Leaving Seattle With The New Zealand Family Heading Towards Fort Worth

 A week or two ago I blogged about a New Zealand Family's Seattle Visit Reminding Me Of Fort Worth's Infamous Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

The New Zealand family had been on an RV trip up America's West Coast. I assume they began in Los Angeles, or San Diego. I only joined their visit once they were north of San Francisco, touring the Oregon Coast en route to Seattle.

Last night I watched a follow up video of the New Zealand Family's Seattle visit, titled We Had To Leave Seattle. That is a screen shot, above, from the video. The view of Mount Rainier seen whilst crossing Lake Washington on the I-90 floating bridge.



The New Zealand Family was quite taken with Seattle. The scenery, seeing mountains in any direction. All the bodies of water. Pike Place. The buildings. The stadiums. And more.

A Seattleite named Rebecca, a fan of their videos, was the New Zealand Family's tour guide. 

I don't think Rebecca took the New Zealanders through any of the tunnels under Seattle, either via vehicle or light rail. Or to West Seattle. Or to REI corporate headquarters. Or many other of Seattle's unique features.

The New Zealand Family reacted to Seattle the way I always have. And yet they only hit some of the highlights.

Before moving to Texas I'd only been to a few of America's big cities. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Phoenix, Vancouver and Victoria.

Well, those last two are in North America, but the Canada part of North America, not the United States part of North America.

So, when I moved to Texas, with the first home location being in the little hamlet of Haslet, located in the north end of Fort Worth, Fort Worth was my introduction to a new type of big city.

The big city downtowns I had previously seen, were big. Fort Worth's downtown was not big. The New Zealanders remarked repeatedly regarding Seattle's buildings and design looking so new and modern. I had the opposite reaction to seeing Fort Worth for the first time.

I'd never before seen a city with large areas being basically run-down slums. It was sort of shocking.

I early on was not shy about verbalizing my reaction. Eventually I made a website documenting much of my reaction. I particularly reacted with confused amazement when I repeatedly saw Fort Worth's newspaper of record, the Star-Telegram, have articles about some ordinary thing, making the claim that this ordinary thing was making cities far and wide green with envy about this ordinary thing in Fort Worth.

Soon upon my arrival I discovered the charms of Dallas, thus learning not all Texas big cities are of the Fort Worth quality level.

In the video where the New Zealand Family is leaving Seattle, the New Zealand mother is lamenting regarding what will they have to show Rebecca when she makes her promised visit to New Zealand, saying New Zealand has nothing of the level they'd experienced in America and Seattle.

I had the same concern when first in Texas, knowing I was expecting some visitors from Seattle to arrive about four months after the Texas arrival. By the time they arrived I'd discovered the charms of Dallas, like Fair Park, the Farmers Market, the Galleria Mall, the West End, Deep Ellum, the DART train, and more.

I remember when those Seattle visitors arrived taking them to downtown Fort Worth, telling them I was gonna show them something incredible. Way back then there were huge parking lots along the Trinity River. From those parking lots one could hop on the world's shortest subway. This rickety old thing which took you into a tunnel that opened up in downtown Fort Worth, with access to a now long gone vertical mall, and the downtown Fort Worth Public Library.

The world's shortest subway is long gone. Fort Worth allowed Radio Shack to build a corporate headquarters Radio Shack could not afford, built above the subway and on part of those parking lots.

Eventually the Radio Shack headquarters was turned in a college. I forget the name. Tarrant County College, maybe.

It was things like the Radio Shack debacle that helped me develop such a low opinion of Fort Worth. This was well before the debacle known initially as the Trinity River Vision, which began near the start of this century, with decades later little to show for the supposedly vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme.

Another thing which quickly bugged me about Fort Worth was upon first arrival I'd see signs pointing one in the direction of Sundance Square. I'd asked where the square was, to no avail. Eventually I learned this was the name given to a multi-block downtown Fort Worth renewal scheme.

After decades of confusing the town's few tourists with those Sundance Square direction signs, a couple parking lots were turned into a town square type thing, named Sundance Square Plaza.

This stuff is so goofy I've had people tell me they think I must be making it up.

Nope, it's all true, and I've only mentioned a couple items of the Fort Worth goofiness in this blog post. 

I recently learned that Heritage Park, a park at downtown Fort Worth's north end, across the street from the county courthouse, a park built to celebrate Fort Worth's storied heritage, a park with a unique, impressive design, is still a boarded-up eyesore. A sad state for at least a decade.

Fort Worth's Heritage Park got itself closed after multiple drownings in the Fort Worth Water Gardens, at the south end of downtown. The design flaw in the Water Gardens was obvious, a clear danger, which should never have happened. Heritage Park also had water features, shallow water features in which one could not accidentally drown.

And yet it was deemed necessary that Fort Worth's Heritage Park be closed, surrounded with a cyclone fence, with the park allowed to deteriorate into an eyesore.

Years ago, after I blogged about the Heritage Park scandal, a descendant of the well-regarded designer who designed Heritage Park, I think he was Japanese, contacted me, appalled, asking if it was really true, that this park had been allowed to be destroyed in this manner.

And all these later I recently learned from Elsie Hotpepper that Heritage Park remains a fittingly ironic homage to Fort Worth's actual heritage.

An eyesore....

Mary Kelleher for Fort Worth City Council 5

Yesterday a Facebook notification showed up notifying me that something had changed...

A Page you follow, Elect Mary Kelleher, changed its name to Mary Kelleher for FW City Council 5

This was new news to me. I am assuming Mary Kelleher's current term on the Tarrant Regional Water District Board is coming to an end, and thus, now, Mary Kelleher is running to become a Fort Worth city councilwoman.

Ironically, well, maybe it is not ironic, more coincidental, but the same day I learned Mary is likely going to become a councilwoman, a Microsoft OneDrive Memory showed up which also reminded me of Mary Kelleher.

That is me you see above, on my way to D/FW International Airport, picking up an ostrich egg from Mary Kelleher's mailbox, on the way.

Switching from ostrich eggs back to the previous subject.

If my memory is serving me correctly, I first learned of Mary Kelleher, decades ago, via an article in Fort Worth Weekly, about Mary's issues regarding the Trinity River regularly flooding in her area of Fort Worth.

Prior to that, the entity who goes by the name Layla Caraway, who some know as Elsie Hotpepper, had been in the news---local, state and national, due to her home in Haltom City teetering precariously above a flooding creek.

Fort Worth's Congresswoman, Kay Granger, visited the site of Elsie Hotpepper's teetering home, causing Elsie to have some hope that maybe that local politician might be of some help. A hope history would prove to be erroneous.

This was all happening early on during the first decade of what has become an embarrassing Boondoggle, which has been Boondoggling along now for three decades, with little to show for what was purported to be a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme.

The fact that no attention was being paid to actual vitally needed flood control, both in the flooding creeks in Haltom City, and the Trinity River in East Fort Worth, motivated both Elsie Hotpepper and Mary Kelleher to become what are known as political activists.

After reading about Mary's flood woes in that FW Weekly article, Elsie Hotpepper met with Mary, and convinced her to run for the TRWD Board.

I remember I was on a bike ride on the Trinity Trail when I got a call from Elsie Hotpepper, telling me about the meeting with Mary, and the hope Mary would run and win.

Mary did so, she ran and won. By a landslide.

