The Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Citizens Advisory Committee

A few minutes ago, someone claiming to be one of Fort Worth's potential next mayor's ex-girlfriends, sent me a link to a page on the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle website, telling me she thought I might find it interesting.

I find a lot of things interesting. What I found when I went to this link was more bizarre than interesting. Okay, maybe it was interestingly bizarre.

The page in question on the TRVB website is titled "Citizens Advisory Committee."

Under the heading "Citizens Advisory Committee" there is a paragraph describing the goal of this advising committee made up of citizens.....

To assure that each element of the Trinity River Vision project is designed and delivered with the needs and wants of the community in mind, an advisory board was created to provide the project partners with direction and feedback throughout the project timeline.

Well, now, is that not a fascinating thing? A committee of 64 citizens has been created to make sure that each and every element of the Trinity River Vision project is done with the needs and wants of the community in mind. Giving direction and feedback.

Was it this committee who got feedback from the Fort Worth community indicating the people of Fort Worth desperately wanted the world's premiere wakeboarding lake? Is this the answer I have long sought, as to how this goofy lake, which few will use, came to be?

I recognize some of the names on the committee. Kenneth Barr. Didn't he used to be mayor? Then go to work for Chesapeake Energy? Well, it is only fair that you have some people who are members of the Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy on this committee.

Kathleen Hicks. Isn't she a Fort Worth Councilwoman? Well, it's only fair that you include some people already in office on a committee of citizens helping direct something you already have input into, due to the office you've been elected to.

Melody Johnson. The disgraced Fort Worth Independent School District Superintendent. It seems fair to include an ordinary citizen like this on such a committee. Now that she is resigning as Superintendent is Melody keeping on this important committee helping guide the TRV Boondoggle? From what I've read, Ms. Johnson is a bit of a boondoggle expert. She is likely quite helpful.

Betsy Price. Now, that seems a sensible pick of an ordinary citizen for such a committee. I think Ms. Price is currently some sort of tax collector for Tarrant County. And I believe she is the Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy's pick to be Fort Worth's next mayor.

Danny Scarth. Another highly regarded Fort Worth City Councilman. And ordinary citizen. Excellent choice, TRV.

Andy Taft. Why I get email from Andy Taft. He's the president or czar or something of the Downtown Fort Worth Association. I'm glad the TRV picked people with absolutely no vested interest in the TRV project to be on this committee.

Julie Wilson. The very last name on the list, due to her name starting with a "W." I think Julie Wilson is some sort of shill for Chesapeake Energy. Makes sense to have a shill for Chesapeake on a citizen's committee helping make sure that the concerns of all the citizens of Fort Worth are taken in to account.

Are there records kept of this committee's meetings? Can one find out what input they have given to the TRV project?

Are any of the people who's property has been taken, or will be taken, by eminent domain, on this list of citizens?

This makes two extremely goofy things from the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle in one day. I think the boondoggle is accelerating.

Rockin' Live On The Trinity River Inner Tube Happy Hour Concert Series Announced

I really truly believe it is time for some sort of federal intervention in this strange part of America I am currently living in.

A few minutes ago, my best friend, Anonymous, sent me a link to a story on the dfw.com website, titled "Inaugural 'Rockin' the River' concert series announced."

In the first sentence of the article the writer, Preston Jones, writes, "It's an idea so good, one wonders why nobody thought of it sooner."

The idea Preston Jones is talking about is, "Starting June 9, the Rockin' the River - Live on the Trinity summer tubing and music series will take place every second and fourth Thursday through the month of August. Trinity River Vision, the organizers, are billing the series as a "floating happy hour," with free admission and free tubes for the first 600 people to show up, starting at 4 p.m."

An idea so good, one wonders why nobody thought of it sooner?

Actually, it is an idea, so stupid, it is a wonder anyone thought of it now.

But, this is what you get when your local congresswoman puts her unqualified son in charge of a big public works project, when that son is very fond of partying and partial to adult beverages.

