In December a package arrived at my doorstep, sent by Priscilla from my old home location in Mount Vernon, Washington.
On Christmas, well, actually Christmas Eve, that package was opened.
And what to my wondering eyes did appear?
Well, among several things one of the things was a calendar, with Washington scenery.
I did not get around to flipping the calendar to February til this morning to see the Washington scene you see here.
This is a scene of the sort it is impossible to see anywhere in any direction for hundreds of miles at my current location.
The mountain you are looking at is Mount Shuksan.
Mount Shuksan is in what is known as the Mount Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest, part of the Cascade Mountains, which range from British Columbia to California.
So, America, you own this scenery, what with it being a National Forest.
There are frequent forest fires in this National Forest. I don't know if any Washingtonians have been dumb enough to take our dumb president's advice to go rake the forest floor so as to prevent those forest fires..
There are two volcanoes in the Mount Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest. The aforementioned Mount Baker and the not frequently seen Glacier Peak. I only saw Glacier Peak a couple times whilst residing in Washington. To see Glacier Peak required doing some hiking, or mountain driving. The Glacier Peak volcano was about the same distance as the Mount Baker volcano from my Mount Vernon abode.
In winter the Mount Baker Ski Area is open for skiing, if there is enough snow, which there usually is, what with the Mount Baker Ski Area holding the world record for deepest snow at a ski area.
When skiing in the Mount Baker Ski Area you can not actually see Mount Baker, except maybe at the top of one of the ski runs which my ski level never allowed me to access. The Mount Baker volcano is to the south and the view of it is blocked by other large mountain masses. But, Mount Shuksan is visible from the Mount Baker Ski Area, hence some people erroneously assume it is Mount Baker.
In summer, after the winter snow pack melts enough, a road is opened to a large parking lot which overlooks Mount Baker, giving easy hiking access to the volcano, and to the switchback trail to the top of Tabletop Mountain, which is what you see below.
The above is one of my favorite photos I have ever taken. Sitting on top of Tabletop Mountain those are two of my favorite nephews in the foreground, Jeremy, known as JR, and Christopher, known as CJ.
In the middle of the photo there is a line of the type rock pilings I call Hoodoos. And in the background that is a fuller view of Mount Shuksan than the one on Priscilla's Washington calendar.
As you can see, much of the snow melts off Mount Shuksan during the HOT time of the year, leaving only a collection of glaciers behind.
Next month it is highly likely I will be seeing Jeremy. Most likely on Monday, March 11 and on Monday, March 18. Mondays are Jeremy's regularly scheduled dinner dates with his grandma, also known as Miss Daisy.
Jeremy's Monday night dinner dates with Miss Daisy always are topped off with a rousing bout of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Jeremy usually wins these games, unless grandma is having a particularly good night...
Last night a video showed up in my email. Nothing in the subject line. No message in the message area of the email. Just an attached video.
Due to a couple phone text messages earlier in the day I had reason to think this video might be showing up in my email. And that I might be converting this video into a YouTube video and then putting this video on a blog.
At that point in time I did not think that blog would be my blog, but this morning I figured why not put this YouTube video on my blog.
And so I did.
If you did not already know it, this video with the title of Mary Kelleher Announcement Video announces the fact that Mary Kelleher is in the running to take back her rightful seat on the Tarrant Region Water District Board.
Will Mary Kelleher win in a landslide like the first time she was elected to the TRWD Board?
This time current board members, Jim Lane and Marty Leonard, are also on the ballot. The last time Jim Lane and Marty Leonard got themselves re-elected the shady vote total results resulted in being part of the biggest election fraud investigation in Texas history.
Anyone have any clue what happened with that election fraud investigation? It sort of surprises me that Jim Lane and Marty Leonard are back on a TRWD Board election ballot.
But, such is just part of that which is known as The Fort Worth Way...
I won't be voting for Mary Kelleher this time. I also won't be voting for Jim Lane or Marty Leonard. Only voters living in a small slice of the area in which the Tarrant Region Water District operates are allowed to vote. This sort of odd version of gerrymandering may be yet one more subset of that notorious Fort Worth Way...
