulating environment in which families can live, work, shop, play and learn.
 
Some other Gideon Toal projects:
Trinity River Master Plan
Trinity River Vision Authority Office
Tarrant Regional Water District Annex
Tarrant County College complex
Tarrant County Jail 

 See a pattern yet?

In today's paper James Toal says he'll spend the money if YOU will for transit...he wants to do justice for the next generation.  Does he mean that generation that will be broke since they will be paying for the Trinity River Vision for the next 40 years?  The project and its projects that he has made a fortune from?  Talk about throwing our pennies away.   If we're paying for all the "private development" maybe Toal should  foot the bill for the transportation.  Or better yet, hit the road.

Funding transit

Good transportation includes buses, commuter rail, light rail, highways and regional systems.


People try to compare Tarrant County and Fort Worth with the Dallas region, Denver, Portland, etc. Why do Denver and these other regions have light rail, commuter rail and buses?


Answer: The Dallas Area Rapid Transit system receives one penny in sales tax revenue.


Fort Worth's T is mostly a city system that has a half-cent in sales tax. That is the difference between regional systems vs. a mostly local bus system.


If Fort Worth, Tarrant County and adjoining counties to the west, north and south desire better transportation, I suggest that instead of throwing those pennies away, they bond together on a regional system and spend them on transit and transportation.


We do not have a lack of good regional planning; we have some of the best planners and government administrators in the world. We do have a lack of financing.


So spend the extra half-cent. I will if you will. If you don't, we will not do justice to the next generation.


-- James Toal, Fort Worth

Forcing the Fort Worth Way

In Arlington.

JD Granger will be speaking at UTA tonight. 

Read about it on theshorthorn.com

He said the authority is focusing on making Fort Worth a town that is more community-oriented, and hopes to create a riverside attraction similar to the River Walk in San Antonio.

“I’m forcing a more walk-able community by design in an area of less than 800 acres and designed for 15,000 to 25,000 people,” he said.

Is forcing another way of saying, no one gets a say?

Notice he didn't say WHO pays. 

The kids at UTA are pretty smart, maybe they'll ask, WHAT will happen downstream?

This just in...

From the Undercover Reporter, Detective Durango. 

Lots of happenings going on YOUR money and water.  Great pictures of the Trinity River Vision and the Tarrant Regional Water District signage and mess.  Good thing a trail system will correct all our flooding issues...oh, wait - it won't fix any. 

WHO approved them taking a billion of your dollars?  Did YOU? 
Some of your "leaders" will tell you the money for the Trinity River Vision is in the bank, rest assured they mean YOUR bank. 

Don't miss this special report.  Or this one.  YOU can't afford to.

To the point

Good Letter to the Editor in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  Short and to the point.

It would be interesting to have an actuary study of how many thousands of residents use the city golf courses and how many thousands of those same people will use the Trinity River project, especially older and retired residents.

-- G.J. Anthony, Fort Worth

Trinity River Banks

The Trinity River Vision Authority, a political subdivision or semi-governmental group (WHAT is it again?) of the Trinity River Vision keeps inviting YOU down to float in the Trinity River or Tube the Trinity for their Happy Hour float.  They have said the Tarrant Regional Water District, you know, that group that gave themselves a raise last week, has done a good job of keeping the Trinity clear and free from pollutants.  Then why is the Trinity in the top third of the list for contaminated water ways?

Local news media has told a few of Lone Star's friends that the Trinity River Vision and the floating isn't really news. 

When people are being put at risk,  just as they are with the Trinity River Vision, WE think that's news.  What do YOU think?

Watch the best video we've seen on the Trinity River.  You tell us WHO's Vision is blurry?
WHO got the video?  Durango, of course.

Stay tuned.

People Talking about Trinity Trash

Who thinks floating in the Trinity River is a good idea?  Same ones that think the Trinity River Vision/Trinity Uptown is a good idea, those who will profit.

THE PEOPLE think differently.  Read their letters in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Cleaning the Trinity


I am looking at the photos in Friday's paper of people inner tubing on the Trinity River. I came to Texas in 1980, and everyone I spoke to about the Trinity had horror stories to tell about the pollution. It was a running joke about not eating anything out of the Trinity.

Now I see humans floating on the Trinity River without a care in the world! When did it get cleaned up? I don't keep up with all that goes on, so I am not complaining, just asking.

I would like to see a diagram or timeline dating back to 1980 on the cleanup process. Something that would convince me that it is truly safe to play in.

Please help me understand this better.

-- Pam Hyman, Roanoke

YOU are invited

The Congresswoman's son is inviting you to float in the most contaminated part of the Trinity River in Texas.  He'll even give you a ride back on the bus WE own.  Ask for a ride in the helicopter while you're at it.

Read about it and the investors coming to town in the Fort Worth Business Press.  We couldn't agree more that the Trinity River Vision needs to go "national". 

“This will be the site of a future canoe launch and we thought it would be a great spot for a tube float,” Granger said. “We own a bus so we’ll take people back to their cars after they float our river, just like in San Marcos.”

