(D)ude: Man! Have you noticed the “Road Work Ahead” signs all over the DFW Metroplex?
(M)an: Dude! Those signs go up whenever there is an election nearing. Early voting in Tarrant County concluded Friday, November 4, 2016. Have the construction signs disappeared yet?
D: Man! Yes. Hence, the point I’m trying to make, which is that the Republican majority of city and state officials in Tarrant County have concocted a new strategy of fooling residents into believing that their structural concerns about, for example, the dams and levees breaking as a result of weather conditions like flooding due to excessive rainfall, are being addressed when in fact they are not. The construction signs are just a facade, and a testament to just how crucial federal government is in the face of these Republican plunderers who literally are creating personal wealth for themselves by privatizing local and state government services.
M: Dude! That’s the reason why Donald Trump and Mike Pence were selected by the Republican Party to be the GOP frontrunners this election cycle, to make money off the privatizing of federal government agencies and programs. Both men have the reality television and talk radio format of conducting themselves shamelessly, even in the face of video and audio evidence proving them wrong. It is dangerous that the American Press Corps has aligned itself with today’s Republican Tea Party, never questioning the bankruptcies and the decision to never release one of its frontrunner’s tax returns.
D: Man! Can’t everyday folks see that the signs, indicating there is road work ahead all over Tarrant County, are placed for the purposes of throwing people off during election cycles? Realistically, look at the time frame from the 2014 midterms and to the 2016 presidential election cycle and you will find two years of total neglect in Tarrant County by the Republican Party majority. Our blue collar working class brothers and sisters elected them as a result of the frenzy the Republican Party had and continues to stir over ending the government’s role in regulating their business affairs and particularly the Affordable Care Act and the Environmental Protection Agency. We cannot make that mistake twice!
M: Dude! The Republican Party is the party of the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and the Waltons of Wal-Mart, et cetera. I bring up these three in particular because they are a representative sample of the basic monopolies that are keeping US from moving forward. Why can’t our sons and daughters in uniform be given the responsibility to oversee the vast amounts of oil in the Middle East and be the primary brokers of making deals with Russia regarding the oil and gas pipelines that connect Russia to Europe?
D: Man! The Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and the Waltons of Wal-Mart have created the impression that they cannot face corporate competition because their assets are booming and their businesses are solidified for generations. That is the mentality of monopolists. The only force of nature to change this coarseness within American society in this presidential election cycle is the American Voter’s decision to cast a ballot on Election Day, November 8, 2016, for the Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine ticket and the Democratic Party that has infused itself with Independents like Bernie Sanders, who is a member of the Democratic Party now and a strong surrogate for the Clinton and Kaine ticket. The United States of America is experiencing a political paradigm shift and American Voters must embrace their strength in numbers and show up together and vote for the continuation of our rights and freedoms within our beloved democracy.
M: Dude! We take so much for granted as citizens of the United States of America. Americans cannot fathom our rights and freedoms being taken away from us, but that is what is at stake here in this election cycle. When the American Voter takes voting for granted, we as a nation lose strands upon strands of precious freedoms and rights. Look at Fort Worth’s neglected roadways that keep us from following the recommended speed limits. Have you seen Bryant Irvin Road and Hulen Street? These are sites to some of the prime real estate in Tarrant County, but the roadways are patched up, with car-wrecking potholes and dents and breakages. I always drive several miles below the speed limit in places near prime real estate that were once maintained by the City of Fort Worth but no more. Surprisingly, around election time, the overgrown brush is also taken care of by the Republican Majority city and state officials.
D: Man! The neighborhoods around the Ridglea Country Club in Fort Worth have dilapidated. The gated communities alongside Westridge Avenue look abandoned but they are not. The same white collar wealthy inhabit the space, but I’m suspecting they are not aware of the extent to which Republican Governor Greg Abbott and his administration in Austin, Texas are planning to proceed if American Voters do not turn out in record numbers to vote out the Republicans in all government positions. Republican Governor Greg Abbott is planning to not invest in timely precautionary measures to prevent flooding deaths and other disasters in Tarrant County, in the hopes that the white collar wealthy relocate while the blue collar working class just collapse in midst of the impact from a storm front due to climate change denial or earthquakes due to hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling techniques.
M: Dude! Why not invest in timely precautionary measures to prevent flooding deaths and other disasters in Tarrant County?
D: Man! Fort Worth, Texas and its surrounds are situated atop Barnett Shale, a geologically rich reserve which has been estimated to be the most lucrative onshore natural gas field in the United States since the mass utilization of fracking and horizontal drilling. Republican Governor Greg Abbott is wanting to isolate the residents living on this land as a way to guarantee they will relocate and not rebuild. That’s why the GOP agreed to allow Donald Trump and Mike Pence to be their frontrunners in this election cycle, both men have the ability to pull off straight faced lies about the going-ons in government. And the Republican Tea Party is vast in its expanse of treacherous characters, look at the Republican Governors Association’s members, particularly Governor Mike Pence’s record in his home state of Indiana regarding St. Joseph County’s Jewell Woods neighborhood located south of the City of South Bend.
