What's in the Trinity River?

Toxins, PCB's, amoebas, fecal matter, contaminated run off, and pig blood.

How did the pig blood get into the Trinity River?  By way of a sewer pipe and a creek.  One of the many tributaries of the river.

If you think the Columbia Pig people are the only corporation dumping in the river, think again. Think they are the only corporation with illegal pipes running to the river?  Think again. 

If you think you want to tube the Trinity River with the Tarrant Regional Water District and the Trinity River Vision, think again.  Don't be sheep.  Think.

Notice this story started with THE PEOPLE.  Thanks to those eyes in the sky another problem with the Trinity River was brought to THE PEOPLE.  Seems some had been complaining about the dumping for years.  Too bad no one was listening.  Kudos to the air team.  We need more up there.  Any volunteers?

See the video on WFAA.com.

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More Dallas and Fort Worth

This time, it's the Trinity River.  If the boondoggle in Fort Worth doesn't work as it should (we're basing that assumption on other things in Fort Worth that don't work like they should) what happens downstream in Dallas?

Check out some comparisons on Durango.

The Dallas project began before the Fort Worth project. The Dallas project has been voted on by the Dallas voters. The Fort Worth project has not been voted on by the Fort Worth voters.

We really liked one of the comments....

Another difference in the project, Dallas media admitted they were misled by the politicians concerning their boondoggle, what?! Misled by a politician, say it ain't so...can you imagine that article in the ST?? Though it won't be the ST that outs it all, it will be a national outlet...how long will the ST stay afloat then?

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Which city?

Yelling, name calling, whistleblowers being retaliated against...

Today Dallas, tomorrow Fort Worth. 

See the latest drama at the Dallas County Commissioners meeting on WFAA.

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Trinity River Vision Unraveling

First, in Dallas.

And a man being threatened with his livelihood for telling the truth and saving lives.  Hey Fort Worth, any of this sound familiar yet?  Wait till they start asking questions on this end of the Trinity River.

Read, Drowning the Whistleblower on the Doomed Trinity River Wave in the Dallas Observer. 

Again, you can't make this stuff up.

For two weeks I have been trying to get someone at City Hall to tell me who is responsible for the unbelievably screwed-up man-made kayaking rapids in the river.

And then the money. The thing started out at a planned cost of $1.5 million. The city now has invested more than $4 million. The park board voted last week to spend another $76,000 to pay an engineering firm to find out what's wrong with it. Then I assume we'll have to pay some more to fix it.

 "The design was a team approach with various civil, structural, and hydraulic designers as well as planners and landscape architects, local and out of state."

Now what we have is a mess that can't be used, from which the public is barred, at a cost already four times the original estimate, with the cost of litigation about to be added to the tab.

The week before the wave was to be opened to the public, I wrote a column quoting Allen. I suspect the appearance of that column had a lot to do with the city's very belated decision to close the wave to the public the same day they held the dedication ceremony.

Since then, Allen, who earns his living renting out canoes and guiding, has been the target of what I can only describe as a City Hall vendetta. The city attorney recently notified Allen by letter that he will be arrested if he enters the park area around the Dallas Wave in order to launch canoeing parties downriver from a place below the wave.

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Trinity Turnaround

Don't get too excited yet, this one is in Dallas.  Though the truth is finally coming out about the Dallas Trinity River project/toll road, the FBI has arrived in Big D, and Erin Brochovich is almost to Texas (Oklahoma) - there's still hope for Cowtown.

Read about it in the Observer.  There are some good links on the page to other articles where pushers of the project are bailing off the bandwagon. 

 After a good 14 years of Trinity toll road rah-rahing and questioning the integrity of anyone who suggested that putting a road between the Trinity River levees was a bad idea, D Magazine has apparently (and quietly) changed its mind.

D, remember, mailed out a special section before the first Trinity bond election in 1998, tantalizing readers with pictures of boats sailing on downtown lakes.

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FBI Warning

Special Agent in Charge Robert Casey told NBC 5 that federal agents are pushing to curb public corruption and that "there should be some nervous people if they're doing something wrong."

This was after they showed up at the Dallas County District Attorney's office this morning. 

Wonder WHO's next? 

Read more about it on NBC.com.

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Due West

Seems John Wiley Price isn't the only one the FBI is looking at in Dallas.

The list continues to grow- Politicians, Businesses and their representatives, longtime political consultants, Senators, exes, the list goes on and on of "associates" being investigated.

Read about the search warrant details on WFAA.com.

Some claim the investigation is about race -  over in Cowtown, corruption comes in all colors. 

As for the Feds, turn around, look West. 

