Lake Wichita Has Been Reported To The Trump Administration

I gleaned what you see here a few weeks ago from the Wichita Falls Times Record News, that being the newspaper which serves the area of Texas in which I currently reside.

I read the accompanying article and still could not figure out how Lake Wichita was in a report for Trump.

I have now been in Wichita Falls long enough to notice a thing or two which sort of vex me.

One of those vexations is the Lake Wichita Revitalization Project, which I learned of within days of arriving in this burg.

This coming May I will have been in Wichita Falls a year. Lake Wichita is no closer to being revitalized than it was upon my arrival.

I have made note of multiple Lake Wichita Revitalization fund raising projects, such as car washes.

Trying to raise money for a big public works  project via things like car washes seems goofy, and well, just a bit bizarre to me.

Revitalizing Lake Wichita seems like such a good idea to me I have no idea why funding such is not submitted to the public, asking voters to support a bond issue to raise the money to pay for it. The cost estimates I have seen are in the $30 million range. This does not seem that large a figure for a town of over 100,000 residents. But it does seem like a large figure to try and raise with car washes.

The Texas town I lived in before moving to Wichita Falls, Fort Worth, has a bizarre public works project which has been crawling along most of this century. With little to show for the effort, despite a lot of money having been spent, much of which has gone to pay for the large number of employees employed by what has  become known  as America's Biggest Boondoggle, or the Trinity River Central  City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

Currently America's  Biggest Boondoggle has been stuck for a year trying to figure out what went wrong with the construction of three simple little bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

I hope the Wichita Falls Lake Wichita Revitalization Project is not of the same ilk as Fort Worth's badly designed, ineptly implemented project, ambling along with little to show year after year.

Last year at some point in time I read that the Lake Wichita Revitalization Project was ready to submit its plan to the Army Corps of  Engineers. This submission sounded as if it was imminent. But a few months went by when I read again that the submission was about to be made.

On the Lake Wichita Revitalization Project website I learned the following regarding this project's  projected timeline...

We expect to acquire a permit by the end of 2015 or early 2016. The project should take 1.5 to 3 years. With appropriate funding this project could be complete and ready for water by the middle of 2017.

Well,  we are rapidly approaching the middle of 2017. I have seen nothing which indicates this project is underway.

One of the reasons Fort Worth's water project has turned into America's Biggest  Boondoggle is the son of Fort Worth's Congresswoman, Kay Granger, was hired to be the Executive Director of  the project, even though he had no experience overseeing a large engineering project. J.D. Granger was hired in order to motivate his mother to obtain federal pork barrel money for the project.

I am assuming that no Wichita Falls Congressperson's ne'er do well offspring has been hired to over see the Lake Wichita Revitalization Project, or I would have heard reference made of such.

If not the hiring of the incompetent offspring of a local politician being the reason, what is the explanation why the Lake Wichita Revitalization Project seems stalled?

Everything about this project seems like a good idea to me, with the result likely proving to be a HUGE asset for Wichita Falls and its surrounding area.  Go to the Lake Wichita Revitalization Project website and see for yourself all this project entails. Unlike Fort Worth's, this is a vision which makes sense and seems very doable.

In other words, it seems to me the sooner Lake Wichita gets revitalized the better life will be for the people of Wichita Falls and the people who visit  this town....

Looking At Lake Wichita Revitalization & Fort Worth Devitalization

This second Thursday of September I once again found myself on the summit of Mount Wichita.

Unlike yesterday, today there was no extremely tall man on the summit screaming some sort of religious epiphany of unknown denomination.

In the view you see here, from the summit, in the distance, you are looking southeast at the Lake Wichita Dam, and, on the far right, the Lake Wichita Boat Ramp.

The Wichita Boat Ramp has been in the news the past day or two due to the Lake Wichita Revitalization Project getting a half million dollar grant, with that grant going to pay for part of an upgraded boat launch, with added docks, restrooms, a plaza and concert stage venue. Total cost over a million for this part of the revitalization.

Below is a screencap of what is proposed for the upgraded Lake Wichita Boat Ramp...

