A Look At Washington's San Juan Islands Takes Us To Fort Worth's Imaginary Island

I saw this view you see here, yesterday, on Facebook. A view looking east across some of the San Juan Islands, with the Mount Baker volcano towering over the scene. I grew up in the land between that volcano and the San Juan Islands.

I think it was the fact of growing up totally aware of what an island is, and looks like, that had me appalled near the beginning of this century, when the town I was then living in, at the time, Fort Worth, Texas, began a bizarre pseudo public works project hoping to divert water from the Trinity River, around a section of land, on the north end of downtown Fort Worth.

Creating an imaginary island.

Which already came to become called Panther Island. Even though that proposed water diversion has not yet happened, with a cement lined ditch, filled with Trinity River water, creating the imaginary island, with three bridges then connecting the Fort Worth mainland to that imaginary island.

So far, those three freeway overpass type bridges are the main thing that has been completed in what became known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

Or America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Near one of those bridges the Vision did see a roundabout built, with a million-dollar reflective homage to an aluminum trash can installed at the center of the roundabout.

Is the Fort Worth Star-Telegram still investigating trying to find out how it came to be that a million bucks was paid to buy that work of art?

For years, the entity known in short form as the Trinity River Vision employed J.D. Granger as the Vision's Executive Director. Granger is the son of Fort Worth Congresswoman, Kay Granger. It was thought giving Kay's son a high paying job overseeing the Vision that it would motivate Kay to support federal funding of Fort Worth's Boondoggle.

However, Kay never managed to help secure that funding. And then meandering moved Kay's congressional district out of the area of Fort Worth's Boondoggle. And so, J.D. Granger lost his Executive Director job after accomplishing little for so long.

Ironically, as part of the Biden Administration's massive Infrastructure bill, federal funding was secured, sort of, for Fort Worth's infamous Boondoggle. Adding to the irony, Kay Granger voted against the Infrastructure bill, what with her son no longer being gainfully employed executively directing the Boondoggle.

As the decades of Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision have limped along, I have often wondered if the Fort Worth locals just do not understand what an island is. 

The Wikipedia article about Washington's San Juan Islands gives one a good idea of what actual islands are. Some blurbs from that article...

The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the U.S. state of Washington known for rural Pacific Northwest landscapes and wildlife. Horseshoe-shaped Orcas Island, one of the main isles, is home to Moran State Park's old-growth forest and Mt. Constitution. San Juan Island is distinguished by the lively seaside town of Friday Harbor and Lime Kiln Point State Park, an orca-whale lookout.

At mean high tide, the San Juan Islands comprise over 400 islands and rocks, 128 of which are named, and over 478 miles (769 km) of shoreline.

In the archipelago, four islands are accessible to vehicular and foot traffic via the Washington State Ferries system.

An archipelago with over 400 islands, 128 islands with names. Not one named Panther Island. One is named Orcas, though, named after Puget Sound's beloved killer whales. Four islands accessible by ferry boat. 

One will not need a ferry boat to get to Fort Worth's imaginary island. All you'll need, if the "island" ever happens, is a car, to drive over one of the three little bridges which cross over the cement-lined ditch...

After Decades Work Is Supposedly To Begin On Fort Worth's Panther Island Boondoggle

What?

Is the Fort Worth Star-Telegram really trying to sell propaganda that work on Fort Worth's imaginary island is about to begin?

About to begin?

I recollect that that which has become America's Biggest Dumbest Boondoggle began, decades ago, around the start of the new century.

And now, after all this time, the Star-Telegram is saying work is about to begin and asking when it can be expected to be done?

The Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District recently got a chunk of the infrastructure bill which recently passed. Something like $403 million, approved by the Army Corps of Engineers.

What?

Did that needed feasibility study get done and showed that this supposed flood control economic development scheme was feasible and within the normal scope of an Army Corps of Engineers project?

How does the Army Corps of Engineers explain this flood control project in an area which has not flooded for well over half a century, while other areas of Tarrant County have had deadly, property damaging floods?

And what becomes of J.D. Granger now? He was hired, years ago, as Executive Director of the Trinity River Vision, so as to give his mother, Congresswoman Kay Granger, motivation to secure federal funding for Fort Worth's ridiculous Boondoggle.

Kay Granger failed to deliver. And voted "NO" on the infrastructure bill.

J.D. Granger has been paid will over a million bucks, plus perks, and other benefits, during the course of this project which has limped along for years.

Does anyone actually know what J.D. Granger has done all these years which has warranted paying him over a million dollars?

And now that J.D. Granger has zero use as a motivation for his mother to seek federal funding, isn't it time to remove J.D. from this project?

The absurdity of an unqualified person being hired to oversee a public works project has been painfully obvious for years. Just about anytime J.D. Granger has said anything in the press or elsewhere it was apparent he was in way over his head.

I expect the next chapter in this ongoing Boondoggle to be something along the line of digging the diversion channel being far more complicated than originally thought, thus needing more money. 

And that when the cement lined flood diversion ditch is dug under the three bridges which took seven years to build, that the digging is going to cause a catastrophic failure of one of the bridges... 
 

Are The Fort Worth Grangers Scheming Fraudsters?

You reading this from other parts of America, and the world, may not recognize the pair of Texans you see here.

No, it is not J.R. Ewing standing next to Miss Ellie.

It is J.D. Granger standing next to Miss Kay.

Also known as J.D.'s Mama, Fort Worth Congresswoman, Kay Granger.

The past few days scandals have broken out regarding some nefarious celebrity types paying bribes in order to get their kids into schools which they could not get into on their own merits.

J.D. Granger used to be sort of a practicing attorney. It is known the law school J.D. graduated from is what is known as a Tier Level 4 school. My source for such is Fort Worth political historian, Clyde Picht.

It is suspected J.D. was unable to get into an upper tier law school, such as Harvard, Yale, or the University of Washington.

Back when it was time to get J.D. into law school his mother likely lacked the funds to bribe for something better, and had little political pull to yank on her son's behalf.

I do not know if Texas requires someone to pass any sort of bar exam in order to become a practicing attorney. I would not be surprised if all Texas requires is proof of graduation from any accredited law school.

Such would explain how the likes of J.D. Granger could become a lawyer.

Now, back to that fuss being made over those TV stars paying bribes to get their kids into a school for which they were not qualified.

When the entity known as the Trinity River Vision Authority was looking to hire an Executive Director there was not some sort of talent hunt, seeking the best qualified civil engineer experienced in directing such a project.

Instead the agency which oversees the TRVA, the Tarrant Regional Water District, hired local Congresswoman Kay Granger's son, J.D. for a job for which it is now painfully obvious he was not qualified.

J.D. was hired so as to motivate his mother to secure federal funds for that which eventually became America's Biggest Boondoggle, originally known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision Boondoggle.

J.D.'s mother has been unable to secure the federal funds it was hoped she would secure.

Hence America's Biggest Boondoggle limping along, becoming an ever bigger embarrassment to Fort Worth and its citizen victims who did not vote for this ill conceived, poorly planned, ineptly implemented civic disaster.

And so, tell me, why is it an epic scandal for those Hollywood celebrities to pay bribes to get their kids into a school for which they could not legitimately qualify, but it is not a scandal for someone like J.D. Granger to be given a high paying job he did/does not know how to do, as a sort of bribe to motivate his mother to dip into the federal pork barrel?

And why is it not a political scandal for Kay Granger to be a part of this scheme? How much money has J.D. Granger been paid, all totaled, all sources, during the course of his tenure as Executive Director of what is now America's Biggest Boondoggle?