I recollect my first time meeting Mary was when I went to vote at the Handley/Ederville polling location, where Mary was outside the polling location, greeting voters. I introduced myself.

It is sort of hard to believe this was such a long time ago, and, all these years later, the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision has yet to come to any sort of useful visible fruition. That and nothing much has been done to mitigate flooding in Tarrant County areas actually prone to deadly, serious flooding.

If I remember correctly, and sometimes I do, the last time I saw Mary and Elsie, in person*, was back in early 2016. Mary took Elsie and me out to lunch at an Outback Steakhouse, I think that was the location. 

And then after lunch we drove to Mary's farm where I met a large collection of animals, including an ostrich, one of whose eggs ended up getting picked up by me out of Mary's mailbox, a few days later.

Methinks it will greatly benefit Fort Worth having Mary Kelleher on the city council. And then, eventually, Fort Worth Mayor. Or Kay Granger's position. As a congresswoman...

*I was erroneous regarding Outback Steakhouse being the last time I have seen Elsie Hotpepper. I forgot about a year before COVID struck, I pedaled my bike to Sikes Lake to meet up with Elsie at a Sikes Lake gazebo.

New Look At Fort Worth's Multi-Decade Trinity River Vision Boondoggle

It has been a while since I have read an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about America's Dumbest Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, or TRV for super short.

A couple days ago I found myself writing a blog post titled New Zealand Family's Seattle Visit Reminds Me Of Fort Worth's Infamous Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, written after seeing the result of a successful public works project completed in a more modern area of America, then finding myself comparing that project to what many simply refer to as The Boondoggle.

And then, ironically, the very day I posted the blog post referencing Fort Worth's embarrassing Trinity River Vision mess, the Star-Telegram publishes an article about the current state of The Boondoggle, in typical Star-Telegram faulty information fashion.

I suspect the reporter writing this article is new to Fort Worth, and the Star-Telegram, and thus does not have a well-developed ear for hearing nonsense.

We are now in the third decade of what has become America's Oldest Boondoggle. Over the years I have written dozens of posts about this subject. Just go to the Durango Texas blog and enter "TNT exploding ceremony" into the search function, or "Kay Granger Boondoggle" and you will come up with many of those posts about this subject.

Now, something I have not made mention of during the many years of writing these blog posts about America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Over the years I have been sent information from persons close to the problem. As in, someone with access inside J.D. Granger's inner Trinity River Vision operation. I referred to this person as Deep Moat. I was told a couple times, by a couple sources, that the TRWD and the TRV were annoyed, a time or two, by things they saw on my blog.

Also, regarding the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, someone working for that newspaper, anonymous to me, has long found my making fun of that newspaper to be amusing. And accurate. It has not happened for a couple years, but yesterday it did. That person, who they are, I do not know, sent me the link to this new article about The Boondoggle, a link I am not blocked from reading. I assume I would always have been able to read the Star-Telegram, if I was a subscriber, but I cancelled the hard copy long ago.

Anyway, I clicked the Fort Worth’s Panther Island riverfront project has seen years of delays. What’s next? and read it. And copied it.

I then messaged Elsie Hotpepper, asking if Elsie had read this latest, because her dear departed friend, Clyde Picht, is quoted. Elsie then asked for the link. I sent it. But, for her, she was blocked. I then sent Elsie the copied article.

Interesting that the Star-Telegram successfully blocks Elsie Hotpepper, but not me.

Anyway, let's now go through some of this article and comment as we read along. Let's begin with the first paragraph...

Government officials and curious citizens left no seats empty in Fort Worth’s city hall chamber on April 5, 2005. That day, then-Mayor Mike Moncrief locked horns with skeptical City Council members over the purpose and price of the “Trinity River Vision,” a grand plan to revamp the river’s flood control system and transform a sliver of the waterway twisting around downtown into a haven of urban leisure and recreation.

2005. Two decades ago. And that is years after The Boondoggle actually began. Flood control system? This project was originally touted as a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme. So vitally needed, almost three decades later, little has been done. So vitally needed, the public was not asked to support it via a bond issue.

Moving on, the next paragraph...

Fort Worth’s powerful optimists first fleshed out plans for the venture the year before. Moncrief and fellow proponents hailed the undertaking, later rechristened Panther Island, as “the most significant local project since construction of Dallas/Fort Worth airport.” “Everyone feels the synergy of this project,” Moncrief told the audience in city hall, among them Panther Island champion U.S. Rep. Kay Granger. “They realize this will create a new gateway ... a new face for future generations.” Doubters weren’t sold on the mayor’s lofty aspirations. “I think the final cost of the project will be substantially higher” than the original $360 million price tag (around $613 million today), said council member Clyde Picht during the hearing.

The "later rechristened Panther Island" remark is what made me think this reporter is new to The Boondoggle. This pseudo public works project started out being called the Trinity River Vision. Then Uptown was added to the name. Then Central City. Then Panther Island District. I do not believe the project has ever been somehow rechristened as Panther Island. Such is just how some have come to refer to it, even though it is an imaginary island which no sane part of the world would refer to as such.

Moving on to the next paragraph...

The project’s budget ballooned to $1.17 billion around 2017 (a figure still listed in project documents today despite inflationary pressures). The most hopeful Panther Island advocates in the early 2000s expected a pocket of high-rises and tree-lined promenades to take form by the end of the decade. No development has happened since. The Tarrant Regional Water District has yet to acquire 23% of the land within Panther Island’s future boundaries; the body agreed in December to pay a real estate consulting firm $1 million to start thinking up a strategy for selling off land to interested developers.

Just the info contained in the above paragraph, one would think, is enough to make one think maybe it is time to just kill this embarrassing failure. The "no development has happened since" line is so telling. Basically, little real development has happened for almost three decades, not in the way developments happen in parts of the world known to be more, well, developed.

It gets worse. Next paragraph...

Much of the new flood control system has yet to be completed. TRWD and the other bodies tasked with bringing Panther Island’s renditions to life predicted in 2018 that every dam, channel and storage pond would be complete by 2028. The project’s latest completion date, as of June, is 2032.

Much of the flood control system is yet to be completed? Remember? This was originally touted as a vitally needed flood control project, to control floods in a section of the Trinity River which had not flooded for well over a half century due to levees installed in the 1950s. And now the completion date is in the next decade.

The final paragraph...

Past delays foreshadowed current ones. It took the Texas Department of Transportation roughly six years and $126.2 million to complete three bridges designed to funnel traffic to and from the island. Construction for the structures, totaling less than a mile in length, began in November 2015, with tentative completion dates set between 2017 and 2018. “This was a bad deal early on,” Picht said of Panther Island in 2018, a few years before he died. “It’s probably the worst managed public project in the state of Texas, if not the nation.” Where exactly do things stand today?

Why is the Star-Telegram blaming the Texas Department of Transportation for taking so long to build the simple little bridges? Did not the actual fault lie with the incompetent leadership of the TRV? As in, Kay Granger's son, J.D., made Executive Director, to motivate his mother to try and secure federal funds? J.D. Granger insisted the design of the bridges have these totally ordinary V-piers, which J.D. thought would make them Signature Bridges, which was part of the original Trinity River Vision, having Three Signature Bridges, matching the Dallas Trinity River Vision's proposed Three Signature Bridges, which was the actual start of The Boondoggle, Fort Worth once again trying to keep up with Dallas.

And failing.