We hear Durango had something to say about tubing the Trinity, we'll let him tell you here.

Clyde's Call Out

Clyde Picht has been busy pointing out inconsistencies with the Trinity Uptown project...and YOUR money.  Read his letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram here.

J.D. Granger, Trinity River Vision Authority director, claims that the purchase and cleanup (at public expense, of course) will jump-start development. It shows unequivocally that Trinity Uptown is a development project having nothing to do with flood control. As such, it is illegally using eminent domain, or the threat thereof, to acquire property that will not be used for the public good. Rather, it will be used to line the pockets of private interests and at great public expense.

And here's his letter in the Fort Worth Business Press.  We bet his phone ain't ringing.

Cleanup costs

Frequent letter writer, Don Woodard is right on concerning the cost of environmental remediation in the Trinity Uptown area. The original cost of clean up in the Uptown plan was $22 million. More recently the cost of clean up of just one sector has risen to $43 million. Now the Tarrant Regional Water District has bought a portion of Carl Bell’s property for $17.5 million and TRVA Director, J D Granger says the clean up (at public expense, of course) will give a jump start to development. Excuse me? I thought this was a flood control project. Of course it isn’t and never was.

In the back of my mind I had this notion that the primary mission of the TRWD was to provide water to the region and to provide flood control. Their grand plan for water seems to be through lawsuits against Oklahoma. The main flood threats along tributaries like Big Fossil Creek that feed the Trinity River are being ignored. So why is the TRWD putting $226 million into the Trinity Uptown TIF and now another $17.5 million into a land purchase when neither has anything to do with flood control or providing a future reliable water source for the region? Does anyone remember these two expenditures being a part of the Trinity Uptown proposal back in 2005?

The $17.5 million is a bailout for Bell, pure and simple. TRWD board member, Jim Lane, has been a super fan of Bell, the Cats, and LaGrave Field. Jim is a great guy but as he said after the collapse of another public/private venture, the Mercado project on North Main that cost the city a few million, “I’m a visionary, not a businessman.” No doubt Jim and the board were having vision problems when they decided to help out Carl. The Water District’s contribution to the Uptown TIF is double the 20 year TIF contribution they committed to in 2005. The expectation for completion of this colossal boondoggle is up to 40 years. Would anyone in their right mind expect the cost to stay at the current projected $909 million? Up from $260 million in 2005, by the way.

It’s understandable that John Q. Public has a hard time comprehending what a corrupt process this Trinity Uptown is evolving into, but the grand question is – how can the Fort Worth business community watch so much money being sucked down a black hole (with a surprising similarity to the Super Collider) and not raise holy hell with their elected representatives? Maybe I’m missing something. If I am, call me, my number is in the phonebook.

– Clyde Picht, Fort Worth

What might have been...

Read Don Woodard's latest about the Trinity River Vision (scheme) in the Fort Worth Businsess Press.   Wake up people!  It's YOUR money.

Cost, cost, cost

The estimated cost of Trinity Uptown has tripled over the years from $300 million to $909 million.

Will the next estimate push it over a billion?

The cost of the boondoggle is calculated on Congress coughing up 50 percent, a Tax Increment Fund 25 percent and local taxpayers 25 percent. Who is to say that the bankrupt Feds will ante up? Or who will guarantee that the TIF will not come a cropper like the Radio Shack TIF did? That leaves it all to the locals! Woe! Woe! Woe!

In lamenting not having the funds to tear down the eyesore barnacle that clings to the Court House,

County Administrator G.K. Maenius said that “If the economy and Radio Shack TIF hadn’t turned south, we probably would have had the money! Probably would have had the money!”

When the wished for Trinity Uptown money disappears into thin air like Bing Thom’s designer bridges, and the chickens come home to roost, I can hear the mournful lament: “If we had only known about this or that turn of events, we probably would have had the money.” In his poem Maud Muller, John Greenleaf Whittier spoke eternal truth:

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

– Don Woodard, Fort Worth

Thank you?

Are we suppose to thank Kay Granger for honoring a one-year earmark moratorium?

The same Congresswoman WHO sits on the Appropriations committee?

The same Congresswoman that hired her son to run the Billion dollar boondoggle while in other areas of her district flooding runs rampant and funds do not?

The Billion dollar Boondoggle being disguised as flood control? Remember if you don't take the levees down, you don't have flooding. And all those areas that flood now...they will do so if the Boondoggle ever gets done.

Wonder where the bad image of earmarks came from? Ask.

Read the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for the story.

But with Granger and the rest of the Tarrant delegation honoring the freeze, the question is, Who will carry the water for such projects as Trinity River Vision, Fort Worth's $909 million economic development and flood control project? The project is in Granger's district, and she has been its chief proponent in Congress.

Edwards, who in the past has co-sponsored funding for Central City/Trinity Uptown -- as the Army Corps of Engineers' part of the project is known -- with Granger, did not include any funding for it in his earmarks for fiscal 2011.

People Talk

And people are listening.

