City of Ft. Worth, City Council D8 in the bubbles again.

More tax payer dollars bubbling from beneath the City Streets in District 8. This was outside of the Meadowbrook Neighborhood! Need I say more?

Vote Suzette for Council, District 8 http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/

Taxpayers paying Ft. Worth City Staff overtime hours to put band aide repairs on City Council District 8's ignored aged water pipes

As promised, picture of staff working until 8pm last night to do what they do so often in District 8 -- stop the bleeding for the moment in Meadowbrook's forgotten infrastructure. We pay taxes, where is the money going? We have an elected City Council representative, what has she been doing? Here is a list of the Board of Directors on which she has sat or currently sits:

- Junior League of Fort Worth

- Girl Scouts

- Women’s Haven

- Chaired Fort Worth Commission for Women

- Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration Fort Worth

- AIDS Outreach Center

- Fort Worth-Dallas Birthing Project

- All Church Home for Children

- Presbyterian Night Shelter

- Red Cross – Chisholm Trail Chapter

- Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau

http://www.fortworthgov.com/government/district8/

perhaps my opponent should concentrate less on resume building and more on the people and neighborhoods of District 8.

Elect me to the City Council seat for District 8 and you won't have to worry about me building my resume instead of paying attention to details and working hard for the neighborhoods in District 8. I'll be a workhorse for the District and together we will soar to places that East Ft. Worth has never seen. I promise you won't be disappointed. Right now I need money, please make a donation to my grass roots campaign Suzette for Council at http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/donate.html.

Ft. Worth Taxpayer's money bubbling from the street seams and going down the drain once again in City Council Distict 8

Above is what I saw mid day today. I dare somone to tell me that tax dollars are not suppose to cover the water system. I dare someone to tell me that this it is not the job of the seated City Council person to demand that tax dollar monies be allocated to maintaining the District's water system. Look at the picture closely...tell me you don't see black squares of fresh asphalt that shows that this very location as been "repaired" recently. Repairing things like this instead of expending tax dollars in an efficient and effective way regarding basic infrastructure is unacceptable! This is a waste of our tax dollars.

When I go home today, I feel confident that I will be able to take more pictures of City Staff working after hours to stop the water leak. However, the water has been known to run for days before being cut off. This is your tax dollars going down the drain. This is evidence of lack of care, concerned & focused hard work on behalf of the people by your City Council representative and previous incumbents of the office.

If for no other reason than to get an advocate for basic city services for District 8, vote Suzette Watkins for City Council rep for District 8. I'll be an advocate for putting your hard earned tax dollars to work for your neighborhood. I'll fight the good Quality of Life fight for District 8 in East Ft. Worth. I'll put my neck on the line. I'll be good for District 8. If for no other reason than to bring some business sense to the office of City Council for District 8, vote for Suzette Watkins for City Council rep District 8. All I ask for is your vote and a chance to prove myself! Donations accepted via the website below. $5 & $10 dollars welcome!

http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/

www.meetup.com/suzette-watkins

http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/comments.html

More evidence of City Government not working for the people in City Council District 8 - Ft. Worth, Texas

What has Ft. Worth's City Government been doing with our tax dollars? Why hasn't the seated City Council person, Kathleen Hicks, been speaking up and demanding that District 8's aging water pipes be properly maintained and/or replaced?

Elect me to the City Council seat and I can promise you, I will demand that the basic City Services be restored to the people of District 8. ALL OF THE PEOPLE OF DISTRICT 8 -- Black, Brown, White and all colors in between. I name the colors because I've been told, first hand, that many people of color don't think a white girl will fight for them. Let me tell you something...we will work together and get District 8 working for the people once again. We won't concentrate on only Big Business, Million dollar developments, and Big Ticket items while the neighborhoods suffer! You can count on a fighter for the people in Suzette Watkins. I promise! Give me one chance to prove myself! That's two years. If you don't like what I've done, boot me out. All I ask for is a chance to prove myself. http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/ .

If you will look closely at the picture above, you can see where they "fixed the problem yesterday and, broken again today." That's how one witness described it. Where are our tax dollars going? I say down the drain in District 8, East Ft. Worth! Disgusting in my honest opinion! I say it's time for a change! Vote Suzette Watkins for City Council, May 2009.