In a little over a month I will be seeing the view I am seeing in the photo you are seeing here.
Lounging post swim at one of the Sun Lakes pool locations.
I booked the bird outta here this morning, flying east at around 5 in the afternoon on March 5 before switching to a bigger bird to fly west to Phoenix. Then returning to my current location two weeks later, if all goes according to plan and an idiot does not cause a total shutdown of air traffic or some other similar stupid lunacy.
It seems like I was just in Arizona, but it was way back last year that I last saw mountains combined with blue sky, cactus and palm trees.
I am Miss Daisy's favorite driver, so I guess I am looking forward to driving Miss Daisy to all the places I have driven Miss Daisy to on previous drives.
One of the highlights of my visits to Arizona is always the drive south to Maricopa, where I get to see Penny at my favorite Maricopa McDonald's. That and go to the Maricopa Aki-Chin Casino where I usually win a small fortune at a slot machine the operation of which requires constant supervision, due to modern slot machines bearing no resemblance to the slot machines I was used to in the previous century.
I think I am going to enjoy being in a somewhat HOT climate, what with this COLD winter I have been shivering through...
Is this the online version of the hard copy quarterly propaganda reports which America's Biggest Boondoggle has been sending to mailboxes four times a year, for years?
I don't know.
I would make the assumption that those quarterly propaganda reports, slick full color multi-page productions, are no longer having money wasted on them, what with there being so little to update anyone on regarding that which has become an extremely slow motion public works project which the public has never voted on in any sort of legitimate way.
So, I looked at this online propaganda which details, supposedly accurately, financial aspects and project status aspects of this Fort Worth embarrassment which has been limping along most of this century, with little to show for the effort.
This PROJECT UPDATE report is divided into multiple sections....
PROJECT FUNDING SPLIT WITH TRWD BOND OPTION
PHASE COMPLETION WITH TRWD BOND OPTION
STATUS OF PHASE ONE
CENTRAL CITY - TOTAL PROJECT EXPENDITURES: LOCAL VS FEDERAL MATCHING
PROJECT SCHEDULE
You can go to the the TRVA website to read it all, in its full propaganda glory, but let's look at a couple of the propaganda's sections, such as the PHASE COMPLETION WITH TRWD BOND OPTION.
I have no idea what that means. "TRWD BOND OPTION".
But, Phase 2 of this PHASE COMPLETION WITH TRWD BOND OPTION section has a classic piece of the Boondoggle's propaganda, with Phase 2 telling us "Three new traffic bridges over rerouted flood control bypass channel (dry-land construction to save cost)".
That and a PROJECT COST of $81 M, a % OF PROJECT COMPLETE of 54%, with a COMPLETION DATE of 2020.
Re-routed flood control bypass? There is no current flood control bypass in existence. So, how does one re-route something which does not exist? And how many times must it be repeated that those three pitiful little bridges are not being built over dry land in order to save money. There was never any other option but to build those bridges over dry land, since there will never be anything but rain runoff running under those bridges until the cement lined ditch is dug under the bridges, with the Trinity River diverted into that cement lined ditch.
At least the propaganda, in this instance, has dropped the claim that the bridges are being built over dry land to both save money and to speed up construction. What with the construction of those simple bridges now having been going on for over four years, starting way back in 2014 with a then incredible four year project timeline to build the simple bridges, now supposedly not projected to be finished until sometime in the coming decade.
The latest PROJECT SCHEDULE for America's Biggest Boondoggle is the last entry in this latest Project Update.
So, according to the above PROJECT SCHEDULE something called the Town Lake is the last thing scheduled to arrive, around a decade from now, in the year 2028, about three decades after America's Biggest Boondoggle began boondoggling.
Til seeing this PROJECT SCHEDULE I did not know there is a Bypass Channel North, and a Bypass Channel South, with the southern bypass ready to do its bypassing in 2025, a year after the northern bypass begins bypassing.
One can not help but wonder why it takes so long for the Town Lake to show up in town, that and why this little pond is given such an odd name.
