The Cowtown Chronicles

Today’s forum put together by the University area neighborhoods, a loose coalition of neighborhoods surrounding TCU, but all within District 9.

Wendy Davis came out to briefly address the crowd, explaining how she sympathizes with the candidates and how nervous they are. Her words were heartfelt and as usual, she nearly teared up when she got a standing ovation. Once again she demonstrates that she’s a real person and not just a stuffed suit.

Our moderator today was Jim Douglas from Channel 8. He took the time to mention Tony Spangler and Bud Kennedy from the S-T, but no love for the CowtownChronicles.

I had planned on summarizing the whole meeting, even going so far to make notes on the whole thing, each candidates answer to every question, and their opening and closing statements. But damn, that’s a lot of work, so instead I’ll give you my impressions of how things went. If you wanted ACTUAL FACTS, you should have been at the forum.

I think all of the candidates were pretty polished. Jim Beckman still has some rough edges, and Chris Turner still acts like he’s had too many Dr. Peppers. Juan Rangel honestly seemed a bit pissed about having to be there. I mean, he definitely tried, and answered questions honestly, but he just really seemed to be frustrated that he wasn’t already on the council. In fact, at the end of the evening, he used his 2 minute conclusion to essentially say that we needed to just get over it and pick a candidate now. I think it was really an impassioned cry for the district to come to a consensus and find the best candidate for the job, but it kind of came across as admonishing the district for considering any candidate besides him.

Joel Burns is obviously well informed, and he seemed very prepared for this event. But HE’S SUCH A POLICY WONK! Every answer sounded exactly like something that some political operative would say. The candidates were asked about whether they’d support additional council members, and Joel responded that he wouldn’t be able to say whether he supported that idea or not until he’d seen the proposal on how the districts would be redrawn. He’s not even in office yet, and he’s looking to gerrymander the districts! When asked about how to cut city expenditures and therefore property taxes, he started talking about actuarial accounts. He bragged about how he had studied several capital improvement projects before this forum, so he could answer questions about transit proposals. It just came off as SUPER, SUPER wonky. (He also used the most interesting word of the forum: “centrifugal.”) I didn’t like his answer about infill development, he seemed to be advocating the overly restrictive standards some neighborhoods have, such as Fairmount. He also worked REALLY HARD to hitch his wagon to Wendy’s record. My honest feeling is that electing Joel would be anti-progressive. All of his answers emphasized how much he would maintain the staus-quo, and that’s not good enough for me. Even his closing statement didn’t say anything about what he’d do NEW, but instead that he wanted to be a good steward for District 9. No boldness, no vision, just being a good steward.

ONE candidate seemed honest and real, and that’s Bernie Scheffler. He didn’t come across as wonky, he obviously cares a lot about this city, and he wants the best for Fort Worth. He doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, but he’ll do the work to find out, and I believe that he is the best candidate for District 9.

By the way: If the smoking ban is important to you, only ONE candidate supported a complete ban – Bernie Scheffler. All the other candidates waffled on the issue except for Jim Beckman, who said “No” when asked if he supported a further ban. Joel said he wasn’t willing to take up the ban now, which to me meant that he’s not going to support doing anything more about it.

It was an interesting experience to say the least. I don’t look forward to doing it again, but I will if I have to, y’all deserve it, although you totally need to go to the next one yourself. BTW, I took pictures, but the flash on my camera isn’t powerful enough to make them worthwhile. I don’t think the S-T got any pics either.