The Deep Moat Search For The Tarrant Regional Water District Crime Syndicate's Smoking Gun

I think I may have mentioned a time or two that we in the Anti-Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Syndicate have ourselves a mole inside the TRV Boondoggle who has provided us information over the past few years which has gone a long ways to reinforcing the widespread belief that something is not right with The Boondoggle, not right to the extent that some, recently, have referred to The Boondoggle's overseer as the TRWD Crime Syndicate.

The Anti-TRV Boondoggle Syndicate's TRV mole calls him or herself Deep Moat.

From Deep Moat we have learned many things. Things such as details of the junkets J.D. Granger would take his TRV co-horts on, to various American and Canadian towns, ostensibly to research how those towns accomplished that which J.D Granger and his Boondoggle hoped to accomplish for Fort Worth.

Ironically, it has been years now, and there is ZERO to be seen of anything The Boondoggle has accomplished which at all mirrors anything they saw on any of those junkets.

Well, there are those Three Bridges Over Nothing being constructed with an incredible four year construction timeline of longer than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge.

We had not heard from Deep Moat for over a year til this week. Deep Moat sent an email with some information and one question....

"Did the Breitbart guy ever find what he was looking for? "

The Breitbart guy to whom Deep Moat refers is Lawrence Meyers, investigative journalist for Breitbart.

Lawrence Meyers and Breitbart have published multiple articles detailing their ongoing investigations into the Tarrant Regional Water District and Trinity River Vision corruption.

The Anti-TRV Boondoggle Syndicate's Information Officer, Elsie Hotpepper, relayed Deep Moat's question to Mr. Meyers, who then replied with...

Tell her "No. He knows there are many smoking guns, but everyone is too afraid to hand them to him. They need to stop being so afraid. Someone will get indicted and when that happens, people who know stuff and didn't come forward are going to be in the crosshairs".

One can not help but wonder, if one wonders about such things, when it is that there is going to be any sort of Grand Jury investigation into the TRWD and TRV shenanigans?

And what will the smoking gun be?

Will it be the communications between TRWD board members which led to the bizarre hiring of J.D. Granger to run a pseudo public works project for which he had zero qualifications?

Will it be how it was that shady land purchase deals came to be approved?

Will it be a follow the money type scenario which leads to the wrongdoing?

Will it be finding the details of sweetheart deals awarding no-bid TRWD contracts?

What does it take to get a Grand Jury investigation under way in a jurisdiction rife with corruption?

There must be a way......

Why Does Fort Worth's New Multi-Purpose Arena Cost So Much And Do So Little Compared To Phoenix Arenas?

It seems as if it has been weeks, maybe months, since I've made note of a bridge built somewhere in the world in less than four years, compared to the Fort Worth Dunce Confederacy's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing, those being three small, simple bridges scheduled to take four years to build.

Well, it's a construction project of a different sort than bridge building which has me puzzled today.

In this past November's election Fort Worth's voters were asked to vote on three bizarre propositions regarding a proposed multi-purpose arena to be built in the Fort Worth Stock Show zone, to replace the antique Will Rogers Rodeo Coliseum.

Fort Worth voters were asked to approve three fees, such as a $1 fee to rent a livestock stall in the new arena.

No, you reading this in the democratic part of America, I am not making this up.

The actual funding mechanism of this new Fort Worth Multi-Purpose Arena was not much discussed. Such as, how was it determined that these three fees voted on by the voters would be enough to pay for half the cost of the almost half billion dollar arena?

What is freshly perplexing me is the cost and capacity of this small Fort Worth Multi-Purpose Arena. The Dunce Confederacy propaganda regarding this arena claimed it was needed so as to attract acts to Fort Worth which were not attracted to the Fort Worth Convention Center Arena which could hold only around 12,000 ticket buyers.

However, this new Fort Worth Multi-Purpose Arena will hold only a couple thousand more ticket buyers. So, are we to believe those extra couple thousand tickets sold is the tipping point to get Beyonce or One Direction to do their thing in Fort Worth?

I think not. Not when the Dallas Cowboy Stadium and other venues are in the D/FW neighborhood.

Now to what is bugging me, that being the almost half billion dollar cost of this new Fort Worth Multi-Purpose Arena.

On February 1 the Super Bowl will take place in what is called University of Phoenix Stadium, so-called due to the online school which plays no inter-collegiate sports buying the naming rights for the stadium in which the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL play.

Construction on this stadium began on April 12, 2003, with the stadium opening less than four years later, on August 1, 2006.

This stadium costs $455 million, which amounts to $532 million in 2015 dollars.

