How's that TIF workin out for ya? NRH

This one in North Richland Hills.  WHY is the TIF not working out?  Declining property values.

Read about the latest TIF tiff in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The city must scale back a project that is part of redevelopment efforts along Boulevard 26 south of Northeast Loop 820 because revenues from a special tax district have fallen short.

With a $9 million drop in property values in the area since 2008, the city wouldn't have enough revenue to meet the debt service for the $3.5 million project plan. Instead, city officials estimate that $2.5 million in funding is available.

The city has sold $1 million in bonds and, based on revenue projections, says that $1.5 million in additional debt could be issued.

The issue is focused on a Tax Increment Financing district, created in 2008 to use property tax revenues for redevelopment. The city had an existing TIF zone, created in 1999, but expanded it to include all commercial properties in the Boulevard 26 corridor south of Loop 820, except North Hills Hospital and the Calloway Creek area.

"Staff has had several meetings with TxDOT trying to reach a compromise, but has not had a great deal of success. TxDOT has made it very clear that only TxDOT approved roadway striping and colors can be used in the corridor within their rights-of-way," Curtis wrote in Nov. 14 memo to the North Richland Hills City Council.

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Latest Arlington Flood

But the game is still the same.  Everyone involved pointing fingers and blame at each other.  And the homeowners left holding the bag.

It's nice of Arlington to offer them a place to stay for at least a week.  What happens when "the City" floods YOU?

Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Two homes on Hillside Drive and a home on Woodside Drive were damaged Oct. 26 when a 12-inch waterline at the Pierce Burch Water Treatment Plant ruptured during a $400,000 waterline renewal project.

The city is still investigating the cause of the break, but officials have said Ark Contracting Services would cover property damage claims. But this week, Travelers Insurance notified affected homeowners that it does not believe that Ark Contracting is responsible for their damage.

"Travelers' review of the contract between Ark and the City reveals the contract does not obligate Ark to be responsible for damages occurring outside the scope of the contracted work," the letter to residents stated. "Further, we do not believe Ark was negligent in their actions giving rise to the flooding. Therefore, we will be unable to assist you with your renovations and suggest you look to the City."

The news of the insurance denial came as a surprise to resident Carol Cash, who said city officials have referred her complaints to Travelers for three weeks.

Cash, who has asthma, said the city denied her request for temporary housing Nov. 11 after a doctor recommended that she move out of the home until the mold is removed.

Cash said that she isn't thrilled about spending the Thanksgiving holiday at a hotel but that her home has become unlivable.

The water treatment plant has nearly flooded Cash's home twice before, she said. She wants the city to buy her home, which she feels has been drastically devalued.

"I don't want to be their neighbor anymore," Cash said. "It's not fair to us homeowners. We didn't ask for this. They destroyed our property."

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Same story

Another story from Texas with all the same factors - gas drilling, floods, politicians, tributaries, FEMA, mortgage, insurance...Any of this sound familiar?

Read about it in the Fort Worth Weekly.  WHO's next?

The first change occurred just four months after they moved in, when Devon Energy built a gas well pad next to their fence line, ruining the view for months and sending toxic residue into their backyard every time it rained (“Paradise Lost”,  June 18, 2008).
 
One month after the pad appeared, said Annette, “We got slammed by a flash flood that nearly entered the house. A neighbor called to ask if we were all right, and then she told us we might be in a flood plain.”

The flood plain question “had come up once — that some of the land but not the house was in a flood plain” during discussions before the sale, Annette said, “but when it did, the realtors produced several reports showing that the property was not in the flood plain.”

“We never would have purchased the house if there were any flood issues,” said Michael. The couple did know that runoff from heavy rains had washed into their pool and come close to the house.
People involved in the sale of the property to the couple disagree. They later maintained in court that the Daniels were or should have been aware that the property they were purchasing was in a flood plain.

After the neighbor’s comment, the Daniels began to look into the issue and eventually got in touch with Parker County flood plain director Kirk Fuqua.

“He told us that he didn’t understand why the house was sold as not being in a flood plain when it had always been in the FEMA 100-year flood plain,” said Annette. Fuqua confirmed that information for Fort Worth Weekly and said his records showed no remedial action that would have removed the house from the flood plain.

“Not only that, but it turned out our house was built right on top of a drainage easement, a platted stream,” said Michael. The unnamed stream is a tributary of nearby Silver Creek.