M: Dude! Wasn’t that Indianan neighborhood hit hard by floods as a result of Highway U.S. 31’s design flaws since its opening in 2014? I think Jewell Woods hadn’t experienced a flood since being built in the fifties and sixties, hence there being no flood insurance coverage for the residents to purchase until the four floods that took place since just this past May! But that new Highway U.S. 31 was built without any consideration towards architectural integrity with regard to the public safety of the neighborhoods located nearby. Thus, you’ve got culverts and other mechanisms to obvert rainfall failing under the jurisdiction of Republican local and state officials, including the current Governor of Indiana Mike Pence.
D: Man! According to Jeff Parrott of the South Bend Tribune, the article dating back to September 9, 2016 with the headliner Flood victims consider lawsuit against state, county, and South Bend: Jewell Woods residents blame runoff from new 31,
Edward and Wanda Walton, who lost their home and most of its contents in the flooding, have served the Indiana Department of Transportation, St. Joseph County and the city of South Bend with a “notice of tort claim,” a legally required step before a person can sue a body of government in Indiana. The Waltons filed the notice “on behalf of all similarly affected residents” of the neighborhood, an indication that their attorney, Charles Rice, might seek class action certification from a judge if he files suit.
Rice declined to discuss details of the case Thursday because he hasn’t yet filed a complaint in court.
“We are investigating this and served the tort claims notice on the state, county and city,” Rice said.
According to their tort notice, neighborhood residents “suffered severe and destructive floods because of the negligence of the governmental entities responsible for controlling the increased runoff from the recently completed U.S. 31 project and ensuring that downstream drainage and sewage systems were able to handle this increased drainage.”
The Phillips Ditch, a county-maintained drainage ditch that crosses U.S. 31 and runs northwest through the neighborhood, flooded during the storm. Area residents are required to pay the county a $5 annual assessment to keep the ditch operating correctly.
Rice has sent the county a request for public records that includes records related to the ditch’s inspection, maintenance and repair over the past 20 years, along with records pertaining to surface water runoff into the ditch and impact of the state’s U.S. 31 realignment project.
INDOT spokesman Doug Moats said he didn’t have time to be interviewed Thursday, but in an email to The Tribune, he said “it’s been documented that the area in southern South Bend, in the region of the new U.S. 31 corridor, has had high water issues for many years when there is a substantial rainfall. This has been occurring since before the new U.S. 31 was constructed.”
Moats said the new highway, opened in August 2014, was built to the specifications of a 100-year flood, but experts say the Aug. 15 rain was “potentially well above a 500-year flood.”
“In addition, all of INDOT’s drainage plans for the new U.S. 31 were approved by St. Joseph County,” Moats said.
“We feel bad for all of our neighbors who were affected by this recent natural disaster and want to lend our hand in whatever way we can,” he wrote.
“We are communicating with St. Joseph County to investigate whether cooperation on this matter could help.”
WSBT in late June reported on the Ganns’ complaints about the recurrent flooding, and how they wanted the county to investigate whether the ditch’s culverts were working properly. For that report, county engineer Jessica Clark said she planned to ask the county drainage board, at its July meeting, to conduct a “watershed analysis” that could help determine whether the Phillips Ditch’s culverts needed to be fixed or replaced.
Clark could not be reached for comment Thursday.
M: Dude! There was a similar article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the corroded lead water pipes in Fort Worth schools and homes not having been addressed sufficiently by local and state officials, who blame their own dismal record-keeping for the issue not ever arising until recently because of the local television news channel WFAA’s reporting. In an article for the Star-Telegram dating back to August 5, 2016 with the headliner Fort Worth inventorying lead pipes remaining in its water system, Sandra Baker reported the following then,
Lead pipes were banned in 1986, but some installed before then remain in use. Fort Worth’s Water Department is now on a push to eliminate all the lead lines, estimated to be in the thousands.
Lead contamination in drinking water has been a health safety issue and addressed by the water industry for decades, but it has been brought back to the forefront after dangerous levels of the toxin were found in water in Flint, Mich., last year.
Fort Worth’s policy has been to replace the lead service lines to customers on the city’s side of the meter when a water main was replaced. But contractors hired by the city to do that work were not required to document where they found lead pipes, city water director John Carman said.
“They just replaced them and moved on,” Carman said. “That’s been our reality. We’ve had a number replaced where we really don’t have a way of estimating or knowing exactly where those were.”
Although Carman said exposure to lead is minimal in Fort Worth, he wants to rid the city of the lead issue altogether. Many cities are headed in that direction.
“My view is we actually don’t have much of a problem in Fort Worth. We’ve been in compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule since the day it was put in place,” Carman said. “The challenge for us is really that we in fact have lead pipes in our system. There was a time and place where lead was an accepted material to be installed to connect homes to the water system.”