Dallas did end up building two actual signature bridges, which add a cool looking element to the Dallas skyline.

As for The Boondoggle's employment of Kay Granger's son. Kay never did come up with federal funding. And when a Biden bill, the Infrastructure Bill, passed, sending funding to Fort Worth's un-funded project, Kay voted no. J.D. was then fired, given a $72,000 parting gift, and is now trying to open a restaurant.

Meanwhile, I have another nugget of news, sent to me anonymously, which I have no way of verifying, but which makes sense to me.

I have been told the real reason the Trinity River Vision project has stalled is due to serious engineering complications. When the Army Corps of Engineers was brought in, again, after those three little bridges were built over dry land, with a cement lined ditch to later be dug under them, an obvious issue became apparent.

As in, the cement lined ditch should have been built at the same time as the bridges. To dig under the bridges now presents serious engineering issues, as in without sufficient mitigations, digging under the bridges could cause a bridge collapse.

And so, the project is stalled, with the current funding now in limbo due to the project's ineptness, poor planning and bad design.

And, might I add. I have long predicted that eventually we will get to the point where it is realized the ground in the Panther Island zone is seriously contaminated, due to being a former industrial zone. There have already been some indications of this. I suspect it would take an EPA Superfund cleanup, which will likely never happen.

It is time for Fort Worth to kill this project, clean up the mess it has made, and get around to finally, at least, fixing Heritage Park, the boarded-up eyesore at the north end of downtown, a park celebrating Fort Worth's heritage, which, ironically, overlooks America's Biggest Boondoggle....

Remembering Pawnee Lane, Elsie Hotpepper & Rumors About Being Forced Out of Fort Worth

Last night I found myself scrolling through my email archive, finding myself disturbed a time or two to come upon an email, which had been opened, which I didn't remember reading. These were all from the last year, so not all that long ago.

Age related memory loss is my explanation.

Among the emails I did not remember was one from my Favorite Nephew Jason, aka FNJ.

The house I built before moving to Texas was on the market again. Jason emailed me the listing and the above photo he took of the deck above the carport, with Jason remarking "I always loved your house on Pawnee and the big roof deck."

I can see a screen door has been added. Which looks tacky. When I had control of this roof deck it was covered with plants, hanging baskets, a couple barrels with big blueberry bushes, planters for strawberries and herbs, like basil. I miss having a constant supply of fresh basil.

And a BBQ grill. I did a lot of BBQing. There was also a deck on the other side of the house, out of the kitchen. That deck had multiple levels. The intention was to put a hot tub there, but that never happened.

Another of the emails I found, which I did not remember, was one I would have thought I would have remembered, what with the fact I replied to the sender and forwarded it to the party referenced in the email.

Way back when I lived in the D/FW zone, east Fort Worth to be precise, I was a bit of a rabble rouser. A rabble rousing cohort rabble roused with me, who I came to refer to as Elsie Hotpepper. Elsie Hotpepper started up a blog to have a venue to verbalize about D'FW issues.

Anyway, here is that email, which referenced concern for Elsie Hotpepper's welfare and blog, from April of 2023, with names omitted...

Hi

I am trying to find out what happened to the blogger on the Star Telegraph that has been blogging forever but suddenly disappears in October 2022. I ask because Tarrant County is known for its brutal retaliation towards truth tellers, and I was wondering if you might know if this person is okay. I am scared to death to even be writing this as this county is so corrupt in every sector and I find out more and more each day. Unfortunately, whistleblowers are taken out in Texas. Anyway, thank you for your time….

To which, back in April of 2023, I replied with...

She is fine. She just got less motivated to post on her blog. Just last week she text messaged something she wanted me to put on her long dormant blog. I told her she forgot she had to send me such via email so I could copy and paste. That was days ago. She has not gotten around to emailing me the info. It's about the current TRWD Board election. I often did her postings, at her direction. I was who talked her into doing the blogging thing, years ago. I sure do not miss living in Tarrant County.

And then this more elaborate reply to my reply...

Haha, I was trying to hide my email but that didn’t work. I’m in big trouble. I have found out way too much and I need to walk away because I will lose everything with the way they retaliate here. It’s brutal. I was just trying to be a voice for the voiceless, our wildlife. They literally have nowhere to go as the destruction of habitat in Northwest Tarrant is out of control and zoning commissioner LF has been approving at an unprecedented rate. I can tell you more later how this got started, my curiosity. 

Every safe person I feel is trustworthy ends up not being so, not even the Texas Scorecard. Well, I have my suspicions.

 Anyway, I read somewhere that you were forced out or something along those lines and maybe you were joking, but knowing what is going on here, it wouldn’t surprise me. I have finally, after a year of digging, found what I suspected and have proof but don’t want to go missing, incarcerated or hurt my family who have deep connections here. 

Also, I’ve been following these two, PM and LF, for over a year and you are the only one who commented recently on PM and him running. Is everyone here blind or just scared to say anything? All anyone has to do is look up each and every campaign contribution and you are well on your way. They have no shame; the writing is literally on the wall.

Anyway, hope you doing okay. I know I don’t know you but feel like I do because of your work. Please know, all that contribute to the Telegraph, you are being followed, your blogs are being read, and people want to comment but I truly believe people are scared. Thanks for having no fear as I am envious of that. 

_________________________

Never heard from this lady again. I do not recollect ever feeling too threatened, except for one incident where I blogged I was heading to Gateway Park to photo document what I thought was a fracking violation, sucking water out of the Trinity River. 

I got to the location. As I was taking photos a couple trucks showed up, with several men looking a bit menacing. I headed back to my van, walking around the group of menacing looking men. I got to my van to find more trucks showing up, with one blocking my exit. 

I got in the van, started the engine, and then rolled down the window and made it look like I was calling and talking to someone, acting like I was reading vehicle licenses. Suddenly the boss of the group made a signal, signaling everyone to back off and get out of my way.

UPDATE:
Last night, after being unable to find the one email I had actually been looking for, it being one from FNJ, Jason quickly emailed me back confirming my memory of the information was accurate. In my email to FNJ I made mention of seeing another email from him which I did not remember, the one with the photo of the deck in front of my Mount Vernon house you see at the top.

Jason replied with a detailed bit of verbiage, including...

PS — and your Pawnee home pic is in my front room.  I always thought that deck was really cool — especially when covered with plants.

Jason included a photo of the Pawnee home pic in his front room...

I can tell that is Spencer Jack, at the upper right, standing in front of the Riverside bridge across the Skagit River in downtown Mount Vernon. I do not know what to make of the Row to Alaska pamphlet at the lower left. Are those Jason's aunts, Fancy and Clancy, on the cover?

A Look At Why Fort Worth Is Not One Of The World's Best Cities

In the past week or two I have seen mention made of a list made of the 100 Best Cities in the World.

The first time I saw this mentioned was in the Dallas Observer, which was observing the fact that Dallas ranked only #56, with two Texans towns thought to be better than Dallas, with Houston at #40 and Austin at #53.

The second time I saw this global list mentioned was in the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, online, which began their article with...

Perhaps your city claims one of the best new restaurants, or best overall restaurants in the country. Maybe it was even named one of the best U.S. cities to live in.

But the true test of greatness is on the global scale.

Resonance Consultancy, a real estate and tourism consulting firm, has released a report ranking the top 100 best cities in the world. Three Texas cities earned a spot on the list.