Town Lake? Why? Because the pond is in town? Why not call the pond Panther Pond, thus in sync with all the other stuff to which the Panther name has been attached?
I saw this this morning on Facebook via Tacoma's Queen V, she being the breakout star of The Real Housewives of Tacoma.
Apparently my old home state of Washington is ending vehicle emissions tests in 2020.
When I lived in Washington the county I lived in, Skagit, did not require one have ones vehicle tested for emissions each year before being allowed to continue to drive legally.
If I remember right only the heavily populated counties in Washington required vehicles getting tested for emissions at the point in time when I still lived in the state. That would be counties like King, Snohomish, Pierce and Spokane. For all I know testing for vehicle emissions had spread to every county, but I suspect not.
When I was first in Texas and learned I needed to get something called a vehicle emissions test as part of a vehicle registration I remember thinking to myself what fresh Texas hell is this? Likely finding out about this fresh Texas hell soon after being introduced to the bizarre concept of dry, damp and wet areas of Texas designating where and what type alcohol could be sold, and where it could be sold and when such could be sold.
Regarding the dry, damp and wet thing I remember being amazed that a remnant of something long gone in most of the rest of America, that being Prohibition, was not long gone in Texas. Eventually I learned other areas of the South also had not totally ended Prohibition, to various degrees.
I long ago gave up trying to understand why the South, and Texas, seems to lag behind the rest of America in so many ways.
I wonder how long after areas of America, such as the west coast states, began trying to combat air pollution by trying to reduce vehicle caused pollution by making vehicles meet some sort of emissions standard, that states like Texas began requiring vehicles reduce emissions to be allowed on the state's roads.
And now one of the west coast states is apparently realizing vehicle emissions testing is no longer vitally needed in order to reduce pollution. That and likely it was realized that forcing vehicle owners to go through this annual nuisance, was just that, an annoying nuisance, the reason of which had been obviated by greatly improved vehicle emissions greatly reducing air pollution.
I remember the first time I was in Los Angeles, at 13 years old, being shocked to see and have my eyes stung by smog for the first time. Such had not yet come to the Pacific Northwest, other than smoke from forest fires.
At 13 years old, and many visits to Southern California in the years that followed, I did not realize that there was a range of mountains to the east of Los Angeles, because the air pollution blocked seeing the San Gabriel Mountains. I remember going to Disneyland on Christmas of 1994 and seeing those mountains for the first time, hovering in the distance like the Cascade Mountain foothills did in my home zone of Western Washington.
Eventually smog did come to Western Washington, at times blocking being able to see the mountains to the north, south, east and west. Sometimes a pink haze hovered over Puget Sound when looking north towards Canada.
And now, apparently the Washington air pollution has improved enough, or vehicle emissions have improved enough, or a combo of both, that vehicle emissions testing is ending in Washington in 2020.
I do not think vehicle emissions testing will be ending any time soon in Texas, because I have been in Texas for around 20 years and I have yet to see the air clear enough to see any mountain range, no matter what direction I look.
And, I have heard nothing about any plan to finally end all aspects of Prohibition in Texas. Well, except, I did read recently that there is some effort to end the Texas Blue Laws which prohibit some alcohol type selling on Sundays....
What you see here was incoming this afternoon to my phone.
Along with that which you see here the text message accompanying that which you see here was...
"Is this more Tarrant Region Water District nepotism?"
I do not know the answer to that probing question. But, claiming to be a native son does sound like claiming to be a relative, which is key to nepotism.
I do know the answer to another probing question about the same subject, with that question asking me if this Moates guy is one of the Deep Moats, as in Deep Moat, Deep Moat II or Deep Moat III, who have been telling us various tidbits of information about the various nefarious nonsense associated with the TRWD's TRVA ongoing mess which has become known as America's Biggest Boondoggle, or the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Boondoggle.
So, I can tell you with almost 100 % certainty that this Moates guy is not one of the Deep Moats.
As for whether or not Moates is yet one more scandalous example of TRWD nepotism, I do not know.