At its peak seating configuration this stadium can accommodate in the neighborhood of 78,000 ticket buyers.

This stadium is a multi-purpose arena which can be configured for all sorts of events, and features the world's first fully retractable natural grass surface, which is able to be slid out of the stadium so an event can take place on the stadium floor without damaging the turf.

In other words, this is a much more complex arena, which holds a lot more people, than Fort Worth's relatively puny arena. And which costs only slightly more than Fort Worth's arena.

Adjacent to University of Phoenix Stadium you will find the Gila River Arena.

Construction began on this arena on April 3, 2002, with the arena open for business on December 26,  2003.

The Gila River Arena cost $220 million, which amounts to $282 million in 2015 dollars.

The Gila River Arena can hold 19,000 ticket buyers, significantly more than Fort Worth's relatively puny Multi-Purpose Arena.

At a fraction of the cost.

So, what is going on here?

Why does the new Fort Worth arena cost so much more than the Phoenix area arenas, relative to the number of ticket buyers the Fort Worth arena can accommodate?

How can Fort Worth spend almost a half a billion dollars on a multi-purpose arena which can only hold around 14,000, while the Phoenix area can manage to build a multi-purpose arena for around a half a billion dollars which is big enough to hold an enormous rodeo?

And a Super Bowl.

With the Fort Worth Multi-Purpose Arena proposal not vetted in the way such things are examined in democratic parts of America, one can only wonder what type shenanigans are taking place with this project.

Unlike the Dunce Confederacy's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle I've not heard about any local politician's son being hired to oversee the arena building project, so we are not looking at, as far as I know, the price being inflated due to paying the beneficiaries of nepotism an inordinate amount of money over an inordinate amount of time for a project which should have been completed in a reasonable amount of time.

This is all very perplexing...

Many Ohio & Oregon Fans Frustrated By Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington Lack Of Public Transportation

This morning I am being a bit discombobulated, with that condition having me bouncing from one thing to the next, subject-wise, in my discombobulated thinking.

So, let's start with this morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram's article titled Long taxi lines leave many fans frustrated at AT&T Stadium.

First off, why is the Star-Telegram letting me  read an article this morning without the usual blocking and insistence I become an online subscriber?

Second off, why do various media entities go along with the naming of stadiums? It's Cowboy Stadium. Why call it something else just because some corporate entity paid to have their name slobbered on the building. And slobbered is an understatement. Have you seen the garish AT&T logo on Cowboy Stadium. To my mind, that alone should be what they get for naming rights, with those naming rights not including everyone else, as in those who have not been paid to do so, going along with the "new" name.

I remember the first time I flew into Seattle after the Seahawks new stadium was built. The roof said something like "Seattle Seahawk Stadium". The next time I flew in the roof said something like "QWest Field". The last time I flew in to Seattle the Seahawk stadium roof said "CenturyLink Field."

What is a Qwest or a CenturyLink? I have never bothered to try and find out.

Back to the most recent event to take place at Cowboys Stadium, that being the National Championship College Football game which Ohio State won by soundly beating Oregon.

After the game mini-riot conditions erupted. I read somewhere that an Ohio State cheerleader was trampled in one of the post game melees.

This morning's Star-Telegram article about the transportation woes following the game brought to my mind something I have wondered about before, which I started wondering about after the Super Bowl debacle at Cowboys Stadium.

As in, what is causing those who book a national event decide staging that event at Cowboys Stadium is a good idea?  What with there being so many other venues in America which would seem to work much better.

Cowboys Stadium seems to work great for Texas-centric events, where the locals drive and park on the world's largest acreage of parking lots. But, when people fly in from other parts of the country, in the most recent case, from Ohio and Oregon, well, I am sure many of those people arrive thinking they are arriving in a modern American city with modern transportation, to be perplexed to find that is not the case.

Do those who book Cowboys Stadium for a national event realize there is no modern public transportation connecting the stadium area to the airport? Do those who book Cowboys Stadium for a national event not realize there is a very limited number of hotels in the area near the stadium? Do those who book Cowboys Stadium not realize that about half of the stadium is surrounded by urban blight?

Why is there not some local impetus to extend the Dallas DART train from Dallas to Arlington's Entertainment District? I would think such a line would be very popular. What if the new DART line which connects to the airport was extended to Arlington's Entertainment District? Would that not be a good idea?

As for those hapless souls from Ohio and Oregon who found themselves staying in one of downtown Fort Worth's hotels, was there public transit other than taxis to take those people east to Arlington? Did the Fort Worth T buses run a circuit back and forth between Arlington and downtown Fort Worth?

I suspect not. If not, why not?

