"Town Hall's are for rookies"

Maybe the term was freshman, but you get the drift.

WHO works for WHO, exactly?

Read it in the Fort Worth Weekly.

Normally in August, lawmakers go back to their districts to make nice with constituents. This year, though, an estimated 40 to 60 percent of members — from both parties and both houses — are planning none of the town hall meetings usual for the season.

When they skip recess, you know they must have dropped the Dippity-Do in a bad, bad place.

Here in U.S. Rep. Kay Granger’s district, for instance, we expected her to come home, press the flesh, be seen, answer questions, just be available.

But Granger is nowhere to be found. I and others have tried to find out when she will make an appearance. We called her office. We checked everywhere we could think of for events she might attend. No luck.

It reminds me of the “Where’s Waldo?” game. She isn’t in her office. Staffers said she had no town halls scheduled, though they did say she would be doing some “by phone.” Her workers let folks concerned over the budget/debt fiasco sign a sheet in her office.

Then there are those public servants who have the audacity to charge voters for the privilege of  attending a town hall. U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s only public recess meeting will be with the Rotarians, where the fee (“for food”) is  $15 to ask questions of the House Budget Committee chairman. 

Granger’s folks said they didn’t know when that telephonic town hall would be scheduled. Then last week I received a notice of an “Alzheimer’s Association Town Hall Meeting,” set for Aug.31 at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. It listed Granger among the distinguished guests. Those who attend will have the “opportunity to ... give your input” regarding the disease.

What he said

See the Letters to Editor today, this one speaks volumes. Also, don't miss the ones about the TCC tax increase. 

Spending priorities

Fort Worth's public educational system is in shambles, but spending $9.2 million on a new state park is deemed to be more important.

In these fiscal times, do we really need another state park, just 20 miles south of Possum Kingdom state park, more than we need better schools for our kids?

One has to wonder how many other such expenditures are being made with no consideration for whether they could be put to better use, both locally and on a national level.

Our elected officials keep telling us they need more revenue and, when they don't get it, they cut essential services instead of re-examining their spending priorities and cutting or postponing projects and programs that could wait. This mentality has nearly destroyed our economy and sent us into enormous national debt.

We need new leadership, locally and nationally, to rescue us from this abyss.

-- Thomas J. Bazzone, Granbury

Lake Closed

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers have determined Lake Texoma has a toxic algae caused by extreme heat and prolonged drought.

No swimming or fishing is to take place in the lake.  They say the lake is still open to boaters for Labor Day weekend.  WHO wants to be on a boat in 100 degree weather if you can't get in the water? 

There was a massive fish kill this week on Lake Grapevine. 

Seems like something is in the water...

Oh, that's right, WHAT water?

The Weekly tells you where to go

For the Labor Day Weekend. Take a TRIP out to Glen Rose.

Start Watching - from the Fort Worth Weekly

The Glen Rose Neo-Relix Film Festival has chosen Layla Caraway’s Up A Creek as one of the featured documentaries to be shown on Labor Day weekend.

Production of Up A Creek was sponsored by the Trinity River Improvement Partnership, a collection of local folks with varied political backgrounds who think the Trinity River Vision is just an enormously wasteful economic development project masquerading as flood control — and sucking up all the available local flood-control money along the way. (The price tag is now just over $900 million.)

The experiences that led Caraway to produce the film began in the summer of 2007, when weeks of rain and flooding caused her backyard to fall into Big Fossil Creek. In the same storm, a 4-year-old girl drowned when floodwaters ripped her from her mother’s arms.

Caraway wanted to know why the U.S Army Corps of Engineers couldn’t find money for well-documented flood problems along Big Fossil Creek in Haltom City but had hundreds of millions for the downtown Fort Worth project. Local filmmaker and photographer Bob Lukemon helped make the documentary, which will be screened twice during the Glen Rose festival —on Saturday, Sept. 3, at 2 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 4, at noon. For more information go to http://www.savethetrinityriver.org/.

