YOU are invited!

Join the Trinity River Improvement Parntership (TRIP)
for our inaugural event:

Save a River... Save a Billion!

Saturday, March 5, 2011 at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens

6:00 PM., Oak Hall & Lecture Hall.

Please RSVP at your earliest opportunity!
 Seating is limited so reserve now!

Hors d’oeuvres will be served.

You and a guest are cordially invited to join us at our Premier Event for film, food and fun! We'll have some great speakers: State Representatives; Community Leaders and more!

All are welcome to attend. Our WATER is nonpartisan. Learn how current plans to change the course of the Trinity River will:

• Dramatically change the historic character of our city.
• Cause property owners to be stripped of their property for private gain.
• Potentially increase flooding in downstream communities – resulting in BILLIONS in property loss and ultimately, human lives.
• Do NOTHING to improve our water quality or supply.
• Cost a BILLION or more of the taxpayers’ dollars.

Please RSVP to jspivey@savethetrinityriver.org

Seating is limited so reserve now!

Don’t move the river…improve the river!

Future Events/Getting Involved

Go to our Save The Trinity River Website to find out how to get involved or join us for future events. RSVP

Let us know if you are coming and if you have guests.

What say YOU?

Don't miss the comments on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article from THE PEOPLE about the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.  Oh yeah, there is one commenter on there that is a Trinity River Vision Authority employee.  Their comments are straight out of the playbook.  Wonder WHO wrote it?  Oh, yes...we know WHO.

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.

Hey Hey ~ Goodbye

Read what Mayor Moncrief has to say about the state of the city in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  If growth hasn't paid for itself, WHY would we expect the Trinity River Vision to?  How is the Vision different from the streetcar?  On that subject, the mayor said he couldn't commit the citizens to something he didn't know how much it would cost.  So, why has he committed you to a billion dollar boondoggle?  What's the difference?  Does that mean he knew when it was presented as $360 million it would be a billion?

With the expansion come challenges that the city can no longer meet on its own, Moncrief said. To date, the growth has not paid for itself.

Sales tax collections, though rising dramatically the past year, suffered for two straight years. Property values, too, dropped significantly.

Increasing budget deficits that peaked at $77 million last year were the result.

An aging infrastructure in need of upgrades has been among the casualties. While the city has grown by hundreds of thousands, its leaders have not increased spending on infrastructure in 10 years.

BS in Education

If you have $195 and a day to waste, take a trip down to Austin tomorrow.  Unlike most things we invite you to, we aren't sure if you're welcome or not (see WHO should attend), but we are betting they'll take your money.

Fort Worth Trustee Way

What an embarrassment. The Fort Worth school trustees agreed to take findings (take, not fund) from a study the League of Neighborhoods had done on gas drilling around Fort Worth schools. 

Then they were then arrogant and disrespectful to those presenting the study, accusing them of  a "power grab".  What power?  Shouldn't their be concern be our kids?  Not WHO is in the paper. 

Kudos to the League for doing their job for them.  Perhaps we need some League reps as trustees instead.  And Kudos to Trustee Ann Sutherland for stating the obvious.

Read the latest in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  Don't miss the comments from THE PEOPLE.

Trustee Ann Sutherland took exception to Needham's comments and apologized to the group. Sutherland said she appreciated the group's work and added that some trustees "have a habit when things don't go the way they want of being personal and blaming the people involved."

But Moss said that because the board did not get the report in advance it didn't have time to determine where the information came from and how credible it is. Moss said she was waiting for the city's study on gas drilling.

"It's not feasible to look through this report and actually know what you're talking about and really believe the information that you're presenting," Moss said.

League President Libby Willis said the group's data came from private testing, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and an industry-funded study. She said that data was not available for all school sites and that gas companies did not provide some information the league requested.

Willis said the league does not oppose gas drilling but wants it done safely. "While we understand that gas drilling can be a significant economic benefit to many, including this district, drilling brings with it an increased safety risk to all of us who live in Fort Worth, including our schoolchildren," Willis said.

Mark Southlake off the list...

XTO will be drilling there next.

It was a good thing while it lasted.  Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Some of you property owners might want to check the pipeline route, "outside deisignated utility corridors" sometimes means your front yard.  Someone email us when your water rates increase again. 

"I would like us to consider continuous monitoring for at least a year," Muller said. "I want to be assured that it's tested on a continuous basis."

Dueease said safeguards at the drill site mean the 24-hour testing would "literally serve no purpose."

But that didn’t persuade the council.

"This would prove to all the residents that what you’re saying is true," Zito said.

Bringing thousands of gallons of water to the drill site posed another problem, as city leaders don't want hundreds of tanker trucks traveling to the drill site but they are reluctant to sell city water when there's peak demand in the summer.

Instead, a compromise was reached where XTO Energy will be allowed to purchase city water from Oct. 15 to May 1 and then use trucks for the rest of the year.

The permit also included a proposed pipeline route that will carry the natural gas from the drill site to market. The route runs parallel to Texas 114.

Two variances to the city’s pipeline ordinance were approved 6-1 with Zito voting no. The variances allow the pipeline company, Energy Transfer, to work on the pipeline 24 hours a day and place the pipeline in areas outside designated utility corridors.

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

There goes our hero...

Mayor Tillman moving on.

Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Dish sits near several large compressor stations that process natural gas from the Barnett Shale. Tillman said he included in the sale contract that the buyer had to watch Gasland before the deal closed. The film, nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary, takes a critical eye on the impact of natural gas drilling and devotes about 10 minutes to the Barnett Shale, including some time on Tillman and Dish.

Tillman plans to remain involved in drilling issues partly via ShaleTest, a nonprofit organization he helped launch last year to fund air and water tests in communities affected by drilling. He also confirmed that Dish is preparing to sue some or all of the companies operating gas compressors near the town.

There is a reporter in the house!

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

Thanks FWW!!!