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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Like water seeking base level, the fight over urban gas drilling in Fort Worth always seems to come back to the Trinity River. Much like the Trinity Trees situation last year, the current debate over the Greenwood Cemetery drilling site wraps up all of the dilemmas and contradictions the public space / private property situation in one neat little package.
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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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What’s your favorite Mike Moncrief story? Mine is probably a toss up between the Mayor’s lucrative relationships with the gas and oil industry or how he skipped the first public hearing on the gas drilling task force to attend the lighting of Castle Grayskull, er, the Pier 1 Building, um, I mean the Chesapeake Building.
Yep, Mayor Mikey cares. And now, UTA is even writing a book about it. From the press release:
“Could there be a better way to learn about the science of politics than to study the career of a successful practitioner? Allan Saxe, who has taught political science for more than four decades at The University of Texas at Arlington, thought not. So, he designed an unusual curriculum with students engaging in original research to chronicle the political life of Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief.
Eight students, all undergraduates, were involved in the research. They collected an extensive oral history from interviews with Moncrief, as well as former Fort Worth mayors Bob Bolen and Kenneth Barr. After the students’ research was complete, Saxe decided the results called for preservation as a tool for understanding the history of the Fort Worth area, as well as city management, policies and planning. A DVD of the interviews was placed in local community colleges and high school libraries and in UT Arlington Libraries Special Collections.
“Also a book, “Decades of Caring: A Chronicle of the Political Life of Mike Moncrief” is being published by Cengage Learning. The book is divided in two four sections, each co-written by two students. The sections cover Moncrief’s time as a Texas State representative, judge of Tarrant County Commissioners Court, Texas state senator and mayor of Fort Worth.”
This email from Julie Wilson just in on the email from a loyal reader.
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Ryan Place, Berkeley and Mistletoe Heights, Chesapeake Energy has a message for you: Suck it, we’re drilling anyway.
Chesapeake’s Eighth Avenue drilling site, which was a dealbreaker for the Oklahoma City-based energy titan in its negotiations with these neighborhoods last year, is not off the table after all.
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