Councils say the darndest things...

Critics have said for years, if it looks likes a tax, it's a tax.  Regardless if you call it a fee.

Now, some council members have caught up to saying the same thing. 

Some council members are asking how we got here.  We have been asking them the same thing for years, remember they have been driving the bus.

Critics have long said our infrastructure needs are being ignored.  Is the Fort Worth council finally waking up as it continues to crumble around them?

Critics have also said we shouldn't build things we couldn't pay for.  Sounds simple, right?  Council members have now pushed the Cultural District parking garage hike off till next year. 

Read about all of it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  YOU can't afford not to.

Council members said officials clearly need to find a way to fund all of the city's growing infrastructure needs, but they can't consider any new fees until the city delivers on road projects that are years behind schedule.

Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks said the transportation fee, which would have added $5.90 to a single-family residence's monthly water bill, would be another form of taxation. "We're not calling it a tax, but it is," Hicks said.

Almost all the council members agreed on setting aside the fee, but Sal Espino said the council must have "a frank discussion on how we got here." He said the city cannot continue to ignore its projected 10-year transportation funding gap of $1 billion.

"We are in an infrastructure crisis in our city," Espino said.

Mayor Betsy Price said the fee can be shelved for now and reconsidered again if the city gets its expenses under control and finishes the delayed road projects that have been promised for years.

"It is time to stop the excuses and build the road," Councilman Jungus Jordan said.

Restrictions...What Restrictions?

From Don Young...

A Fractured Fracking Tale

> August 30, 2011.

> Fort Worth, Texas.

> Worst drought in Fort Worth history is underway.

> Stage 1 water use restrictions went into effect yesterday.

> I took a little hike along the Trinity River today.

> Hundreds of gas wells and related infrastructure dot the entire length of river as it winds through town.

> Drilling companies are among the the largest contributors to Texas politicians.

> Fracking and drilling are exempt from water restrictions.

> Each frack job uses around 5 million gallons of fresh water.

> Prior to 2005 there were ZERO gas wells in Fort Worth.

> As of August, 2011, there are around 2,000 gas wells in the City of Fort Worth.

> Each gas well is re-fracked over and over again for many years.

> Each frack job produces millions of gallons of toxic wastewater.

> Hundreds of tanker trucks loaded with wastewater and drilling chemicals roam city streets day and night.

> Fort Worth is now one of the largest generators and exporters of toxic waste in the state of Texas.

> In late 2010, Chesapeake CEO claimed they had, thus far, only drilled about 20% of planned gas wells.

> Some Fort Worth City Council members received cash donations and gifts from the drilling industry for their political campaigns.

> Mayor, Betsy Price, was openly endorsed by the drilling industry.

> Remember to water you lawn and garden ONLY on designated days.

DY

Trinity River near downtown FW, 8/30/11.

Frack job underway for Chesapeake Energy.
Fish, turtles and other wildlife, beware!

River water being pumped with three huge diesel generators.

A non-English speaking worker kept watch nearby.

Be prepared!

Heavily used bike trail is still open for business.

These water pipes extend about a half mile to the pad-site
along the formerly scenic river bank.

It's all legal, of corse, and safely "stored" for a million years.

More diesel generators at the pad-site add to the already dirty air quality in FW.

We have been warned.

Enormous quantities of water, sand and chemicals pumped
into Mother Earth to make someone rich.

Meanwhile, back at Chesapeake HQ in downtown FW today,
workers are watering the big green lawn.
Restrictions? What restrictions?

Don Young
FWCanDo
P.O. Box 470041
Fort Worth, TX 76147

Trinity River Irony

The Fort Worth Star Telegram has two articles - one titled, "TCC raises property taxes, tutition".  The other, "Classes begin at TCC Trinity River East Campus".  YOU do the math...

Tarrant County College trustees on Monday adopted an estimated $348.9 million budget for fiscal 2011-12 that raises next year's property taxes for the college district by 8 percent and tuition by 4 percent.

