Perplexed By Disenfranchised Voters In The Tarrant Regional Water District

I do not know which Saturday in May the Tarrant Regional Water Board election takes place.

I do know it is very odd that elections take place, in Fort Worth, on Saturdays, in May.

I also know it is very odd that this particular election was arbitrarily postponed a year, even though those elected are elected to four year terms.

I also know it is very odd that not all the voters who live in the Tarrant Regional Water District are allowed to vote for Water Boarders.

For instance, I am allowed to vote in this election because I live in Fort Worth. If I lived in Haltom City I would not be allowed to vote in this election, even though I live in the Tarrant Regional Water District in a town which has deadly flash floods, indicating Haltom City is direly effected by Tarrant Regional Water Board policies, but can not vote on those who make the policies.

And the locals accept this bizarre situation. Why the disenfranchised locals accept this bizarre situation is perplexingly bizarre to me.

This morning I got a blog comment from Dannyboy to a blogging yesterday where I verbalized my perplexation regarding the lack of public participation in proposed public works in Fort Worth that sheds light on the Fort Worth elections in May anomaly and a couple other things....

Dannyboy has left a new comment on your post "Wondering About The Effect Of Fort Worth's Citizen's Minimalist Public Participation In Proposed Public Works": 

There is a huge lack of public participation on any Fort Worth local government issues. Look at the city council elections this year. Everyone is unopposed. And they hold local elections on a Saturday in the spring. Because the local stuff is the only thing on the ballot, turnout is very low, rarely above even 10 percent. Many cities throughout the country put their local (council, transit, library funding, road building) on the ballot in November, and they obviously get more people engaged and a turnout that is usually over 50 percent. The reason Fort Worth does it this way is that 1) low turnout helps incumbents, and 2) Fort Worth doesn't think any public participation is good. An example: when I moved to Fort Worth from up north many years ago, I asked a neighbor why there weren't any public pools on the near west side of FW. I was told that 1) public pools draw the wrong kind of people, and 2) join a country club if I wanted a place to swim for my daughter (all this is moot now, as FW has gotten rid of its public pools). That sums up FW in a nutshell. If you tell people you would hope the mass transit system gets improved, they ask you if your car is broken down or if your lost your job. And this goes from the young trendies up to the I-hate-everything-old-people. 

UPDATE: I have been informed the Tarrant Regional Water Board Election is Saturday, May 11.

Tandy Falls Is Almost Dried Up After Yesterday's Futile Fort Worth City-Wide Vote

In the picture you are looking at an aerial view of the currently trickling Tandy Falls, today around noon.

Today I decided that the next time we get rain in downpour mode I am going to go to the Tandy Hills with an umbrella, wearing shoes that I don't care if they get covered with mud, and hike in to Tandy Falls to see what it looks like in flash flood mode.

It was another unusually cool day for May today, in the 60s, which made for pleasant hiking. Due to my Vitamin D deficiency I hike with as much skin exposed as possible. I think I mentioned yesterday I am rather pale compared to how tanned I am, usually, by this point in time.

I have heard from a couple of political pundits regarding yesterday's Fort Worth election.

Steve A opined, "If I lived in Fort Worth, I'd sooner crawl over broken glass than vote for Lane. I think if he becomes mayor, you'll soon be missing Mike..."

While Gail Galtex said, "I like Jim and his cowboy hat now. On a positive note, the anti-establishment got 29% of the vote. Jim Lane should figure out how to reach this group and may get them by default anyway."

I'm thinking it is real odd that Texas has elections where all you vote for is the mayor and your city council person. Elections cost a lot of money to hold. Fort Worth is supposedly low on money. How much was wasted on this most recent exercise in futility?

Why not just automatically install as mayor the Oligarchy's pick? How much money did Cathy Hirt and Dan Barrett spend in their futile effort? Jim Lane's effort is not yet futile. He is the FWRO's #2 choice.

It is time to quit thinking about these serious matters and go have lunch.

Up Early On The 6th Day Of May Thinking I May Bother Voting Even Though It Is Pointless In Fort Worth

Day number 6 of May has dawned with yet one more blue sky morning in North Texas, with that blue oasis, you can see through the trees, looking particularly inviting.

I must try and remember to early vote today. I don't think there is anything to vote for except the city council person in my district and the mayor of this forsaken town I'm living in.

Unlike people who live in areas of the world that practice the democratic form of government, we don't vote on things like public works projects here, so nothing like that shows up on the ballot.

In these parts you can have a billion dollar project wreaking havoc with something everyone shares, like a river, using public funds to do the havocing and do so with no one voting to approve of the project.

I find the governmental method here to be very bizarre. But, it is what the people here are used to.

So much so, that the vast majority of them don't bother to vote.

I suppose they don't bother to vote because over the years the vast majority have been conditioned to believe their vote does not count, because the ruling gang of the good ol' boy and girl network runs things, with the elections just being shams, sort of like what took place in the old Soviet Union or like what takes place, currently, in places like Iran.