Kay Granger knew her son's ability level better than anyone. She knew he would never make it as a lawyer, if the making it part of that equation was making a lot of money. Kay Granger had a strong motivation to help get her son into a well paying position, securing his future, and his future retirement.

The current project timeline of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle extends to 2028, about the year J.D. Granger hits retirement age.

What an accomplishment that will be, if the Grangers are able to milk this til J.D. can retire.

I suspect, though, that there are now strong forces in play which will derail J.D.'s retirement plan.

Perhaps the Grangers will be small players in the overall HUGE number of Republicans who end up indicted, tried and jailed before this Trump nightmare runs its corrupt, scandalous course...

America's Biggest Boondoggle Proudly Tweets Panther Island Ice Wall Progress

I saw that which you see here yesterday via Twitter.

A Twitter Tweet from the Trinity River Vision.

I have no recollection of choosing to follow the Trinity River Vision on Twitter. Does me seeing this Tweet mean the Trinity River Vision is following me on Twitter?

I don't know.

All I know for certain is I saw this yesterday on Twitter and my reaction to what I saw was, oh my, how pitiful.

Yesterday I blogged, yet again, about Fort Worth's ongoing embarrassment which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle, in a blogging titled Crickets Chirp while Fort Worth Politicians Promise Bridges Where There Is No River.

In that blogging, among many speculations, I speculated that maybe one of the reasons the Trinity River Vision has become such a Boondoggle is due to the fact that someone totally unqualified to direct such a project, J.D. Granger, was made this vitally un-needed flood control/economic development scheme's Executive Director.

Over the years of J.D. Granger executively mis-directing this mess, his Frat Boy mentality has left its mark on how this Boondoggle has developed.

With items like Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats on the polluted Trinity River. A beer hall called The Shack. Music events at an imaginary pavilion on an imaginary island. Various beer party events, such as Octoberfest.

And the first of the Boondoggle's "products" to go defunct, the highly touted, by J.D. Granger, Cowtown Wakepark, which Granger touted as providing the much coveted sport of wakeboarding in an urban environment.

How is the Coyote Drive-In, that being the world's first drive-in movie theater of this century, doing?

The above Twitter Tweet Tweeted the news that progress is being made on Panther Island Ice, that the ice rink's walls were being put into place.

Yes, you reading this in sane locations in America, America's Biggest Boondoggle, paid for with your tax dollars, installs a little temporary ice rink at the location of the aforementioned Coyote Drive-In, which has opened for skating for a few weeks for the past couple years.

Note how attractive the ice rink's structure is.

America's Biggest Boondoggle has quite a shoddy, tacky design aesthetic. As witnessed by that which is known as Panther Island Pavilion, which resembles no ones idea of a legitimate pavilion. Or the Boondoggle's beer hall appropriately called The Shack. Or the now defunct Cowtown Wakepark, which was a shoddy, tacky mess from its inception.

Note the signage surrounding the Boondoggle's ice rink.

America's Biggest Boondoggle loves its signage. No one knows how many of your tax dollars the Boondoggle has wasted on its ubiquitous signage.

Because Fort Worth has no real newspaper making inquiries into such things.

How much did all those embarrassing plastic directional signs cost which have been stuck along the Trinity Trails? These signs look like some nimrod's bad idea of futuristic, such as what one may have seen at a world's fair in the previous century.

Has Cowtown Wakepark been whited out on those embarrassing directional signs?

When is there ever going to be any accountability for Fort Worth's embarrassing Boondoggle?

When are the people of the town going to quit being sheep and put a stop to the nepotism, and demand J.D. Granger be fired?

And elect someone with a functioning conscience, to replace his mother as the town's congressperson?

Crickets Chirp while Fort Worth Politicians Promise Bridges Where There Is No River

This morning I was searching for a photo of Nikita Khruschev and Shirley Maclaine when I came upon that which you see here.

A quote from one of my favorite dictators of the Soviet Union, the aforementioned Nikita Khruschev opining....

"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river".

Well.

Guess what came to my mind when I read what Nikita had to say?

If you guessed an American town building bridges where there is no river, proudly trying to build these bridges over dry land, you know, to save money, when there will never be water under those bridges until a ditch is dug under them, with water added to the ditch, well, you guessed right.

How Fort Worth's governing morons got away with spewing that ridiculous lie, the bridges being built over dry land to save money lie, has appalled me for years now.

The three simple little bridges were being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island because there was no funding to pay for digging the ditch into which the Trinity River could be diverted. And if that ditch had been dug at the same time the bridges were being built there would be no water in that ditch until the Trinity River was diverted into the ditch.

In other words, there never was any other option than to build those three simple little bridges over dry land.

And yet the BIG LIE about the bridges being built over dry land in order to save money.

Repeated over and over again.

I point you to the Wikipedia article about the Big Lie for instructive insight into how propaganda works in a town like Fort Worth.

Fort Worth lacks any real newspaper doing this thing called journalism, reporting on this thing called news. Well, all the news. Fort Worth's fake newspapers do cover murders, mayhem and the rare construction of a new downtown Fort Worth building, and other things which do not contradict the party line of the good ol' boy network which runs Fort Worth in what is known as the Fort Worth Way.

In other words, run the town with a large dose of delusional propaganda.

So, unless I missed it, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth Weekly and Fort Worth Business Press have all failed to investigate, and report on, what has gone wrong with the building of those three simple little bridges.

What was the design problem which caused the long construction halt? What was the alleged solution to this design problem which allowed the slow construction to supposedly resume?

It was way back on Tuesday November 11, 2014 I blogged about a big TNT big boom announcing the three month late start of bridge construction at a big celebration hosted by those aforementioned Fort Worth government morons, such as Mayor Betsy Price, Congresswoman Kay Granger, and Granger's embarrassing son J.D., he the master of stupidly ironic quotes and Executive Director of what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle, of which those three simple little bridges are only one part.

I forgot to mention, when that TNT big boom marked the start of bridge construction those three simple little bridges being built over dry land had a four year construction timeline.

Four years to build three simple little bridges.

Over dry land.

Longer than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge, over deep, fast moving water, and other actual feats of engineering. Such as actual signature bridges built over the actual Trinity River in Dallas. Or the new Dallas Cowboy stadium, in Arlington.

The Dallas Cowboy stadium, also built over dry land, also costing over a billion dollars, would seem to be a more complex engineering effort than Fort Worth's three simple little bridges being built over dry land, and the rest of Fort Worth's vitally needed flood control/economic development scheme known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, which has been boondoggling along for most of this century, built in slow motion, even though, you know, it's a vitally needed flood control/economic development scheme.

And an apparently lifelong employment opportunity for Kay Granger's son who had zero experience directing a project such as what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.

I wonder if there is any connection between this project becoming an embarrassing boondoggle and the project's director being an unqualified embarrassment?

There is one thing the construction of the new Dallas Cowboy stadium and Fort Worth's embarrassing boondoggle have in common. Both outrageously abused eminent domain to take property from its owners, including both bulldozing property whilst the owners still had not had their say in court.

But, with a big difference. Four years later Arlington saw a big new stadium and a Super Bowl where all that private property was taken.

Meanwhile in Fort Worth crickets chirp...

No Free Lunch With Hard Working Trinity River Vision Folks

 An amusing blog comment a couple days ago linked me to a not so amusing item about America's Biggest Boondoggle in action.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Has Anyone Seen Fort Worth's Imaginary 8.8 Million Visitors?":

Are the Trinity River Vision folks hard at work or hardly working? That's original, eh? I could work for the Eppstein group with comments like this.

Link: It's a working lunch kind of day...

