There may be some hope yet for the city’s tree planting program. Last week Mayor Mikey told Channel 5 that the program could avoid the budget ax altogether thanks to some creative bookkeeping to access the money from the gas drilling lock box.

Of course, I’m wonder what happened to the $500,000 that Chesapeake pledged for planting trees as part of the Trinity Trees settlement. A source at City Hall said that the money was promised as $500,000 over five years, not one lump sum, and the source is confident that the city will eventually get that money. However, the city still has not received a penny of that money pledged almost 11 months ago. Did someone forget to send an invoice? The city could sure use $100,000 for trees right now.

Also, if you would like to take a survey about the city’s tree planting program, click here. The survey is live until Friday.

I need to get out more often. Sometimes I feel like all I do is go to these gas drilling meetings. And you know what? I don’t enjoy it.

So when a friend told me that the whole reason for the City Council forming a blue-ribbon committee is so they didn’t have to go to boring meetings like this, I felt a little twinge of envy.

But still, City Council members did show up — Joel Burns, Frank Moss, Jungus Jordan and Carter Burdette. Gentlemen, thank you for showing up. I know you can think of better ways to spend a Monday night.

But what about the rest of the Council? Chuck Silcox I can give a pass — he’s still fighting cancer and chemo is a bitch, so get well soon. But Kathleen Hicks, Sal Espino, Danny Scarth and Mayor Mikey, WTF? You can TiVO the Olympics. Get your ass down to City Hall and listen to your constituents.

Let me fill you in on what you missed.
[Read more]

So four lawyers walk into a Presbyterian Church last night and three lawyers say that the city needs a master plan on pipeline infrastucture. Who was the odd person out? Was it:

[Read more]

Today was the first day in a long time that I felt any sense of optimism about urban gas drilling.

This may surprise some of you, especially considering that as our city creeps closer to the dog days of August, tempers on the gas drilling issue have been flaring. To support my point, I reference Ms. Horton’s outburst at Mayor Mikey the other day. I believe you are going to see more of that. The Mayor and the City Council and the gas drilling interests have been unwilling to deal with this issue and it is starting to get out of their control. If you drive south down Oakland Boulevard from I-30 you will see what I mean. Yard after yard of anti-pipeline signs. One asked the Mayor how he would like a pipeline in his front yard.

And really that places the blame squarely where it belongs. Mayor Mikey — you made this happen. you didn’t protect Fort Worth neighborhoods and now you have the makings on an insurrection on your hands. Way to go.

And as much as I would like to see this whole thing blow up in your face because you deserve it, you actually have an opportunity to pull your ass out of the sling and fix this whole mess. And I’m going to tell you how to do it.
[Read more]

BS Blog reports: Mayor Mikey got yelled at by an old lady. Please tell me this is going to be on TV.

For those in Westcliff preparing to attend the Chesapeake/Midstream Tour de Pipeline tonight, let me help calibrate your expectations based on my experiences Monday night at the Sycamore Recreation Center in East Fort Worth.

It’s just kind of … weird.
[Read more]

If you were planning to be in Council chambers on the July 8 for the high-impact hearing on the Eighth Avenue drilling site, your evening just opened up. A source close to the process confirmed this evening that Chesapeake contacted the city and asked for a postponement.

What this means remains unclear right now, however this doesn’t seem to be a sudden Road to Damascus moment on the part of Chesapeake, this is just RealPolitik. The word going around was that the votes weren’t there for Chesapeake, and we aren’t talking a 5-4 vote. It was going to be a clear majority, if not a unanimous vote, against the permit.

This issue has gotten too hot for the Council and no one, not even Chesapeake’s BFF Mayor Mikey, was willing to stick his neck out when Council chambers would be overflowing with hundred of pissed off residents of Ryan Place, Fairmount, Mistletoe Heights and Berkeley neighborhoods. They were already setting up shuttle bus service to take people to the meeting — not a good sign for Chesapeake.

However, what will happen next is complicated and convoluted.
[Read more]

Back in February, I got a burr in my saddle. Right after Mayor Mike decided to put the fix in on the Gas Drilling Task Force, stack the deck heavily in favor of the industry and keep any meaningful discussion about injection wells out the public eye, I got a little curious.

What’s going on here? How does the Mayor take an issue that the public is keenly interested in and completely cut the public out of the process?

So, on Feb. 26, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request with the City of Fort Worth to find out why. I asked the City to supply all emails between the Mayor and anyone affiliated with Chesapeake Energy between that day and Jan. 1, 2007. I also asked for email between the Mayor and any city department on the topic of injection wells over the same period.

I can’t possibly cover everything that I gleaned from the entire process in one post, so I’m just going to focus on the emails between the Mayor and Chesapeake Energy over that period.

My assumption going in to this process would be that there would be a heavy volume of email. After all, this is the same period of time when the Trinity Trees incident went down. I expected some interesting stuff.

And how many emails did I get between Mikey and Chesapeake mouthpiece Julie Wilson, CEO Aubrey McClendon or anyone else at Chesapeake Energy?
[Read more]

Someone whispered this in a Panther’s Ear last week: “Three days since I saw the Tommy Lee Jones Friends of the Shale ads for the first time and not a single comment from W&C on this nauseating display? You guys are letting me down.”

Yeah, we kind of sucked a little last week. We really are sorry about that. We’re getting our act together this week. Really. Less sucking, more writing.

But before you read further, please consider your own safety. If you continue reading this post after the jump, Tommy Lee Jones will come to your house and kill you. And your family. And probably your dog. He’s angry. He’s serious. He has a gun.

So for the love of God, read no further.
[Read more]

Some people watch NASCAR, I watch City Hall. That’s not a judgment of the sport, it just fits into my schedule a little better. And it moves a lot slower.

Otherwise, they are a lot alike – the competition, the intrigue, the spectacle, the fiery crashes. Like NASCAR, a lot of interesting stuff happens in the pits, and if you aren’t watching, you might miss it.

Unlike NASCAR, it’s harder to identify who the sponsors are. Mike Moncrief doesn’t wear the logos of the people who pay his way like Dale Junior or Jimmie Johnson do.

This much we do know: if Mayor Mikey were a NASCAR driver, his number would be No. 1. And his sponsorship would include Chesapeake Energy, XTO, Devon and Range Resources, among others.

No. 1 because Mike is all about Mike. And we know Mike’s sponsors because of information from the Mayor’s financial disclosure appeared in the Startlegram yesterday. The minimum value of his lease or royalty agreements with 55 oil and gas companies, including major players in the Barnett Shale such as Chesapeake Energy, XTO, Devon and Range Resources came to $633,000. Nineteen of those deals were worth more than $25,000 in calendar year 2007. Oh, and then there’s the small matter of the XTO stock owned by Moncrief’s wife. Those shares – between 500 and 999 of ‘em – are valued between $32,370 and $64,675 at Wednesday’s closing price of $64.74.

How much do his holdings really amount to? We don’t know because the Mayor ain’t talking. He’s released the bare minimum amount of information, and he’s not obligated to release more.

But just with that bit of information, two statewide ethics experts told the Star-Telegram what I have been saying for months – at the very least, the appearance of impropriety exists and Mayor Mikey shouldn’t vote on any natural gas drilling issues.

But here’s where it gets funny – the city attorney’s office released a statement saying that no conflict of interest exists. Go back to being the head cheerleader for the gas drilling industry, Mr. Mayor.
[Read more]