My computer based weather monitoring device, this morning, is telling me at my location it is currently 61 degrees and foggy, with 100% humidity, heading to a high today of 81.
Changing the subject from my favorite one to one I find vexing.
That vexing subject being Fort Worth's propaganda purveyor that calls itself the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
This morning the Star-Telegram published a piece of propaganda titled "Love's eatery has given new life to river vision" written by a supposed reporter who appears to be a publicity agent for the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle and J.D. Granger, named Mitchell Schnurman.
The propaganda piece starts with...
If the Woodshed Smokehouse is any indication of what's ahead for the Trinity River Vision, maybe they could start digging that bypass channel a few years early. How will Fort Worth ever wait? The Woodshed is so good, so soon, that it gives the river project a jolt of new energy and even gives government a good name.
Yes, how will Fort Worth manage to wait for the un-needed flood diversion channel to protect the town from a flood? It seems to me, since this is such an important project, that it should be fast tracked, rather than built in the extremely slow motion way that Fort Worth is accustomed to building its public works projects.
The Woodshed is so good that it gives government a good name? A government entity, operating without openness and transparency, gives government a good name? The Woodshed gives the river project boondoggle a jolt of new energy? A restaurant built southwest of the area touted as the location of the TRV Boondoggle project has somehow given a jolt of new energy to the boondoggle? Really?
Apparently the Woodshed Smokehouse has taken in almost a third of a million dollars in its first month of operating.
Schnurman says....
Eventually, the water district will net several hundred thousand dollars a year, to be funneled into trail improvements and other river uses. That's great, but this was never about maximizing restaurant dollars, which is why some early critics had it so wrong.
I do not recollect any of the Woodshed/Granger critic's criticisms having anything to do with maximizing restaurant dollars. I believe the criticisms had to do with this being a backroom deal giving one specific restaurateur a sweetheart deal without allowing other local restaurateurs the option of competing. That and building a restaurant outside the "Uptown" development area seemed to stray far from what had been, previously, the "Vision."
They complained that J.D. Granger, executive director for the TRV Authority, hadn't asked for bids before signing a 10-year lease with Love. Texas law doesn't require competitive bidding for the water district, and that's fortunate, because Granger wasn't buying gravel for a riverbed.
I thought that previously the Star-Telegram revised its earlier version of how this sweetheart Woodshed deal came about, taking J.D. Granger out of the equation and claiming it was a Tarrant Regional Water District deal, not a J.D. Granger good ol' boy scheme. The Star-Telegram really should make an effort to keep track of its propaganda.
He was trying to prove that river development could be a big-time winner in Fort Worth -- that a prime location on the water might be worth three times more than land a few blocks away. Do that and stoke some pent-up demand, and a decade from now, the tax base would soar and the TRV economics would work.
The above is fascinating. Now the Star-Telegram, via Schnurman, is propagandizing us that the Woodshed deal was part of a brilliant scheme hatched by that savant, J.D. Granger, to prove that river development could be a big-time winner in Fort Worth. And that a location on the river might be worth a lot of money, proving, a decade from now, the tax base will soar and the TRV economics would work.
So, the TRV Boondoggle has been underway for quite some time. A lot of earth has been moved. A lot of businesses have been stolen via eminent domain abuse. Yet, even though all that took place prior to the building of the Woodshed Smokehouse, this restaurant was needed so that J.D. Granger could prove that river development could be a big-time winner in Fort Worth????
Yes, that really makes an awful lot of sense.
I need to go swimming now and experience the real world rather than the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
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