But few seem to care.
Part of the problem, scandal discovery wise, is that Tarrant County does not have a real newspaper of record.
Tarrant County does have FW Weekly, which is a legitimate newspaper.
But, Tarrant County's big paper is the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a newspaper with all sorts of problems.
FW Weekly is a small, free, weekly. You can hardly expect FW Weekly to manage to cover every scandal that scandalizes this part of the country.
And so the scandalizers are free to do their scandalizing, feeling fairly secure that no bright light will be pointed at them.
In the current issue of FW Weekly the cover story, "A High-Priced Can of Worms" is a good look at the scandals that are rocking Haltom City.
For those reading this who are not locals, Haltom City is a suburb of Fort Worth. Haltom City has creeks running through it. Those creeks flood. Those creeks have been flooding for decades, at times deadly. But very little has been done to mitigate the flooding. While almost a $1 billion is being spent in Fort Worth on an un-needed flood control project known as the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.
The Haltom City chronic flooding is not the Haltom City Scandal covered in this week's FW Weekly.
You can watch a movie documentary called Up A Creek, on this very blog you are reading right now and learn all about the flooding problems in Haltom City. Or go to Rahr Brewery tonight to watch the movie and drink some beer.
Regarding the Tarrant County Scandals. I know of the Haltom City Scandals courtesy of FW Weekly and someone who tells me about them in person.
Other Tarrant County Scandals I know of only because someone has contacted me because they desperately want people to know about something.
For example, Arlington's Kim Feil has been trying to find out what really happened at a Chesapeake Energy gas pad in Arlington, during a storm on April 11, 2011.
It was serious. 911 was called. Fumes entered homes. But no local news media, as far as I know, has looked into this incident. That, in and of itself, is sort of scandalous.
But, you have to realize, this area is currently under the thumb, sort of, of Chesapeake Energy. Read the FW Weekly article, linked to above, about the Haltom City Scandals, for an example of that.
It seems sort of sad to me that local citizens reach out to my lonely blog because of feeling desperate for help or answers or both.
Another scandal that I have witnessed up close is the Paradise Center Scandal. The Paradise Center Scandal has gone un-reported, for the most part, in the local media. FW Weekly did mention the scandal on their blog. And one of the local TV stations had a small, very small, piece on it.
The thing with the Paradise Center Scandal is that you have to devote some time to be able to understand it. When a cry for help went out on February 17, I did not know what the problem was.
It took me about a week before I figured out that this was serious business, what was done to the Paradise Center by MHMR-TC.
I had no clue if it would do any good or not, but, I was getting so many comments about the Paradise Center Scandal to my Durango Texas blog that I decided to make a Paradise Center Scandal blog.
Well.
I tell you, it has been like Watergate. Revelation after revelation. Lies, obfuscations, character assassinating. As the weeks went by it became apparent that the Paradise Center Scandal was just a symptom of a bigger overall scandal involving the Mental Health Mental Retardation Tarrant County Agency and its controversial CEO, Jim McDermott.
If you read through the Paradise Center Scandal blog and read the comments, it becomes real clear that this is a story that should be being reported to the people who live in this problem-laden, scandal-ridden zone, by the local Fourth Estate, which is pretty much, FW Weekly.
So, what other Tarrant County Scandals are out there that no one is being told about? Are there Fort Worth School Scandals beyond the ones that have made the news?
When a gas pad goes bonkers in Arlington, making people ill, and that is not considered newsworthy, well, that is scandalous.
2 comments:
While everyone was trying to save a river, Paradise (the disadvantaged nonprofit) , and a city (FW election), Jimmy McDermott and MHMR-TC were busy getting another local politician in their pocket. Check out who all little Jimbo has got in his pocket by using his own 501(c)3 nonprofit called Vision (www.mhmrvision.org).
So many visionary leaders in one little county...their heads dancing with visions of how to exploit the public trust for private gain. I forgot that we're pretty much in Boss Hogg and JR Ewing territory.
I think FW is the biggest "little town" in the country. Y'know, in little towns, where a few families are the elite, run everything, their kids win everything at school, the dad owns everything, the mom is the volunteer of everything. And the only people who really have any chance of "winning" in a small town are WHITE (yep, I played the race card!), BACKED BY MONEY (theirs or special interest business), GIVEN POWER BY PEOPLE (because "that is how it's always been", a common problem in small towns), and ARE NOT HELD TO THE SAME STANDARDS AS THE REST OF THE COMMUNITY. I though that moving from Houston to FW would not be such an adjustment, with Dallas just down the road. Was I ever wrong! Houston is metropolitan, with different culturess, races, and socioeconomic groups, co-existing and making the city a better place. I hate this little town of FW, with over a half a million people and only about 1% or so of them voting to elect decision makers. That is how people GIVE POWER to the same old people and DO NOT HOLD THE LEADERS TO THE SAME STANDARDS AS THE REST OF THE COMMUNITY.
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