______________

America's Biggest Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Vision Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision has been boondoggling along for most of this century.

Currently, next month, as in March, it will be a year since construction ground to a halt of the Boondoggle's simple little bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

Some of the people you see in the above photo have been on the Boondoggle's take for over a decade, such as J.D. Granger, on the right at the far end of the table. Next to J.D. is his girl friend, Shanna, who has also been on the take for a long time.

Due to the Boondoggle becoming such, taking a long, long, long, long time to do very little, these people have been securely employed for years longer than they would have been if this public works project was properly engineered and executed by actual trained professionals with a history of accomplishing such things.

Instead of hiring a trained professional the Tarrant Region Water District hired a low level county prosecutor, who happened to be the son of Fort Worth's congresswoman, Kay Granger, to be the Executive Director of this project, thus to motivate Kay to secure federal pork barrel money from you taxpayers in more prosperous parts of America.

Go to the Trinity River Vision Facebook page and you will soon be seeing examples of propaganda and hubris, such as you see below.

The comments on the Boondoggle's Facebook page can be best characterized as being embarrassing.

As in people gushing about how wonderful this project is, asking when will it be ready, many seeming to indicate no awareness that this Boondoggle has been limping along for years, with stalled bridges and failed wakeboard parks and cancelled polluted river floats.

To one of the commenter's questions asking when will this wonderful project be finished the Boondoggle's Facebook spokesperson replied that the project's "infrastructure is almost complete."

A month or two ago J.D. Granger told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the project's infrastructure should be mostly complete by 2023.

2023.

How many more years is this absurdity going to continue before there is an intervention?

Very perplexing...

Star-Telegram Propaganda About Trinity River Vision Moving Forward Slowly

Yesterday Elsie Hotpepper pointed me to a Facebook post from Colleyville City Councilman, Chris Putnam, which the Hotpepper apparently thought I would like to see. What follows is part of that posting....

The Star-Telegram has a full front page story this morning on the Trinity River Vision (TRV) in Fort Worth. The TRV is $1B economic development project that is a subsidiary of the Trinity River Water District (TRWD). The TRWD supplies all of our raw water, and is the primary source of the egregious rate increases and bill shock Colleyville and Tarrant residents are experiencing. The TRV is a Kay Granger led initiative and conveniently her son JD, a former assistant district attorney with no business experience, runs the TRV. If you want to know why your water bills are out of control look no further than this project.

Elsie Hotpepper later Sunday evening emailed me the link to the Star-Telegram's Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision moves forward with bridge construction article to which the Colleyville Councilman referred.

This article is basically a propaganda puff piece making a big deal over the fact that, after boondoggling along for years, America's Biggest Boondoggle has finally something to show regarding the three simple little bridges which began construction, with a BIG BANG, a year ago.

The article repeats, a couple times, the absurd propaganda that the bridges are being built over dry land because that is cheaper. When the fact of the matter is the bridges are being built in slow motion over dry land because there is no funding to dig the ditch to go under them, which will only be a wet ditch once the Trinity River is diverted into the ditch at some distant time in the future.

Some nonsense from U.S. Rep. Kay Granger....

“I feel very good about where we are,” said U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, who first turned her attention to the Trinity when she was mayor of Fort Worth more than 20 years ago. “We’re on time and on budget. The bridges are where people say, ‘Now I can see this.’”

J.D.'s mama turned her attention to the river 20 years ago and now, in 2015, she feels good about where we are? Supposedly on time and on budget, with a project with no project timeline and no budget. What an observation: People can now see a piece of one of the little bridges under construction. I can see a lot of people seeing that little V pier under construction and proclaiming, 'Now I can see this."

Towards the end of the article more gibberish from J.D.'s mama....

“You never get these projects funded at one time,” Kay Granger said. “What happened in the past is if you started a project it would be finished. This project will absolutely be finished and one of the reasons is Washington said, ‘We’re going to partner with you on this.’ There was an obligation because they made the local funds go first.”

So, that's the excuse for the slow motion project? These projects never get funded at one time. And Kay makes the very cogent observation that once you start a project you finish it. That may be true in other locations in America, not quite sure if that is true in Fort Worth. Washington said they are going to partner with Fort Worth on this? Is Kay channeling the spirit of George Washington or is she referring to the nation's capital? There is an obligation because some un-named "they" made local funds go first?

And then there is a bizarre quote from Kay's son, highly trained  project engineer, J.D....

“Trinity River Vision is going to happen,” J.D. Granger said. “It’s a matter of timing right now. We don’t have a reason to slow it down, but we have a commitment to slow it down if the funds come in at a slower pace than anticipated.”

What is J.D. defending here? Is he responding to the growing rumbling that this project has turned ridiculous with its slow motion project timelines, such as taking four years to build three simple little bridges to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island? It's a matter of timing? What is a matter of timing? They don't have a reason to slow it down? But will slow the project down if funds don't show up. Let me shout for a second.

THE PROJECT IS ALREADY SLOWED DOWN DUE TO LACK OF FUNDS YOU CLUELESS CLOWN.

There, I feel better now.

So, we have ourselves yet one more hard hitting Star-Telegram bit of investigative journalism exploring how a relatively simple alleged flood control, but in reality, economic development project has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Did the Star-Telegram ask why it is taking longer to build these three bridges over dry land than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge over swift moving, very deep, water?

Did the Star-Telegram ask if it did not make better engineering sense to be digging the ditch under the bridges at the same time the bridges are being built? Will it not cause a construction complication to dig the ditch with the bridges already in place?

Did the Star-Telegram ask what's happened with the first of The Boondoggle's projects to open to the public, that being Cowtown Wakepark? Currently closed.

Did the Star-Telegram ask how much of The Boondoggle's money was spent to build the lake for the now defunct Cowtown Wakepark, including the access road, parking lot and Trinity Trail changes?

If I have said it once I have said it more than once, Fort Worth suffers due to not having a real newspaper investigating real news in a town riddled rife with corrupt cronyism and nepotism....

Why No Residential Towers Are Currently Planned For Fort Worth's Imaginary Island

Continuing our popular series of bloggings about something I see in a west coast online newspaper, usually the Seattle Times, that I don't see in my current local newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, we have what you see here, from the aforementioned Seattle Times.

I have mentioned before that rarely does a week ago by where I don't read about some new construction project in downtown Seattle; new skyscrapers, convention center expansion, Pike Place expansion, or, like you see here, new residential towers.

The text under the artist's rendering of the two tall towers says developers are proposing a slew of new residential towers over 400 feet high seizing on the City Council's rezone of South Lake Union to allow for greater height and density. And that developers are high on building Seattle high-rises.

I have not seen a high rise rise in Fort Worth since I have been in Texas.

A  few weeks ago Mr. Spiffy made an observation regarding the current stagnant state of development in downtown Fort Worth. Mr. Spiffy suggested that no developer is going to be wanting to develop anything while America's Biggest Boondoggle has the status of downtown Fort Worth in a state of confusion.

Will the imaginary island be where new growth will take place? Will that be where the focus of downtown Fort Worth will shift? Those are the questions a developer would be asking. That and when is that project slated to be completed?

And then when the developer learns America's Biggest Boondoggle has no project timeline, will that would be a real deal killer?

The Trinity River Uptown Central City Panther Island Vision Boondoggle is supposedly an economic development project, combined with an un-needed flood control project.

If this project was projected to be such a boon to the economy of Fort Worth, then why is it not already completed? Why is the project being built in slow motion?

Well, we all know the answer.

America's Biggest Boondoggle became such because the project is funded in a piecemeal fashion.