Worse was coming. In 2008, a new FEMA study came out, again showing the Daniels’ house in the middle of a flood plain. As usual, FEMA alerted lenders, and three months after the first flash flood, Chase Home Mortgage Finance LLC, wrote to tell the Daniels they would need to acquire flood insurance.

The insurance added $500 a month to a steep mortgage that was already beginning to pinch, as the recession slowed the income from their travel business.

Unfortunately, the couple soon discovered that the Parker County appraiser had reduced the appraised value of their home to zero after the new FEMA study, and you can’t refinance a house valued at zero. Their land dropped in value from $75,000 to $25,000.

“So we owed $300,000 on a house that was valued at zero,” said Annette. “And with business slowing down we couldn’t even get at our equity. Who could have dreamt this was going to happen?”

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Trinity River Irony

The Fort Worth Star Telegram has two articles - one titled, "TCC raises property taxes, tutition".  The other, "Classes begin at TCC Trinity River East Campus".  YOU do the math...

Tarrant County College trustees on Monday adopted an estimated $348.9 million budget for fiscal 2011-12 that raises next year's property taxes for the college district by 8 percent and tuition by 4 percent.

The 4-2 vote came after a public hearing at which five people urged the board to vote against the tax and tuition increases.

"Stop increasing your charges," said Randy Kressler, a Westworth Village councilman.

Several speakers criticized plans for a performing arts center at TCC's Northeast Campus.

"You should abandon it," taxpayer Bill Wright said. "You should lower the tax rate, not increase it."

Students started classes Monday at the Trinity River East Campus, Tarrant County College's new $185 million downtown facility for health professionals.

Bryan Stewart, vice president of teaching and learning services for the entire complex, said about 7,115 students are enrolled at both facilities, with 700 at Trinity River East.

Stewart said there were no traffic issues. College officials began greeting students as they arrived at about 6:30 a.m. to the parking lot off Belknap Street, which has 148 student spaces.

Stewart said that lot filled up at about 9 a.m. so students parked at a garage at the Trinity River Campus and a lot on Henderson Street. He said the nearby parking cycles out about noon, when a different group of students arrives.

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Just say no

To fracking.  That's what the subject of another New York Times post is about.  This time in Andes, N.Y.

If a reporter calls something "inspiring", YOU might want to pay attention.

There might be limited short-term benefits to a few, but the boom will be followed by a bust, and when it is all over “people won’t want to live here anymore.”

There was agreement that regulation wasn’t the answer, first because no regulation could prevent the disasters that come along inevitably with a project this large, and second because the state couldn’t be counted on either to pass or enforce regulations: “I can’t trust an industry that has got itself exempted from the air and clean water act.”

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Calling Grand Prairie....

And Lewisville, and Flower Mound, and....are YOU next?

In January, we told you the gas drillers were coming.

Today, you get a heads up from a South Grand Prairie Watchdog.

Beware.

People in Grand Prairie need to look into RULE 37 that lets the gas company take your mineral rights without any compensation. BEWARE if you receive a letter from the Railroad Commission. If you do not file protest within the short period of time the RRC will give the gas company the ok to suck the minerals out from under your property. South Grand Prairie is currently under siege by the gas company and these letters are showing up. You MUST fight for your rights.

In addition to filing the protest, you'll have to drive to Austin to contest it.

And they are coming for you too, Lewisville.  Consider yourself warned.

Check out the Rule 37 cases in Flower Mound.  And learn a thing or two about WHO is connected, here.

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WHO does Fort Worth belong to?

YOU decide.

Click here to see how many gas wells have been drilled in North Texas. 

Don't worry, the industry and their political friends say it's safe and everyone is going to make money...

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PAYING Attention

Not all are sheep asleep.  At least a few are standing up for YOU.  Too bad a forced pool is the only kind of pool Fort Worth has.

Read the letters in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Gas leases

"Protecting property owners' mineral rights," my foot. (See: Wednesday commentary)

The Railroad Commission's Rule 37 is confiscatory and antithetical to the principles under which this nation was founded. The separate Mineral Interest Pooling Act, if twisted in the way Glenn Johnson and Chesapeake Energy are trying to distort it, will be even worse.

What about the mineral rights of the victims of these predators? A Rule 37 exception just takes their minerals with no compensation whatever.

And in the present economy, is failure to sign a lease going to prevent production of someone's minerals? No!

Why? Because the sales price of gas is too low to recover drilling costs now, and nobody wants to sell their gas in a glutted market anyway. All the investor publications say so.

Chesapeake is filing cases with the Railroad Commission not to facilitate production but to consolidate all the land in a unit cheaply and hold it for speculation.

