The mural depicts the view from George's, looking out at the Trinity Trail, the Trinity Levees and the houses in the hills on the opposite side of the river.
However, the mural is a bit out of date. Chesapeake Energy drilling sites need to be added to the view.
A few days ago I blogged about George's Specialty Foods closing in order to fight Chesapeake Energy's abuse of eminent domain to take property from the George's Specialty Food's owners.
I have gotten a few messages about this latest Chesapeake attack on Fort Worth Citizens. It is my understanding, now, that George's Specialty Foods was started by George and Helen Phiripes and is now operated by George's son Nick and Nick's son Theo.
Chesapeake Energy in the guise of one of its alias, Texas Midstream, want to take the Phiripes' property to run a pipeline from a couple Barnett Shale drilling sites Chesapeake has drilled and frac'ed.
I'm assuming this is another non-odorized natural gas pipeline like what Chesapeake tried to ram under Carter Avenue.
This morning I got an interesting comment to the blogging about George's Specialty Foods closing.
The commenter's name is Jim Bowe. Mr. Bowe has some interesting things to say regarding Chesapeake, and the City of Fort Worth's, rush to abuse eminent domain to steal citizen's property....
Now that all the bad publicity generated for two years by the Carter Ave. pipeline fight has come to an end, it appears that the gas drillers and the city need to make up for lost time and start putting those gathering pipelines in ASAP.
That sector of gas drilling operations officially employed the outgoing TRR commissioner Victor Carillo as a consultant a few weeks ago---even while he's still in office. They also must hurry up because the legislators are fixing to meet next year and their man's prospect for another term as ruler, uh "mayor", of FW is not as secure as before.
Gathering pipelines and eminent domain abuse appear to be the new hot issue in 2011.
I guess we can help these business folks the same way we helped the residents on and near Carter Ave.: by keeping the story in front of the public and uniting to raise funds for legal defense. Not sure how much was raised to help those people on Carter Avenue fight for so long and then win an impossible victory. There must have been tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars collected in order to pay for a team of legal specialists to work on the case for two years.
Whatever money left from that Carter Ave. pipeline legal defense fund should be used to support these folks--if they want the help or their lawyer/s approve, of course. It would seem that these business owners have more financial resources than the working class folks on Carter, but they are going to need all the help they can get in going up against a multi-billion dollar corporation and its close city allies, though.
Well, Jim, I can tell you that no fortune of money was raised to save Carter Avenue. What happened was one brave Texan, Steve Doeung, fought back, alone at first. Steve acted as his own attorney. Because he could not afford one. Early one it was Steve alone, with Don Young pretty much being his only comrade in arms.
And then, it seemed to me, that a lot of people sort of got outraged over the bad behavior of the city and of Chesapeake. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram did not do too much to expose the dirty dealings. But, FW Weekly, did. Then various bloggers kept pounding away on the issue.
From what I've learned, from observing this, the people fighting Chesapeake Energy and the City of Fort Worth, can not expect any semblance of fairness if you get into a Fort Worth courtroom. What you can expect is to experience corruption up close. I'd never actually gotten to witness corruption up close til I spent time in a Fort Worth courtroom.
Why hasn't FW Weekly done a story on George's Specialty Food closing to fight eminent domain abuse? I can't help but wonder.
2 comments:
Durango, that is quite shocking to hear that no legal funds or any professional assistance was available to help the Carter Ave. folks. After reading the profile in the FW Weekly, I'm surprised that Steve Doeung has not received more exposure because so many things about this man's background, his inner strength in the face of many challenges life handed him, and the incredible way that he somehow managed to push himself to fight a practically impossible battle in spite of his physical limitations and financial-political disadvantages. This is the material for a feature cover story in some national magazine or even a book or a film about the power of the human spirit along with the additional power of that fading American charateristic: neighbors and even strangers who come to the aid of a fellow citizen and human being. Not for personal benefits but out of the sense of decency and humanity (and in spite of personal sacrifices, such as DY's solitary support and your steadfast "speaking truth" through "the power of the pen" , and positive role that modern communications provide(more than self-absorbed facebooking, merchandizing, superficial textings and tweets, etc.). It is very telling that the mouthpiece of the power establishment compromised their journalistic integrity by ignoring this compelling story with national exposure (I first heard about Carter Ave. on CNN!!).Thank goodness for bloggers with a healthy moral compass like yourself. Now I'm REALLY INTRIGUED BY WHY THE CITIZENS OF FW DID NOT SET UP A LEGAL DEFENSE FUNDS OR ENLIST SOME KIND OF LEGAL AID FOR THIS BALLSY GUY (EXCUSE MY YANKEEISM). Because as this George family case shows, "YOU/YOUR LOVED ONES" could be the next prey facing the awesome power of eminent domain in the hands of greedy corporations (WHY??)Like old Ben Franklin said: we can hang together, or hang separately. Keep up the good work, Durango.
Some one should check out a creepy guy named james ayres(used to work for the city)and his crony carter burdette(elected official).
If your talking about corruption then these two guys really need to be looked at. I know payoffs are illegal but that's how politics work in Texas unfortunately. The Fort Worth weekly would have a field day with these two for corruption.
James Ayres started a bogus neighborhood association behind George's to try and help get the pipeline passed then he harassed Nick for months I witnessed him almost stalking the poor guy about letting chesapeake through.
He even bought land on one of the streets to give chesapeake an easement to start with.
When Nick finally ran James off chesapeake started sending land men daily to harass him he could barely work a day not having to deal with these guys who were relentlessly coming in to his store. Continuously asking him to sign a lease telling him that "It doesn't matter what you want you might as well make some money on this because they are going to get your land with eminent domain sooner or later if you don't sign. They always win". The railroad commissioner has let these guys get away with murder long enough sooner or later all these guys and corporations will be held accountable gasland may be a reality here in Fort Worth.
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