The Trinity River Vision is providing 600 free inner tubes. Do those getting the free inner tubes get to take them home with them? How much do 600 inner tubes cost? Is buying inner tubes what voters thought they were voting for back in 2004 when, apparently, a bond vote occurred which some claim is what has validated the TRV foolishness and folly which has evolved into massive Happy Hour Inner Tube Parties on the Trinity River?

Now with music.

The Trinty River Vision will even allow you to bring your own inner tube, along with booze coolers and lawn chairs to set on when you tire of floating in the polluted river.

Apparently the Trinity River Vision's vision has been expanded to include helping increase alcohol consumption. From the TRV's Rockin' the River poster we learn that if you "Want your Happy Hour to last all night long?! Wear your Rockin' the River wristband to a participating bar after the float and receive drink specials ALL NIGHT!!"

Starting June 9, Josh Weathers and the True+Endeavors, along with other Texas acts, will make beautiful music from a waterfront stage, serenading the happy hour floaters out in the river, dodging snakes, turtles, alligator gar, assorted toxins and occasional floating fecal matter.

Happy Hour floats will continue through the summer. Or until someone dies in an unfortunate, totally unforeseen accident. The Happy Hour floating dates are June 23 with Bleu Edmondson, July 14 with Eleven Hundred Springs, July 28 with Ryan Turner, August 11 with the Kyle Bennett Band and August 25 with The Will Callers.

Now, if there is a fatal tragedy, like what happened in the Fort Worth Water Gardens, who is it who will be sued? The Trinity River Vision? The City of Fort Worth? The Tarrant Regional Water District? All of them? Who will pay?

Ultimately You........

A Special Letter From My Good Friend Kay Granger Clearing Up The Trinity River Vision Lack Of Clarity

Ever since I became friends with J.D. Granger I've also become friends with J.D.'s mom, Kay.

Kay Granger is Fort Worth's Congresswoman, representing the Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy in the House of Representatives.

Yesterday I got a letter from my good friend, Kay, clarifying some questions I had regarding funding issues regarding the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Below is Kay's letter. And below that I continue with my pithy comments. If I can think of any....

May 20, 2011

Dear Friend,

Since coming to Congress I have worked on a prominent urban waterfront project called Trinity River Vision.  Recently, I have been asked questions about a funding issue regarding this project.  Please pass this on should you hear of anyone who needs clarification.

“The TRV Project has increased my water bill.”

Six years ago, the City of Fort Worth added a “Storm Water Fee” to the City water bill.  Not a single cent of that fee goes to the TRV project.  The fee is to make improvements to the drainage system throughout the entire city.

“How much money does the City of Fort Worth pay for the TRV Project?”

The City of Fort Worth committed $26.6 million to the Trinity River Vision project.  This amount has not changed since the start of this project – and is not expected to increase.  Of the City of Fort Worth’s $26.6 million contribution, $16 million has already been acquired through two bond elections.  The remaining amount committed by the City of Fort Worth has been budgeted within the city’s revenue fund, and does not compete with any street repairs or other initiatives.

“Is the TRV project funding Trolley Cars?”

Like the majority of Fort Worth’s inner city, the Trinity River Vision Uptown Plan has been designed with future mass transit in mind.  However, not a single dollar of the project cost is allocated to funding a trolley or street car line.

Trinity River Vision will bring 16,000 jobs to our community and add $1.1 billion to our tax base when it is completed.  It is important that you have all the facts.  As always, please continue to ask questions and I will make sure you have all the information.

Sincerely,

Kay Granger

_______________________________________________

Well.

I found several things interesting in the letter from my friend, Kay.

Kay says, "Like the majority of Fort Worth’s inner city, the Trinity River Vision Uptown Plan has been designed with future mass transit in mind."

The majority of Fort Worth's inner city has been designed for something? Who knew? What a revelation. Who is it who designed Fort Worth's inner city with future mass transit in mind? And where can we see these things that have been designed?

Regarding funding for the TRV Boondoggle, Kay says, "Of the City of Fort Worth’s $26.6 million contribution, $16 million has already been acquired through two bond elections."