What is the next national event scheduled for Cowboys Stadium? Methinks the transportation problems need to be addressed or there will soon come a day when  no national events are scheduled at Cowboys Stadium....

Does TCU Now Play The Winner Of Oregon/Ohio State For The College Football Championship?

I admit I am not much of a fan of football. Or watching most sports.

Of all the sports people find to be something they are willing to sit and watch, basketball is the only one which I have enjoyed watching.

I went to many a Seattle Supersonic game over the years, til the team was stolen by the thief who calls himself Aubrey McClendon.

With football I don't get what people find to be so compelling that it causes them to watch these games week after week. It just seems like endless variations of the same thing, to me.

I do enjoy a good halftime show, though.

Anyway, I admit I don't get the local umbrage over their local team, TCU, being denied a spot in the college football final championship group of four.

I mean, TCU may have had a good record, winning a lot of football games, ranking high in those all important football polls. But, the reality of the matter is TCU is a small school most of the nation knows nothing about, except for it being three initials on a football poll. With those three initials, TCU, playing in a town most of America knows nothing about, Fort Worth.

I have no idea if lack of national presence was factored in when the decision was made as to what school was to play for the all important national college football title, but I suspect TCU's relative obscurity may have been a bit of a factor.

I wonder how many people watching yesterday's college football championship, where Ohio State beat Oregon 42 - 20, got what was meant by the sign you see in the photo above,  "WINNER PLAYS TCU"?

I wonder how many of the people in Cowboy Stadium yesterday from Ohio and Oregon knew that TCU was located just a few miles to the west of where they were sitting?

Currently I Am Periodically Suffering 3 Out Of 7 Common Cold Symptoms

Yes, that is an accurate artist's rendering of me you are looking at here, including the receding hairline.

In the middle of the night, the past three nights, I have found myself suddenly awake and coughing.

Along with a sore throat.

I get up and drink some water and the sore throat goes away.

Then I lay back in bed wondering if I am coming down with a cold for the first time in years.

My other cold indicating symptom, the past three days, has been getting a headache in the afternoon, which then abates around the time the sun leaves for the day.

Is my extremely highly evolved immune system fighting off a cold virus, somewhat successfully, is what I think may be happening.

Or am I just suffering from being denied any high speed Tandy Hills hill hiking or mountain bike riding for well over a month?

All I know for certain is I do not want to go into full blown cold mode. It has been a long time since that has happened to me, but the memory of the misery is still fresh.

And I certainly do not want to go into flu mode.  That has not happened since early in the 1990s and was the most miserably sick I have ever been.

I think I need a strong dose of the sun's rays warming me up in the outer world. I have no idea where I can find such a thing right at this particular point in time at this particular point on the planet....

Super Hero Mary Kelleher Takes On Jim Oliver And The TRWD Crime Syndicate's Gang Of Four

Super Hero Mary Kelleher

A day or two ago something somewhere caused me to be reading about a meeting of something called the TCGOP Executive Committee, a meeting at which Tarrant Regional Water District Board Member, Mary Kelleher, was detailing for the meeting a TRWD resolution to constrain the scope of that agency's spending, what with only 20% of the Water District's budget being spent to manage water.

I then read a comment regarding that meeting, from someone named Matt, which has stuck in my memory, due to one phrase in the comment....

"TRWD is akin to a criminal syndicate as currently constructed, and Mary Kelleher is the only honest thing about it. Change is coming in May."

Criminal Syndicate.

The TRWD is a criminal syndicate.

Who is the head of the TRWD crime syndicate? Is it Jim Oliver?

What crimes are this syndicate alleged to be committing? Is it giving sweetheart land deals to friends facing bankruptcy? Is it financially benefiting from land deals associated with the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle? Is it awarding no-bid contracts to election campaign donors? Is it acts of nepotism, such as hiring the unqualified son of the local congresswoman to run The Boondoggle, so as to motivate the congresswoman to try and secure funding for her son's Three Bridges Over Nothing and the ditch he hopes to one day dig under the bridges?

By crime syndicate are we talking about the way the TRWD seems to operate outside the law? Ignoring things like the Freedom of Information Act? Refusing to turn over public documents after being requested to do so by various entities.

Including Mary Kelleher.

Yes, Jim Oliver and the TRWD board's Gang of Four refuse to allow fellow board member, Mary Kelleher, access documents she has requested to see.

Plus the crime syndicate run by Jim Oliver and his Gang of Four refuses to give Mary Kelleher a key to the Fortress of Bamboozlement, also known as TRWD Headquarters.

Over the period time which Mary Kelleher has served as a TRWD Board Member her fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way has had more than one person refer to Mary as a "Hero" or a "Super Hero".