Is Gary Moates related to Kay Granger? Or Jim Oliver? Maybe an ex-boyfriend of Marty Leonard? A son of Jim Lane? I really don't know.
In the past couple weeks the only one of the Deep Moats we have heard from is Deep Moat III.
Regarding the TRWD board and its nepotism problem, I am 100% certain if you vote for Mary Kelleher to once again sit on the TRWD board you can rest assured that Mary Keller is not related to Kay Granger, Jim Oliver, Jim Lane or Marty Leonard, hence no nepotism problem with Mary Kelleher...
I saw that which you see here this morning via the online version of the Seattle Times.
I saw this and thought to myself, yet one more difference between how things operate in modern democratic America. And how they operate in not so modern, not so democratic, oligarch dominated Fort Worth.
As in, years ago, maybe a full decade, I first came upon massive signage touting the Trinity River Vision Underway. If I recollect correctly I first saw this now totally ironic signage at the location of what became the now long defunct Cowtown Wakepark, which was one of the Trinity River Vision's first boondoggling failures.
Then in February of 2015 I found myself in downtown Fort Worth. While there I took a long walk. During that walk I came upon multiple instances of signage for what by then was turning into America's Biggest Boondoggle. I blogged about this signage in Taking A Look At The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Products.
That blogging included the photo you see below. Four years later this sign is even more pitifully ironic.
Those bridges are now optimistically projected to be possibly finished sometime in the next decade. Yeah, that is some slow motion progress in motion.
Meanwhile, in Seattle, the fully funded public works project which is replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a four lane tunnel under downtown Seattle, along with rebuilding the Seattle waterfront, is due to open the new tunnel to traffic in about a week.
Hence the state spending a few million bucks advertising the new 99 tunnel opening soon to whisk drivers under Seattle from the Space Needle to the stadiums south of downtown.
I do not believe any one spent any money in Seattle, back when the tunnel project began, touting the fact of "99 Tunnel Progress in Motion".
But, now that that tunnel is a reality money is being spent to get drivers used to the idea of driving under downtown Seattle.
That tunnel in Seattle began getting bored about the same time Fort Worth had a TNT exploding ceremony to mark the start of construction of three pitiful little bridges being built over dry land. And now, four years later, with a one year delay due to the tunnel boring machine being injured by an unexpected steel pipe, that Seattle tunnel is finished and ready to open.
While those pitiful Fort Worth bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island are nowhere near being completed. And there has never been any sort of sensible explanation as to what the problem is with these Fort Worth bridges.
Whilst looking for that photo I took four years ago of the sign touting Fort Worth Bridge Progress in Motion I came upon yet one more J.D. Granger embarrassment rendered more embarrassing with the passage of time. Those who are not familiar with the Fort Worth Granger Scandal. Local congresswoman Kay Granger's son, J.D., was hired to be the executive director of the Trinity River Vision Authority. J.D. Granger had zero qualifications for such a job, a fact born out by the ongoing embarrassment to Fort Worth which the Trinity River Vision has become.
J.D. Granger was interviewed in an apparently clueless Texas publication. I blogged about this and the stupid stuff Granger uttered in The Real Work Begins To Sink Panther Island & J.D. Granger, including some Q and A such as the ironic question and answer here...
Q. How is the Panther Island project coming along? A.Killing it. We’re about one-third of the way through the project. We are about to wrap up the phase that provides little reward — clearing the way for vertical construction. Now, the excitement begins. Bridges are well underway. The bypass channel is in final design. The first multifamily project and riverwalk section begins this spring. And, we are working with several more developers on some great projects that would extend the Panther Island River Walk in the near future. ________________
Now, in the first month of 2019, those bridges are not well underway, the way has not been cleared for any sort of construction, what with ground pollution not yet mitigated, what with infrastructure, such as drainage, not yet installed. Riverwalk section? Anyone see any Riverwalk section? Let alone anything extending the apparently imaginary Panther Island River Walk?
This is all so perplexing.
If Fort Worth's voters had done the right thing and booted Kay Granger out of congress, would J.D. then be relieved of the job he has so obviously botched?