Fort Worth has been testing its water since 1992 for lead and other contaminants. It tests 50 tap water samples from a pool of mostly 100 residences. Testing is done every three years because samples historically clear federal and state regulations, but it did retest in 2015 and this year.
Fort Worth has recorded elevated lead levels at least five times in 250 samples since 2003, including in one sample in 2015, according to Fort Worth’s Drinking Water Quality Reports.
Although it wasn’t part of the testing pool, lead was recently found in samples brought in by the Fort Worth school district. The district has since learned that dozens of its water fountains contained lead. The issue was with the style of fountain that had lead parts, and not the water itself. The district is now replacing 400 fountains at a cost of up to $800,000.
D: Man! If American Voters don’t show up and cast their ballots tomorrow, Election Day, Tuesday, November 8, 2016 for the Clinton and Kaine ticket and the Democratic Party contenders, then they have no right to complain the next day about the outcome of the elections. There is a party affiliation componential amongst voters, but they must open their eyes and realize that the Republican Party is essentially a group that cannot be held accountable anymore.
M: Dude! Like I was reinterating from the Sandra Baker article, as I quote, that is,
Today, the city [of Fort Worth] maintains 3,500 miles of water main. About half of that, or 1,750 miles, is less than 25 years old, meaning the service lines coming off the mains are not lead because they were installed after the lead pipe ban. Water mains are made from cast iron or ductile iron and are not at issue.
The city can say 4,082 lead service lines have been replaced by city workers since 2004 based on internal work orders responding to a leak in the service or at the meter. That has cost about $11 million in today’s dollars. The new service lines are copper.
Some records from the early 1990s to 2004 show a number of “repairs” on lead service lines, but they are not clear on whether the repairs were actual replacements, Carman said.
The Water Department, though, estimates that several thousand lead lines remain in use. And that doesn’t take into account how many lead pipes remain on the customer’s side of the meter. Lead pipes on the private side of the water meter are the customer’s responsibility.
According to city figures on the age of housing stock in Fort Worth, 45.1 percent, or 117,989 units, was built before 1980 and was probably built using lead plumbing.
It is estimated that 6.1 million lead service lines are in place nationwide, providing water to as many as 22 million people, according to “Why Flint Matters,” an article in the July issue of an American Water Works Association publication. The industry group said it advocates long-term lead service line replacement.
Also, in the past 26 years the number of lead service lines in the U.S. has been reduced by an estimated 40 percent, the article said.
D: Man! Whether you take a close look at Tarrant County in Texas or St. Joseph County in Indiana, the choice is clear. Yes, there is a party affiliation factor for some who cast their ballots, the tendency to vote for the Republican ticket in every election, but they must open their hearts and minds to affiliate with their future generations of decendants thriving and growing stronger and stronger with each passing year, which can only stand the test of time with the Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine ticket and the Democratic Party reclaiming the majority status in both houses of the United States Congress this election cycle that will be concluding and sealing the fate of hundred of millions, if not billions of fates around the world as a result of the results of this particular election.
M: Dude! Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine are able to be held accountable for the policies they have actually outlined with rather compelling specifics in their book, Stronger Together. Clinton and Kaine even address the fate of bartenders and waitresses and hairstylists with such compassion and real time solutions like the following from page 78 of their unflinchingly honest assessment of American society and where it stands in the new millenium,
End the tipped minimum wage. In most states, waitresses, bartenders, hairstylists, and others who rely on tips are paid even lower than minimum wage. Some are paid as little as $2.13 per hour — and their tips are supposed to get them to at least a minimum wage. These workers are also more likely to face exploitation, wage theft, and sexual harrassment. America is the only industrialized country in the world that requires tipped workers to take their income in tips instead of wages. It is time we end the “tipped minimum wage.” Research has found that states with equal minimum wages for tipped workers have smaller wage gaps for women overall.
D: Man! That’s it! Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine get the pain and suffering of everyman and everywoman! Not only that, but Clinton and Kaine are willing to be held accountable and responsible for the policies and promises they have made throughout their relentlessly humanistic campaigning and championing of civil rights throughout their professional careers!
M: Dude! The welfare, value, and dignity of every person must be championed within our democracy and diplomacy. Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine are the embodiment of those basic human principles that we mustn’t forget tomorrow as we cast our ballots in the 2016 presidential election. I am reminded of what the 2016 Nobel Lit Laureate Bob Dylan said in an interview with AARP’s Robert Love way back in the February/March 2015 issue of the association’s magazine, “These songs [standards from the American Songbook ranging in time periods from the twenties into the sixties] are songs of great virtue. That’s what they are. People’s lives today are filled with vice and the trappings of it. Ambition, greed and selfishness all have to do with vice. Sooner or later, you have to see through it or you don’t survive. We don’t see the people that vice destroys. We just see the glamour of it — everywhere we look, from billboard signs to movies, to newspapers, to magazines. We see the destruction of human life. These songs are anything but that.”
D: Man! Amen and hallelujah to that for sure!