There are more American towns on this list than any other country, with New York at #2, San Francisco at #12, Los Angeles at #14, Chicago at #12, Seattle at #19 and on to many other American cities.

Fort Worth, Texas is not on this list.

Fort Worth is never on any of this type list.

I lived in Fort Worth for a few years before moving to my current Texas location. It did not take long living in Fort Worth to come to the realization that the town had some sort of civic inferiority complex. I assumed this had something to do with being paired with the bigger, more well-known town of Dallas.

That Fort Worth inferiority complex manifested in many ways. Including what I came to call the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Green With Envy Syndrome. So called due to that newspaper repeatedly printing an article about some perfectly ordinary thing, claiming that that perfectly ordinary thing was making towns, far and wide, green with envy.

Yes, I know, this sounds ridiculous, but it happened. Over and over again. The syndrome seemed to cease after it was rendered into an embarrassment.

I remember the worst instance of Fort Worth embarrassing itself was the time some Washington, D.C. lobbying group included Fort Worth in a list of ten American towns determined to be the best at the Urban Village concept.

That time the embarrassment did not come from Star-Telegram hyperbole, it was the city government that embarrassed itself. Initiating a citywide celebration celebrating being so listed by an obscure Washington, D.C. lobbying group.

I am not making this up, it really happened, with celebration central happening at Fort Worth's Gateway Park.

During this celebratory period of time, I happened to be up north, in Tacoma, a town which was also on this list of ten best towns with the Urban Village concept.

I had reason to visit with Tacoma's then Deputy Mayor. I asked him if Tacoma had a citywide celebration after receiving this esteemed honor. He laughed and said, no, we politely thanked them and that was it. Why do you ask, the Deputy Mayor asked?

Because Fort Worth had a citywide celebration when they got the same esteemed honor, I told him.

You are kidding, said the Deputy Mayor. Nope, really happened, said I.

Fort Worth has long had a history of what one might characterize as delusions of grandeur, manifesting in multiple ways.

Like the time a sporting goods store opened in Fort Worth called Cabela's. With Fort Worth touting the belief this store would give Fort Worth the #1 tourist attraction in Texas. Not occurring to anyone, apparently, that suggesting such seemed to indicate Texas was a tad weak in the tourist attraction area, which is definitely not the case.

Texas has many attractive tourist attractions, way more attractive than a sporting goods store. San Antonio's Riverwalk comes to mind, as does Galveston, and Big Bend, and much more.

Within a year the Fort Worth Cabela's was no longer the only Cabela's in Texas. One opened in Buda, down south by Austin. And then another Cabela's opened in the D/FW Metroplex. 

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has never fessed up to being party to the bizarre top tourist attraction in Texas con job.

When I see one of these type lists, listing towns by some criteria, with Fort Worth never being on the list, I can not help but wonder how a long time Fort Worth native, subjected to the local hype and propaganda explains it to themselves.

Fort Worth needs to fix a few problems before it can have any hope of ever being on a list of the best cities on the globe.

Such as, fix Fort Worth's downtown, currently a ghost town on the busiest shopping day of the year, on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, a ghost town due to the fact that downtown Fort Worth has no stores of the sort one might do their Christmas shopping in.

Knock of calling a multi-block area of the Fort Worth downtown, Sundance Square. There is no square there. Years after spouting there being something called Sundance Square, a couple parking lots were turned into a sort of square type location, then called Sundance Square Plaza.

This type thing is not the type thing a town wearing its Big City Pants does.

There are two semi-unique attractions in downtown Fort Worth. The Watergardens at the south end of downtown. And Heritage Park at the north end of downtown.

Elsie Hotpepper recently confirmed for me that Heritage Park is still a boarded-up eyesore, a status it has had for over a decade. Which is sort of an adequate metaphor for Fort Worth. A park purporting to celebrate Fort Worth's heritage, doing so by being a messed up eyesore.

And then there is what that Heritage Park eyesore overlooks. Another thing which makes Fort Worth a laughingstock, not worthy of being on any Best Cities listing.

Fort Worth is now in its third decade of a pseudo public works project, originally known as the Trinity River Vision, before morphing, over the years, into the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

This Vision purported to see an area in danger of being flooded, even though such had not happened in over half a century, due to flood control levees preventing such. The Vision claimed this to be a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme, which is so vital it is now limping along in its third decade.

Cities worthy of being considered best in the world do not have these type dawdling, ill-conceived, ineptly implemented projects.

A failed project, currently, after all this time, basically only seeing three little bridges, built over dry land, to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, awaiting a cement lined ditch to go under the bridges carrying diverted Trinity River water.

We could go on with more details regarding Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, but we won't.

Because it is lunch time...

Apparently Rain Has Turned Wichita County Into A Disaster Area

Saw that which you see here, this morning, on the front page of the online version of the local newspaper called the Wichita Falls Times Record News.

Wichita County has seen a lot of rain fall the past couple weeks. But enough to have made the county a disaster area? Apparently there has been some road damage. I have not seen any road damage.

I have been in an area where a disaster has struck a time or two or three, with, if I am remembering correctly, the area not declared a disaster area.

Like when downtown Fort Worth was struck by a tornado, early in this century, killing several and doing a lot of property damage. I do not recollect a disaster area being called.

When Fort Worth and Tarrant County were hit with deadly flash floods, again earlier this century, drowning some, including a little girl named Ally Collins, and leaving Elsie Hotpepper's home teetering on the brink of falling into a raging creek, I do not recollect a disaster area being declared.

In my old home zone I think I recollect when the Mount St. Helens volcano erupted, killing dozens and doing an incredible amount of damage, I do not recollect a disaster area being declared. Maybe because it was so obviously a disaster no one needed to declare it as such.

I remember the valley I lived in before moving to Texas, the Skagit Valley, being hit by destructive flooding due to the Skagit River breeching dikes intended to contain the river during floods. Was a disaster area declared? I do not recollect it, if it was.

Anyway, more heavy rain is on the way at my current location, arriving later today, compounding the situation in this area, which is already, apparently, a disaster...

Happy Birthday Elsie Hotpepper

The young lady you see here, up a creek with only one paddle, goes by many names, with my favorite being Elsie Hotpepper.

The cattle herd Elsie is ramrodding is making its way across the pristine waters of the Trinity River, at a location I believe to be at the east side of Fort Worth, near where the river soon leaves Fort Worth and enters Arlington.

I am not certain what particular photo shoot brought about this photo. It may have been part of Elsie Hotpepper's audition for some TV show, Yellowstone, maybe.

It is hard to keep up with the various antics of Elsie Hotpepper. Truth be told, keeping up with the Hotpepper can be a bit exhausting.

Anyway, today, August 10, is Elsie Hotpepper's birthday.

29 years old.

At least that is what is indicated by Happy Birthday signage installed overnight in Elsie Hotpepper's front yard...

Another Tale Of Two Cities

No, that is not the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth you are looking at here, or a completed section of Fort Worth's imaginary waterfront on its imaginary lake or imaginary island.

Speaking of Fort Worth, last week Elsie Hotpepper Took Us Back To America's Biggest Boondoggle where we learned that the pseudo public works project known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Vision, a vision Fort Worth has been trying to see for this entire century, now estimates it will take another decade to manage to dig a cement lined ditch, to add Trinity River water to, flowing under three little bridges, which took seven years to build, over dry land.