America's Biggest Boondoggle is not a public works project approved by the voting  public approving a bond measure to finance a project for the public's benefit.

It was thought by the Perpetrators of the Boondoggle that hiring local congresswoman, Kay Granger's son, J.D., a lawyer with no project engineering experience, would motivate Kay to secure federal pork barrel funding via earmarks.

But, that plan fell apart when the era of earmarks came to an end. So, Kay has not been able to secure as much federal money as was hoped.

Lacking the money to see the Boondoggle's Vision in a timely fashion, the Frat Boy hired to motivate his mother to get money for the project began to initiate events like Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats. Along with goofy things like naming the area where the floating beer parties take place, Panther Island Pavilion, along with calling a chunk of land Panther Island, where there is no island, and where there will only be a pseudo island if the long delayed flood diversion ditch is dug to go under the three bridges being built in slow motion over dry land to connect the mainland to that imaginary island.

The Frat Boy also helped bring the popular sport of wakeboarding to Fort Worth by having the Trinity River Vision build a pond so an enterprise called Cowtown Wakepark could provide the wakeboarding experience to the Fort Worth masses yearning to stand on a board while a cable drags them over dirty water.

As we learned yesterday, Cowtown Wakepark is now closed. The first of what will likely be many failures in the ongoing debacle that is America's Biggest Boondoggle.....

The Incredible Alternative Universe Of J.D. Granger & America's Biggest Boondoggle

Why is it when I see a photo of these two the Manchurian Candidate comes to mind?

The young lady you see here is Fort Worth's Congresswoman, also known as the Queen of Nespot, Kay Granger, standing next to the Queen's heir, J.D.

J.D. is the executive director of a pseudo public works project currently known as Panther Island, also currently known as The Boondoggle, recently recognized as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

The Boondoggle being America's Biggest Boondoggle marks the first time Fort Worth has had the biggest of anything in America. I doubt this is making city's far and wide Green with Envy.

Over the years The Boondoggle has gone by various names. Trinity Uptown. Central City. Trinity River Vision. Panther Island. The Boondoggle.

I have heard various opinions as to when The Boondoggle began. I think some date the start of The Boondoggle to the start of initiating a name change. For instance, one might say The Boondoggle as Panther Island is two years into the project. While The Boondoggle as Trinity River Vision is nine years into the project. The Boondoggle as Trinity Uptown is 13 years into the project. Well, you get the idea.

Now, I have long said that my memory tells me The Boondoggle began way back in 1999. I remember soon upon my arrival in Texas learning of a Dallas Trinity River Vision for which Dallas voters had voted. Soon thereafter I recollect reading of a proposed similar Fort Worth vision. I remember thinking it odd, what with no mention made of a planned public vote. And also wondering if there was some sort of history of Fort Worth copying Dallas, what with the two visions seeming so similar, including both having three signature bridges.

Ironically, all these years later, Dallas has actually built one of its signature bridges, and a cool signature bridge it is, while Fort Worth long ago dropped the signature bridges and is now building three little bridges over dry land, with a four year construction schedule, far longer than it took Dallas to build its actual signature bridge over actual water.

I have had people tell me I am wrong when I say the Fort Worth Boondoggle has been boondoggling along since late in the last century. Some will date the start of The Boondoggle to 2002 or 2003. Some as late as 2006, that being the year Kay Granger's son was hired.

I believe it was early in this century, 2001 or 2002, that a Star-Telegram Sunday edition front page banner headline shouted something like "Trinity Uptown to Turn Fort Worth Into Vancouver of the South."

Well, turns out my memory is far more accurate than I give it credit for, with my memory validated by a quote from J.D. Granger.

Googling for info about The Boondoggle, I came upon that which you see below,  from the March 3, 2006 edition of the Victoria Advocate. I assume the Advocate is in the Victoria in Texas, not the one in British Columbia, though I can see where a British Columbia newspaper would be interested in a project slated to turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South.

This article has some jaw dropping, ironic, embarrassing quotes from J.D. and the man who hired him, the TRWD henchman known as Jim Oliver.

Nine years ago, when this article was written, the cost of The Boondoggle was still under a half billion dollars, at $435 million.

First paragraph...

J.D. Granger, whose mother is U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, will earn $110,000 a year and start work Monday at the Tarrant Regional Water District, said Jim Oliver, general manager of the district, which is spearheading the project.

$110,000 a year. In the almost 10 years J.D. has been boondoggling The Boondoggle he has been paid around a million bucks. So much money while doing so little. I wish my mama was in Congress.

Next paragraph...

J.D. Granger, 36, an assistant Tarrant County district attorney for eight years, also has worked in various volunteer roles during the planning for the Trinity Uptown project, Oliver said.

So, apparently, J.D.'s qualification for this job is he had various volunteer roles during the planning of what was then called Trinity Uptown.

And then a paragraph of common sense from Clyde Picht...

Former City Councilman Clyde Picht, who has long questioned aspects of the project and is running for the water district board, said J.D. Granger's appointment is "asking for criticism" and that his knowledge of water district issues is "certainly more limited than most people."

Yes, J.D.'s appointment was asking for criticism, what with that Queen of Nespot issue, and the idea that hiring a low level district attorney, with no project management experience, was a good idea.

Try and figure out what is being said in the following paragraph...

J.D. Granger's salary will come from water district funds, not federal money that Kay Granger is securing, Oliver told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Those funds do not come directly to the water district, he said.

What is Oliver's point? Federal money from Kay does not go directly to the district? And so the money paid to Kay's son does not come from wherever Kay's money goes, but instead comes from district funds? And how does Oliver differentiate where J.D.'s take is coming from, what with funds coming in from various sources? All ending up in the TRWD pot. What point is made by saying his salary comes from water district funds? What sort of shell game is Oliver trying to play here?

And then there is this additional bit from Oliver....

Oliver said he realized that hiring the congresswoman's son "would probably raise some eyebrows" but felt J.D. Granger was right for the job because of his familiarity and expertise on many facets of the project. Oliver said he thought about several possible candidates but did not conduct a job search.

Nine years later, with the Trinity River Vision now America's Biggest Boondoggle, is Jim Oliver still thinking J.D. Granger was the right man for the job? Why was the hiring of J.D. Granger left solely to Jim Oliver? And not the elected TRWD board members? How was this allowed? How did the un-elected Jim Oliver get this dictatorial hiring power? Did this power come from the same unseen entity who gave Oliver key power over newly elected TRWD board members?

And then this revealing quote from J.D. Granger which let me know my memory has been right all along as to when The Boondoggle began....

J.D. Granger said he's been working on the project "since it was just a vision, back in 1999. I bet I know about as much as any single person out there who's not been paid to participate in this," he said. "I know it inside and out, so there's not going to be any lag time."

No lag time? Nine years after getting hired, with little accomplished. No lag time? What about the incredible lag time of taking eight years to start construction of three little bridges over dry land with an equally incredible lag time of taking four years to build the little bridges, with the scheduled completion of the bridges 13 years after the hiring of J.D. Granger ? If that is not lag time, what does J.D. Granger consider to be lag time?

Next paragraph...

He (J.D.) said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to give final project approval in two weeks. He said he expects one of his first roles to be working with landowners whose property is needed for construction.

How cavalier of Granger. Working with landowners? Soon the working with landowners became abusing eminent domain to take property needed way in the future for those three little bridges and the ditch that one day may be dug beneath them.

And then the final three paragraphs from the Victoria Advocate article...

J.D. Granger said he considered running for the water district board when he was approached about working for the district.