Will Fort Worth ever become a modern American city?
Likely not.
Not until the town rids itself of what is known as the notorious Fort Worth Way of ruining a town. I mean, running a town.
Deep Moat III moved to Fort Worth years after that which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle began boondoggling, way back early this century.
So, Deep Moat did not know that when this was first foisted on the Fort Worth public it was announced via a banner headline in the Sunday Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"TRINITY UPTOWN TO TURN FORT WORTH INTO VANCOUVER OF THE SOUTH"
I remember reading that like it was yesterday, wondering what fresh nonsense is this. I was still adjusting to the Star-Telegram's tendency to spout ridiculous hyperbole.
If I remember right touting a lame food court as being modeled after public markets in Europe and Seattle's Pike Place Market, came later, as also did the Star-Telegram touting that a sporting goods store would be the #1 tourist attraction in Texas.
Fort Worth being made into the Vancouver of the South is probably the most absurdly ridiculous thing I've read in the Star-Telegram.
Vancouver has mountains hovering over the town, along with bodies of water connected to the Pacific Ocean, along with a big river named Fraser. Vancouver has hosted a Winter Olympics and an extremely successful World's Fair called Expo '86.
Meanwhile, Fort Worth is currently sponsoring America's Biggest Boondoggle, which no one currently claims will turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South.
Regarding America's Biggest Boondoggle, I told Deep Moat III that back when this started, back near the start of this century, early on there were controversies regarding Granger property holdings which would benefit from the Trinity Uptown economic development scheme. If I remember right Granger, and others, had to divest themselves of holdings which might benefit from their scheming.
I do not remember where the news of the Granger controversial holdings was published. I suspect it was not in the Star-Telegram, what with that newspaper's tendency to not deal with real news requiring actual investigative journalism. I told Deep Moat the news about the Granger holdings may have been in Fort Worth Weekly.
That got Deep Moat III doing some deep Googling which took Deep Moat III back as far as 2005 in Fort Worth Weekly, to that year's Fort Worth Weekly Turkey Awards.
The Fort Worth Weekly Turkey Award awarded to that which 14 years later has become America's Biggest Boondoggle, is rather revealing, that all those years ago it was already obvious something was dire wrong with this development scheme.
When the Trinity River Vision plan was slowly being unveiled over the past few years, it seemed like a decent idea. Take 800 under-used acres on the north side of downtown and turn it into a playground with a lake, canals, 10,000 new housing units, and tons of new commercial and retail real estate. But there was a flaw in the plan (well, OK, several) that nature exposed: Half of the $435 million price tag was to come from federal funds, including $110 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a “floodway project.” It didn’t matter then that the Corps said it could do the flood control part of the project for about $10 million. Now, it matters. When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans and broke that city’s levees, federal flood control spending was, um, diverted — as it should have been. Fort Worth’s plan to spend $110 million on what’s really not much more than a high-end real estate deal is under water right now. What Fort Worth political leadership — Mayor Mike Moncrief, U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, and the Tarrant County Regional Water District — need to do is re-examine the whole Trinity River Vision project. For now, a water-logged turkey to all those who keep pushing this pricey Venice in Cowtown — for not being able to tell the difference between “flood control” and making a lot of money for their big-time real estate developer friends.
_______________
Deep Moat III was particularly taken with the Venice in Cowtown concept suggested by this FW Weekly Turkey Award, commenting the following...
Venice in Cowtown, all the way back to 2005. What a great slogan for the new Fort Worth. I hope this meme sticks. Forget horses and cows. We now want gondolas in a new waterfront development instead of levees and green space on the Trinity Trails for horseback riding from the Stockyards to Downtown. We want this instead of spending the millions needed to help neighborhoods with real flood control. Is this the new Fort Worth Way?
________________
Venice in Cowtown. That seems appropriate in multiple ways. Venice frequently has trouble with too much water flooding the town. Venice has spent a lot of money trying to control the water flooding the town. But Venice is slowing sinking as the ocean water level continue to rise.
