Watchdog,
OR
Lapdog?
By Ron
West
The Fort Worth Star Telegram has announced a new group
headed by Lois Norder, Senior Editor as “watchdogs for public interests”. They have devoted a group of capable
reporters to this task and it will certainly be a welcome addition to the paper
if it actually assumes the responsibilities the label implies.
I personally would think that function
would focus on illegal, immoral, unethical, cruel or overly oppressive acts of
public officials. It surely would – or
should – encompass the revealing of lies or misrepresentations from any public
source. A real “watchdog” would not shy
away from correcting lies – even if the base of information is
complicated
and such correction would need a full and perhaps lengthy explanation.
On the other hand, you would not
expect a real watchdog group to focus on defending the actions of our public
officials. As all of us are aware, our
elected officials have their own adequate means of defending anything they want
to do – right or wrong. Defending these
actions seems to be the current domain of all of the locally assigned reporters
on the FWST staff.
A watchdog group should consider expanding on inadequate
reporting on any particular subject.
Inadequate reporting in my mind, is the omission or significant facts
when they would change the implication of the article. An example of this would be found in the
recent article by Reporter John Kirsh regarding the Wrongful Death Lawsuit
against NRH where he totally omitted the recent ruling by the 5th U.
S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the warrant used for the “no knock
raid” was illegal and based on deliberately false information.
In light of these thoughts, I have
recently asked Ms. Norder to look into the latest NRH City Newsletter for two
specific reasons. The first being city
funded electioneering which I believe to be prohibited by state law. Much of the recent city newsletter was used
to convey misleading and inaccurate information in order to defeat the pending
tax freeze for the seniors and disabled in our city.
The second reason for my request was
what appears to be deliberately false numerical information relating to the tax
revenues from TIF#2. Numbers presented
as facts in the city newsletter appear to be greatly overstated for the purpose
of misleading the readers. This
information is a result of mathematical calculations and can be easily verified
by the Fort Worth Star Telegram if the watchdog group chooses to look at the
newsletter.
Hopefully, the watchdogs – can review,
analyze and report back to the public that either the city is allowed to do
this type of electioneering with impunity or they stepped over the line. They can also either verify the supposedly
factual information with supporting calculations for such information – or –
publicize the information as both false and misleading. Any of this can be validated by independent
and impartial sources.
In an attempt to trigger actual
“watchdog reporting” by the FWST, I sent the following email messages to Lois
Norder and Larry Lutz on the Star Telegram management staff. Ms. Norder forwarded the first message to Mr.
Lutz and Mr. Lutz has not responded to any messages at all. The emails read:
Following Sent: 9/1/04
lnorder@star-telegram.com
Dear Ms. Norder,
If I remember correctly, you live in our fair city of
As you are probably well aware, there are a small group of us fighting back at
city hall to try to open government and
to receive fair treatment. While we are winning some battles, the power
of the city is being brought to bear to try to
end our efforts. City elected officials limit our comments to two minutes
then spend 30 minutes trying to publicly discredit
any thing we say. They often totally misrepresent factual
information.
The latest battle over the Tax Freeze has seen the city:
1. Insert electioneering material in all water
bills.
2. Use the City Newsletter to insert a 4 page
political statement slanted against the freeze and including blatant
misrepresentations.
3. Call for a public forum under their influence
and control after being notified that the citizens group was planning
a forum. (All old council members
were invited and declined prior to their announcement of their forum.)
4. Try to discredit current investigations into
TIF#2 which we believe was illegally formed by publishing misleading
information in the current
newsletter.
The most blatant lie being perpetrated regarding the Tax Freeze starts with a
claim that the first year cost of the freeze is
$605,000. This number is the result of taking the current senior
disabled exemption of $36,000 and multiplying it by the
3013 senior & disabled households. This result is then divided by 100
(to calculate per $100 valuation) and then multiplied
by $.57 which is the current tax rate per $100 value. (The actual
calculation yields $618,267 which was apparently adjusted
a little to make it harder to figure out where the number came from.) The
actual first year loss in tax revenues (cost) is $0
This "cost" is the current senior exemption and would continue in
place regardless of the freeze passing or not. The lie is
further enhanced by using this number and "growing" it into over
$1,030,000 per year after year 5. These figures were
used by Karen Bostic in her initial presentation to the Council regarding the
options relating to the freeze in June of this
year. The bottom line is that the City is grossly overstating the
"loss of increased taxes on the seniors and disabled" in order
to frighten voters and city employees.
