Just asking---is the Star-Telegram running out of photographers? Front page of today's S-T has a picture of Kay n J.D.'s PLAYHOUSE. Looks about the same condition that the bridges were in a year or maybe TWO YEARS AGO. Is this a REPRINT?
I had no idea what these people were talking about til Elsie Hotpepper sent me the link to this latest bizarre Star-Telegram propaganda puff piece, with the odd title you see via the screen cap.
This up-and-coming area is so hot that developers can expect new fees.
The up-and-coming area which is so hot is the industrial wasteland known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District, or more commonly known as America's Biggest Boondoggle. That being an inept pseudo public works project the public has never been allowed to vote on, which has been boondoggling along for almost 20 years, according to the article.
Way back in 2005, Kay's son, J.D., to whom Le Mastadon refers, was made the executive director of what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle. Those privy to know such things believe J.D. was given this job, for which he had zero qualifications, to motivate his mother to secure federal funds for the imaginary economic/flood control scheme which was originally touted as being vitally needed, but which was not so vitally needed that the public has ever been asked to vote to help fund the project, and which was so vitally not needed that the project has not come to any sort of useful fruition, even after almost two decades of being an ongoing boondoggle embarrassment for the already boondoggle embarrassment rich Fort Worth.
Okay, now let's take a look at the propaganda in this latest bizarre Star-Telegram propaganda puff piece.
First paragraph...
Construction on three landmark bridges that are a part of the $910 million Panther Island flood control and economic development project downtown will be joined by a fourth bridge, but instead of federal dollars this one will be paid for by Fort Worth taxpayers and by using impact fees paid by developers.
What? Another bridge being built in slow motion? But this one paid for by the locals? And once again the Star-Telegram refers to these three simple little bridges under slow motion construction as "landmark bridges".
Landmark?
The Star-Telegram is actually suggesting these pitiful low rise bridges are going to make a mark on the land, becoming some sort of landmark iconic image recognizable as being a Fort Worth landmark by all who see these little bridges, if they ever become anything anyone can see?
And then, regarding this fourth bridge and the new fees paying for it, we read this...
The most recent proposal includes the 800-acre Panther Island and identifies two projects that would be built using money collected from impact fees: the $7.5 million road and bridge connector and $2.5 million in intersection improvements at White Settlement Road and Main Street. There is no timetable for when those projects will be done, only that they could happen in the next 10 years.
Does anyone else make note of the fact these Star-Telegram propaganda pieces make so much use of conditional language? Such as "would be", "could happen".
And for once a Star-Telegram article admits an aspect of this pseudo public works project has "no timetable". There has never been any legitimate timetable for any aspect of what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle. Such as those three simple little bridges began being built with a TNT celebration bang four years ago, with an imaginary four year construction timeline, which we learned recently has been stretched to 2020.
And then this paragraph, with more conditional language...
It is the first time since the city started assessing transportation impact fees a decade ago that an inner city area is being included. Construction on the first residential development, Encore Panther Island, a 300-unit $55 million project, is anticipated to begin soon.
More conditional language telling us construction on the Boondoggle's first residential development "is anticipated to begin soon". We have been hearing about this relatively puny private residential development for years now. Why is it not known when ground will be broken for this development? Have building permits not been applied for and issued? Has the infrastructure work begun? You know, water and sewer and power lines in the area of the industrial wasteland where some developer is supposedly ready to develop a place for people to live in this up and coming "hot" area.
Of course, no article in the Star-Telegram about America's Biggest Boondoggle would be complete without idiotic input from Kay Granger's favorite son, J.D.,
Three J.D Granger related paragraphs, including a choice insipidly idiotic J.D. quote...
JD Granger, executive director of the Trinity River Vision Authority, the entity overseeing the Panther Island project once known as Trinity Uptown, said the fourth bridge will be “simple” and provide pedestrian access to complete the circular boardwalk around the planned town lake where restaurants and entertainment amenities are expected to be built. It will also connect the two sections of the island separated by a canal and lake.
“It’s a smart piece,” Granger said, adding, “It won’t be an iconic feature. It won’t be high in the air.”