Seven years to build three little bridges. Over dry land.

About the same time Fort Worth began trying to build those three little bridges, another American town, Seattle, being boring a tunnel under its downtown, so that the earthquake damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct, which had long been a blight on Seattle's waterfront, could be removed.

That tunnel has been completed for three years. The Alaskan Way Viaduct is long gone. And the re-build of the Seattle waterfront is well underway, to be competed in 2025.

That photo at the top is from an article in today's Seattle Times titled Seattle Aquarium’s Ocean Pavilion will transform its focus and the waterfront.  

That photo is the first good look I have had of what a section of the Seattle waterfront looks like without the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

How is it one town in America can get big things done, whilst another town in America gets little done, in slow motion?

An excerpt from today's Seattle Times article shows a stark contrast between this ongoing project in Seattle, and what you might read in Fort Worth print media about its decades long project and its slow fruition...

YOU HAVE TO squint and use your imagination to visualize the finished product, but a transformation is underway on Seattle’s central waterfront. Where the Alaskan Way Viaduct once loomed, a walkway connecting Pike Place Market to Puget Sound is taking shape. The outlines of parks, playgrounds, bike lanes and a broad pedestrian promenade are beginning to emerge. One pier already has been rebuilt to welcome the public, and another is in the works.

Civic leaders say Seattle hasn’t experienced such a profound makeover since 1962, when the World’s Fair reshaped public infrastructure and propelled the city into the future. When the work is completed in 2025, foot traffic along Elliott Bay is expected to triple.

“This landscape that was dominated by a big, honking, gray, rumbling freeway will now be a massive public park for the people,” says Seattle City Councilmember Andrew Lewis, whose district includes the waterfront.

At the center of it all will be the Seattle Aquarium’s new Ocean Pavilion: a 50,000-square-foot exhibit space featuring sharks, rays and other animals and ecosystems from the tropical Pacific. Integrated with the city’s elevated walkway, the structure’s roof will be a public plaza with unimpeded views of the sunset and Mount Rainier. At ground level, a circular port called an oculus will allow passersby to peer into a 325,000-gallon coral canyon teeming with thousands of fish and invertebrates.

Projected to be done in mid-2024, the expansion is Seattle Aquarium’s most ambitious and costly undertaking since it opened 45 years ago in a wooden building at Pier 59. It’s a natural fit to anchor the waterfront redevelopment, Lewis says. The aquarium is already hugely popular, he points out, and the new building will enhance its ability to attract and educate new generations of visitors.

You reading this in the DFW zone, can you imagine reading an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about such a project underway in Fort Worth? 

No. A town that takes seven years to build three little bridges over dry land, has some serious issues in dire need of being addressed...

Elsie Hotpepper Takes Us Back To America's Biggest Boondoggle

Yesterday, Elsie Hotpepper tagged me in a Facebook post, which is what you see a screen shot of.

For decades now, Elsie and I have been blogging about the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

More commonly known as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

The project to create an imaginary island has been going on for most of this century. I recollect the first time I found myself befuddled and appalled by this was a long ago Sunday edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, with a HUGE banner headline touting "TRINITY UPTOWN TO TURN FORT WORTH INTO VANCOUVER OF THE SOUTH."    

What fresh ridiculous nonsense is this, I read and wondered? Who could have imagined the ridiculous nonsense could go on for so long, for decades, with little to show for the effort.

Well, there are those three little bridges, built over dry land, to connect the Fort Worth mainland to that imaginary island. Those three little bridges are waiting for a cement lined ditch to be installed under them, with Trinity River water diverted into the ditch, making the imaginary island.

The article Elsie Hotpepper directed me to was in the Fort Worth Report, titled City of Fort Worth prepares to kickstart Panther Island development — again.

Just the title to this article struck me as odd. The city is preparing to kickstart America's Biggest Boondoggle again?

I was not aware the development had stalled. The last it was much in the news was when Congresswoman's Kay Granger's son, J.D., was removed from the executive director job he was totally not qualified to do, whilst being grossly overpaid, and then hired by the Boondoggle, post firing, to be a Trinity River Vision Boondoggle consultant for $12K a month.

The only other news about the Boondoggle that I can recollect in recent years is those three pitiful little bridges finally being completed, after seven years, that, and Fort Worth got $400 million from the Democrat's infrastructure bill, which J.D.'s mother voted against.

It has long bugged me that, if, as touted, this is a vitally needed flood control and economic project, why has it limped along in slow motion, begging for a federal funding, rather than voting to pay for the vitally needed project themselves, like town's wearing their big city pants do?

And, need we repeat, this vitally needed flood control project is in an area which has not flooded in well over half a century, due to flood control levees already in place, which you in the more prosperous parts of America, already paid for. While other areas of Fort Worth, as in East Fort Worth, and other areas of Tarrant County, have real, serious, un-addressed deadly flood control issues.

Now, let's take a look at some of the gems of nonsense from this article about America's Biggest Boondoggle...

The Central City Flood Project could transform a partially blighted expanse of land just north of downtown into about 440 acres of prime real estate — also known as the Panther Island Project. 

Could transform a blighted expanse of land? Could? After all this time, all this money, this project is stuck at could? And it is now known, simply, as the Panther Island Project? When did that happen? Whatever happened to the Trinity River Vision Authority, over which J.D. Granger was the Executive Director for years.

No mention is made in this article of the Trinity River Vision Authority.

Or J.D. Granger.

Or that J.D.'s mother voted against the funding that might finally give Fort Worth enough money to dig that cement lined ditch under those three bridges.

The project, which has experienced decades of delays, received over $400 million in federal funding this year, enough money to design and build two bypass channels. The corps recently projected the project will take eight to 10 years to complete.

Is there no investigative journalist in the Fort Worth vicinity who might want to look into why and how this project has experienced decades of delays? We are up to two bypass channels now? Taking another decade to complete? Yes, this seems very vitally needed.

And the nonsense continues...

The new strategic plan will be the second iteration of a plan for the Panther Island Project. The city and Tarrant Regional Water District initially developed its plan for the island, also known as the form-based code, in the early 2000s and revisited it in 2016 — all before the project received over $400 million from the federal government.

New strategic plan? Does anyone know what the old strategic plan was? The city and TRWD initially developed its plan for the island, known as form-based code? So, the new total name of America's Biggest Boondoggle is Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Form-Based Code Vision?

And then we have this doozy, including a Fort Worth staple...

A redevelopment project the size of Panther Island in the core of the city is unique, said Kenneth Barr, chair of the Real Estate Council. “Other cities would be very envious of us having the opportunity,” Barr said. 

Oh yes, many towns in America would be envious to have an industrial wasteland adjacent to their downtown. And another one east of their downtown. Most big cities do not develop with such tracts of wasteland adjacent to their downtowns. Hardly anything to be envious of.

And, finally...

“My vision for Panther Island is that it’d be a world-class place for tourists to come and visit and see the best of Fort Worth, but also a place where our local residents can enjoy and feel like it’s for them as well,” Landeros said. 

How can anyone who has been to an actual world-class tourist destination possibly think this imaginary island can ever possibly be such? Just look at that stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth you see in the screen cap at the top. This is not a world-class town in any sense of the term....

Walking Around Sikes Lake With Geese Thinking About Elsie Hotpepper

It was back to Sikes Lake I went today on the second Thursday of the 2022 version of September.