What?

There have been bond elections relating to the TRV Boondoggle? The people of Fort Worth got to vote on this pet project of the Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy? How did I miss two votes? I thought I paid fairly close attention to what goes on in these parts. How did I miss 2 bond elections which related to the TRV Boondoggle?

So, went to the go to person for such questions, Clyde Picht.

Mr. Picht told me, "There was $4.5 million in the 2004 bond program and $22.2 million in the 2008 bond program. In 2008, $12 million was for 7th St bridge and $10.2 million was for TRV bridges. Total cost of TRV expected to be $86 million with remainder from Federal grants. The 2004 TRV proposition is the one that proponents said indicated public support for the whole TRV project."

So. These were not actually votes on the TRV Boondoggle. And, a vote in 2004, on a bond program worth only $4.5 million, is the vote that TRVB proponents cite as indicating the Fort Worth public's support for the almost $1 billion Trinity River Vision Boondoggle?

Apparently I missed the connection between these two bond votes and the TRVB. I suspect I was not the only one who missed the connection, even if I am more dense than most.

My good friend Kay says since coming to Congress she has worked on a prominent urban waterfront project called Trinity River Vision.

Kay came to Congress in 1997. The Trinity River Vision did not exist in 1997. When it was born it was called something like Trinity Uptown. The vision came along sometime in the following century.

Is it Kay who started the Trinity Uptown/Trinity River Vision Boondoggle project? Started the project as soon as she got to Congress in 1997? And then, a couple years later, the project she had been working on, gets introduced to the Fort Worth public?

Was this Kay's master plan from the start? A designed to grow ever-bigger, massive, federally funded public works project to build a little lake, take down some perfectly good levees, build an un-needed flood diversion channel plus a wakeboard lake so the people of Fort Worth can finally take up wakeboarding.

And, most importantly, to give her unqualified son, J.D., a job managing Kay's public works project.

At one point in time, the vision included some canals and real cool designer bridges, which are now pedestrian bridges (by pedestrian I mean ordinary, not foot traffic only)?

Among the many things about the TRVB that has perplexed me is this. How is it that as the TRVB project grows more expensive it loses more and more of what was originally sold to the public as the Trinity River Vision?

Like those canals? And those cool designer bridges. Somehow, we went from something possibly unique, to the world's premiere wakeboard lake and 80,000 magic trees in Gateway Park designed to save Arlington from flooding. According to J.D.

It is all perplexing. Including this perplexing letter from my good friend, Kay.

Inner Tubing With The Alligator Gar In The Trinity River Is Perfectly Safe

This afternoon CatsPaw sent me a link to a Blotch entry in FW Weekly, by Jeff Prince, that she thought I might find interesting.

The Blotch entry is titled "200-Pound Gar Caught On Rod And Reel In Trinity,"

In the Blotch Jeff Prince writes about his childhood memories of encounters with Alligator Gar.

And mentions that Joseph Williams of Cleveland, Texas set a new rod and reel record for fishing in the Trinity River by catching the 7 foot 9 inch prehistoric monster you see in the picture, somewhere near Athens, Texas.

Williams' scale only weighed in 50 pound increments, weighing the Gar at 200 pounds. Williams says the fish really weighed 230.

That is big. Really big. I've never weighed 230. And currently I don't even weigh 200.

I'd be no match for an Alligator Gar in the Trinity River.

When summer comes and J.D. Granger starts having his Happy Hour Inner Tube Parties in the Trinity River, are rod and reel going to be supplied to fish for Alligator Gar?

I have only seen an Alligator Gar once in the wild, that is if you consider Village Creek in Arlington to be wild. The Gar I saw was between 2 and 3 feet.

My swimming in Texas lakes ended after I was up at Lake Grapevine, talking to a pair of girls, laying on the dock at the end of my Horseshoe Trails bike ride.

The girls told me that a friend of theirs had stepped on a Gar, right near the dock. The teeth cut up his feet badly. He had to go to a hospital.

I have never been in a Texas lake again.