Y'all come back now, ya hear?

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Mayors Everywhere

Are YOU listening?

Read the recent article for the Dallas Monthly on what Libertarians want from the new mayor.

Change "Libertarians" to citizens and change "Dallas" to Fort Worth.  Remember, it's all interchangable. 
So are the Mayors.

What do YOU want from YOUR Mayor?

I was asked by the Dallas Monthly News to write a short article on what I might like to see from the new Mayor, many people like me have sat on the side lines with their investment money because we can never be sure what our government is going to do, for instance, I have seen a recent resurgence in the Deep Ellum area and think now is the time to invest, so I bought a restaurant and bar there called The Free Man Cajun Cafe & Lounge, but if at the same time the city works with its influential friends to prop up another area, that could actually harm me. Meaning I would have been better off staying on the side lines, not creating 30 jobs and not giving people another great place to eat.

This is what is so important for people to understand, government needs to stay out of business, it makes for a shaky, unfair playing field, and though many might say "but look how great The House of Blues is doing!" they don't understand that in order for the House of Blues to make it with government subsidies, places like Trees, and The Granada suffer. By what right does the city have to pick winners and losers in business? I can only hope that they don't play favorites, and let Deep Ellum revive as it as has been doing on its own lately.

That being said, I wanted to include a reaction from my great friend Jordan Wagnon, who has his masters in City Politics:

"What would Libertarians want from him? First we would want an end to the sweetheart deals at City Hall. "Public-private partnerships" and "bringing business and jobs to Dallas" sound great, but in practice the Council just funnels the city's resources away from the many into the pockets of a few. We hope Mayor Rawlings understands that every tax deal makes the rest of us shoulder a heavier burden, and every subsidy or TIF project forces businesses that already create jobs and earn their own way to go up against government backed competitors. The best thing the new mayor could do for the economy would be to fight against the rigged system so the people of Dallas can decide for themselves where resources are needed most.

In addition, we hope he shares our commitment to the personal freedoms that Americans cherish but the City Council seems to hate. The smoking ban, teen curfew, and window sign restrictions are recent ordinances that have no place in a free country. These measures do not make anyone safer, except for incumbents, who can say they did something about violence and theft by making criminals out of peaceful property owners or juveniles who dare to venture into public during the daytime. So Mayor Rawlings has a simple choice - he can embrace the idea that Dallas government exists to serve and protect freedom, or he can embrace the coercion and favoritism now imposed on us by City Hall. We will support him whenever he chooses freedom."

John Jay Myers & Jordan Wagnon of the Libertarian Party of Dallas County.

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Different City, Same Story

What's the difference in Dallas and Fort Worth?  Not much, except Dallas is ahead of the game.

In both cities, it all comes down to the river, the money, the politicians and the "news". 

Yesterday we told you what the Dallas Morning News did.

Read what the Observer had to say about the Trinity River Boondoggle, Dallas edition.

For 14 years the Morning News has been a principal proponent of the Trinity River Project, a highway-building and real estate redevelopment scheme along the river in downtown and southern Dallas. In the meantime the Morning News editorial page has been especially muscular about calling for certain types of businesses to be thrown off land that they own and occupy near the river, by any means possible.

Wake up, Fort Worth, before you're sold down the river.

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Trinity River Shocker!

A newspaper admits they were misled by politicians and in return misled voters.

Shocked? 

Well, don't be, because this paper that manned up and admitted it is in Dallas, not Fort Worth.

Same Trinity River, different story.

Read what the Advocate had to say about it here.

Kudos, Dallas Morning News, better late than never.  Hear that, Fort Worth? 

If the "news" becomes just a "pimp" for the politicians, what does that make YOU? ASK your local media.

...the incident will “shake some people’s confidence in city government. And the next time elected officials say, ‘Trust us,’ voters may not.”

In fact, the newspaper was pimping the Tollway just as much as the supposed city “leaders” were, and that’s the main reason Leppert and others were able to get away with misleading voters — it wasn’t in the DMN‘s interest to find the real facts related to the Tollway because the paper had already come down hard in favor of the project, and against opponent Angela Hunt, so many times and so stridently.

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Good ol' boys...

The women are coming for you.  It ain't just Wendy Davis.  Last night a Dallas County Commissioner stormed out of a meeting in which the redistricting map was changed at the last minute.

While we don't usually agree with storming out of a meeting, or the politics involved in redistricting, we salute Maurine Dickey for standing up and saying what THE PEOPLE needed to hear.  If more politicians did so, they wouldn't need to worry as much about being reelected.

Check it out on NBCDFW.com.

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