As you can see, geese have taken over the Sikes Lake gazebo you see here.

That gazebo was the location of the last time I saw the elusive Elsie Hotpepper, in person. Walking by this gazebo today I strained my memory to try and remember when that was that I last saw Elsie Hotpepper.

I know it was pre-COVID. I think it may have been at some point in time during the year of 2018. That would make it around four years since the last, in person, Elsie Hotpepper sighting.

I can not remember when my last drive to the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex took place. That also was pre-COVID. For years I made a once a month trek to DFW.

COVID put an end to a lot of repetitive habits. And spawned many new repetitive habits...

Texas Welcome To June With Big Bend National Park

I flipped my National Parks wall calendar to June this morning and saw that which you see here. I thought is this a Grand Canyon National Park photo from down at the Colorado River level of the canyon?

Then I got out my magnifying glass to read the caption at the bottom.

Big Bend National Park in Texas.

Big Texas has only two national parks. Big Bend National Park and Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

I have not been to Big Bend. I have driven by the Guadalupe Mountains.

I would like to visit Big Bend National Park. I have seen photos of excellent hiking trails. It is around 500 miles from my current Texas location to Big Bend National Park.

People seem to be back traveling again. Elsie Hotpepper is currently beaching on the Florida panhandle. I am not quite ready yet to get on a plane. Or go on a long roadtrip....

Back To Lucy Park After Sunday Storm With More J.D. Granger Nonsense

On Saturday I had a windy walk at Lucy Park in which I made mention of J.D. Granger's sudden Trinity River Vision departure.

Someone named Anonymous then submitted a blog comment about the Granger departure subject...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Windy Lucy Park Walk With J.D. Granger's Sudden Trinity River Vision Departure":

“We are now known for having the only section of a river in a Texas downtown area that you can swim in and Texas’ only waterfront stage,”

So many facts needed checking in JD's announcement. I remember canoeing and swimming in the Colorado River in downtown Austin in the 1980s. Has that been closed?

______________________

I recollect mentioning to Elsie Hotpepper that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article about the Granger departure read like ridiculous blatant propaganda.

Granger weirdly, inaccurately bragging that he somehow un-polluted the Trinity River, turning it into the only downtown river in Texas where you can swim in a river, is embarrassingly delusional

Fort Worth is now known for having the only section of a river in a Texas downtown that you can swim in?

How about, more accurately, Fort Worth is the only Texas town to have city officials so dumb they think it a good idea to pretend a polluted river with frequently dangerously high e.coli contamination, is safe to get wet in.

And the only waterfront stage in Texas.

Yeah, that is one amazing stage on that equally amazing waterfront.

In addition to being able to swim in the Colorado River as it flows through Austin, is it not possible to also swim in the Brazos River as it flows through Waco?

The Brazos River as it flows through Waco is actually beautifully scenic, particularly the section that flows past the white cliffs of Cameron Park.

Anyway, it was back to Lucy Park this final Monday of the 2022 version of April. You might have guessed that to be the case due to that picture at the top of today's view of the Lucy Park Suspension Bridge.

I drove to Lucy Park this morning not knowing if the park might be closed due to the Wichita River going into flood mode due to Sunday's heavy rain. But, the river did not seem much higher today than it was on Saturday.

That storm Sunday was the strongest I've experienced in quite a while. Thunder booming went on for hours. As did rain. There were a few instances of light flickering after the sun left for the day, but the power did not stay off long enough during any of its flickers to cause anything digital to need to be reset.

Windy Lucy Park Walk With J.D. Granger's Sudden Trinity River Vision Departure

This next to last Saturday of the 2022 version of April is a blustery one in North Texas, a windy state not rendered obvious by the serene, peaceful Lucy Park Wichita River view you see above.

Gusts of wind had me holding onto my hat multiple times this morning as I hiked the Lucy Park backwoods. 

Even though there were gusts approaching a slow hurricane level of blowing, there were dozens of disc golfers throwing their discs. 

I have never disc golfed, but it seems to me doing so with extreme wind blowing would not be much fun.

Two news stories caught my eye this morning. The first was from Favorite Nephew Jason, sending me a news article purporting to tell the tale of his Aunt Clancy falling into an outhouse pit whilst attempting to retrieve her phone. Rescue specialists had to somehow lift Clancy out of that which she fell in to. And immediately hosed her down prior to more extensive sanitation measures.

The other news story first came to me via text message, then I saw it on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, then a text message from Elsie Hotpepper pointing to an article about the subject in Fort Worth Report.

The news?

J.D. Granger is no longer working for the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.  Granger had been removed from his position as Executive Director of the Trinity River Vision Authority a couple years ago, but continued to be paid well over $200K a year, even though he no longer had a designated position.

The story being told is that Granger resigned and is starting up a new business, named after himself. Granger claims he feels he can leave the Trinity River Vision now because his work there is done, after decades of boondoggling, the claim is the project is now on track to be a vision someone might one day see.

Many have asked many times what it is, exactly, that J.D. Granger has done during all these years of boondoggling. 

That question was first asked a long long time ago when a Trinity River Vision insider got fed up with what they were seeing at TRVA headquarters. Money spent on all sorts of perks. Perks from I-phones to I-pads, to junkets, to cars, to spending an inordinate amount of time, each day, discussing where to go to lunch today on the public's dime. 

The person who was telling us about things they just thought were not appropriate referred to him or herself as Deep Moat.

I remember one item which appalled Deep Moat was the well stocked liquor supply at TRVA headquarters.

But what really set Deep Moat's nerves on edge was the extramarital office affair J.D. Granger was having with one of his subordinates, who he later married after divorcing the mother of his children.

Anyway, do you think we will ever know what exactly J.D. Granger did all these years whilst being so well paid to do what would seem to be basically nothing, what with so little to show for all the years of boondoggling?

Oh, yes, there are those three little bridges built over dry land, waiting for a cement lined ditch to be dug under them. And there were those Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the polluted Trinity River. And let's not forget J.D. Granger touting the Cowtown Wakepark, bringing the coveted sport of wakeboarding to Fort Worth, which soon became one of J.D. Granger's early failures, a failure fairly easy to predict for anyone with even a slight modicum of common sense.

Many are feeling a bit cynical about the reason for J.D. Granger's departure. Was he given the option of resigning to avoid the embarrassment of being fired? Had the TRWD board realized there was no longer any reason to keep employing J.D. Granger so as to motivate his mother to secure federal funding, which the woman totally failed at, including voting no on the federal infrastructure bill which finally saw Fort Worth get the money to build that ditch under those bridges.

Methinks there is more to this story. Perhaps we will be hearing from Deep Moat...

Time To Worry About Sundance Sasha With Lady Whistleworth

 

Yesterday Elsie Hotpepper pointed me to a couple news articles about what is currently worrying locals regarding downtown Fort Worth.

This morning, via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I saw the headline you see screen capped. 

So, the Star-Telegram is also reporting on that which is worrying downtown Fort Worth.

Basically, what is worrying people is troubles with the management of the downtown Fort Worth organization known as Sundance Square.

Sundance Square perplexed me, and others, upon first visiting downtown Fort Worth and seeing signage pointing to Sundance Square. But, there was no square in Sundance Square, til years later when one of the downtown parking lots was turned into Sundance Square Plaza. I forget how many years it was til I learned Sundance Square was the name given a downtown Fort Worth revitalization project.