Hence the illustration of Mary Kelleher above, as Super Woman, taking on the TRWD crime syndicate run by Jim Oliver and his Gang of Four....

If Miss Julie The Texan Moves To Washington She Will Need To Get Used To Volcanic Lenticulars

This morning upon the arrival of the sun I was greeted by a site the likes of which it is impossible for me to see at my location in Texas.

That being a mountain with the semi-rare phenomenon of two cap clouds, known as lenticulars, hovering above the mountain, like a pair of flying saucers from the 1950s.

This mountain we are looking at here is known as Mount Rainier. Mount Rainier is the tallest mountain in Washington and one of Washington's five active volcanoes.

Last night Fort Worth's renowned botanist, known as Miss Julie, the Plant Lady of the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens, verbalized to me her reluctance to move to Western Washington due to her aversion to the almost non-stop cloud cover and cold she has been experiencing this winter in Texas.

I assured Miss Julie that while clouds may hover over Western Washington, for what seems like forever, particularly in winter, that there are often breaks from the gloom, and ways to escape the gloom, such has heading east over the mountains to usually sunny Eastern Washington, or heading west to the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains where desert levels of rainfall falls annually.

In Texas, no matter what direction Miss Julie chooses to go, there is no outer world relief from the gray gloom when it decides to descend upon North Texas, not for hundreds and hundreds of miles.....

Seattle Seahawks 12th Man & Texas Earthquakes With No Super Bowl For The Dallas Cowboys

No, that is not an artist's rendering of what Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's "lake" might look like, if it ever gets to the fill the thing with water stage.

The body of water you are looking at is an inlet of Puget Sound known as Elliott Bay, which would make that not the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth you are looking at, but instead, you are looking at just a small part of the actually stunning skyline of the actually beautiful downtown Seattle.

That glowing thing to the lower left of the "12" is known as the Seattle Great Wheel. It is a Ferris wheel type device which spins out over the Seattle waterfront.

This week that number "12" has been showing up all over the Pacific Northwest, including the top of the Space Needle.

This morning I saw a dozen Golden Labrador puppies all wearing sweaters with the number "12" on them.

This number "12" thing has something to do with the Seattle Seahawk fans being the 12th member of the team.

I have not heard if those noisy fans broke another ground shaking sound record during last night's game. I read seismology sensors had been installed around Seahawk Stadium so as to accurately measure any fan induced earthquakes.

Speaking of earthquakes, all the earthquakes that have been shaking the D/FW zone have been getting national attention. I know this due to being asked by people outside of the shake zone if I've been shaking.

The most amusing earthquake related message came from Spencer Jack's dad via email, saying, "I knew Texas had many faults,  but I did not know Texas had faults of the earthquake  causing sort".

Having shaken through many an earthquake whilst living in Washington, these Texas quakes perplex me.

For a couple year period during the 1990s my abode was shaken by multiple earthquakes, known as the Big Lake Quakes, shallow quakes, epicentered about 3 miles to the east, ranging from approximately 2.0 to 3.5.

Those quakes, though low in Richter scale number were very rambunctious. I remember when one of them struck I was sitting in my living room. It hits loud, like a freight train, the windows flex, the fir trees sway violently. I  remember with that one I heard a loud crack in my kitchen. After the shaking stopped I went to the kitchen to find that the quake had cracked the tile floor.

I was laying on my waterbed when another of those quakes struck. It was like suddenly being in a boat in extremely rough water.

Earthquakes are extremely noisy, like a vibrating roar.

With so much population so close to these Texas quakes it has puzzled me why I've not heard people describing the quakes as loud, as violent, as scary. I've read of no one saying their windows flexed during a quake, looking like they might pop out.

Being near the epicenter of a 3.0 quake should be an unnerving experience, to a level I've not heard anyone, who has been shaken here, express.

Today Dallas plays in a football game, way up north, by a Green Bay, not an Elliott Bay.

Now, this is  amusing, just as I typed the above I realized I was not certain who it was Dallas was playing today. So I checked to find that the game was already over, with Dallas losing, due to the Green Bay Packers scoring 21 points, while Dallas ended up with only 16.

Does this mean Green Bay heads to Elliott Bay to play the Seahawks to see who goes to the Super Bowl? I have no idea.  I imagine I could find out if I wanted to expend a little effort....

Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Should Look West For Inspiration

It was early in this century, not long after I moved to Texas, that I recollect being completely puzzled by what I did not then understand was not a real newspaper, that being the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and that newspaper's breathless headline announcing that something called Trinity Uptown was going to turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South.