Last night my phone received a perplexing text message from a message texter I will call "TEXTER".
The text message from TEXTER and followup text messages from ME.
TEXTER: I thought you said Mary Kelleher had filed to run for the TRWD water board again?
ME: Yes, that is correct, she filed on the first day it was possible to do so. Why are you asking me this?
TEXTER: Because I read a good article about Fort Worth's embarrassing boondoggle and it mentioned other people running, with no mention made of Mary running.
ME: Well, that makes no sense. Was this in the Star-Telegram? I think we have fairly well established that that make believe newspaper is not to be relied on.
TEXTER: No, I read this in an article in the Fort Worth Business Press.
ME: Really? That publication is the closest Fort Worth comes to having a real newspaper. Can you email me the link to this article?
Well, reading the article I first have to say, it is a good article detailing much of what is so wrong about what used to be the Trinity River Vision, til it morphed into being America's Biggest Boondoggle.
The article mentions that two men have filed to run in the May 4 election for a spot on the TRWD board. And the article mentions that the pair of current board members up for re-election, Marty Leonard and Jim Lane, have not yet filed.
But the article makes absolutely no mention of former TRWD board member, Mary Kelleher, having filed to run again.
However two comments to the article do point out this odd omission. I'll get to those comments later.
First let's look at the mention made of the two men who have filed, C.B. Team and Gary Moates.
Both Charles “C.B.” Team, vice-president and principal at the real estate company Ellis & Tinsley, and Attorney Gary M. Moates plan to run. Fort Worth, as we all know, is a small/big city. And on the day he filed, there was Moates shopping at Central Market. He is energetic and full of ideas for change and he was more than willing to stop traffic at the checkout counter to talk about the river project and his hopes to alter the winding course it has taken.
This FWBP article also makes positive mention of the TRWD board's new members, elected in the last TRWD board election.
Candidates are filing to run for the water board, folks who have had enough and who know this problem can begin to be fixed by the voters in the May 4 election. The board has five members and two have emerged as leaders for good government, James Hill and Leah King. One more vote and a flood of change could happen, a virtual cascade of solid procedures and good management.
Til reading the above I had read nothing about James Hill and Leah King having any sort of good impact on the TRWD board. The pair certainly have made no news doing so, of the sort Mary Kelleher regularly made.
Now, let's look at some of what this article has to say about that which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle. The first four paragraphs...
The folks responsible for running the Panther Island project – running it into the ground, some might say – are giving new meaning to that old saying about “being up the creek without a paddle.” They don’t even have a boat. Here we are nearly a month into 2019 and we’re still dogged by a story that was not new but had mostly lain dormant until exploding into public awareness late last year: Panther Island, originally called and more commonly known as the Trinity River Vision project, has been horrendously mismanaged and is totally out of control. A better name might be: Trinity River Lack of Vision.
I thought the above four paragraphs were almost poetic. Though I have to take some exception to the statement saying the story had mostly lain dormant til exploding last year. Seems like myself, and many others, have been pointing out the fact that the Trinity River Vision has been a failing mismanaged Boondoggle for years. And an ongoing embarrassment for Fort Worth, which keeps getting worse, as in more and more embarrassing.
And then this about the Boondoggle's three pitiful little bridges stuck being built in slow motion, over dry land...
The latest news is that construction of the project’s three infamous bridges over not troubled water but in fact no water has fallen further behind schedule. The earliest projected completion date for any of the bridges is late summer 2020. That would be the bridge on White Settlement Road. The nearby Henderson Street bridge won’t be finished before spring 2021, officials say, while the North Main Street leg of the waterless triumvirate is not expected to be ready for traffic until at least late winter 2021.
It is incomprehensible to me why this slow motion bridge building fiasco has not dealt the death blow to the entire embarrassing, mis-managed, corrupt Boondoggle
And then the following two paragraphs hit a particularly loud BINGO...
