Fort Worth, you have been warned

That's pretty much what the letter from the Senior V.P. for Field Services of the National Trust for Historic Preservation said to Mayor Price about the Stockyards.

'The stakes are very high.'

You can say that again.

Come to Fort Worth City Hall April 5th for the Stockyards Rally @ 6:00 p.m.
And 'like' Save Our Stockyards on Facebook

No more tolls? Speak Up !!

Important public comment deadlines

Austin, DFW need to voice opposition to tolls

Austin & DFW MPOs taking feedback on transportation plans  

Every city with population of 50,000 or greater has a Metropolitan Planning Organization or MPO. These MPOs are required to produce your region's transportation plans (basically a project priority list) and to hold public meetings when they undergo a major update to the plans known as the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP - short-range 4 yr plan) and Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP - long-range 20 yr plan). The Austin MPO (CAMPO) and the DFW MPO (RTC) just finished their public meetings.

It's important to get opposition to tolls on the official record.

Remember, silence is approval! Opposition on the official record can be very useful in killing toll projects or any other ill-conceived projects or priorities the community opposes (like rail).

WHAT TO SAY 
Tell them to use road funds to fund road projects accessible to ALL vehicles only, not toll lanes, HOV-bus lanes or 'managed lanes,' bike lanes or rail. Ask them to prioritize road funds to remove toll projects FIRST and do not ADD any NEW toll projects to the plan.

Austin Area
Submit comments opposing toll projects here.
(Deadline April 15)

DFW Area
Submit comments opposing toll projects here.
(Deadline April 13)

That didn't take long...

Don't drink the water in the Abilene Federal Courthouse.  But don't worry, "they" will let you know when it's safe.  Even though it's the wrong department...

Have you read about what lead does to you?  You should.

High Levels of Lead, Other Metals Found in Abilene Water

Are YOU saving for retirement?

What if you had a contract that said, you will make X in retirement years, then along comes a politician and says, well, maybe not X...

Sign this local petition to help families all over the metroplex keep what they earned. And send those politicians listed here a note about their retirement.

Do you ever wonder . . .

Why are so many Texas lawmakers climate deniers?

Why do Texas legislators pass laws to protect oil and gas interests over the safety of people?

Money.

Far too many of those elected to represent the people of Texas are bought and paid for by fossil fuel industries that oppose any limits on their activity.

Join us for the Democracy Awakening rally in Dallas on April 17 to call for reforms to reduce the influence of money in politics.

It’s easy for polluters to get laws passed and permits granted when they are funding the campaigns of the people who make the laws and grant the permits.

Commissioners at the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) — which regulates the oil, gas and coal industries — and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) see their jobs as serving industries, not protecting the people of Texas. This allegiance plays out when the RRC does nothing to stop fracking operations from polluting the air and water, making people sick. It shows when the TCEQ denies that air pollution causes asthma attacks.

We need government that is working for the people, not the polluters.

Join us for the Democracy Awakening rally in Dallas to support a national effort to reduce the influence that big polluters have on politics.

It’s up to all of us to take back our democracy.

Sincerely,

Tom “Smitty” Smith
Public Citizen’s Texas Office

Mark your calendar!

FRACKING FORT WORTH PRESENTS:

Dear President Obama, Powerful New Film on Fracking and Climate Change, to Screen in Fort Worth, Texas at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth at 7pm. Director Jon Bowermaster Will Attend and Answer Questions; Film is Narrated by 3-Time Oscar Nominee Mark Ruffalo.

FORT WORTH, TEXAS – A powerful new film on fracking and climate change, Dear President Obama, The Clean Energy Revolution is Now, will screen for the public in Fort Worth, Texas at the Modern Art Museum on April 21, 2016 at 7pm.

The film, narrated by 3-time Academy Award nominated actor Mark Ruffalo, calls on President Obama to address climate change by banning fracking and ushering in a “clean energy revolution” free from fossil fuels.

Film director Jon Bowermaster will attend the screening and answer questions from audience members and the media after the movie screens.

The screening is being hosted by the Harmony Hills Neighborhood Association, Fort Worth Miss Endy's Christian Academy, Fort Worth InnerCity Drilling Blues Coalition and Food & Water Watch, a local advocacy organization working to educate the region on the dangers of Fracking in InnerCity America. Food & Water Watch is also calling on Congress and the Obama Administration to ban fracking on federal lands.

