The title of the article?
As Fort Worth is all-in on Panther Island, what are our odds on this billion-dollar bet?
At the start of this new year I had said to someone that I was done making mock of Fort Worth's pitiful excuse for a newspaper and the way it does not cover the civic disaster which used to be known as the Trinity River Vision.
But then suddenly there was some hope among some that this pitiful excuse for a newspaper was finally acting as one. This optimism was due to multiple articles about Fort Worth's embarrassing Vision which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle. Also known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.
Or Ma Granger's retirement plan for her favorite son, J.D.
With people thinking the Star-Telegram was finally doing some honest reporting about The Boondoggle I felt compelled to point out that these articles were all the same lame propaganda nonsense the Star-Telegram has been spewing this entire century whilst The Boondoggle has been boondoggling along.
Let's just look at those three simple little bridges The Boondoggle has been trying to build over dry land for over four years, connecting the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.
In none of these "new" Star-Telegram articles have you read any information as to why this simple bridge building project has been a construction eyesore and traffic impediment for so long. Is it a funding issue? Is it an engineering issue? What is the problem?
And now yesterday's new piece of embarrassing dumb Star-Telegram propaganda.
Just the title is blatant propaganda.
Neither Fort Worth (or America) is "all in on Panther Island".
I'm sure the article author thought they were being extremely clever with the first paragraph...
Long before I listened to talk of Panther Island, I watched Gilligan’s Island extensively. I’m now an expert on fabricated islands.
Comparing Fort Worth's embarrassment to one of the most embarrassingly dumb shows in TV history seems apt.
And then there is the next paragraph...
I’ve listened to the pros and cons of Fort Worth’s Panther Island project since arriving here last October. For a lot of it, I’ve felt a little like Gilligan — who, when caught in the middle of two other people’s argument, would alternatively take both sides.
The author has been in Fort Worth for six months and now feels informed enough to share insights?
A couple paragraphs deeper into the article...
The $1.16 billion plan to cut a bypass channel for the Trinity River north of downtown to reduce the chance of catastrophic flooding would also, as a happy byproduct, create an 800-acre, ripe-for-development man-made island surrounded by riverfront and crossed by canals.
The author has only been observing for six months, so let me be the first to tell this person the fact that that bypass channel has nothing to do with reducing the chance of catastrophic flooding. Catastrophic flooding has been prevented in the area in question for well over a half century, ever since levees were constructed to prevent such a thing.
However, other areas of Fort Worth, and Tarrant County, are subject to catastrophic flooding, with those potential catastrophes not addressed.
And then we have the following gem of blatant propaganda...
Supporters are supremely confident in the project, in vast public support for it as expressed in a $250 million 2018 bond election, and in the prospect of roughly half the money coming from Washington, D.C.
Vast public support? That 2018 bond election was a May election, held when few vote. With the wording on the ballot measure thought by many to be criminally fraudulent, invalidating the election results.
And then this bit of idiocy...
And let’s face it: They need to pull it off. Desperately. With more than $300 million expended, three massive bridges in the works and hundreds of thousands of tons of dirt turned, treated and hauled, if the Panther Island project were a poker game, Fort Worth has already gone all-in.
The Boondoggle needs to continue because thousands of tons of dirt have supposedly been turned? And three massive bridges are in the works? Massive? The Golden Gate Bridge is massive. and built in less than four years over actual deep, fast moving water. Anyone with any measure of common sense knows when something being constructed is massive. These three bridge are not massive. They look like freeway overpasses.
Read the article to read the latest J.D. Granger ridiculous misinformation quotes, followed by the following paragraph...
When you listen to Granger and Trinity River director of communications Matt Oliver — as some 150,000 have, in presentations over the past dozen years — other flood control measures sound inadequate.
Really? 150,000? Those presentations must have been at those public meetings The Boondoggle claims have taken place where citizens supposedly requested dozens upon dozens of imaginary amenities, which The Boondoggle has added to the boondoggle. I have yet to hear from anyone who has been to a meeting where public input has been solicited, including people who live on the bluff which overlooks the mess which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.
And then this following propaganda gem...
And look what the project has already done. It’s remediated some 82 environmental sites, removing 380,000 tons of hazardous material from soil that once was home to foundries, a refinery, auto scrap yard, a battery reclamation center, a Styrofoam plant and a police firing range.
Really? 82 environmental sites remediated? 380,000 tons of hazardous material removed? Can the Star-Telegram please identify for us those 82 sites? And we are curious where those 380,000 tons of hazardous material were moved to.
The article author seems really taken with J.D. Granger...
It’s also intriguing to watch Granger’s excitement at the mere prospect of repurposing vintage bricks, removed from the Stockyards area and otherwise headed for scrap, to one day line walkways on Panther Island.
Yeah, I can imagine it is really intriguing to watch Granger get excited about removing bricks from the Stockyards to be used to line walkways. Where are these bricks currently stored, one can not help but wonder?
Awhile back I thought it might be fun to compile all the stupid stuff J.D. Granger has been quoted as saying.
But I have yet to go to the bother of doing so.
I remember my favorite is when J.D. Granger claimed he beamed like a madman whilst floating incognito at one of The Boondoggle's Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the polluted Trinity River, so pleased to hear person after person singing the praises of the brilliance which has caused so many to take an e.coli bath.
I wondered at the time what Granger's incognito disguise was. A wig? Groucho glasses with mustache?
Most articles in the Star-Telegram are lucky if they generate any reader comments. This morning I checked on this As Fort Worth is all-in on Panther Island, what are our odds on this billion-dollar bet? article and there are already three quite apropos comments...
Patrick Sheppard
Only time will tell! I still think if we, the citizens of Fort Worth, aren’t willing to foot the bill then it is a boondoggle! I’ve always wondered about “conservative” Fort Worth wanting the federal government to pay for something for us instead of paying for it ourselves! Seems like we love to hate the federal government until we want something from them. 😉
Graeme Cowan
What a waste of monies. I don't buy into the flood threat. The Panther Island idea has missed its timing with all the other new residential and retail developments advancing in the past few years. Also, what is the timing of reopening White Settlement Road? Really...!!!???
Chris Serrano
I am over this project already it such a cluster f**k...& was from the beginning. Let Kay Granger & her son & Betsy Price flip the bill on their screw-up. Federal funding will never come to this project cause when they came to Betsy she couldn't produce any receipts for the project. It wasn't a surprise that Betsy wanted an audit folks. All they had to do was build along the Trinity. I've never been more ashamed of my city like I am now.
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And there you have it. One more chapter in an ongoing perplexing embarrassment in a town without a real newspaper...
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