The Panther Island debacle is managed, or mismanaged, by the Trinity River Vision Authority, which is an offshoot of the Tarrant Regional Water District, the agency charged with overall responsibility for the plan when it was conceived decades ago as a flood control project. Since then, it has grown into a massive economic development undertaking that involves rerouting the Trinity River to create recreational and business activities along a San Antonio-like riverwalk with a newly created island as the centerpiece. The water district’s board of directors, its general manager Jim Oliver and River Vision Authority executive director J.D. Granger have brought precious little expertise and efficiency to the project but they have managed to bury it in arrogance, obfuscation and even flat-out deception.
Well, nothing to add to what is being said in the above two paragraphs. Except maybe to say the above is the reason #FIRE JD stickers are appearing all over Fort Worth in various locations, including car bumpers and toilet seats.
The following two paragraphs contain an element we blogged about recently...
Water board elections historically draw low voter turnout, which tends to favor incumbents rather than challengers. The two seats up for election this time are currently held by longtime board members Jim Lane and Marty Leonard, who bought a full-page ad in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Jan. 9 to “set the record straight” on Panther Island. The ad was self-serving palaver, a tedious rehash of official explanations and rationalizations for the mess the project has become. A better tack would have been for Lane and Leonard to apologize for wasting taxpayer money, for being rubber stamps for errant policies and executive arrogance: “We apologize and will do better.”
That full page propaganda advertisement in the Star-Telegram was so absurdly self-serving we felt compelled to Set The Crooked TRWD Record Straight.
Unlike articles in the Star-Telegram, which rarely generate any comments, the Fort Worth Business Press regularly generates worthwhile comments worth reading, including the three below, two of which mention the error of not mentioning the fact that Mary Kelleher is running again for the TRWD board....
Clyde Picht Jan 18, 2019 4:45pm We can be sure that Oliver's competence was questionable when he hired Granger for what was then a $435M project. He should have been fired by the board when he refused new board member, Mary Kelleher, access to the building and documents she had every right to. Granger on the other hand probably wasn't much of a lawyer if he thought he could walk into a job for which he should have known he was unqualified and unprepared to accept. Well what the heck, it's all taxpayers' money so who's going to complain?
johnmac70 Jan 19, 2019 3:27pm Richard Conner, you forgot to mention in the article that Mary Kelleher has filed for candidacy on the TRWD. She will fight for accountability and transparency on a board that is famous for the opposite. The Panther Island project is in reality a developers project. Who will benefit the most from the project? Not not the citizens of Fort Worth but developers who will make millions on condos, multi use developments and townhomes. This project is a debacle and an embarrassment for FW!! Stop it now!
kafcampbell Jan 22, 2019 7:56am I'm not a meteorologist or agronomist, but I do know what the weather is like. I'm baffled as to why the current flood control system, put in place after the 1949 Flood Disaster, is no longer viable. Have we had catastrophic flooding that the Trinity River project thingy is going to prevent? We've had the same weather for decades: hot summers, cold winters, rain that comes all at once, occasional catastrophic winter storms. Yes, Fort Worth has struggled with street and neighborhood flooding, including tragic loss of life. But this project thingy isn't slated to resolve any of those issues... Could it be because those other actually street and neighborhood flooding issues are in lower income parts of town? Hmmm. Exactly what civil engineering problem are we needing fixed? Those levees around the Panther Island thingy and 7th Street have been working marvelously. I drive over them every day and I've not seen a weather event in 30 years that even started to tax the system we set up decades ago and already paid for. Can someone dispute me? Also, put back White Settlement Road as a critical thoroughfare into and out of downtown.
___________________
I also noticed that this FWBP article used the verbiage "Up the Creek". That verbiage is quite close to the title of the award winning documentary, "Up a Creek".
Up a Creek documents that which turned one Tarrant County resident into a community activist working to get the local, state and federal governments to do the right thing regarding flooding issues in Tarrant County, rather than wasting resources on an ill-conceived, ineptly implemented pseudo public works project the public did not approve of via the voting method.
In the Up a Creek video you will meet that community activist, and others, such as Clyde Picht, he being the author of the first comment, above. Clyde Picht famously opines in the video that the Star-Telegram could put an end to the Trinity River Vision nonsense if it wanted to do the right thing. I may be slightly paraphrasing from memory regarding Mr. Picht's words.
