You can take that to the BANK

When a long serving city councilman/community leader, fire fighting, plane flying, purple heart earning man says something, LISTEN.

Just had a brief conversation with Marty, the pot calling the kettle black, Leonard.

Ms. Leonard is a member of the board of the TRWD. Marty sent a letter to voters decrying the qualifications and character of challengers, Basham, Nold, and ...Kelleher and she complained of their "negative" campaigning.

I reminded Marty the she was no more qualified than B, N, & K when she first ran. Her claim to worthiness was that she read and saved a lot of articles on water. Whoopee!

She didn't get upset over the threat of eminent domain against a couple of her wealthy neighbors, to use their land for Trinity Uptown though she criticizes a BNK backer for wanting to keep a TRWD pipeline off his property. It seems to irritate Marty and the rest of the board that the challengers are complying with TRWD and state ethics commission requirements for candidacy. Frankly, I'm tired of their whining and complaining because they can't have a free ride to re-election.

Go vote Saturday for Basham, Nold, and Kelleher. Share this with your voting friends.

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Voters Beware! Outside interest in the TRWD water board election!

"Voters beware" is what a campaign mailer from the water board incumbents read.  Mayor Price was concerned that outside interests were trying to take over your water supply! 

First of all, WHAT water supply?

Second of all, has Mayor Price seen the incumbents campaign donations?   The incumbents are getting money from Dallas (GASP!) and Austin and cities all over Texas.  Are these the outside interests you were warned about?  Or is it the donors to the incumbents from out of state you should be concerned with?  We hear there are donations from Colorado, Arizona and that state next door we are suing in Federal court to take their water, Oklahoma. 

If they haven't noticed, there is no money in Fort Worth.  That well ran dry.  THEY spent it all.  Maybe some of those campaigns donating should hang on to their money.  They may need it.

Vote BNK.  Today.

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Fort Worth, Dallas on Line 1

Finally.

The Dallas Morning News writes about the Tarrant Regional Water District. 

Read what the Water District spokesperson had to say.  YOU can't afford not to.

Kudos to Dallas for having a real "news" paper.  Y'all come back real soon!!

And for the rest of you, there's an election coming up.  Pay attention!

Bennett’s lawsuit alleges that the real debate and discussion of water district business — decisions on the pipeline route and awarding of multi-million-dollar design, engineering and construction contracts — takes place not in the public meetings of the board of directors but in secret committee meetings.

Notices about the time, place and agenda of those committee meetings are neither posted publicly ahead of time nor do they appear on the water district’s web site, according to Chad Lorance, a spokesman for the water district.

A little background is in order here for readers unfamiliar with local governments in Texas.

The Texas Attorney General has ruled repeatedly that a governmental body such as a tax-supported water district cannot create committees to deal with a public issue and then allow the committees to meet in secret and make decisions in secret.

I asked Lorance for a legal rationale for why the water district’s committees should not be subject to the state open meetings law. He did not answer directly.

Instead, he cited another statute found in the Texas Water Code. It says, “A meeting of a committee of the board, or a committee composed of representatives of more than one board, where less than a quorum of any one board is present, is not subject to the provisions of the open meetings law.”

One could infer from Lorance’s citation that the water board committees purposely structure their meetings to include less than a quorum to avoid violating the open meetings law. But he did not say that.

“All 339 actions were unanimously adopted by the board,” the lawsuit concluded.

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Down in flames

That's how one water board incumbent seemed to go last night at group meeting last night.

There was some confusion on his part to whether or not the Tarrant Regional Water District owned a hunting lease or not.  Apparently that depends on if you call it a deer lease or call it something else.

If you were confused by it, you can read an old article from the FW Weekly on it.  They were reporting on the Water District back in the day (2006).  Too bad no one was listening.  You hear them now?  Did you hear Julie Wilson, (yes, that one) say, “We’re not going to condemn any land for economic development,”  We know several people downtown WHO know that ain't true.

Seems lots of folks at the meeting were upset with Jack Stevens as some of them helped him get elected, now they can't get him to do what he promised, which was look after them and their property. 

The three candidates, John Basham, Timothy Nold and Mark Kelleher fared much better.  Do yourself a favor and vote BNK for the water board.  Otherwise, it's business as usual. And from the looks of it, the locals have had about enough of that.  Hunting season's over.

The water board, as most people call it, has been a low-profile agency for most of the 80 years it’s been around, taking care of four dams and the lakes behind them, selling water to local cities and towns, looking out for flood concerns, and choosing its leaders in elections that often generate anemic turnout. But from time to time, especially when one of the agency’s construction projects requires the taking of private property from those who don’t want to sell, people start getting more curious — and critical — about how the district operates.

“It’s there for the recreational use of our employees,’’ says Board President Victor Henderson. “I think it’s a good thing.”

When an existing board member grew weary of service, he (and until recently all were men) would typically quit before the term was over, allowing the remaining directors to appoint a replacement who could then run for election as an incumbent. Water board elections were often held on days when public interest and turnout was light. In the late 1970s, for example, one election drew fewer than 300 voters.

But district officials say those days are long gone. In recent years, at least three board members have been elected without first having been appointed. And at least one incumbent has been defeated in a recent election. That was in 2004, when businesswoman Gina Puente-Brancato, the only woman and Hispanic to serve on the board, was defeated by retired engineer Jack Stevens.

What’s more, even if they did know when elections were being held, only a fraction of the residents served — or affected — by the agency are eligible to vote for the people who oversee it.

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