The City Council denied a high-impact variance last night, and the sun still came up today. Shocking.

But that wasn’t the only thing to come up this morning on Eighth Avenue. There was also this sign in the photo at left, sent in by a loyal West and Clear reader. If that little bit of hubris, wasn’t enough, there was this little gem from the Fort Worth PRSA blog, wherein Chesapeake Energy spokesperson Julie Wilson talks about the public relations success that the company has enjoyed in Fort Worth. There’s lots of nuggets to tear into there, but I’ll hold my fire and open up a few questions to West and Clear readers:

I know these results won’t be scientific, but answer any, all or none of these questions. Dig in.

And last, I offer video of a gas well explosion in Arkansas yesterday.

At the end of a very long evening and the vote was tallied, the elation of most in the City Council chambers was matched only by their disbelief as they watched a unanimous vote decline a variance for the proposed drilling site at Eighth Avenue. Even though it was the first time the City had denied a high-impact variance, I was still marveling at how the whole thing wrapped up.
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A Conversation With Jerry Horton - West and Clear from James M. Johnston on Vimeo.

When you knock on Jerry Horton’s front door on Carter Avenue, you’ll notice that there’s a horseshoe above it. It’s obviously been there a long time — it’s painted the same color of white as her 100-year-old house. But any luck that horseshoe brought to the house or the rest of Carter Avenue appears to be running out — Ms. Horton has a court date scheduled for Thursday as Chesapeake Energy’s pipeline subsidiary, Texas Midstream, is moving ahead with its condemnation proceedings. On Monday evening, she and her neighbors will meet with Texas Midstream to try and reach a last-minute compromise. If that fails and Ms. Horton has to go to court, the odds aren’t in her favor. She can’t afford a lawyer and the laws of this state don’t offer much protection for property owners against entities like Texas Midstream that have eminent domain powers.

Above is a short film that West and Clear collaborated on with Fort Worth filmmaker James M. Johnston. Eminent domain abuse is an abstract problem, but Ms. Horton’s plight puts a very human face on this issue. James and I wanted Ms. Horton to be able to tell her story in her own words and show you what it is like to have a pipeline literally coming to your front porch.
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From the desk of Julie Wilson:

We thought you’d like to have a heads-up on an exciting event: Chesapeake will be spudding Fort Worth’s first downtown well this Friday, August 15.

Because we anticipate interest in this location will be high – and the location convenient - we’ll offer a series of “rig tour” times for civic leaders, city staff, and council members. Although we don’t know yet exactly what time the drilling will commence on Friday, we will hold a small inaugural tour at 2 pm for those who’d like to be present on the exciting first day. If you would like to participate, please let us know, as space will be limited. Otherwise, we will send you a schedule of other tours so you can select a convenient date and time.

Anyone want to go? Email Julie Wilson now. Tell her West and Clear sent you.

Gosh, I suppose I couldn’t have put it any better myself…

From the text of the story aired on NPR’s “All Things Considered” today. (Emphasis mine.)

In the wake of Chesapeake’s infomercial comes Shale TV, a daily talk show about the Barnett Shale set to air this fall. The company has hired three award-winning Dallas broadcast journalists to produce the show.

Julie Wilson, Chesapeake vice president for corporate development, says she understands there’s skepticism about the objectivity of Shale TV, but she insists it’s no different than the rest of corporate media.

“Well, I think we pay those journalists — whether on Channel 8 or Channel 11 or the Star-Telegram — in terms of advertising support,” Wilson says. “We see this as pretty much instead of running the ads on the program, we’re just writing the check direct.”

A friend of West and Clear in Berkeley — yes, our spies are everywhere — provided us with a recap from last night’s meeting with Chesapeake and the Fort Worth & Western Railroad.
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Memo to Julie Wilson: Have someone translate “Let’s Get Behind the Barnett” into Chinese immediately.

The South China Morning Post is reporting that China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the state-owned energy company of the People’s Republic of China, is considering bidding for minority stakes in shale gas assets owned by Chesapeake Energy.

It is worth noting that CNPC has extensive and problematic operations in Sudan and highlights on its website the new deal it has with the government of Myanmar and also does business with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Would superpatriot Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon really consider a business arrangement with the CNPC? It would kind of undermine the whole national security argument about the benefits of gas drilling if he doesn’t tell them to go pound sand immediately.

This email from Julie Wilson just in on the email from a loyal reader.
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Back in February when Mayor Mike Moncrief kicked off the charade that is the Gas Drilling Task Force, he said it was all about quality of life.

In fact, Mikey was so concerned about quality of life, that he didn’t even bother to show up at last night’s public meeting to hear what his constituents actually had to say. I assume he was hanging out with his friends from Chesapeake — Aubrey McClendon and Julie Wilson — as they flipped the switch on the lights over at Castle Grayskull, formerly Pier 1 Tower. That’s what the more than 200 people in the crowd were talking about anyway.

Yep, quality of life was so important that only two members of the City Council even bothered to show up — Joel Burns and Carter Burdette. But unlike Carter, at least Joel bothered to stay until the end, even after the A/C was turned off.
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