They are not completing wells and gathering pipelines now. They are posturing on the drilling pads and drilling a few hundred feet and calling that a good-faith effort to produce in order to hold their existing leases.

When the market once again supports profitable drilling and production, perhaps those unleased mineral owners will see a reason to lease.

-- Jerry J. Lobdill, Fort Worth

Anyone who believes Chesapeake Energy is just a benevolent organization that wants everyone to participate in the production of this wonderful Barnett Shale is what I call a fool.

Chesapeake is neither a benevolent nor a philanthropic organization bent on giving money away without any strings attached.

The fact is that the precedent for "force pooling" unleased mineral interests is already outlined in what is commonly referred to as the "Finley Resources" decision from the Railroad Commission (Oil and Gas Docket No. 09-0252373).

Within that decision the Railroad Commission has ruled that if Chesapeake wants to force pool unleased mineral owners it may do so in this way: (1) the owners of unleased tracts within the unit are pooled as owners of a one-fifth royalty and four-fifths working interest, proportionately reduced; (2) the mineral owner's share of expenses, subject to a zero risk penalty, are payable only from the four-fifths of production rather than from their entire mineral interest.

This latest attempt by Chesapeake is to simply reverse the Finley decision with one that is -- again -- in its interest only.

Fools do seem to abound these days.

-- Louis McBee, Fort Worth

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Saltwater Disposal Hell

Oops, Well.  The word is well.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports on the city council meeting about extending the moratorium for Saltwater disposal wells in Fort Worth for gas drilling. 

Since 2002, urban gas drilling has seeped into almost every corner of Fort Worth, Tarrant County and surrounding counties to the north, south and west. But we still don't have a good way to deal with the 3.5 million gallons or so of wastewater from hydraulic fracturing at each of those wells or the "produced water" that comes up out of the hole afterward.

The standard way is to inject it back into another hole dug into a formation even deeper than the mile-deep, gas-rich Barnett Shale. But some people call that pollution -- gas well wastewater has a salt content about three times that of seawater. Some scientists have even blamed deep injection wells for minor earthquakes in North Texas.

Our favorite part of the report?  A comment from a citizen living near a drill site.  

I married a Texan, moved here a few years ago. I have a BS degree in zoology and a certificate in Environmental Engineering Technology. I come from Alberta, known for natural gas drilling as well as oil patch drilling. What I have seen here is a joke, an environmental disaster.

They put a well in right at the edge of our property, 5 1/2 acres south of Fort Worth. I have been watching the construction, drilling and operation. Of course we get money from the company, very little actually. It is not even worth the smell, noise and damage they have done to our land. After everyone from Mansfield ISD to Tarrant County take their cuts, we get pocket change. Now we have bottom feeding lawyers and ambulance chasers sending us collection notices on taxes from every Tom, Dick and Harry out there that wants a cut.

I watched the construction and they took about every big shortcut they could. There is NO Environmental oversight what so ever. During the injection, they built a large Tailing Pond at the edge of our property. They did not use a liner, not bentonite nor plastic, in it's construction. The water was dumped in there to soak into the soil and evaporate. Afterwards it has been filled in, to hide the evidence I would guess. We have lost over 25 old growth oak trees in the space of 1 1/2 years. They have poisoned our ground water.

The fracing does occur too deep to affect the trees, that part is true. But when you do not line a tailing pond you will taint the ground water available to the plant life.

It would cost thousands to prove it, so why worry for the companies.

They are not paying the $$ to the little guys when they disrupt your life, destroy your peace and quiet and kill your trees. Where is the money going? I would look in government. Crooked bunch do nothing reprobates. Oh wait here comes another tax notice.

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Mary's Creek

The Fort Worth Business Press gives you the heads up about the Fort Worth Water Department meeting concerning Mary's Creek. 

From the article it doesn't sound like much has changed, no matter how much the residents protest.  YOU should pay attention.  YOU could be next.

And speaking of water and sewage...check out Durango's question for the day. 

The Fort Worth Water Department will host an open house on July 21 to discuss plans to purchase a site for the future Mary’s Creek Water Reclamation Facility. The open house will be held from 6-7:30 p.m. at Western Hills Baptist Church at 8500 Chapin Road.

The event will feature no special presentation, but citizens with questions about the project can ask water department officials about the plans.

Work on the Mary’s Creek Water Reclamation Facility began in 2009 with a Site Selection Study that included a Community Advisory Committee. The committee recommended criteria for selecting the site.

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