Maybe a TRVB study found that Alligator Gar are deathly afraid of inner tubes and that is why the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle promotes inner tubing in the Trinity River as a safe and sane activity.

Yeah, I'm sure that is it.

Betsy Price & Kay Granger In Louis Tussaud's Palace Of Wax In Grand Prairie

Someone Anonymous sent me the picture of the two wax figures you see in the photo.

Anonymous claimed this is a new installation at Louis Tussaud’s Palace of Wax in the Ripley's Believe It or Not complex in Grand Prairie.

The wax figure on the left, holding what appears to be an adult beverage, is Fort Worth's soon to be new mayor, Betsy Price.

The wax figure standing next to Betsy is the Queen of the Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy, Kay Granger.

Kay Granger is Fort Worth's Congresswoman.

It was Kay Granger who asked Betsy Price to be Fort Worth's next mayor. Betsy Price supports one of Kay Granger's pet pork barrell projects, the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. It is important to Kay Granger to continue to have a mayor of Fort Worth who supports her pet pork barrell projects.

The TRVB project is particularly important to Kay Granger because she had her ne'er do well son, J.D., installed as the manager of the project, even though J.D. had no experience overseeing a giant public works project that involved building the world's premiere wakeboarding lake, taking down perfectly good levees, buidling bridges, laying streetcar lines, abusing eminent domain, digging an un-needed flood diversion channel and building a little pond, affectionately known locally as the Kay Granger Puddle.

Does the Louis Tussaud Palace of Wax have a wax figure of Fort Worth's current mayor, Mike Moncrief? Are all these wax figures in a room called "Scary Looking Local Politicians?"

I've not been to Louis Tussaud's Palace of Wax or the Grand Prairie Ripley's Believe it or Not. I don't know if seeing Betsy Price and Kay Granger, rendered in wax form, is enough of a draw to cause me to make my first visit.

Tubing The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Photo Booth Wondering How Did They Get That Brown Water So Blue

Incoming, just in, from Eunice Lovers, my Trinity River Vision Boondoggle insider spy.

Apparently the TRVB, that is the acronym for Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, I probably did not need to explain that, anyway, the TRVB people have been setting up a booth at various Tarrant County venues, like the Main Street Arts Festival and Mayfest, but shockingly not at the Prairie Fest.

In this booth you can get your picture taken whilst looking as if you are floating in the Trinity River on an inner tube.

This seemed, to me, to be so over the top ridiculous that I though Eunice might be making it up, faking the image, just to have fun with me.

However, Eunice also mentioned that TRVB was posting photos of people on the tubes on the TRVB Facebook page.

And sure enough, there are a lot of them.

The TRVB propaganda that is selling the idea that the Trinity River is a recreational venue is being so effective it has almost convinced me that I want to stick my inflatable kayak in the river.

Is there any mechanism where the feds intervene when an area of the country has obviously gone insane? If there is, I think it is time to employ that mechanism.

Up Early The Last Tuesday Of March Thinking About Exploding Tankers, Melting Bridges, Texas Boondoggle Referendums & The Paradise Center Scandal

I am up way too early this last Tuesday of March of 2011. Looking outside from one of my viewing portals I can see no stars or moons.

I suspect a heavy layer of clouds are lining the sky, because thunderstorms and rain are in the forecast for today.

I learned this morning that yesterday's tanker truck explosion on I-30, a couple miles to my west, caused the steel beams in the freeway bridge over Sycamore Creek to melt.

The westbound lanes of I-30 between Beach Street and Riverside Drive will be reduced from 4 lanes to 2, for months, while the Texas Department of Transportation makes emergency repairs.

Meanwhile up in Seattle, in other transportation related news, a group called Protect Seattle Now has managed to get over 27,000 signatures on a petition to put a referendum on the August ballot which will have voters voting on whether to go ahead with a multi-billion dollar tunnel project. Or not. 16,000 signatures are required to put a referendum to a vote.

Which has me wondering.