The 4-2 vote came after a public hearing at which five people urged the board to vote against the tax and tuition increases.

"Stop increasing your charges," said Randy Kressler, a Westworth Village councilman.

Several speakers criticized plans for a performing arts center at TCC's Northeast Campus.

"You should abandon it," taxpayer Bill Wright said. "You should lower the tax rate, not increase it."

Students started classes Monday at the Trinity River East Campus, Tarrant County College's new $185 million downtown facility for health professionals.

Bryan Stewart, vice president of teaching and learning services for the entire complex, said about 7,115 students are enrolled at both facilities, with 700 at Trinity River East.

Stewart said there were no traffic issues. College officials began greeting students as they arrived at about 6:30 a.m. to the parking lot off Belknap Street, which has 148 student spaces.

Stewart said that lot filled up at about 9 a.m. so students parked at a garage at the Trinity River Campus and a lot on Henderson Street. He said the nearby parking cycles out about noon, when a different group of students arrives.

Do YOUR job

A letter to the editor in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram makes a good point, we need a hero.  And a new Water District.

Cool, clear water

In his 1962 Farewell to the West Point Cadets, Gen. Douglas MacArthur sternly told them that their primary duty was to win their country's wars, that should they fail, the nation would be destroyed. To the board of the Tarrant Regional Water District, bullheadedly engaged in pursuing the moribund Trinity River Vision even while Texas is caught in the clutches of drought, I write in the vein of MacArthur's oration.

Through all the welter of change and development that has come to Fort Worth, your mandate stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night. It remains fixed, determined, inviolate -- it is to provide water.

Everything else is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purposes, all other public projects will find others for their accomplishment; but you are the ones who are charged with bringing cool, clear water with the sure knowledge that there is no substitute for water, and that if you fail, the city will be destroyed.

Superstar Gen. Douglas MacArthur. When cometh such another?

-- Don Woodard Sr., Fort Worth

Hold the phone...

Did we just agree on something?

Read Mitch's column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram concerning Fort Worth Tax abatements.

We also agree with Betsy - we'd like to know what's in the water too.  Better yet, WHAT water?

Contrast those deals with the small ball that the city was playing last week. The planning department proposed tax breaks for three projects, including one pledging to bring just 60 jobs to the area -- and to fast-growing Alliance at that.

Frac Tech Services, proposing the biggest expansion, is already in Fort Worth. Do you think a fracking company would leave the fracking capital of the world over a tax break?

Mayor Betsy Price said it was all good, too: "I've talked to friends around the state who want to know what the heck you put in the water in Fort Worth that everybody's coming to Fort Worth."

Several company executives were at the pre-council meeting, yet they weren't called upon. Is it unreasonable to ask whether the tax breaks are necessary to pull off the deal?

Council members don't have to grill anybody or cause embarrassment. But they should at least feign some due diligence.

Maybe they'll be more engaged when the abatements come up for a vote next month. Last week's session was so brief and perfunctory that I longed for the days of Clyde Picht and the late Chuck Silcox. Those former members opposed almost every tax break on the principle that everyone should pay a fair share.

Even Wendy Davis, a champion of economic development, could be counted on to ask about "the gap." She's a state senator now, but when she served on the council, she pored over spreadsheets and demanded to know why a taxpayer contribution was crucial to closing a deal.

"If Oprah Winfrey were moving to Texas, would we offer her an abatement to move to Fort Worth?" Picht said.

More Fort Worth Abatements

Fracing abatement's at that.

Back in the day, they called that "giving away the farm".

Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Some of the other abatement's didn't meet their projections.  HOW are these companies going to be different?  Shouldn't the public (those paying for the abatement) make the call?

For the 10-year, 65 percent abatement, Frac Tech would invest $61.4 million and create 200 jobs by 2013 and 450 by December 2021.

The estimated total public investment would be $3.1 million.