I also show up in this documentary. But, blink and you will miss it. Elsie Hotpepper can also be seen, if you know where to look.
And here is part one of the Up a Creek documentary video...
Seeing the subject line and also seeing that photos were attached I knew that I was going to be seeing some photos the location of which should be easy for me to guess, unlike previous instances where I was befuddled.
The text in the email: "Where in the Pacific Northwest were David, Theo & Ruby for Martin Luther King Day?"
Well.
I looked at the photos and quickly felt fairly certain I was looking at photos taken in the Snoqualmie Summit zone of the Washington Cascades.
For those unfamiliar with mountains, with their nearest mountains hundreds of miles distant, Snoqualime Summit is the high point of what is known as a mountain pass. As in a pass over a mountain range.
In the Snoqualmie Summit mountain pass case this is the mountain pass Interstate 90 passes over the Cascade Mountains on its way from Seattle, across America, to the East Coast.
There are several ski resorts in the Snoqualmie Summit zone. The only one whose name I remember is Hyak. Let me Google and see if I can find the names of the current Snoqualmie Summit ski resorts.
Oh my, I have been gone too long from my old home zone. Apparently Hyak no longer exists. Hyak is now called Summit East. The other three ski resorts at Snoqualmie Pass are Summit West, Summit Central and Alpental.
Alpental existed when I still lived in the neighborhood, but I forgot the name, only remembering the now no longer in existence Hyak.
The Snoqualmie ski resort zone is a little over 50 miles east of downtown Seattle, accessed via freeway, thus making going skiing a doable thing after work, what with night skiing. Or any time one has some free time and is in the mood to do some slippery sliding whilst trying to keep warm.
That photo at the top is what I believe to be a moving sidewalk type device which brings people wanting to have fun on the snow up a mountain in order to slide back down the mountain. On the moving snow sidewalk, in the front, that is my little sister, mama Michele, leading niece Ruby, and nephews Theo and David.
What follows are a few photos of what David, Theo and Ruby did after reaching the end of that moving snow sidewalk.
Ruby appears to have successfully tubed down the groomed slope. I do not know if that is one of Ruby's brothers coming down behind her in the next lane.
Above we see Theo, Ruby and David taking a break from sliding to pose for a photo to send to their favorite uncle. Well, one of their favorite uncles.
Above appears to be the winter equivalent of what I did with David, Theo and Ruby the last time I was in Washington, August of 2017, when we built sand castles at Birch Bay. Here it appears the twins and David are constructing an igloo. I've no clue how they have managed to make blocks of snow. I just now noticed, Ruby is throwing a snowball, which the photo caught in mid air. I hope the snowball did not hit mama Michele.
So far at my current location we have not had enough snow stick to the ground to warrant opening the Mount Wichita Ski Resort, or that covered moving snow sidewalk which takes one to the summit for a slide back down the mountain.
Winter is about a third gone.
I suspect Winter will turn to Spring at my location without there ever being enough snow to open the Mount Wichita Ski Resort....
UPDATE: Upon further examination it appears that in the photo at the top that the entity identified as David, behind mama Michele, Ruby and Theo, is actually mama Kristen. David's whereabouts in the photo are unknown, but is suspected he is behind mama Kristen, helping attend to the collection of tubed sliding devices.
UPDATE 2: Apparently there is still a ski area at Snoqualmie Summit using the Hyak name, as in Hyak Sno Park.
UPDATE 2 Addendum: Hyak is not a ski area, those are the Summit names. Hyak is a “Sno Park” meaning it’s run by the state and you need a pass to park there, but the parking lot gets plowed and the restrooms are nice. People take off on cross country skis from there. There’s an old rail road track or something that cuts through the trees that’s perfect for hikers,/snowshoers,/XC skiers. But not downhill, that’s all at the three summit places and Alpental.
UPDATE 3: The correct name for the afore referenced Moving Snow Sidewalk is Magic Snow Carpet.