He said his mother's involvement at the federal level strengthens his knowledge of the plan. And he said he will try to ensure that the federal price tag "doesn't get any higher."
County Commissioner Roy Brooks said he believes that J.D. Granger will do a good job but said "some people might not agree with me that there's no conflict of interest."

Well, count me among those who do not agree that there is no conflict of interest. I also agree with those who would say J.D. has not done a good job ensuring the federal price tag doesn't get any higher. It's only doubled since J.D. began his life's work.

I can not help but want to hear J.D. explain how his mom's involvement at the federal level makes his knowledge of the plan stronger.

So, there you go, Fort Worth has a public works project the public has never voted on, a project which began 16 years ago, in 1999. Fort Worth kids, now in high school, have never known a Fort Worth without a bizarre public works project being built in slow motion.

Fort Worth kids now in high school will soon be graduating in the town with the bragging rights to having America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Tell me again why anyone in their right mind would vote for a Tarrant Regional Water District incumbent board member?

Pondering Thirteen Months To Build The Empire State Building Over Dry Land & Fort Worth's Bridge Boondoggle

No. That is not the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth you are looking at here. What you are looking at is a small section of the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown New York City.

Today we are looking at that tall skyscraper in the center of the picture as the latest chapter in our popular series of bloggings about feats of engineering completed in a time frame of less than four years.

That skyscraper you see here is known as the Empire State Building. For several decades the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world.

Construction of the Empire State Building began on March 17, 1930. Construction of the Empire State Building was completed on April 30, 1931, with the grand opening the next day, on May 1, 1931.

The Empire State Building took around 13 months to build.

A year and one month.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, Texas, 85 years after the Empire State Building opened for business, a big explosion amid embarrassing braggadocio from local politicians, and others, marked the start of construction of three simple small bridges being built over dry land.

With those three simple small bridges being built over dry land projected to take four years to build.

Hardly anyone among the herd of local sheep questions this bizarre slow motion bridge construction's absurdly long timeline for such a simple project.

The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has been boondoggling along for well over a decade now. Yet there is only a peep here and there about the obvious fact that there is something not quite right about this allegedly vitally needed flood control and economic development project.

Clearly, judging by The Boondoggle's non-urgent, slow motion project progress there must not be much of a flood control problem or any economic development need.

If the Interstate Highway system, which began to be built in the late 1950s, was built on a Fort Worth time schedule, we would still be waiting for a freeway to exit Texas on in the direction from whence we came.

Near as I can tell no New York City congressperson's son was given a cushy job to be the Executive Director of the Empire State Building Vision.

However, former New York governor, Al Smith, did chair the construction company which built the Empire State Building.

Maybe former Texas governor, Rick Perry, could be hired to help with some aspect of the hapless Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

For the grand opening of the Empire State Building President Herbert Hoover dramatically signaled the opening by pushing a button in the White House which turned on the lights in the Empire State Building.

What with the start of construction of the Empire State Building beginning with a simple ground-breaking ceremony, not a TNT explosion like The Boondoggle's start of construction of its three little bridges over dry land, with such things needing to be proportional, what sort of amazing act is The Boondoggle going to come up with to mark the grand opening if its little bridges are finally ever able to carry traffic?

I suspect whoever is President, on that distant day in the future if The Boondoggle's bridges are ever finished, won't be pushing any button in the White House to mark the occasion.

That is, unless America goes totally mad and elects J.D. Granger's mama to the highest office in the land. One can only shudder to wonder what job a President Granger would give her favorite son.......

There Are Some Questions Jim Lane & Marty Leonard Need To Answer

What you are looking at here is a section of a mailer mailed to Tarrant Region Water District senior citizens, with that section being the section of the mailer which had a letter purporting to be from Fort Worth Mayor, Betsy Price, spreading the lie that a Dallas businessman is trying to do the nefarious deed of taking over Fort Worth's water.

Betsy Price really should be ashamed of herself.

It has now become quite clear that this TRWD board election is going to out-do the previous TRWD board election's level of propaganda smearing spewing from the TRWD incumbent's campaign.

However, I think this election the opponents are going to fight back.

With the facts.

Sometimes facts trump lies. Sometimes.

A series of a few Facebook posts which were posted in response to one of my Facebook posts is, maybe, an indicator of the facts the TRWD incumbents may be about to face....

Jeff Cooper These crooks drained Eagle Mountain Lake and Lake Bridgeport during a multi-year drought to increase property values along the river in Ft.Worth. currently most of the area lakes not under the control of these crooks are filled up with the rain this spring. But Eagle Mountain and Bridgeport have not increased at all, the flood gates are still open. Yet the river downstream from these lakes is full to the bank!

Jayne Marshall Yes, when the true story is TRWD wants to "take" land and Jim Lane is in real estate inflating land value the TRWD wants to buy! Sounds so much like the old Savings & Loan land flips!!!

Craig Bickley That only scratches the surface. Jim Lane also paid $18 million of your tax dollars to buy a property from a bankrupt college buddy that was only valued at $9M. We must put an end to the cronyism.

Jayne Marshall Boy would I like to follow that money!!

Craig Bickley Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be laying it out. The (not so) shocking fact is that the majority of our opponents' donors are people receiving contracts from the TRWD. Ours are from people who will never get a dollar of TRWD money.

The incumbent's propaganda makes the bogus claim that a Dallas businessman is financing an attempt to take over Fort Worth's water supply. While the TRWD incumbents get the majority of the funds they are using to spew their propaganda lies from the contractors who win no-bid contracts to do high paying work for the TRWD.

And how does Jim Lane justify his finagling to rescue his bankrupt buddy with $18 million of TRWD funds, to buy a property worth $8 million, on which the world's first drive-in movie theater of the 21st century was built?

If only Fort Worth had a real newspaper doing real investigative journalism, maybe we'd get answers to some of these questions. However, that newspaper was founded by a man who set the tone for that paper, a tone which continues to this day, with Amon Carter being a man who bragged he took a sack lunch with him when he had to do business in Dallas, so as not to spend any lunch money in that evil town.

One thing I'd like to see out in the open, is a thing I have opined about wanting to see previously. That being the record of the TRWD board meeting which led to the decision to hire Fort Worth Congresswoman Kay Granger's son, J.D., to be the Executive Director of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Don't records have to be kept and available to the public of all TRWD board meetings?

I can not be the only person on the planet who would like to read what was said which led to the hiring of a low level county prosecutor to run a big construction project for which he had zero qualifications.

I think the public learning the details of what led to the hiring of J.D. Granger is a particularly pertinent issue in this current TRWD board election, what with the Trinity River Vision now clearly a boondoggle, with little progress after years and years of paying J.D. Granger to be its director.

Unless, as progress, one counts that after 10 years, three small, simple bridges are now under construction, with an astounding four year project timeline.

And, unless one counts as progress spending a lot of money on a bizarre marketing campaign touting an imaginary island and events taking place at the imaginary island's imaginary pavilion.

If J.D. Granger is not held accountable for The Boondoggle's current sad state of slow motion to no motion progress and perverse things like Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats (and other events) in the polluted, brown Trinity River, then who is to be held accountable?

The TRWD board who hired him?

Yes. I think that sounds about right.

Which would mean the right thing for the voters to do would be to fire two of the board members who helped hire J.D. Granger, with those board members being Jim Lane and Marty Leonard, by electing Craig Bickley and Michele Von Luckner.

And then when the new TRWD board convenes for the first time first thing on the agenda should be the firing of J.D. Granger, followed by the firing of Jim Oliver.......

The Bertha Debacle Has Me Wondering How Long Til Fort Worth's Boondoggle Becomes A National Embarrassment

I read an interesting article in the Seattle Times this morning, titled U.S.snoozes while rest of world invests in infrastructure.