City Council Dist. 8 wasting your tax dollars. Not respecting your hard earned tax dollar!

So many water main breaks in East Ft. Worth neighborhoods. Today at 5 o'clock I saw multiple crews working on water main breaks in our neighborhood! This is unacceptable! Why? Because no one neighborhood should have a water main break every single day! I would be willing to bet that in the Meadowbrook Neighborhood, there has been between 300 - 700 water main breaks for this year. There is no other excuse for this other than our City Government not allocating enough funds to properly maintain our aging water pipes. Our tax dollars are suppose to cover the basics! What has your City Council person been doing? Not enough, if anything at all, in regards to making sure that your tax dollars get bang for the buck.

In my opinion, your tax dollars are suppose to cover:

water, sewer, fire protection, police protection, streets, neighborhood street lights, trash pick up

Those are a few of the most basic services for which your tax dollars are suppose to pay. I can promise you that as your City Council representative, you will hear me calling for BASIC CITY SERVICES in District 8!! Please consider donating to my campaign for City Council. I promise you I will be a strong voice for your basic City tax dollar services, I won't be afraid of the Mayor, I will be an advocate for all of the people of District 8 -- the color of your skin won't matter. We are all a part of one community. We will hold each other accountable, we will all work together. We will make District 8 a better, safer, cleaner place to live, work and play! Please donate to my campaign at http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/ I need the money. I am not a candidate that is bought and paid for by big business nor family money; nor am I a candidate who is running for office because my Mother wanted me to run for office; nor am I a candidate that is running for office because of my family connections to local politics in Ft. Worth. (I have none.) I certainly do not believe that my skin color entitles me to a vote from you and I hope that my skin color will not cause you to not consider voting for me. I am running for office because I care about this City and I care about the communtiy in which we live, work and play. I believe strongly and passionately that your tax dollars should cover the basic services for which we pay for and depend on. I am a candidate for the people - all of the people.

Please donate any amount of money you can afford. Five and ten dollar bills are welcomed! http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/ or mail check to Suzette for Council, 1801 Bomar Ave, Ft. Worth, TX 76103.

And the Winner is.....

East Ft. Worth, District 8 is my pick for winner of the most water main breaks in the City of Ft. Worth. This morning as I was leaving, I could see a large stream of water running down three or four blocks to the nearest water drain. On any given day, you cannot drive around my neighborhood w/out seeing scenes like the picture above. The picture you see here is on a main, very busy street, Oakland Blvd. Try driving down this street during the rush hour or when a day of school at Meadowbrook Middle is beginning or ending.

I say it's time we elect people who care about where our tax dollars go and will fight for them to be put and spent in the proper and appropriate places so that they will actually serve the people from whom our local government collects them year after year.

Tax dollars still going down the drain in East Ft. Worth

Because our City Council members of the recent past and present (supposedly representing the people of the Meadowbrook Neighborhoods) haven't made the case of the need for infrastructure dollars be spent in prevention and maintenance of our aging water pipeline system. We are watching millions and probably billions of gallons of water going down our drains every single day due to pipe breaks in the neighborhood. Today, once again, the taxpayers of Ft. Worth are paying for another expensive band aid type fix it to our water problems in East Ft. Worth, District 8. If City Hall was a business it would not survive. We need some new members of the political system in Ft.Worth.

This is what happens when City Government is allowed to turn a blind eye

You have water main break after water main break after water main break after water main break after water main break. You have big money being spent on quick fixes which includes overtime staff hours, weekend staff hours, etc. Someone in the neighborhood told me they stopped counting at 60 water main breaks. The count is enormous!! And Ft. Worth wonders why we are in such a budget crunch. It's simple. Our government officials are not working for "tha people." They are working for other things such as big money, big developments, big companies, big campaign donors, and who knows what else. Today, I counted two more water main breaks. Picture are above. One picture looks the same as the one a few posts earlier, but it isn't. Same street but further down. I don't see much different in Washington and Ft. Worth. Smaller group of people, but still politicians who stay in the middle of issues, don't stick their necks out too much and don't really care about the average taxpayer.

CORRECTION on number of Water Main Breaks in Ft. Worth

Below I say the count is 24 for water main breaks in the Meadowbrook neighborhood. That is incorrect. The report from CFW Water Dept counted 22 in past three years on my street alone. If you drive around the neighborhood you can see the black asphalt patches peppered on just about (if not) every single street. Therefore, the number of 24 is probably closer to 100 or more, if one counts the breaks on the surrounding streets as opposed to one street!

