Holy Cow! Steve: Excellent!

New York will eat this up: “Start spreadin’ the news…”

Jerry Horton is Fort Worth. Our Mayor is NOT!

Your video was excellent. It protrays the reality of Fort Worth today — our city has been high jacked - the gate was opened by the “blessing” of our Mayor and he has seen to it that no
one robs him from being the “go to” guy for the gas drillers. The Mayor’s eyes are on “his
prize” the BLESSING of Chesapeak and XTO - WHY? What does it take to ignore every single obligation you have to the people that elected you ???????????

Excellent job!! What a great mini-doc! I agree with TXSHARON that this should go viral on YouTube.

It’s sad to see what’s happening all over FW in regards to gas drilling. Like Jerry says, go to city council meetings and email your council members and tell them we need a moratorium on drilling and a master plan. This can’t go on!

I’m sure you will keep us up to date on Jerry’s plight.

Like Jerry requests, “Flood the City Council Chambers every Tuesday.” Tommorrow 10am. You can do Citizens Presentation, fill out card at front desk and ask the 9 member City Council (that includes the Mayor) to do their job and protect its citizens and neighborhoods.

Jerry Horton and TMGS in this story, http://fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=8226

I’ve heard that Horton has a history of these ploys. The pipeline will be buried over 30 feet below the ground. Everyone else on the street has signed those agreements and have been paid very well for them. Once these wells start producing, each home on the street will get from$200 to $300 per month on royalties. But all this disappears once Jerry starts crying for the cameras.

Garth,

Not throwing gas on the fire here, but do you honestly think most of us will see $200-$300 per month?

It’s doubtful any of us will receive that amount. No one will even come forth with an estimate of what to expect, but I’d be willing to bet that it’s about half that amount.

Also, do you know without a doubt that you’ll see that cash? Will it go into your personal account, or will it go straight to your mortgage company? Nothing wrong with that, be nice to pay off the house sooner. Of course, if that is the case you’ll still get a 1099 for money that you’re not really seeing. Means you’ll have to pay taxes on it in addition to your income. Might start saving some extra money for that now just in case. Might be worth looking into.

Of course I could be completely wrong. In fact nothing would make me happier. I’d love to see Fort Worth full of millionaires, especially on the South and East sides of Fort Worth. The regrowth it would spawn would be incredible!

Chris, I don’t know exactly what people will get. But a little of something is worth more that alot of nothing. I’m just saying that both sides should be looked at, don’t you ?
I’ll be handing the store over to my son in about three years and it’s nice to know that the addtional wells being drilled around here may add to the small monthly amount we recieve. The pipeline is 4 feet deep and they buried it under the pavement, so I can still use it for parking. Anyway, just keep an open mind and beware of misinformation.

Garth is a perfect example of how low Chesapeake will go to make more money. They pay a troll to monitor the blogs and post negative messages trying to sully the name of a good citizen like Mrs. Horton.

SHAME ON YOU CHESAPEAKE!!!!

Whittier, don’t act like a gas line running to the house is even remotely close to the same thing as a 16″ pipeline under a person’s front yard.

It seems to me that Ms. Horton is under the impression that her front yard is going to be taken over. Her legal advice gave her the same impression. Also, what’s wrong with a citizen of Fort Worth not wanting a large pipeline that could leak running underneith her property? Can’t Cheasapeake be a good corporate citizen of the shale? Their decision to run the pipeline in a residential area instead of boring through a commercial area speaks volumes. That’s why I feel Ms. Horton has far more credibility at this point.

Mitchell Schnurman’s July 16, 2008 editorial titled “Chesapeake facts may not be ones we need” states that in the past seven years, only 7400 jobs were added in the oil and gas business in the Metroplex, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.

That’s less than 1 percent of the workforce.
(course to see it on the buses, you’d think the Barnett Shale was the only game in town.)

and it seems to me that Ms. Horton is most concerned by the language in the contract which stated that the companies COULD remove trees, permanent structures,etc, including her wheelchair ramp, if so needed, ultimately giving her little control of her family property.

Not to mention: What would you offer to buy a residential property with that kind of easement on it? She is being offered a little over $12,000 for that easement.

What discount will a buyer expect after looking at a survey giving Chesapeake, it’s heirs and assigns permenent unfettered access to most of the front yard? Probably a lot more than $12k off a comparable unencumbered property. I know I would.