The article was interesting for a couple reasons, with the main reason being a look at  how America has fallen behind the rest of the world in the building of infrastructure megaprojects.

The article detailed some of the world's current megaprojects, like a subway tunnel under London and a rail tunnel under the Alps.

The other reason this article was interesting is it provided a real good example of how differently news is presented in a real newspaper of the paper of record sort, such as the Seattle Times, and how news is presented in a newspaper like the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

I'll copy that which contains that to which I refer...

The tunnel meant to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct seems to say much of what is wrong with American infrastructure. At $3.1 billion just to replace the viaduct, it sounds outlandishly expensive. Bertha, the tunnel-boring machine, was only recently rescued from useless underground purgatory. It was stuck so long it became a national embarrassment. 

Okay, can you spot what is in the above sentences which you would never read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram with its patented Chamber of Commerce type propaganda cheerleader type covering of what should be local news?

If you focused on the "national embarrassment" phrase, you found that which you would never find in the Star-Telegram in covering any of Fort Worth's many embarrassments.

Actually, I think the Seattle Times was doing a bit of humble bragging. Is the ordeal of the stuck Bertha tunnel digger actually well enough known, nationally, to be a national embarrassment?

Can you imagine reading something in the Star-Telegram like "The slow motion Trinity River Vision project, well into its second decade, has become a national embarrassment, with so little accomplished in such a long time."

Or, "The Trinity River Vision's TNT exploding fanfare to mark the beginning of construction of three bridges over dry land, to connect to a non-existent island, has become a national embarrassment."

Or, "The hiring of a Fort Worth Congresswoman's son, J.D. Granger, to be the Executive Director of the Trinity River Vision project has become a national embarrassment in the parts of America in which nepotism is seen as unethical and corrupt."

Or, "The Trinity River Vision's Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the polluted Trinity River at a venue called Panther Island, where there is no island, has become a national embarrassment."

There is another reason, besides the Star-Telegram's tendency to gloss over and sugar coat, that the Star-Telegram does not refer to any of Fort Worth's foibles as "national embarrassments".

That reason would be the fact that it is fortunate for Fort Worth that the town really is not on America's radar screen. The rest of America knows nothing about Fort Worth's many boondoggles, hence Fort Worth is spared, for now, from being a national embarrassment.

Methinks that may change, sooner than  later.

At some point the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle will reach the level of being 60 Minutes expose worthy.

It will be very amusing watching Kay Granger squirm as a 60 Minutes reporter asks  her to explain how it was that her son, a low level county prosecutor, was deemed to be qualified to run a public works project for which she was expected to secure federal dollars.

Or when that 60 Minutes reporter asks J.D. Granger to explain, in detail, how it is that building three bridges over dry land saves money and why it is those three small, simple bridges are projected to take four years to build.

Or when 60 Minutes asks J.D. Granger to take them on a tour of Panther Island  At that point America will be giggling and Fort Worth will have finally achieved national embarrassment status......

One Year To Build A Floating Bridge While In Fort Worth It Takes Four Years To Build Three Bridges Over Nothing

No, that is not some sort of artist's rendering of a Trinity River Vision Boondoggle bridge you are looking at here.

What you are looking at is a pair of floating bridges crossing Lake Washington from Seattle to Mercer Island.

Mercer Island is a real island, not an imaginary island of the sort to which Fort Worth builds bridges.

The bridge on the left was built in one year, opening to traffic on June 4, 1989.

Yes, you read that correctly, this bridge was built in one year. And, obviously, unlike the Fort Worth Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing, this bridge was built over water. Actually built on water, what with that floating thing.

That train you see crossing the bridge is a Link Light Rail train, heading towards Bellevue, Redmond and the Microsoft campus. This particular link of the Link Light Rail system was approved by voters in 2008.

That approved by voters thing is what caught my attention when I read the Wikipedia article about Link Light Rail after a fellow former Pacific Northwesterner asked me if I knew what the current status was of the Seattle zone's light rail projects.

Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has never been voted on by the local voters. Due to lack of funding this project relies on federal handouts, courtesy of J.D. Granger's mama, Kay, who recently somehow sent $17.5 million more of those federal dollars to her boy's playpen, under the guise of the money coming from the Army Corps of Engineers, for some supposed flood basins about which no one knows anything.

If Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision had been the result of a public debate and a public vote the result likely would not be the embarrassing slow motion boondoggle we now see, with three simple bridges taking an astounding four years to build, with no project timeline for the rest of the project, such as the digging of the ditch over which the bridges are being slowly built.

I have extracted five paragraphs from the Wikipedia article about the Seattle zone's Link Light Rail. These five paragraphs are a very instructive example of how things happen to get done in progressive, democratic parts of America....

In November 1996, voters in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties approved increases in sales taxes and vehicle excise taxes to pay for a US$3.9 billion transit package that included $1.7 billion for a light rail system, including Central Link and Tacoma Link. Over the next several years, debates raged over various issues surrounding the Central Link line.

Sound Transit's Phase 2 plan, under the name of ST2 (Sound Transit 2), is the plan for the second phase of Link Light Rail expansion. ST2 was put before voters in November 2007 as part of the "Roads and Transit" measure, which included hundreds of miles of highway expansion along with the light rail, but failed to pass. Sound Transit then put another ST2 plan on the ballot in November 2008. The measure passed by large margins. The plan will extend light rail to Lynnwood Transit Center in the north, S. 272nd St. in Federal Way to the south, and Downtown Bellevue and Overlake Transit Center to the east.

Northgate Link Extension is a future extension of Central Link partially approved by voters in November 2008. It will connect the University Link project currently under way to a central University District station, Roosevelt, Northgate, and points north. Once Northgate Link Extension is complete, the major urban centers of downtown Seattle, Capitol Hill, the University District, and Northgate will be connected via light rail. It is a top priority for Sound Transit as it will add over 40,000 daily riders to Link Light Rail by 2030, easing pressure on the Interstate 5 corridor.

Proposition 1, the measure on the ballot in 2008, included extensions of Central Link north to Lynnwood Transit Center, via the stations described above and Jackson Park, Shoreline, and Mountlake Terrace. The ballot measure also includes funding for a study to develop possible routes for a future extension of Central Link to Everett. As the extension to Lynnwood Transit Center will be finished in 2023, it can be assumed that an extension to Everett would not be completed until well after that year. An extension to Everett would require a separate, future measure.

In November 2008, voters approved the construction of an East Link light rail line connecting the city of Seattle to Mercer Island and the Eastside communities of Bellevue and Redmond as part of the Proposition 1 measure. This line will split from Central Link just south of the International District/Chinatown Station in downtown Seattle, extend across the I-90 bridge express lanes through downtown Bellevue and serve the Overlake Transit Center, including Microsoft headquarters.

__________________________________________

What a concept. Voters voting to approve various measures, with public debates thrown into the mix, influencing the decisions made as to how to move forward. With a project actually moving forward in a timely fashion.

And the result?

A complex public works project coming to fruition, with the public enjoying the benefits of that for which they voted.

No local Congresswoman's unqualified son hired to direct the project so as to motivate his mama to secure pittances of federal funds.

A project with a project timeline, with actual construction goals, publicly stated. A pubic works project which authentically integrates public opinion into decisions made, not make believe "user requested amenities" of ridiculous sorts of the type The Boondoggle claims results in their fairy tale nonsense, like the Gateway Park Masterplan.

Four years to build Three Bridges Over Nothing.