This type of deception is further typified by the lies being published in the
same newsletter regarding TIF#2 - The following is a
quote from the Newsletter followed by the actual calculations that prove the
city's numbers false:
Lies in the
NRH Newsletter
“Since
the taxes paid on the base property value go into the City's General Fund, over
$2.3 million in property taxes paid by residents and business owners within the
TIF help pay for general this City services such as Fire and Police
protection.”
Proof
of TIF Lie:
Original
value of TIF = $40,000,000
NRH Tax Rate
$.57 per $100 value.
Total Possible Taxes Collected Per Year
Not accounting for deductions or exemptions --- $228,000
City News
Letter claimed property taxes on original value of $2,300,000 – Overstating
them by nearly 10 times.
Valuation
Increase - $80,900,000
NRH Tax Rate
$.57 per $100 Value
Total Possible Property Taxes Collected Per Year
Not including any exemptions or deductions -- $461,100
City claims
generation of $1,900,000 in taxes
Note –
all revenue from increases in valuation go into the TIF#2 Fund and are not available
for normal city services. Only tax revenues that existed in
1999 when the TIF was created go to pay for city services. (Note:
since the original valuation had raw land as part of it, technically a very,
very small percentage of each new residents tax bill does replace the taxes
that were originally paid by the owner of the raw land. This might
represent as high as 2 to 3% of their total tax bill and they could thereby
claim they were paying for city services with this small portion of their taxes.
In reality, those tax revenues existed to the city prior to the building of
Hometown NRH so they are actually contributing nothing new to the general
fund.)
When I recently approached our city attorney, Mr. George Staples, and ask the
simple question - "Who enforces the City Charter?" He
answered by
telling me "I am not going to answer that, if you want to know, hire an
attorney!"
As a citizen in this city, I believe that we deserve actual and factual
information - not lies, deception and disregard. It is my hope that you
will use the
watchdog powers of the press to bring more light to bear on our city
government. Only by actual investigation will this city reveal truth.
Mr. John Kirsh, who covers the city, may be intimidated by the current leadership
and perhaps even threatened. We truly need your help
and respectfully request that you assign someone on your staff to look into
these and other problems in our city.
I would be happy to meet with anyone you designate to provide initial places to
look for the facts. I can also provide the names of other citizens
who share these concerns should you rather work with others.
Sincerely,
Ron C. West
Following Sent:
9/10/04
Dear Mr. Lutz,
On September 1, I sent an email to Ms. Lois Norder who is heading up the
"watchdog" group for the FWST. I requested
investigation of what I consider to be violations of state statutes by using
city resources for electioneering and to correct or
confirm what I believe to be glaring lies in the Newsletter published by the
City of
Ms. Norder copied me that she had forwarded this request to you for normal
reporting coverage.
The electioneering was designed to impact the election being held tomorrow and
the FWST has made no
further reporting on these activities of our city.
I have written the following article (note
referring to this article) for
publication on web sources available to me but thought I would
copy it to you and Ms. Norder, prior to web publication so that - should you
wish to do so - you
could do reporting that could add to the positive aspects of my article.
We need to shine the light of
real reporting on the actions of the majority of the council in NRH.
Allowing them to electioneer and lie,
is not in the best interest of anyone.
My hope is that a "reporter" is already working on this and we will
see the results of his or her efforts
tomorrow morning - in time to be meaningful for the tax freeze issue. If
such reporting is after tomorrow,
it will have significantly less importance towards correcting the abuses of
power relating to electioneering.
Regards,
Ron West
Following Sent 9/14/04
llutz@star-telegram.com
Dear Mr. Lutz,
The tax freeze election in NRH is now over and we were able to prevail over all
the misinformation
published by the city. This, however, does not excuse their abuse of
power by electioneering with
tax payer dollars. Unfortunately, they got by with their actions without
any publicity from FWST.
Since I have not heard back from you nor anything further from Ms. Norder, I
was wondering if
you or someone on your staff would reply with at least the guidelines for what
your paper intends
to be the "watchdog" of - or in the alternative, if someone is
looking into the allegations that I have
submitted to you.
If it requires submission from multiple sources prior to any investigation by
the FWST, we can
probably arrange for others to contact you on this same item. If
the paper does not intend to
investigate such allegations, then that information would also be appreciated.
Please do me the courtesy of a response - even if it is "buzz off"?
Regards,
Ron West
The question remains to be answered as to whether the Fort
Worth Star Telegram has actually created a real watchdog group to shine the
spotlight of truth on the actions of our public officials in