Iran has elections. But the outcome is pre-ordained. Just like in Fort Worth where Betsy Price is the good ol' boy and girl network's pick to be the next mayor of Fort Worth.

I'll likely be voting for either Cathy Hirt or Dan Barrett. Not that it matters. Neither has a ghost's chance in hell of becoming mayor of this company run town.

The Dawn Of A New Day In Texas Thinking About The Ousters Of Fort Worth's & Egypt's Dictators

The dawn of the second Friday of the second month of 2011 has dawned warmer than yesterday's dawn, currently only 9 degrees below freezing.

As you can see, looking out my window, there appears to be no ice or snow.

The current forecast for this coming Sunday is to possibly heat up into the 70s.

This morning I noticed a strange thing whilst looking at the newspapers I look at every morning.

Yesterday was a rather remarkable day, news-wise, regarding the uprising in Egypt and the aftermath to Hosni Mubarak's rather defiant speech.

On the front pages of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Dallas Morning News there is nary a mention made of the Egyptian Revolution.

And then on the front pages of the Washington newspapers online that I read, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Skagit Valley Herald, the news about Egypt is prominently featured.

I have no idea what to think about the different focus of these different newspapers.

The Star-Telegram's big story of the day, on its front page, was regime change in Fort Worth, after weeks of protests on the downtown Fort Worth parking lots known as Sundance Square, demanding the ouster of Fort Worth's corrupt, conflicts of interest-laden mayor, Mike Moncrief.

On the Star-Telegram's front page there are multiple links to multiple reports about the startling news that Fort Worth's dictator is stepping down, including a propaganda piece by Bud Kennedy titled "Moncrief goes out a winner."

Well, that's true. Moncrief does go out a winner.

Moncrief may not have made billions of bucks during his reign, unlike fellow dictator, Hosni Mubarak. But, Moncrief did win himself a few dollars, what with the millions of bucks he made via his interests in the various Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drillers he helped poke thousands of holes in the town he ruled.

Just like Mubarak, Moncrief is not stepping down, but will wait til the next election replaces him. I've not heard if the protests at Sundance Square have amped up demanding an immediate end to the Moncrief regime.

One big difference between the two dictators is Mubarak was elected in a fraudulent election with no opposition and with something like 98% of the voters voting for him. While Moncrief was elected by around 70% of the 6% of Fort Worth's eligible voters who bothered to vote.

I don't know if an election where only 6% of the voters bother to vote qualifies as a fraudulent election, or not.

What Is Wrong With Fort Worth?????

I tell you, it is now almost a decade old project trying to figure out why it is so different here, in Fort Worth, and Texas, than where I came from, that being the ultra fertile Skagit Valley of Washington state and the relatively small town of Mount Vernon. A town with a population of less than 30 thousand, where the population turns out when there is an election. A town that was picked, by a legit picking entity, as the Best Small Town in America, while Fort Worth went into an embarrassing ecstasy of celebration when an obscure Washington, D.C. lobbying group put Fort Worth on a silly list of what they claimed to be America's Most Livable Communities.

I tell you, I am just feeling a bit sorry for Fort Worth and the embarrassment that was Saturday's election. How can only 6% of you manage to vote? Do you not have any inkling of how badly your city is run? Apparently not.

I agree with FW Weekly, someone needs to go all Pancho Villa on Fort Worth and get this town to wake up. I'm thinking Don Young is just the man to kick some sense into this town. I come to that conclusion due to the email I just got from Don Young.

I'll copy it below..........

Dear Clyde & All-

The clarion call is still sounding, it just needs to blown louder because 94% of the people are still sleeping. After today, all this talk of resignation, disappointment and blame is counterproductive. Everyone gave it their best shot - good - but some ass still needs kicking. The "game" is not over, it's just waiting for some new players and a new strategy.

There is always Non-Violent Direct Action, that is, Civil Disobedience, something that hasn't been tried much in FW. Does that sound radical? Compared to Moncrief's actions and the gas drilling cartel's deeds, I think not. Even Al Gore is amazed that people are not exercising their right to clean air more directly. Here's what he told the New York Times last year:

“We are now treating the Earth’s atmosphere as an open sewer,” he said, ...."

"I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers,” Mr. Gore said, “and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.”

If we believe in Dr. Aremendariz' study and all the others that prove the ill effects of natural gas production, delivery and generation, how can we not act in a more direct way? If voting doesn't do the job there are other methods of getting smog peddlers like Moncrief & Co. to pay attention.

If we believe they are guilty of environmental crimes that are hurting our children and us, how can we not do something more, something new. But that takes a certain kind of commitment that is lacking in Dirty Ol' Town - one that Moncrief keeps betting won't happen and, so far, he keeps winning.

I believe there is a direct connection between that lack of commitment, that un-willingness to act outside the norm, and the situation we find ourselves in today, the day after the election.

DY