Granger said he believes it’s reasonable to add Panther Island as an impact fee area and that he doubts developers will balk at the fee because of the benefit it provides.
So, J.D. thinks this fourth bridge will be "simple" unlike those three other complex little bridges being built over dry land.
And regarding that fourth bridge,“It’s a smart piece. It won’t be an iconic feature. It won’t be high in the air.”
A "smart piece"? Unlike all the stupid pieces of what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle? Stupid pieces like the now defunct bankrupt Cowtown Wakepark? Or a stupid piece like sponsoring Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the e.coli, benzene, arsenic polluted Trinity River?
This fourth bridge won't be an "iconic feature"? Because "it won't be high in the air?"
Does J.D. Granger actually delude himself to think those three simple little bridges, which have been under construction for years, are going to be iconic, unlike this fourth un-iconic bridge, which may get built in ten years? And that the three simple little bridges will be iconic because he thinks those low lying bridges will be high in the air? High in the air is a bridge like that one in San Francisco called Golden Gate. or any of the other thousands of bridges in the world which actually span an actual chasm, usually over actual water, not dry land, often to connect to an actual island.
Granger thinks developers won't balk at development fees? Because the imaginary island provides so much benefit to imaginary developers that the imaginary developers won't balk at paying a fee to develop something on the imaginary island? At this point in time, why would any legit developer risk any capital making any investment in this yet to be "developed" industrial wasteland?
And then we have this paragraph in this embarrassing Star-Telegram propaganda...
Panther Island is part of a public works project that spans about 1,800 acres north and east of downtown. When completed, it will create an island about the size of the central business district that will include an urban lake, room for 10,000 residential units and more than 4.4 million square feet of space for offices, shops and restaurants.
The above has been the Boondoggle's spiel almost from the start. With the only changes being the name of the project and the size of the "lake", which is actually more of a widened spot in the river, than what any sane part of the planet would call a lake. And why do these people persist in calling this little pond an "urban lake"? Any lake in a city is an urban lake.
But then a sane part of the planet would not think it clever to refer to a chunk of industrial wasteland, surrounded by a ditch, as being an island, let alone name the imaginary island after a century's old imagined slight from a Dallas reporter who visited downtown Fort Worth, then returned to Dallas to report that Fort Worth was so sleepy he saw a panther sleeping on the courthouse steps, or some similar location.
Of course Fort Worth, in an earlier generation of the town's bizarre Dallas fixation, thought they'd really show Dallas what's what by nicknaming their town Panther City. And slapping that Panther label on this that or the other thing remains part of Fort Worth's pitiful civic pathology to the current day.
Ironically, well over a hundred years after that Dallas reporter saw that sleeping panther, downtown Fort Worth remains the sleepiest big city downtown in America, a virtual ghost town on the busiest shopping day of the year, due to there being so few stores in downtown Fort Worth attracting day after Thanksgiving shoppers.
And then this interesting paragraph which blithely references how long this boondoggle had been boondoggling along with absolutely no sense of the absurdity of such...
Paying for Panther Island has been an issue since the project was conceived of nearly 20 years ago.
And regarding paying for the Boondoggle, we have the final couple paragraphs from this latest embarrassingly inept Star-Telegram Trinity River Vision Central City Uptown Panther Island District propaganda puff piece...
In 2016, Congress authorized up to $526 million in funding for Panther Island as part of a package of $5 billion in water projects proposed by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. By 2017, the project had already received at least $53 million from the Army Corps of Engineers and $50 million in federal highway dollars.
Fort Worth has put $27.6 million in the pot through the 2004 and 2008 bond programs, the Water Enterprise Fund and the Tax Increment Financing District. Tarrant County has put in $11 million.
Yes, you in sane parts of America have been paying for this ongoing Fort Worth boondoggle, while Fort Worth and Tarrant County donate a pittance to the pitiful effort.
Has this up and coming hot area article been a paid advertisement placed in the Star-Telegram paid for by the Trinity River Vision Authority? Such was recently speculated after another propaganda piece seemed in total violation of minimal legitimate journalist standards.
How many more years is this boondoggle going to be America's Biggest Boondoggle? Apparently at least ten more years, or longer, while that fourth bridge gets slowly built....
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