Money, money everywhere

Re: TRVÂ’s new price tag: $880.2 million in 2021 dollars. And what do we get for $880.2 million? We poor tax-paying suckers get a monumental economic development scam.

Hearken back to the years 2004-2005 when this “flood control project” first made the news. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 12, 2005, reported that a cheap flood control fix of the levees was unacceptable because levees “act as barriers between residents and the river.” An idiotic notion at best.

The same report noted that the expensive new river channel and floodgates would keep the 33-acre lake “deep enough for boats.” Congresswoman Kay Granger said “It will create an urban waterfront that will be unique in North America.” She said more but it was just as meaningless. The lake is now projected to be 17 acres, about the size of a respectable stock tank, unique indeed. Will it be deep enough for boats? About a foot is all that’s needed for kayaks and canoes. There certainly won’t be sailboats as depicted in the flashy and expensive brochures printed early on.

The point is that all the baloney about the virtues of Trinity Uptown from Commissioner Whitley, Rep. Granger, J.D. Granger, and all the rest, is far from what was promised and at a cost that is nothing less than obscene. The Preliminary Financing Plan for Trinity River Vision TIF #9, Nov 12., 2003, had an estimated total cost of $360 million with 1 percent inflation and completion in 2016.

Now, according to authoritative sources, the TIF may be extended to 40 years, depriving the cityÂ’s general fund of even more revenue; the vaunted Town Lake is cut in half; we go cheap on the bridges; the time-frame for construction has increased (and will increase even more); the cost is nearly triple the 2003 estimate (and will increase again and again); and current costs for environmental cleanup are estimated at $30-35 million for one site. All environmental remediation was estimated at $20.78 million in 2003.

“I expect costs will easily reach $700 million before it’s done. We always underestimate the costs and overestimate the economic benefits.” Who said that? Why it was Councilman Picht in 2005. Yes, even I underestimated the cost back then. But then, who do you think you can believe now?

– Clyde Picht, Fort Worth

More money

In the past seven years I have written many a letter to the editor opposing the Trinity Uptown boondoggle. Here is one which appeared in the Business Press in 2006:

With the Trinity Uptown project, we have seen the biggest con job since the Music Man and 76 trombones blew into River City Iowa.

Fort Worth! River City, Texas! Pretty pictures. The public has probably seen a dozen different versions of this Garden of Eden with all its tall condos and other buildings, and with canoes and kayaks skimming over lake and canals, all figments of an artistÂ’s fertile imagination.

There is a serpent hidden in this garden.  We are not told about $400,000 of taxpayersÂ’ money which the city, county and Water District have already pumped into this pipe-dream for design and to paint these pretty pictures.  Just a drop in the bucket of what will come!

A drop in the bucket! Poor, poor prognosti-cator!  Now we are told the cost will be $880 million! That too is but a drop in the bucket when we contemplate the prodigious costs involved in environmental clean up, which the schola cantorum of this shimmering miasma tell us will be necessary now that the scales have fallen from their eyes. Taxpayers! Hold on to your wallets! What was that term which Ross Perot made famous? A giant sucking sound!

                – Don Woodard