I remember when that same pseudo newspaper breathlessly announced that a lame little food court in downtown Fort Worth, the Santa Fe Rail Market, was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market, and other public markets, with me wondering have none of these people actually been to Seattle and seen Pike Place?

The headline about Fort Worth being turned into the Vancouver of the South had me wondering the same type thing, as in, have none of these people actually been to Vancouver?

Well, a decade and a half after learning Fort Worth was going to become the Vancouver of the South, do I have egg on my face, or what?

Let's go with the what option.

What became known as the Trinity River Vision has revitalized downtown Fort Worth, drawing in thousands of new residents, retail stores, restaurants, theaters, sports venues, concert halls, not to mention being the hub of a modern high speed rail public transport system, connecting downtown Fort Worth to the airport.

Oh, oops, I got my towns mixed up. That is not the Trinity River Vision's flood diversion channel you are looking at above. That is the Los Angeles River, flowing by downtown Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles River is being revitalized in the downtown LA zone by a project known as Los Angeles River Revitalization. Vision is not part of the name. Nor is some local congresswoman's unqualified son in charge of any aspect of the project.

During the period of time Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has been floundering with little to show for it, downtown Los Angeles has been in the midst of a revival that has turned it from a ghost town, after hours, to a booming destination, night and day.

The Los Angeles River Revitalization Project is just one part of the changes that have come to downtown Los Angeles.

Like many cities in America, the downtowns of both Los Angeles and Fort Worth have changed drastically with the advent of freeways and suburbs. Residents and businesses bailed on downtowns. Fort Worth's downtown eventually was left without a single department or grocery store. Los Angeles also lost many of its downtown stores and corporate headquarters and residents.

Back in the last century Fort Worth tried to revive its downtown with things like a multi-block area called Sundance Square. Where there was no square til recently. As of 2015 downtown Fort Worth is still without a single department store. Or grocery store. Or public transit connection to the airport.

Meanwhile, in downtown Los Angeles.

In this century the Los Angeles City Council approved massive changes to zoning and development requirements for downtown LA. This allowed for denser development, with special consideration given to developers who reserved 15% of their units for low income residents.

Beginning in the 1990s, Los Angeles Metro Rail, a multi-lane rail transit network, began to move people efficiently in and out of downtown LA.

Downtown Fort Worth lacks a modern public transit system, including, like already mentioned, no direct public transit connection to D/FW Airport.

Rail based transit to and from downtown LA made developments like Staples Center feasible, followed by adding the adjacent L.A. Live Complex, which includes the Nokia Theater. Developers are pouring billions into projects in downtown LA, including a Disney Concert Hall and art museum designed by Frank Gehry.

Buildings, long sitting un-used in downtown LA, are being converted into residential towers.

Over 500 restaurants and retail shops have opened in downtown LA during this century's revitalization.

All accomplished without anything goofily ill-conceived, like Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

I mean, can you imagine the voters of LA being asked to vote on some aspect of downtown LA's revitalization by being asked to approve a $1 rental fee for a livestock stall in Staples Center?

Can you imagine the citizens of Los Angeles sitting quiet, like sheep, while those in charge of revitalizing downtown Los Angeles claim that three bridges are being built as part of the river revitalization, before diverting the river under the bridges, in order to save money?

And that those three bridges over the Los Angeles River will take four years to build? Longer than it took Walt to build Disneyland......

Fort Worth In The Deep South & Mount Vernon In The Far North Are Temperature Twins Today

This second Friday morning of 2015, temperature-wise, as you can see via computer generated temperature graphics generated by my computer, there is no warmth advantage, currently, to being located in the usually warm Deep South, compared to my former location in the Far North, a couple thousand miles distant.

Fort Worth is 34 and Cloudy. Mount Vernon is 34 with Some Clouds.

Mount Vernon, in the Far North, is heading today to a high of 49, while Fort Worth, in the Deep South, is heading to a high of 37.

The temperature in Washington, in winter, is moderated by this big mass of water called the Pacific Ocean. That same big mass of water, in summer, provides natural air conditioning.

The nearest big mass of water to Fort Worth is known as the Gulf of Mexico. That Gulf is several hundred miles distant, hence no temperature moderating body of water, not in winter, not in summer.

I do not recollect, in past winters, such a long period of dreary, cold, gray weather in the North Texas zone.

The usually pattern of Texas winter weather, if my memory is remembering correctly, is there can be a bout of cold weather, lasting a few days, sometimes accompanied by frozen water.

Those short bouts of cold weather, in times past, in Texas, have always been quickly followed by pleasant temperatures in the 70s. Or 80s.

Maybe I am remembering wrong.

All I know for certain is right now being some place tropical sounds real good.