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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Fairmount as Model
To the editor: Your article “Tear Down, Build Up and Up” (Aug. 22, 2007) covered an urban renewal issue currently affecting many American cities. As owner of a real estate company that specializes in marketing vintage homes, I am dismayed by the replacement of these structures with those of grossly inappropriate design. On the other hand, some homes with little architectural distinction, which have become what we call in the business “functionally obsolete,” should probably be demolished. What replaces them needs to be the major issue, not only for the individual neighborhoods but for the city as well.
A good compromise between builders and those wanting to maintain the integrity of an area is a variation of the plan adopted in the Fairmount Historic District in 1991. Any new-construction home must look similar to the existing homes around it. It’s really that simple. An organized neighborhood association along with the city’s planning department could negotiate other compromises like setbacks and overall size, creating a win for all sides of the issue.
One thing is for sure: Someone better act fast because, at the current pace of development, Monticello and the surrounding areas are going to end up looking like University Park in Dallas, a village of McMansions.
Dave Stovall
Old Town Real Estate Services
Fort Worth
A Bill of Particulars
To the editor: Apparently, Dick Cheney and George Bush had put a great deal of thought into possible pitfalls before the Iraq War. They made fun of Democrats who predicted the war would turn into a quagmire, yet a film clip shows Dick Cheney using that very word to describe what would happen.
Iraq had never invaded us, had no connection to 9/11, and had no weapons of mass destruction. Most have forgotten that Saddam Hussein had finally allowed weapons inspectors to come in and that Bush had to bring them home in order to begin the war.
Bush and Cheney have hurt America, and they have benefited from corporate corruption and greed. No wonder Cheney fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep from releasing his energy meeting notes, and no wonder energy executives lied to Congress under oath about meeting with him. Along with players like Scooter Libby and Karl Rove, they have orchestrated dirty tricks the likes of which would have embarrassed Nixon, Haldeman, and Erlichman. They coddled crooks like the late “Kenny Boy” Lay at Enron, one of Bush’s largest contributors. They relaxed pollution controls for major supporters like automakers, oil companies, and power companies, and in the process have spun the planet into the express lane toward global warming.
The administration’s position on outsourcing and the importation of cheap products has crippled much middle-class employment in this country. Their willingness to allow unregulated and unethical overseas manufacturers to be the sole monitors of the reliability of their products has proven deadly. They have used their offices to meld multi-national corporations with a totalitarian government that spies on its citizens to create a fascist state like Mussolini could only have dreamed of.
Their recipe for survival has been to avoid the mistakes Nixon made: Don’t turn over any documents, refuse to testify under oath, and send a stooge to OK warrantless wiretapping, torturing detainees, and the firing of attorneys who prosecuted corrupt Republican politicians.
We should start impeachment proceedings (Static, Aug. 15, 2007) and keep going until we have cleaned out all the thieves and liars.
Leo Wadley
Fort Worth
Free the Smokers
To the editor: The Fort Worth City Council has passed a resolution forbidding smoking in restaurants (Static, Aug. 22, 2007). What has happened to liberty and free enterprise in the USA? Restaurant owners protest that, having invested their money, they are being deprived of property. I agree with them and with Councilman Carter Burdette.
City Council, read the 14th Amendment! I pity those who are caught in the clutch of cigarettes. They have been driven to the streets to indulge their passion, reduced to the status of third-class citizens. I see them in the cold of winter and the heat of summer banished to a far corner of the garage of our office building. Enough is enough.
They are citizens and taxpayers. On the smoking ban, as on the use of eminent domain to drive people off their land in order to build a town lake and casino for the developers, the city council is turning a deaf ear to fairness and compassion. Franklin Roosevelt told us that we had nothing to fear but fear itself. The council apparently feels it has nothing to fear but fairness.
Don Woodard
Fort Worth
Correction
In last week’s cover story, the church at 6059 Azle Ave. was misidentified. It is the Northwest Church of Christ. Fort Worth Weekly regrets the error.
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