I remember learning this and thinking, yikes, if this is the revitalized version, what was this sleepy downtown like before getting vitalized?

Is that homage to Fort Worth's heritage, known as Heritage Park, still a boarded up closed eyesore on the north end of downtown Fort Worth? Or has Heritage Park been revitalized? Heritage Park at the north end of downtown Fort Worth, and the Water Gardens at the south end, are really the only two things about downtown Fort Worth which are even remotely unique.

Well, I guess it could be said that downtown Fort Worth is also unique in that it is the only big city downtown in America without any department stores. Or full sized grocery stores.

Because of the lack of shopping venues downtown Fort Worth is a ghost town on the busiest shopping day of the year, that being Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. We have made mention of this in various venues, including Day After Thanksgiving on my Eyes on Texas website, and multiple blog posts, including Having Fun Looking For Black Friday Shoppers Today In Downtown Fort Worth.

The two articles about Sundance Square which Elsie Hotpepper directed me to are...

'It is a shell': Reata's departure isn't the only issue facing Fort Worth's Sundance Square

and 

What's the Deal With Sundance Square?

The comments following the What's the Deal article are quite informative and enlightening.

Basically locals with an interest in downtown Fort Worth, such as restaurant owners, and other business owners, have been having trouble with a woman named Sasha Bass, the young trophy wife of Fort Worth billionaire, Ed Bass, who is 76 years old.

A paragraph from the Wikipedia article about Ed Bass...

Bass is a long-time supporter of downtown redevelopment, and has been described as a "leader in what is recognized as one of the most successful urban revitalization efforts in America". He and his family began the Sundance Square development in 1982. It combines commercial and residential space in the central business area of Fort Worth, and it received the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce's Spirit of Enterprise award in 2004. He led the development of Bass Performance Hall, financed without public funding, which opened in 1998.

The high cost of parking in downtown Fort Worth has become a troubling issue, and may account for being one of the reasons for the drop in the number of downtown Fort Worth visitors.

Since I have been keeping my eyes on Fort Worth I have witnessed many incredibly stupid things. The stupidest may have been letting Radio Shack build a new corporate headquarters at the north end of downtown Fort Worth. A corporate headquarters which Radio Shack could not afford, which was eventually turned into a Tarrant Community College campus.

The reason the Radio Shack debacle was stupid was that it ruined the other thing remotely unique about downtown Fort Worth, in addition to Heritage Park and the Water Gardens, that being the acres of free parking, with the world's shortest subway line taking visitors from the parking lot into the heart of downtown Fort Worth. 

Free to park, free to ride the subway.

I frequently frequented downtown Fort Worth when the parking and the subway made it easy. After the subway and parking was destroyed I only visited downtown Fort Worth a few more times.

The Sundance Square Sasha Bass Scandal has spawned another amusing thing Elsie Hotpepper directed me to, that being the Lady Whistleworth Instagram page, where Lady Whistleworth is the "Center of morality, governance, fashion - precisely because they are all broken."

No one knows who Lady Whistleworth is. Below is a screencap from the Lady Whistleworth Instagram. And below the screencap you can read the most recent Instagram posting from Lady Whistleworth. And just to be clear, the Evil Queen to which Lady Whistleworth refers is Sasha Bass...

Dearest Readers,

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

While we all learned this morning that a long time iconic downtown restaurant is unfortunately looking for a new location, this author has also heard that the dark cloud of Servitude is beginning to fold inward against the evil oppressor.  It seems, you see, that time is indeed running out for our Queen. As previously penned, there is increasing pressure with lenders to resolve the mortgages concerning the Queen’s properties which are on the verge of default. The problem is whilst she actively shops new lenders, in what we all hope will be another one of her futile endeavors, she is also actively working against tenants and commerce in general! Raise the rents? Check! Raise parking prices? Check! Pay any tenant to leave the Square that does not share her “vision”? Check! One would think that this rate of failure, combined with her immeasurable grandiosity, should finally prove persuasive enough to bring justice to Fort Worth!

At this point it may also be instructive to review the Queen’s resume, which won’t take long: No college degree. No career. No business experience. Family history of criminal activity, arrests, convictions, shoplifting, green card marriage, & disenfranchisement of all associated Royals. How could a lender look at this background and track record and do anything BUT foreclose? The real silver living to the cloud though is that perhaps the Brothers will hear the cries of their fair City, and come to the rescue. It would resolve things for all parties involved.

God Save the Queen? No, God Save Fort Worth!

 

Ever Yours,

Lady Whistleworth

___________________________

The verbiage of all the Lady Whistleworth postings is at the same high level of elevated snarkiness as the above example.

Upon reading the Lady Whistleworth words I thought she might be Elsie Hotpepper. I asked Elsie if it was she, to which Elsie said no, it was not she. So, who is Lady Whistleworth?

Looking At Fort Worth's Imaginarily Funded Panther Island Riverwalk

A couple days ago Elsie Hotpepper pointed me to seeing that which you see above, on Facebook. I assume this is a screen cap from one of the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision's many propaganda websites, touting the imaginary wonders of a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme, which is so vitally needed it has been limping along for most of this century.

The comments following this Facebook post covered most anything I might have to say about it, but, I shall toss in my two cents worth anyway.

First off. Privately funded? Really? When did that happen? If the funds were acquired privately, why was Congresswoman Kay Granger's son, J.D., hired as the Executive Director of this project, hoping to motivate his mother to secure federal funding? Which she failed to do, with federal funding not provided til the Biden Administration's infrastructure bill passed. 

A bill on which Kay Granger voted NO.

I do not know why J.D. Grange has not been fired, now that his use has been rendered obviously useless.

Panther Island Riverwalk?

So, we have now added a new qualifier to the ever growing name of this inept pseudo public works project.

The Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Riverwalk Vision. 

Isn't it just a tad embarrassing that Fort Worth does not come up with something original, instead of copying that world famous Riverwalk in San Antonio, a couple hundred miles south of Fort Worth?

Fort Worth has a bad habit of badly trying to copy things other towns are doing, or have done.

Before Fort Worth had its Trinity River Vision, Dallas, late in the previous century, initiated its Trinity River Project.

Here is a blurb from the Wikipedia article about the Dallas river project. See if you can spot the difference in the Dallas river project and the Fort Worth river project.

Voters approved a bond proposal to fund a major cleanup of the river, construction of park facilities, wildlife habitats, flood-protection devices such as levees, and related road construction. Once passed, a planning process began with construction on the project starting in 2005. Proponents believe this development will bring more life, commerce, revenue to the downtown Dallas region.

I'm sure you spotted the difference. Dallas voters approved a bond proposal, in the way towns wearing their Big City Pants get things done. Fort Worth voters have never been asked to vote on a bond proposal to fund that which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Another blurb from Wikipedia about the Dallas River Project...

The Trinity River Corridor Project is intended to transform the Trinity River flood zone in downtown Dallas into the nation's largest urban park, featuring three signature bridges designed by acclaimed architect Santiago Calatrava.

When Fort Worth foisted its Trinity River Vision on the unsuspecting public, the Vision copied the Dallas Vision in multiple ways. Including touting three signature bridges.

The Trinity River Vision continued touting those imaginary three iconic signature bridges for years. Until they began to be built in slow motion over dry land, with it apparent the three iconic signature bridges look like freeway overpasses, as you can see via the photo at the top of one of the Fort Worth imaginary signature bridges.

