The Future of Fort Worth

That is Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief behind bars. 67% of my thousands of readers want me to keep bashing the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. All I can muster right now is a slight variant of that type bashing.

In a paid for by the city of Fort Worth full page advertisement in the Memorial Day Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in an article titled "Citywide Conversation to Shape Fort Worth's Future," Mayor Mike Moncrief is quoted as saying, "Usually, this council and I are the ones doing the talking, but this is our time to listen to you, Fort Worth. We want to hear the concerns, observations and suggestions of our residents as to how we can make the best city in the country even better for future generations."

Best city in the country? Delusions of grandeur is such a sad spectacle to see up close.

But, even weirder than that is this Citywide Conversation thing. The lead paragraph says, "It happened in 1963 and '92. Now, it's happening again---a citywide conversation to stimulate dialogue among Fort Worth residents."

So, twice in the past 45 years the Ruling Junta of Fort Worth has listened to its citizens? And now they are going to listen again?

Here's an idea. Rather than listening how about letting the citizens vote?

Soon bulldozers will begin leveling businesses and houses taken by eminent domain, in yet one more abuse of that legit concept, via its bastardized version as practiced in Texas, in order to destroy the confluence of two forks of the Trinity River at the north end of downtown Fort Worth, to build a lake, some canals and a flood control diversion channel.

The flood control thing had to be added so as to be able to have some sort of legit reason for this project so as to be able to secure Federal funds. Yes, that is right, you in the rest of America, some of your tax dollars are helping pay for this boondoggle.

A boondoggle, I forgot to mention, that the good citizen's of Fort Worth have not been allowed to vote for.

Dallas has a similar project that was in place when Fort Worth copied it. Major difference, the citizens of Dallas, living as they do in an enlightened democracy, got to vote for their Trinity River project. Unlike the Fort Worth project, the Dallas one makes sense, as in there is a huge flood plain that just sits there right now as open land, that will become a huge recreational lake, with 3 big signature, iconic image worthy bridges, crossing the lake into downtown Dallas.

In Fort Worth, which is not quite as enlightened a democracy as Dallas, and where the concepts of conflict of interest and nepotism hold no meaning, the son of Fort Worth's congresswoman, Kay Granger, he being J.D Granger, is earning $110,000 a year running the Trinity Uptown Project, which is what the Fort Worth boondoggle is known as.

One of Fort Worth's good politicians, former City Councilman, Clyde Picht, who has long opposed the boondoggle that the people of Fort Worth have not voted for, said the appointment of Granger's son is "asking for criticism" and that his knowledge of water district issues is "certainly more limited than most people."

Among the many aspects of this project that puzzle me, one is, I don't get how a Ruling Junta can ram through such a massive civic works project, one that involves taking its citizen's businesses and homes, without letting the citizens vote on the project. How is that legal?

And now the Fort Worth City Council is going to have a citywide conversation with the citizens of Fort Worth? And listen to them? If the past is an indicator of the future, if the citizens get feisty with the Mayor and the rest of the Ruling Junta, Mike Moncrief will simply walk away.

Without listening.