If I remember right I have previously verbalized the fact that I have not been in Wichita Falls long enough to know if the town has a history of getting public works projects done in a timely fashion, or if the town dawdles along, ineptly, in slow motion, with a public works project, such as was, and is, the case with my previous location in Texas,

Fort Worth's Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision has been dithering along for most of this century, dithering to the point where that project has become known far and wide as America's Biggest Boondoggle, currently stalled on building three bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

Fort Worth's Boondoggle is short on funding, eagerly awaiting J.D. Granger's mama, Kay, securing around a half billion dollars, via pork barrel federal funding earmarks, which Fort Worth's corrupt congresswoman hopes to attach to the spending bill currently winding its way through the House, so that her son can remain gainfully employed for another decade or two, til he is old enough to retire.

The Fort Worth Boondoggle has never been voted on by the public. The funding for the Fort Worth Boondoggle depends on federal handouts and various grants and schemes. No bond issue voted on by the public is funding the Fort Worth Boondoggle, hence limping along as The Boondoggle receives a trickle of funding.

The Lake Wichita Revitalization Project is a relatively small public works project compared to Fort Worth's economic development project masked as an un-needed flood control project.

Fort Worth's Boondoggle currently is estimated to cost in the billion dollar zone. The Lake Wichita Revitalization Project is a fraction of a billion, somewhere in the 25 to 40 million dollar range.

The Wichita Falls project seems much better thought out than Fort Worth's project. The Wichita Falls project actually addresses a problem, that being a sick reservoir, restoring the reservoir to being a recreational amenity, likely generating a huge return on the investment.

So, I do not understand why Wichita Falls does not fund the Lake Wichita project in the way progressive towns in other parts of America fund public works projects, but instead is funding the Lake Wichita Revitalization Project in the Fort Worth Way, as in begging for handouts, with the project not fully funded and thus not underway.

It would seem to me that the Wichita Falls voting population could easily be sold on the idea of taxing themselves to fix Lake Wichita. It would seem a very small increase on the local sales tax could easily raise the money required.

I really hope I am wrong and Wichita Falls turns out to be a different Texas city than what I experienced in Fort Worth. So far that has totally been the case. Have I mentioned before that, unlike Fort Worth, the parks in Wichita Falls all have modern facilities, including running water?

Joining Wichita Falls Sikes Lakes Throng Seeking Pokemon

I left my abode earlier than the norm due to the fact that my driveway is getting resurfaced today, which meant my motorized vehicular form of transport needed to be at a location other than the driveway.

I had intended to go climb Mount Wichita prior to going to ALDI.

But then I remembered something I read this morning in the Wichita Falls Times News Record newspaper online that made me think a visit to Sikes Lake might be interesting.

And educational.

The past several days I have been reading various references to a world-wide phenomenon regarding something called Pokemon. I knew it involved cell phones, a Japanese cartoon character, GPS directions and Pokemon-izers getting distracted due to staring at their phones.

This morning I read in the aforementioned Wichita Falls newspaper that hundreds of locals have been descending on Sikes Lake doing whatever it is you do with Pokemon and your phone.

Sikes Lakes is halfway to ALDI. And so I stopped there on my way to ALDI. The parking lot had a few more vehicles parked than the norm. A girl's soccer team was practicing. As I walked around the lake I noticed nothing unusual. Several joggers, several walkers.

No one staring at a cell phone.

Then I got to the location of the Wichita Falls Museum of Art and saw that which you see above on a concrete bench. Is that the Pokemon people seek and then take a cell phone photo of to prove they found it? Is that the deal, I wondered?

Less than a minute after that I noticed the museum parking lot had a lot of cars in it. Usually it is empty in the morning time frame. And then I noticed hordes of people looking like they were in zombie mode, staring at their phones.

I approached a young couple and asked the male of the pair if it was that Pokemon thing that they were doing. He confirmed that it was. I asked if he could explain it to me. Sure, said he. He then showed me his phone screen, explained they were looking for stuff via GPS coordinates and then when you found what you were looking for something happened on your phone that made you happy.

That is my short version of what I was told.

I really did not understand.

I continued on. That is the guy I spoke to on the right side of the picture below, walking along the paved trail around Sikes Lake, staring at his phone. You can see the guy in the center of the photo also staring at his phone. I don't know what the other guy is doing.

Continuing on I crossed the bridge heading towards the parking lot from whence I began my Pokemon walk. I soon came upon what looked to be a dad walking with his two pre-teen kids, a boy and a girl.

I asked the dad if he understood what the kids were doing. Not a clue was his reply. Me either, said I.