Meanwhile the Dallas Trinity River Project has managed to build two of their three actual iconic signature bridges, designed as originally touted, by acclaimed bridge architect Santiago Calatrava. Those two completed bridges have altered the Dallas skyline in an iconic way. And these bridges were built over actual water, not dry land.

Wikipedia used to have an article devoted to Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision. But, that article no longer exists. I suspect it was removed due to so many inaccuracies, and its blatant propaganda. That and a reference to herds of feral cats occupying the imaginary island.

Now, if you search on Wikipedia for that article about the Trinity River Vison you are brought to a blurb in the Wikipedia Trinity River article in which mention is made of the two town's Trinity River projects...

The Trinity River Corridor Project is intended to transform the Trinity River flood zone in downtown Dallas into the nation's largest urban park, featuring three signature bridges designed by acclaimed architect Santiago Calatrava.

A similar project is planned by the Tarrant Regional Water District, City of Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Streams & Valleys Inc., and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop an area north of "downtown" as "uptown" along the Trinity River. This plan promotes a large mixed-use development adjacent to the central city area of Fort Worth, with a goal to prevent urban sprawl by promoting the growth of a healthy, vibrant urban core. The Trinity River Vision lays the groundwork to enable Fort Worth's central business district to double in size over the next forty years.

I forgot to mention another thing that seems absurdly ridiculous in the propaganda verbiage from the Panther Island - Central City Flood Project website. That being that the "privately funded" project will also provide flood protection and save Fort Worth over $14 million in stormwater infrastructure needs.

Didn't Fort Worth voters vote to approve a proposal to pay for stormwater infrastructure needs? And didn't the Boondogglers try and claim that this approval was somehow a voter approval of the entire Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Riverwalk District Vision?

If the imaginary island ii privately funded why was federal funding needed to build the cement lined ditch under the three bridges currently stranded over dry land. If I remember right the amount Fort Worth is getting for its Boondoggle, from the Infrastructure bill, is something like $403 million. The total cost estimate of the entire Boondoggle is over $1 billion.

Is $403 million sufficient funding to build a river diversion channel? Which has not yet even been designed. This funding was approved without the usual requirement of a feasibility study being required. 

I suspect we will soon learn that it is not feasible to build that diversion channel for a relatively measly $403 million. Or the Army Corps of Engineers design team will determine it not possible to dig a channel under the completed bridges without compromising the structural integrity of the bridges.

And then there is the environmental cleanup aspect. How much of the imaginary island's industrial wasteland property has been properly analyzed for hazardous polluting contamination? EPA Superfund cleanups can get quite costly. Has that been factored into the actual final cost of this multi-decade Boondoggle?

Fort Worth really needs to see an optometrist about its Vision. I suspect the town may have cataracts...

Clueless Toddler Of A Town Solicits Bridge Naming Help

Yesterday the entity calling him or herself Cowtown Crude, whilst describing him or herself as rude, crude, and socially unacceptable, left a blog comment...

Cowtown Crude has left a new comment on your post "Bike Takes Me To New Section Of Circle Trail In Lake Wichita Park":

Name the Panther Island bridges contest!

Help choose the names for three new Trinity River bridges

Last night Elsie Hotpepper pointed me to the same thing in a Facebook post about an NBC DFW item about the same subject. Elsie told me the comments were hilarious, to which I replied I saw no comments, to which Elsie screen capped the comments, which you can read by clicking here.

For those not familiar with America's Biggest Dumbest Boondoggle, here's the abridged version.

Near the start of this century it was announced that Fort Worth was going to be transformed into being the Vancouver of the South via something which was then called Trinity Uptown. Within a few years this name morphed into being the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

In 2014, that which was already being referred to as The Boondoggle, began construction of three simple freeway overpass type bridges, built in slow motion over dry land.

It took til 2021 to finish the building of these three little bridges, which you see pictured in the above screen cap.

The Henderson Bridge, North Main Bridge, and White Settlement Bridge.

Already seemingly named after the roads which cross the bridges.

But now the city of Fort Worth is initiating a bridge naming event, soliciting the public's input for bridge names.

From the two webpages Cowtown Crude pointed us to....

Now that the construction is complete for the three new Trinity River bridges, we want your help in naming them.

The bridges will span the future Trinity River bypass channel as part of the Central City Flood Control Project being designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Given the significance of the Central City project and bridges, Mayor Mattie Parker wants you to help us find the best name for each bridge.

Please provide your suggested name for each bridge.

When suggesting a name, please keep the following criteria in mind:

Promote community pride and connectivity to the Trinity River

Celebrate the culture and history of Fort Worth related to:

• Geographic location or neighborhood of the bridge
• Outstanding feature of the bridge or area
• Commonly recognized event, group or deceased individual

Not be offensive or controversial

Now that construction is complete and traffic is flowing over the three Panther Island bridges, Fort Worth residents are encouraged to help name them.

________________________

Naming these lame bridges to promote community pride? Will this counteract the community embarrassment that the building of these simple little bridges over dry land took seven years? Way longer than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge over actual water.

And the citizens of San Francisco were not asked to help with the naming of that actual iconic bridge.

Named after an outstanding feature of the bridge? Or the area it is bridging? What is even remotely outstanding about any of these three little bridges?

Name the first bridge finished "Took Too Long To Build". The second bridge completed "Took Even Longer To Build" with the last bridge completed named "Took Longest To Build". 

Because the only thing even remotely remarkable about these bridges is that it took seven years to build them. Over dry land. Awaiting a cement lined ditch to be dug under the bridges, with Trinity River water diverted into the ditch, thus creating an imaginary island.

How does a town like Fort Worth manage to come up with so many ways to embarrass itself? I know it's the Fort Worth Way, but one would think at some point the locals would rebel and insist their town act like a city wearing its big city pants, instead of a clueless toddler of a town....

HOT Day Two Of March Goose Walking Around Sikes Lake

It was to Sikes Lake I went today for an extremely pleasant commune with nature. As you can see the lake is in dead calm mode, due to no wind blowing.

With the temperature in the mid 70s, and now wind, today felt like summer. Judging by the throng of walkers, joggers, scooters and bikers multitudes are enjoying basking in outdoor warmth after last week's Arctic Blast Deep Freeze.

The Sikes Lake geese were behaving weirdly today. A lot of honking. I think the sudden arrival of summer confuses the birds and makes them a little grumpy.

Sikes Lake has multiple gazebos installed around the lake. In the above photo we are looking west, with that building on the left being a Hilton Inn. The last time I saw Elsie Hotpepper was at a gazebo near that Hilton Inn.

Above we are looking northeast towards the Midwestern State University campus. As you can see a sole goose is guarding that particular gazebo. The geese can be a bit possessive about their gazebos.

A couple years ago I made note of an unexplained disappearance at Sikes Lake. Soon after the above plaque was installed, making note of two works of art, one being Painters Parade, that being the small horse you see above the plaque.

And the other being Apple-oosa, a large horse, which you do not see, because it galloped off to some unknown destination.

I have asked previously if anyone knew what happened to the large Apple-oosa horse, with no answers forthcoming. 

Speaking of bikers. Late yesterday afternoon I went on my first bike ride of the year. And had a mighty fine time. By the time I got to Sikes Lake, last night, it was borderline crowded, which made it fun.