The end result is these property owners are giving up more value than what ehy are receiving. Over time the City will also see a decline in property tax receipts as the properties turn over and their values decline at TAD (and yes, they actually will decline as new buyers contest the apraisals with real purchase amounts). What we don’t have yet is the exact amounts because there aren’t enough comparable sales to allow appraisers to give us the answers. But it will come.

You won’t see another posting by Garth, he was called out!

Anyway, who cares if Jerry is at alot of council meetings and is a “media hog”. CHK is stil using ED to take ROW for a for profit pipeline. The map may be hand drawn and inaccurate, but CHK is using their heavy hand to take the ROW. The city just stand by and watches, with no regard to neighborhood safety, aesthetics, etc.

Whittier, you are not looking at the bigger picture. It’s about CHK doing whatever they want while our Mayor just sits by and collects his checks.

Beverly-

I can’t tell if you are serious or just egging me on. This blog is about Jerry Horton. But I’ll take the bait. You are right, I’ve bitched too much about “waiting for someone to do something.” I’ll take that lump. But it was lonely out here for a long time. You can’t imagine how glad I am to have you on my team.

As for Dirty Ol’ Town, I think the moniker fits perfectly considering what Chesapeake, XTO, Devon, etc. and Moncrief have done to my hometown. FW used to be a nice place to live.

“Fort Worth: One of America’s Most Livable Cities”, has now become a sad joke. Those days have ended. Livable cities do not slash library hours, close tree farms and health departments, close swimming pools and they sure as hell don’t let places like Trinity Trees, Trinity Trails and Tandy Hills get compromised by gas drilling or allow pipelines like the subject of this blog.

what a drama queen.
Jerry Horton, the Cindy Sheehan of energy.
there’s a quarter of million miles of buried pipelines in the state of Texas, most of it over 40 years old and you have a better chance of dying from a lightning strike.
another little fact, the surface rights have subservient to the minerals here for over a hundred years - maybe you should have thought this out a little better before you decided to try to stop progress.
Drill it an dget it to market; I have two kids in college - I could use the extra cash

Tell me again what is so awful about a pipeline buried under your yard.

Somebody said it should run under business property. I don’t understand the distinction. Why should it run under the business owner’s property instead of this lady’s? Doesn’t the business owner have the same rights?

Seems like if we’re going to have gas, we gotta pipe it.

and to Buck - you miss the point.

it’s not that it should go under a business owner’s property, it’s that the company chooses not to fuss with the big business owner - or TXDOT. Both have big wallets and lawyers on stand-by and can push the “utility” companies back while widow home owners probably won’t have much money to fight to protect their property.

“seems like if we’re gonna have gas, we gotta’ pipe it” is right. But the right answer is “if we’re gonna have gas and a city to live in, we oughta’ restrict it to areas that make sense - out of neighborhoods, offa’ parks and in industrial zones with the right amount of protections and procedures for it to make sense.

Thanks for helping me with my point Sirius Girl.

CHK is willing to route the pipeline longer through the residential neighborhood because the cost is cheaper. CHK is exploiting the fact that ordinary citizens don’t have as many resources to expend to figure out what access to their property really costs.

Also, one can only trust what is on the paper. If the contract says trees COULD be cleared, and the property owner doesn’t want that possibility to happen, they should have the right to say no.

Maybe this is a good reason why the city needs a master plan?

@ Ben who says
“Why should her interests take precedent over the majority of the people in her neighborhood that want this?”

be sure that you’re right on this target. many of those homeowners now say that they didn’t know what they were signing. And given the press in the Southlake Journal today

http://www.southlakejournal.com/home/story/2224.html

who ya’ gonna’ believe? the neighbors or the gilded tongue?

and I disagree with “This is mostly about the greater good!”
Are you kidding me? With the newest reports about the play peaking in 2009 and knowing that production falls off and nose dives after the peak, whose kids are going to college on the Shale scholarship?

Really??? Really!!!

Ben! think conservation! Think alternative energy. Think for the greater good.

The most obvious solution to this Rubiks cube is for the city to deny the permit to drill the Thomas well. Chesapeake has already violated the ordinance and state law by working on the site without a permit and using TXDot easement without permission. In the process, they also violated the FW Tree Ordinance. These violations may seem trivial to some, but if you or I did the same thing, we would land in the pokey. The city can and should use the violations to deny the permit.

With so much at stake, this is the correct solution for all concerned. If Chesapeake chooses, they can drill elsewhere, possibly north of I-30, to access the Thomas minerals. Thus, no need for a pipeline on Carter Ave. and no need to traverse narrow and historic Scott Avenue to access the proposed site which is also a rare and endangered remnant prairie. No need to disrupt the very real human lives and wildlife in the way of this trivial pursuit.