How come I don't read anything in the Fort Wort Star-Telegram along the lines of a group called Protect the Trinity Now has gathered over 27,000 signatures on a petition to put a referendum on the August ballot which will have voters voting for the first time on whether or not they approve of proceeding with the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle?

Maybe TRIP (Trinity River Improvement Project) has a petition in the works that I've not heard about.

Right now I am petitioning for the sun to arrive to provide illumination for my morning swim.

While I wait for the sun to arrive I have an incredible amount of fresh incoming Paradise Center Scandal material to digest. Including a pair of videos.

Today I Learned That Tubing The Trinity Is The Latest Craze In Fort Worth Among Other Things

A couple days ago I blogged about a slick propaganda brochure from the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle that had arrived in my mailbox.

I blogged about the brochure before I actually read through the entirety of the propaganda.

Yesterday I blogged about Water Baby's possible spotting of an alligator in the Trinity River, right at the location pictured in the TRV's slick propaganda brochure of crazy people Inner Tubing in the Trinity River.

I bet you did not know that Tubing on the Trinity is the latest craze in Fort Worth. I know I sure didn't. I can't actually think of anything I'm aware of in Fort Worth that is a craze.

The brochure earnestly suggests I grab some friends & head out for a Trinity River floating event. Anyone reading this in Washington, where the rivers run clean, want to fly down to Texas to do some tubing with me? It's the latest craze in this fine town I'm living in.

Yesterday after I blogged about Water Baby's gator I got a few good comments regarding critters in the Trinity River.

Unca Mikey said...Y'think maybe it was a nutria? We've seen lots of nutria in the Trinity, and when they swim they leave a wake like that. We've even seen herds of Nutria grazing along the river below the Taylor St. roundabout.

Anonymous said...Or an alligator gar. Trinity is home to them, some of them weighing up to 200 lbs. The tributaries are full of snakes, some of them bigger than you care to think about. 

CatsPaw said...Hey, that's my 'hood. Considering a nine-and-a-half footer was caught, tagged and released in Lake Worth last summer, alligators are entirely possible here. They're here; they're just stealthy and usually feed at night. Just have some night tubing and this location can be featured in ChowBaby.

And then there is the gem below that I missed upon first perusal of the slick TRV Boondoggle propaganda brochure.

When I blogged about the slick TRV Boondoggle propaganda brochure I did make note of the part that mentioned over 2,500 people toured a Streetcar when it visited Fort Worth.

Anonymous then commented that it was odd that the slick TRV Boondoggle propaganda brochure neglected to mention that the Fort Worth City Council killed the streetcar project.

I'd not noticed the part of the brochure above, where the caption says, "A modern streetcar was parked outside the TRVA office from Nov. 16-28 for citizens to gain firsthand knowledge of the transportation option."

Or the picture next to that of Fort Worth's Ruling Despot, Mayor Mike Moncreif, with the caption saying, "Mayor Moncrief and other local leaders unveiled the streetcar Nov. 17 and announced a public town hall meeting to discuss the possibility of having streetcars in Fort Worth."

Yes, it really does seem odd to me, now, that the slick TRV Boondoggle propaganda brochure made no mention of the fact that the Fort Worth Streetcar had died.

You in other parts of America are likely wondering how a modern streetcar happened to be in Fort Worth for knowledge gaining purposes.

Well.

Now, you are going to think I am making this up. I assure you I am not. Just like I'm not making up the fact that the latest Fort Worth craze is Inner Tubing in the snake, gator, nutria, alligator gar infested Trinity River.

It is also a fact that, bizarre as it seems, the TRV Boondoggle, in cahoots with a couple other entities, shipped a streetcar from Portland, Oregon, so that locals, who have never seen such a modern wonder. Or been to Dallas. Could see such a marvel.

I'm surprised only around 2,500 people took advantage of the opportunity to gain this once in a lifetime knowledge. I would have thought the number would have been in the 100s of thousands, just like those humongous crowds that filled the Sundance Square parking lots because ESPN was broadcasting from a Fort Worth parking lot.

I'm done now.