Sweeping in its scope, Dear President Obama takes a cross-country look at oil and gas drilling and fracking, highlighting numerous contamination crises, stories from victims, and the devastating boom-and-bust economic impacts levied on affected communities. Interviews with scientists, economists, health professionals, geologists and whistleblowers provide the core narrative of the film.

WHAT: Dear President Obama film screening with director Jon Bowermaster and featuring Denton Activist Sharon Wilson and Fort Woth local Activist Kyev Tatum

WHEN: Thursday, April 21, 2016 at 7pm. VIP Reception starts at 6pm with Director Jon Bowermaster, Mary Kelleher, Kyev Tatum and Sharon Wilson.

WHERE: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth 3200 Darnell St, Fort Worth, TX 76107

WHO: Film Director Jon Bowermaster, Mary Kelleher, Board Director, Tarrant Regional Water District,  Food & Water Watch and Activist Kyev Tatum. Food & Water Watch champions healthy food and clean water for all.

We stand up to corporations that put profits before people, and advocate for a democracy that improves people’s lives and protects our environment. Link: www.dearpresidentobama.com

The Settlements from Unscrupulous business practices of the Natural Gas Industry: Bass Brothers Settlement: http://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/20150908-chesapeake-settles-with-bass-brother-other-landowners-in-royalty-fight.ece

City of Fort Worth Settlement: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/article67872252.html
Kyev Tatum: http://www.dearpresidentobama.com/slide/kyev-tatum-pastor/

Truth

YOU better be paying attention. 

We could be the next Flint. 

10 years olds know that. 

WHY don’t YOU?

Is it because you trust your elected officials to do the right thing?

So did they.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/10-old-just-drew-only-192300637.html

Fort Worth or Dallas

We really can’t decide which Boondoggle is more laughable these days.  Both are a joke which no one finds funny since we’re all paying for it.  Both are full of screw up’s (project and people wise).   It’s like reading a bad script, it just keeps getting worse.

While Durango has always been the Star Reporter on America’s Biggest Boondoggle, the Trinity River Vision, (also known as Panther Island with no island) Jim Schutze at the Dallas Observer does an excellent job keeping up with the downstream boondoggle and its failures.

We will share some of both, from just this week, below.  Seriously, the amount of insane material these two river projects produce, well, you just can’t make this up.  We do have a question for both cities – WHO screwed up?  Names, people,  we want names.

And speaking of names, who’s name keeps coming up in both project’s?  The Corp of Engineers.  Those who should be more concerned with flood control than the BS they are “overseeing” and “approving” now.  So tell us, WHO should be accountable for all these boondoggle failings?  WHO is accountable for keeping lives and properties from being wiped off the map?  We’re waiting…

And one more thing, the ever sinking Fort Worth Star Telegram says about the latest TRV screw up, “This one time, they (critics) might even be just a little bit right”.  Well, they also said that when the cost ballooned to almost a billion dollars and when Tim Love was given a no-bid restaurant contract by the Tarrant Regional Water District.  Do their own reporters not even read that rag?

Durango –
It was six months ago that America's Biggest  Boondoggle and it co-propagandizer, the Star-Telegram, breathlessly touted the wonder to behold of wooden V pier forms being something that people could see.

http://durangotexas.blogspot.com/2016/03/design-woes-are-not-only-problem-with.html

The way propaganda works is basically a lie gets repeated over and over again til it becomes believed to be the truth.

The bridges are not being built over dry land to save money. The bridges are being built prior to the flood diversion channel being built because there is no money, currently, to pay for the digging of the ditch under the bridges. There will be no water under  those bridges until the Trinity River is diverted into the flood diversion channel.

http://durangotexas.blogspot.com/2016/03/fort-worth-star-telegram-thinks-someone.html

Propaganda peddler, Fort Worth Star-Telegram –

The construction of three bridges over dry land north of downtown Fort Worth is being delayed as officials fix a design problem that was noticed as workers began to pour the concrete piers.

The delay involves a miscalculation in the amount of steel that would be needed to reinforce the structure’s piers, a Texas Department of Transportation spokesman said.