Longer than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge. Longer, by far, than it took to build the world's newest floating bridge. Longer than it took to build Grand Coulee Dam. Longer than it took to build the Empire State Building. Longer than it took to build the Panama Canal. Longer than it took to build Disneyland.

After well over a decade of Trinity River Vision nonsense what has The Boondoggle seen of its myopic vision?

Rockin' the River Happy Hour Floats in the polluted Trinity River. A tacky music venue bizarrely named Panther Island Pavilion, where there is no island, where there is no pavilion. A beer hall called The Shack. The first drive-in movie theater of the 21st century. Plastering a plethora of signage in all sorts of location, now touting the imaginary Panther Island.

And those bridges, those three very ordinary, very small bridges, being built over dry land, with The Boondoggle's misleading propaganda claiming this construction method is being used to save money, with the ditch under the bridges dug later, when the truth of the matter is there currently is no funding to dig the ditch.

All Ma Granger has been able to come up with of late is $17.5 million, supposedly to dig some flood control basins, supposedly currently being dug, because J.D. Granger said that money he got from his mama and the Army Corps of Engineers was going to be quickly put to use, and it is supposedly those flood control basins those federal dollars are intended for....

Army Corps Of Engineers Gives Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Millions To Keep Project On Imaginary Schedule

A few minutes ago Elsie Hotpepper forwarded me an email from the entity known to some as The Buzz.

That email contained the following memorable phrase, bolded end enlarged, I assume for emphasis...

A politician can steal more with a briefcase than a 100 men with guns!

The above memorable phrase was followed by a website link to the City of Fort Worth website, which had me wondering what fresh hell is this.

I clicked the link to see that which you see above, that being a headline saying Corps of Engineers awards $17.45 million for Trinity River Vision project.

The article which followed the headline (and the bizarre artist's imaginary rendering of what The Boondoggle may look like) was short, so I will copy it in its entirety followed by what I have to say about that...

The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded $17.4 million to the Panther Island/Central City Project.

The funds will go toward “valley storage” projects, better known as flood control basins, along the river, said Clay Church, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. These funds allow the project to remain on schedule.

“We are honored that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recognizes this project as being worthy of funding and that we are capable of executing,” said TRVA Executive Director J.D. Granger. “We will work closely with USACE to put the money into construction projects immediately.

The Trinity River Vision Authority is responsible for implementing a public infrastructure project that provides needed flood protection and fosters the development of an exciting, pedestrian-oriented, urban waterfront neighborhood in Fort Worth. TRVA aims to attract business and entertainment to the district and is in charge of programming public spaces, including the Panther Island Pavilion, a waterfront music venue and festival space directly adjacent to downtown Fort Worth.

___________________________________________

I really do not know where to start.

Okay, first off, these federal funds are intended to go toward something called "valley storage" projects, better known as flood control basins?

Where is this valley? Where are these flood control basins?

In the second paragraph Kay Granger's boy, J.D., informs us that the money will be put into construction projects immediately.

Really?

And what would those construction projects be? Oh, that's right, those flood control basins, which are not currently under construction. So, how is it that this money will be put into construction projects immediately?

These funds will allow the project to remain on schedule?

Again. Really?

And what would that schedule be? There is no project timeline schedule for the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. Unless we count the four year construction schedule of The Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing.

Without these 17.45 million federal dollars The Boondoggle would not have been able to remain on its non-existent schedule?

J.D. is honored the Army Corps of Engineers recognizes this project as being worthy of funding? And that they are capable of executing the project?

If this project was worthy of being funded, why has funding not been found for this project in the way normal functioning towns fund public works projects? If this project is so worthy why has it not been put to any sort of public vote by which the public might indicate the public also feels the project is worthy and worthy of public funding funded by the public via their approval of a bond issue election?

The Boondoggle provides needed flood protection?

Once again. Really?

There has been no flooding in the area of The Boondoggle for well over a half a century. Not since the apparently now easily hoodwinked Army Corps of Engineers built flood control levees to control a flooding Trinity River as it passes by downtown Fort Worth.

The Boondoggle is "in charge of programming public spaces, including the Panther Island Pavilion, a waterfront music venue and festival space directly adjacent to downtown Fort Worth."

And one more time. Really?

The idea that the so called Panther Island Pavilion, and it being a waterfront music venue, is tout-worthy, is beyond embarrassingly absurd. If anything the shoddy tackiness of that which is called Panther Island Pavilion and its surrounding eyesores should be enough to send Panther Island to join Atlantis. It would be if this were happening in one of the more progressive, democratic parts of America, you know places which would not tolerate the nepotism of a local congresswoman's son being put in charge of a public works project so as to motivate her to help secure federal pork barrel earmark money.

I blogged about the embarrassing Panther Island Pavilion area a couple weeks ago after Taking A Look At The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Products.

Does the Army Corps of Engineers actually approve of outhouses being installed on the banks of a river?

That is the quality level of this project.

Concrete enclosed outhouses serving the Panther Island Pavilion waterfront music venue.

The Panther Island Pavilion outhouses are actual evidence of the quality level that J.D. Granger and The Boondoggle are capable of executing, which, apparently, the Army Corps of Engineers is endorsing.

To the tune of $17.4 million.

I tell you, the level of bald faced hubris of these people  is astounding.

Fort Worth Weekly Neglected To Award The Biggest Turkey In Town: Kay Granger

This week, due to this week being the week before Thanksgiving, Fort Worth Weekly's eagerly anticipated Turkey Awards issue hit newsstands all over Tarrant County.

The 2014 Turkey Awards award a large number of Tarrant County and Texans the coveted Turkey Award, including one of Tarrant County's favorite Turkeys, Bud Kennedy.

You can go to the online version of FW Weekly's 2014 Turkey Awards and read about all the Turkeys, but I want to focus on just one Turkey Award....

The Perks of Pedigrees Turkey Award

Thanksgiving is all about family and making sure your relatives have jobs at places that are a clear conflict of interest to your elected or appointed position. Wait — we’re thinking of Fort Worth’s rampant year-round nepotism, not Thanksgiving. When it comes to getting a high-paying cushy job in this town, seems that the best way to get ahead is to be related to some alleged public servant.

The Trinity River Vision staff reads like a social directory for the offspring of local politicians and high-ranking officials: Most notably U.S. Rep. Kay Granger’s son J.D. is its executive director, and the Tarrant Regional Water District’s head honcho Jim Oliver’s son Matt is the TRV’s public information officer.

Mayor Betsy Price was all over television shilling for the Ed Bass-led effort to get taxpayers to pay for his pet project, an absurdly high-priced arena. It would have been Fort Worth knowing (to borrow from those commercials) that her son-in-law works for Ed Bass’ real estate company and sits on the board of the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo.

I have been asked once, maybe twice, why I would say something as outrageous as to suggest that Fort Worth's Congresswoman, Kay Granger, is a corrupt politician.

Let me answer that corrupt question quite simply.

A non-corrupt politician, when told her son was going to be given a job in her district, for which he was totally unqualified, being the executive director of a public works project, with that project relying on attaining federal pork barrel earmark money to fund it, well, a non-corrupt politician would immediately object, saying you can not do that, it would be wrong, it would look bad, it would be nepotism of the worst sort.

But, Kay Granger willingly signed on to her unqualified son being given a cushy, high-paying job where he could act out as a textbook case of  a frat boy with arrested development, organizing floating beer parties, concerts, junkets and all sorts of other nonsense that has nothing to do with the construction of a flood control project.

In reaction to FW Weekly's 2014 Turkey Awards there were several comments, including one from a guy named Roy, which said, in part...