Two excellent letters in the Fort Worth Business Press today. We'll give you a preview of each of them, go here to read both.

Why hasn’t the council demanded the gas industry use its own product, compressed natural gas, to fuel compressors and vehicles? Why hasn’t the council imposed use fees on the thousands of heavily-laden trucks plying our city streets on a daily basis? As the roads continue to deteriorate, will the council add another surcharge to the water bill and make the residents pay for council negligence?

Probably, and because of council’s disdain for public input, Rogers should not hold her breath – either for clean air or responsible government.

The aim of the eminent-domaining earmarkers is to cover the confluence with a detritus-filled 33-acre town lake, an unsavory olla podrida of pollutants, excrement, sewage, garbage, oil and grease, fertilizer, mercury and myriad other chemicals, dangerous PCBs, known and unknown carcinogens, and other flotsam and jetsam that washes down from a hundred miles upstream – a rancid, malodorous pond in which no Streams and Valleys Mayfester or knowing tourist would wade or swim, and whose bottom-dwelling catfish you would not eat. Tourist? Perhaps a lawsuit waiting to be filed? It happens.

One of the letters above came from Mr. Woodard. We saw some Cheers in the Fort Worth Star- Telegram this weekend, one because of him and one from him. Both too good to pass up. Cheers, Don, carry on sir!

Cheers: To Don Woodard, whose letters are always a delight to read. I can usually pick his out even before getting to the name at the end. Although I am sure there are those who do not appreciate his opinion, he always tells it as it is!
-- C.S. Morford, Fort Worth

Cheers: To the Tarrant County College Board of Trustees for saving a search firm fee by naming Erma Johnson Hadley chancellor. It's a no-brainer. She knows the college like the back of her hand. Some criticize because she does not have a doctorate. So? Whoever heard the Bard of the Avon called Dr. Shakespeare?
-- Don Woodard Sr.

Demand it!

Don says so. We couldn't agree more.

Read the entire letter from Mr.Woodard, about Mission Impossible, also know as Trinity Uptown, in the Fort Worth Business Press.

Trying to convince the gung-ho Trinity Uptowners that an election should be called to see if taxpayers really want to pay for their billion dollar, confluence-covering Fantasy Island is like trying to empurple the Trinity River by pouring a vial of food coloring into the fast-flowing water.

Trinity Uptowners! Historic, financial, and environmental icebergs dead ahead! Taxpayers! Demand an election or get ready to run for the lifeboats!

This land is our land

Again, maybe not. Read about the eminent domain cases for Trinity Uptown in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The water district’s appraiser, Misty Goodrich, placed the land’s value at $2,382,000.

The water district, the condemning authority for the Trinity River Vision Authority, can now deposit the amount and immediately take possession of the two tracts, which total 6.8 acres near 930 N. Henderson St.

Reasons...

Part of the reason we started a blog - We were tired of the news not telling the truth.

We aren't the only ones...read about the failed purple river project and it's contradictions here.

If the head of the Tarrant Regional Water District "doesn't know" specifics about what he's dumping in the Trinity/Horned Frog river, do we really want these people rerouting it?

This land is your land

Maybe not.

Tarrant Regional Water District eminent domain cases, just in time for the Holiday.

Read all about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article, "Hearings begin for Trinity Uptown property seizures".

Sounds festive, doesn't it?

If that doesn't, you'll be happy to know the city is teaming up with the Water District to dump purple dye in the river. Again. They are also going to rename it for the game.

Check out the companies mentioned along with money, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article.

Want more? While we still appreciate efforts to conserve water, we have to wonder, WHO orders 7,000 toilets? WHO pays? The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has the scoop on the Royal Flush.

Trinity on TV Monday

Check out KERA for the schedule. Or read some here, Living With the Trinity. Interesting stuff.

Woodard Words

Read below for a Letter to the Editor from the daily paper. When it comes to the Trinity River "Vision", no one sees it clearer.

Poetic Justice

The Editorial Board has many talented writers. I do not know who wrote Monday’s "Hope for Heritage Plaza," but it is an exquisite, serene and beautiful piece of writing. It would make Realtors describing houses for sale in the Star-Telegram envious. It should be entered for a Pulitzer Prize. It would win!

"In its prime, Heritage Plaza was the center stone sitting atop the lush green jewel box that is the 112-acre Heritage Park along the south side of Fort Worth’s Trinity River bluffs.

"This urban oasis, which marks the location of the original military outpost that gave the city its name, provided an expansive view northward toward the convergence of the Clear and West forks of the Trinity River. The terraced walkways, soothing waterfalls and canopied live oaks brought calm to visitors who sought them out."

In fact, it sounds like something that might have flown from my pen in one of my letters to the editor. But, of course, as Editorial Director J.R. Labbe well knows, I never would have substituted "convergence" for "confluence." And I would have added the postscript that you better look at it now because once it is covered by the Town Lake, it, like Ripley Arnold who marveled at its beauty, belongs to history.

— Don Woodard Sr., Fort Worth