24 Water Main Breaks and Counting in East Ft. Worth

Several posts below I talk about the excessive amounts of water main breaks that I have witnessed in the past three years. (verified by CFW Water Dept.) As of today, here's one more that we can add to the list which I believe makes the count up to 24 breaks and counting. This is what I call poor planning, poor allocating of funding and poor job performance if you are, or have been a part of the Ft. Worth City Council in the past several years. What the heck are y'all thinkin up there at City Hall and who are you accountable to? Maybe if Ms. Kathleen Hicks is reading this blog she can let us know when we are going to get new pipes for our water system out here in the Meadowbrook neighborhoods. By the way, how many of our tax dollars have been spent on emergency repair expenses from water main breaks. That would include overtime staff hours, emergency weekend staff hours, all costs associated with street repairs around water main breaks, etc.

Another water main break in Meadowbrook

A few posts down, I told you about the problem with water main breaks in my neighborhood. Found another one this evening. If you will look at the pictures closely, you can see that it wasn't that long ago that this very same main burst and has been replaced with new material, including parts of the street. Unfortunately, it didn't hold very long until oops...broke again. I did get a detailed response from CFW verifying that I have indeed witnessed 22 (23 now) water main breaks from my driveway in the past 3 years! Twenty-two?! That's alot to me. The CFW said it was because of the drought in 2005-2006 and explained how much the ground moves, etc.

Sure, that's another product of the "root of the problem." I believe it is because of mislead groups of people (City Council) term after term after term here in our great City of Ft. Worth. If you were really doing a great job of running the "business" of City Government then you would allocate enough funds to keep from WASTING millions of the taxpayer dollars on deferring and placing nothing more than band aids on the important concerns rather than addressing root causes!

Ft. Worth's Water Going to the Birds

As you can see by looking at the actual street in the picture w/the birds, we have had just about every inch of road repaired due to water main breaks. The last one broke this past Friday afternoon and still to this hour continues to leak and water the birds. Why aren't our elected officials held accountable for this type if poor management of our tax dollars? Because enough of us don't speak up and too much of the time, we don't know who we are really voting for and what type of leader they are, if at all, when we go to the polls.

Your tax dollars still going down the water drains in East Ft. Worth

Last night, Saturday night, about 10pm, above was what I saw. Another water main had broken about 40 feet south of the one that broke Friday afternoon. I called 911 to report it and the operator sounded like there were many calls about water spewing from fire hydrants. As of today, Sunday, the water is still leaking from the corroded water pipes that our City Government has failed to maintain properly. (Which is exactly what can, and does happen with gas pipelines.) Please help me hold our City Government, especially the elected ones, accountable for their actions and non-actions on issues such as properly funding the maintenance of our water system.

Do you have these water problems in YOUR neighborhood?

I bet that in my neighborhood here in East Ft. Worth, over the past year, I have personally witnessed about 10 of the scenes that you see above. My question is; does this happen all over town? Is this more prevalent in non-affluent neighborhoods? If so, why? If not, then what is the problem? Why are our tax dollars going down the water drains? To me, the bottom line source of the problem would be our City Government not appropriating the funds to do the upkeep on our water system here in Ft. Worth. Then comes the question of "why?" Why weren't enough funds allocated for prevention of such pipe corrosion and waste of such large amounts of our city water, and tax dollars to pay for labor to do the emergency repair, and when was the issue before Council last, next to the last time and next to the next to last time!? These pictures were from Friday afternoon noon around 6pm. Today, Saturday, the FW Water Dept is going up and down our streets saying our water will be off, etc. All of this preventable, if only our government officials were doing their jobs well.

IMO, these are the things that a city council person should have to answer to at Neighborhood Association meetings and things that a Neighborhood Association should be interested in finding out for their members. I would think any well meaning council person would be the first to want to talk about it being that they are the ones who should know the answers to such issues. "City" Council, "City" Government, "City" Hall, "City" water, "City" dollars........you get the point. Right? I mean, really, does it take all that much? No, it shouldn't! This is not rocket science and residents in the neighborhood DO care about issues such as this!