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article67339032.html

The project has been highly controversial since it was proposed almost 15 years ago. Anything that goes wrong is highly sensitive, another reason for legions of critics to harp about a boondoggle.

But the part about taking extra care to “deliver the highest-quality project possible” is lipstick on a pig.

Somebody screwed up. The original design was faulty — or it was so “novel” that it just didn’t work in the real world of bridge construction.

The overall Panther Island project, a combined “flood control” and economic development effort, still needs a $340 million allocation from the Army Corps of Engineers.

(We added our own quotes around "flood control" since the FWST left them out.)

 None of this is cheap.

Panther Island bridge design: Someone goofed

Dallas Observer –

Mother Nature says: “Try to fix it, and I will utterly destroy you.” That’s a paraphrase, of course. I have not actually spoken directly with Mother Nature. But I have looked at her stuff.

If you have driven over the Trinity when it’s flooded, you have looked at her stuff, too — gigantic cottonwood trees tumbling along like twigs in a rain-swollen gutter, enormous sheets of water pushing thousands of tons of silt down the river like fog, massive forces ripping and shoveling everything before them.

That plan was nixed for reasons never revealed, probably because, like the fake “sailboat lakes” City Hall promised voters in 1998, the full water park would have gotten in the way of the expressway they really wanted to build along the river.

(Hey! We have fake “sailboat lake” renderings too! – FW)

Yeah. Let me point something out to you. Their having input throughout the process is exactly how we got into this mess. The city hired a Colorado company to do the basic design for the water feature. Then the staff decided that the completed design, based on piling boulders in place in the river, was too expensive because there weren’t any boulders around.

City engineers decided to redesign the white water feature using gabion, a system of wire cylinders filled with gravel and concrete used in erosion control projects. When the city asked the original designers in Colorado to sign off on the cheap gabion substitute, the Colorado firm refused. The city hired a second engineering company to certify that the now thoroughly bastardized project would work.

Sims pointed out a thing that gets lost in all of this — that the city was able to build the white water feature in the first place because the Corps of Engineers approved it.

But, wait. If the Corps approved it, how can the Corps turn around now and tell Dallas to tear it out or fix it? One reason. The Corps can do that, because the Corps is the Corps.

http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/city-wants-fight-with-mother-nature-corps-of-engineers-on-kayak-park-8156410

Josh Fox arrested...for pancakes??

Academy award nominee Josh Fox was arrested again.  This time for protesting what sounds like the Texas Railroad Commission, on steroids.  It's called FERC. WHY was he arrested?  We're not really sure.  All the pictures show the protestors either making pancakes or sitting.

This story will sound all too familiar to you Fort Worth locals.  From eminent domain to no approval or oversight.

Today’s protest draws specific attention to FERC’s role in using eminent domain to condemn and clearcut a wide swathe of maple trees across the Holleran family maple syrup farm in New Milford, Pennsylvania. The clearcut was ordered to make way for the fracked gas Constitution Pipeline, even though the pipeline has yet to be approved by New York state.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/gasland-director-josh-fox-arrested-pancakes-not-pipelines-protest

America to Establishment:

Who the hell are you people?

That's the title of a McClatchy DC article and it's excellent. 

The above image is campaign sign from a fictional president on a popular political show.  It's also how most feel about politics right now.

The article had some great points.  It can't be the same Fort Worth Star-Telegram McClatchy, right??

Almost universally, the establishment is seen as incestuous and isolated

 In 2016 America, the deepest divide is not between Democrats and Republicans. It’s not even between conservatives and liberals. It’s between Us and Them – the people versus The Establishment.

a “Washington cartel.”

Access is this group’s common currency. Wall Street spends millions to open doors to the top levels of the government that regulates it. Politicos bend over to get access to the money that keeps them in office. The media cut deals to get access to decision makers needed to feed ratings and circulation, even if sometimes at the cost of objectivity.

“It’s a collection of people who live in Washington, D.C., and don’t care about the rest of the world,” said Hackmann. And, he noted, “They all have jobs.”

Of 78 members of Congress who left after the 2010 elections, four out of five found work with lobbying firms or clients, state or federal governments or political action committees.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article68042192.html