For godssake people, stand back and look at what is happening. I find it utterly ridiculous that a greedy, Oklahoma energy extractor can tear apart a community this way for a few weeks worth of natural gas, aka: minerals, so a Mr or Mrs. Thomas can make a few bucks.

This drama has been going on for weeks. A groundbreaking video has been produced, multiple blogs filled with emotional comments, dozens of neighborhood meetings, roomfuls of lawyers consulted, dirty money spread around, elected officials posturing and pontificating, national and local TV crews filming, yard signs, lawsuits, intimidation, fear and loathing, for what?

We are being manipulated like puppets. We are forced to react daily to an industrial shell-game concocted by a company that also pulls the strings at 1000 Throckmorton and overseen by an sadistic PR genius whose specialty is manipulation. There’s a hell of a lot more at stake here than Jerry Horton’s front yard. We cannot afford to lose this one. Whatever Jerry Horton does or does not do has and will continue to affect all of us sooner of later. Her yard is also in our neighborhood, in our city.

If this isn’t war, what is? The stakes are clearly defined. The players ID’d. The middle ground has already been yielded to the gas cartel. Now they want to push it further to see what happens. Moncrief’s gas cartel must be stopped and this is the line in the asphalt.

“rainbow powered hover cars and unicorns?” I’ve used wind energy to power my house for the last several years…. without any expensive equipment, large investment, or magical creatures. In fact, it saves money, and you’re breathing cleaner air because I’m not using coal.
How’s that for an “unrealistic political and ecological mandate.”

Don’s point is well taken and reminds me of the CHK strategy - fool everyone to think that we only have 2 choices in any given problem.

there’s likely a third or even fourth way to solve this problem and by thinking of only “either/or” we fall into a Sophie’s choice scenario.

Does anyone REALLY think that the Barnett Shale will LOWER energy prices? Cummon. Chesapeake is in the business to make money, not lower or enery bills. If demand drops for product, Chesapeake will just throttle back production to maintain the price level.

I do feel sorry for Mrs. Horton, but apparently she’d already “got hers” and had sold her mineral rights for the Thomas well drilling. Now the gas company needs a pipeline to move the gas they’ve drilled for–and paid Mrs. Horton to access–to market. So, as a boss of mine once said, “there are no virgins here.”

I’m so disappointed in my fellow citizens of the Shale. I’m not a native Texan–I had to come here with my job when my employer moved us all here for tax breaks and lower operating costs. But I am a member of the community, and it dismays me to see the continued greed and “I got mine! Screw the rest of y’all” in this. This is the quality of life we’re talking about here. You want Fort Worth to be a nice, liveable city, or turn into another Youngstown, Ohio?

I hope this video will appear on Tracy Rowlett’s new news channel, though I won’t hold my breath.

The rest of the story not reported by the Star-Telegram is that producers intend to “throtle back” production thereby keeping prices for natural gas, the methane producing, not so clean energy. high.

Not true Sharon and where did you obtain those facts? As pertains to Boone Pickens what bothers you about his plan? Does it bother you that any business or businessman or woman is in business to make a profit. ADM is in business to make a profit on ethanol and has no problem in lobbying the democratic ticket for tax subsidies, and not importing ethanol from Brazil. Funny how your logic works at times.

Ah…what facts,.George?

The fact that producers would cut back on production to keep prices from falling too low was on Reuters, Forbes and in an API news letter last week. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that gas prices HAVE to stay high or shale drilling will not br profitable. No high prices = no BS.

Or, are you referring to my comment about natural gas being not so clean? Please, OH PLEASE tell me that you are going to dispute those facts. =)

Go read this post on my blog, “Big Oil. HUGE Money. ENORMOUS Influence” and then read “Exxon is Immotral but Natives Die” then get back to me on the profit question, Garth…er…George.

What about your past candidate John Edwards and his so-called War on Poverty? Is using Pac money given to his campaign to keep a mistress considered ethical, from a guy who lives in a 28,000 SF house and made $40 Million off a Hedge Fund that was knee deep in sub-prime mortgages? Do you have an answer to that as well? Also, what do you do for a living besides constantly monitor the web sites and blogs to fill the airwaves with your viewpoints. I will not lower myself to your level and denigrate your name. Your maturity level is more than evident. Why argue with someone as hateful as you?