So what is it about the stunning nepotism at the Trinity River Vision? I have wondered for years why the most qualified person to run that boondoggle is apparently the son of the politician who corrals the jack for it. And NOBODY seems to notice or say anything about it. Is that what they mean when they say something is being done “the Fort Worth way?”

I find it gratifying that I am no longer alone in referring to the Trinity River Vision as a Boondoggle. In fact, I believe the number now is quite large who refer to this ill-conceived, poorly executed, never voted for by the public, public works project as a Boondoggle.

I have long shared the puzzlement that Roy is expressing, that being that NOBODY seems to notice, in a meaningful way, that something is dire wrong about how Fort Worth has gone about and continues to go about foisting the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle on the people who have never voted for it.

And yes, Roy, I have been told repeatedly that this is what is known as the Fort Worth Way. A corrupt town run by a corrupt oligarchy of good ol' boys and girls, who operate primarily in their own self interest, not in the interest of the majority of the people of Fort Worth.

All of them Turkeys worthy of an award.....

A Big Boom Begins Boondoggle Bridge Construction Three Months Late

This morning I saw a headline on the front page of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's online version regarding yesterday groundbreaking for the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing.

The Star-Telegram wanted me to pay 99 cents to read the article. I did not want to give the Star-Telegram 99 cents, so I did not read the article at that point in time.

An hour later Elsie Hotpepper, having used her underworld connections, sent me a link to the article, which allowed me to read it.

Below I share with you the entire article, plus the YouTube video that came with the article. The article also had a couple photos I found interesting, but I think they may need to be in a subsequent blogging because this one is already going to run long.

Reading the article several things caught my attention. Like in the first paragraph we are told a symbolic explosion of fire kicked off construction. Huh? What did this explosion of fire symbolize? A bad plan going up in smoke?

Then there's Mayor Betsy Price sounding defensive about the bridges being bridges to nowhere, with Betsy claiming they are "digging this over dry land because it is half the cost of building it over the channel." Really? I'd like to see the cost analysis on that. So, if The Boondoggle currently had the money they would not be in the process of building the urgently un-needed flood diversion channel? But would still wait on that for four years, while three bridges get built?

Again I read the Boondoggle's lake is to be 33 acres. Several years ago it shrank to about 12 acres. I must have missed the news that the lake changed size again. Maybe due to the ridicule the 12 acre proposed pond received? The 1.5 mile long channel will create an 800 acre island where waterfront development is planned? Surrounding a chunk of land with a ditch does not an island make. Nor does it create what most sane people consider to be waterfront.

You reading this in non-Fort Worth America, this article informs us that The Boondoggle still needs Congress to fund roughly half of the $910 million needed. Congresswoman Kay Granger, says that "without a doubt," she will secure the funds.

Apparently Kay Granger is not at all surprised at the length of time it is taking to secure those federal dollars, because she knew it was going to take a long time because “It’s the largest urban water project in North America. It’s huge.”

Really?

The only other urban water project currently underway in North America, which I am aware of, is Seattle's re-do of its waterfront seawall, along with replacing a section of waterfront elevated highway with a big tunnel, to the tune of several billion dollars. Already fully funded, with no unseemly begging, and a project timeline currently thrown off by a stuck Big Bertha tunnel boring machine.

I really like one of the J.D. Granger quotes.

“The two big things you’ll see over the next year are the three bridges coming out of the ground showing vertical construction — in addition to that, a lot of people have been speculative buying of property waiting for the first sign,” J.D. Granger said.

Does that part of that J.D. sentence that comes after the dash make sense to anyone? I think I know what he was trying to say.

Bridges magically coming out of the ground, showing vertical construction. What? As opposed to horizontal construction? As for the part of the sentence after the dash --- I think J.D. meant to say a lot of people have been waiting for a sign to do some speculative buying of property. I  think that has already been happening, resulting in things like 30 day evictions to hapless souls booted from their apartments. Speculative buying? I wonder how much of that amounts to a Fort Worth version of insider trading?

Anyway, below is the Star-Telegram article in its entirety. Don't miss the YouTube video at the end, where you'll get to see the symbolic explosion of fire and hear from J.D. and his mama.....

With a fiery explosion, construction begins on Panther Island bridges

BY BILL HANNA
billhanna@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH — With a symbolic explosion of fire, officials kicked off construction for the three Panther Island bridges, signaling the next phase in the massive Trinity River Vision Project.

Between now and 2018, the three bridges along Henderson Street, North Main Street and White Settlement Road will be built over dry land with the eventual goal of creating an urban waterfront neighborhood on the near-northside across from downtown Fort Worth.

It does not effect existing bridges over the Trinity River.

Instead, the spans will be the first phase of Panther Island, which will eventually include digging a new 1.5-mile-long channel for the Trinity River, creating a 33-acre lake and an 800-acre island where waterfront development is planned.

“This is not a bridge to nowhere,” said Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price. “We’re digging this over dry land because it’s half the cost of building it over the channel.”

The $65.5 million Texas Department of Transportation project was awarded to Texas Sterling Construction in May and is a joint project among the Trinity River Vision Authority, the city of Fort Worth, Tarrant County, the Army Corps of Engineers and the North Central Texas Council of Governments.

The three V-pier bridges will include access for pedestrians and cyclists along with lighting and landscaping. The North Main bridge will also have enough space for streetcars if the city ever decides to go that route.

“Those are important steps along the way,” said U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth. “It is the bypass channel that we have got to have funding for.”

To complete the project, Trinity River Vision still needs Congress to fund roughly half of the $910 million to complete the economic development and flood control project. The front end of the project was frontloaded with local dollars from the Tarrant Regional Water District, the city of Fort Worth and Tarrant County.

When Congress set a ban on earmarks, which have historically been used by politicians to push projects forward, it made funding more challenging.

But Granger said “without a doubt,” she will secure the funds.

“You don’t start something that you can’t finish,” Granger said. “....That is my commitment.”

Granger said Trinity River Vision, which is a political subdivision of the Tarrant Regional Water Distrit, will apply for grants from several U.S. Army Corps of Engineers funds to keep the dollars flowing until the bypass channel is fully funded.

She is not surprised by the time it has taken to secure dollars.

“I knew how long it was going to take,” Granger said. “It’s the largest urban water project in North America. It’s huge.”

Texas Transportation Commissioner Victor Vandergriff of Arlington said it is Granger’s oversight that convinces him the federal dollars will be available to finish the project.

“I put my faith in Congresswoman Granger to do that,” Vandergriff said. “It is a little bit of a leap of faith to build bridges over dry land and not be certain that the extra funding is coming but I understand the Corps of Engineers can only fund on a budgetary cycle. They can’t promise a 20 or 30-year funding commitment and I trust in Congresswoman Granger to be able to continue to guide this process along.”

Granger’s son, J.D. Granger, is executive director of Trinity River Vision. With the beginning of bridge construction, he said Panther Island will become more visible to residents.

“The two big things you’ll see over the next year are the three bridges coming out of the ground showing vertical construction — in addition to that, a lot of people have been speculative buying of property waiting for the first sign,” J.D. Granger said. “I expect to hear a lot about economic development opportunities during the next year.”

Yet since the project began, there have been critics who worried that local taxpayers could end up footing the bill for the entire project.

TRWD board member Mary Kelleher, who has battled with her fellow board members over a variety of issues, did not attend Monday’s ceremony but said in statement that she worries about the project’s future.

“I do not want to go down in history as being present for the groundbreaking of what many anticipate, myself included, will be referred to one day as the biggest boondoggle in the history of Fort Worth,” Kelleher said. “I'm disappointed in the decision to move ahead with building bridges over dry land without funding certainty.”