FW News Notes

From a press release by the City:

The City of Fort Worth’s Streetcar Task Force met Monday with consultant HDR Engineering Inc. to review the consulting team’s scope of services for Phase 1 and 2 of the planning project.

The task force reviewed the framework for the route options, economic analysis and evaluation criteria. HDR expressed to the task force the need to design routes with the least amount of track that will bring the most economic development potential.

HDR’s next steps are to present a comprehensive picture of the economic impact and enhanced transportation options a streetcar system could have on Fort Worth. These steps will help determine the feasibility of streetcars in Fort Worth.

A series of public meetings will be held to gather public input before HDR presents its final report to the City Council. The first public meeting will be Aug. 9 at the Intermodal Transportation Center, 1001 Jones St.

To learn more about the streetcar project and to provide input, visit FortWorthStreetcar.org.

From a press release by the City:

Grand Opening for a new pet adoption center at the PetSmart store near the Hulen and I-20.

The center is a unique, first-of-its-kind partnership, with the city’s animal shelter providing adoptable animals and staffing, PetSmart Charities providing the funding to renovate the space in the store, and PetSmart Inc. providing the space in the store rent-free.

Who

Mayor Pro Tem Danny Scarth will be speaking, along with Fort Worth Pet Adoption Partners representative and community leader Bill Boecker, PetSmart Charities Executive Director/Vice President Susana Della Maddalena, and PetSmart, Inc. Executive Chairman Phillip L. Francis.

When

Saturday, May 1, 10 a.m.

Where

4800 S.W. Loop 820 in southwest Fort Worth.

Both College Girl and I went down the the Main Street Arts Fair yesterday, me at around two o’clock at she around early evening. We had such good times there in the last two years, and we both wanted to shop. But unfortunately, at both times, the crowd was so thick that you literally couldn’t get to the stalls.

Apparently spring fever (this was bluebonnets-burst-out-week in North Texas, after all) combined with the promise of “free admission” lured out way more people to Main Street than could comfortably move in a shuffling line past the stalls, having to concentrate more on not bumping into people than was workable for viewing of fine arts and crafts.

We stopped and bought some food, a small bag of sugared kettlecorn ($6 for the small bag) and a funnel cake ($7) and sat on the curb looking into a store where small bronzes dotted the window next to a revolving door, right next to Jamba Juice. It was pretty bad, actually, one of those moments when you remember days that you had no money and realize that back then at least you were spared the pain of getting ripped off on carnival food which you eat while watching unusual people wearing unusual cowboy boots going by and not being able to get to the artists you came to see.

At least we could still hear the street musicians.

I have to ask the organizers of the event whether there is anything they intend to do about this overcrowding thing. It was bad — as bad as last year when we went to the zoo on half price day during spring break.  It was so bad, I wondered where the fire marshall was.

Did it dampen my interest in the art? Not completely. Actually, I’m thinking of going back this morning. But if it’s that crowded again, I’m coming straight home. This is supposed to be the wide open west our here, not the Tokyo subway.

The Bluebonnet is the beloved state flower of Texas.

The bluebonnet watch is on again in North Texas. These small blue members of the lupine family are welcomed every spring as a sign of the true-blue heart of Texas and of the annual renewal that spring brings. After months of getting up in the predawn and putting kids on the bus at first light, I look for bluebonnets today as a sign that, in fact, everything is changing, and sometimes, it’s changing for the better.

Best places to see these beauties would be on freeway verges (just today I saw a “do not cut–wildflower area” sign at the intersection of the 30 and 35 near downtown; apparently they’re expecting the flowers any day now), the Trinity Trails, or the roundabouts such as the 377 Traffic Circle or Bluebonnet Circle.

Last year I wrote a post including details about bluebonnet history (there are actually five Texas Bluebonnets and all of them are the state flower) and a bit about growing the flowers. This year I will simply say that there is a fine story by Tomie DePaola with tells the legend of the bluebonnets for children or others who are interested, and send my thanks to Bruce Turner of Flickr Creative Commons for the image.

We have a wandering jackal in this house. It’s my dog, BT, who acts sweet and nice and pretends that if you let him in the front yard he’ll stay around the door and come right back but then when your back is turned he’ll take off. It’s happened not once but twice in the last 6 weeks.

The first time, I was in despair. “We’ll never find him,” I thought quietly. Another dog we’d had was lost four years ago in the same neighborhood and we never found out anything about her whereabouts.  How could I ever get this dog back?

We went to the shelters and there was a flier there for “lost pet dog tracking service.” It seemed that they would use a tracking dog to find out where your dog went. We considered for a couple of hours – the trail was getting cold – and then called the lady up.

It was impressive, the woman came out with the dog, a rangy red bloodhound, in a tracking harness, set him on the scent, and he put his nose down and began to follow a looping path just like a real wandering jackal would make down the street. In the end all the woman could tell us was that the scent ended at the intersection of Bilglade and Granbury and that meant the dog had been picked up in a car at that point. Although that was good for something – we knew he wasn’t shivering on the street somewhere – it didn’t explain where the dog was.

But BT was recovered, somehow. We put up signs and checked the shelters, as the dog-tracking lady had advised, and my husband found him in the Humane Society Shelter three days after his escape. The bloodhound lady had told us that if you do everything you can – check the shelters, put up posters, and hire the bloodhound – the recovery rate for lost dogs is about 85%. I wish I’d known that four years ago.

Dean had the dog microchipped at the Humane Society. We bought him a new collar and hung the microchip tag on it. And then, last Friday, the dog got out again.

I felt bad – but this time I didn’t go to the shelters. I figured if they had the dog they’d scan him and call us. And, in fact, we did get a call in the afternoon. The dog had been located about six blocks away, on the same route he’d been using the previous time. The man who found him got the Petfinder tag and called the number, and they referred him to us. I was so grateful.  I gave the kids a lecture about letting the dog in the front yard, of course. But I also realized that finding your lost dog didn’t have to be a hopeless case.

These are the steps to preventing a lost dog:

1. Have the dog microchipped
2. Have the dog wear a collar with the microchip company tog and a name tag with your phone number.
3. Don’t ever let the dog outside of a fenced enclosure.

If the dog is lost:

1. Go to the shelters.
2. Put up signs in the area where the dog was lost. Put “Reward” and “Needs medication.” If people think the dog needs medication, they won’t want to keep it. All dogs need heartworm medication, so you’re not fibbing.
3. Hire a dog tracking bloodhound if you can find one. It gives you a sense of having tried everything and you might be led right to the door of a neighbor who was planning to “adopt” your dog.
4. If at first you don’t succeed, go back to the shelters again. Dean found BT on the second visit. Dogs have been found at shelters as long as a year after disappearing.

Winter weather advisories

This from the City of Fort Worth

A storm system centered across West Texas will move east during the day today. The bulk of the precipitation, much of it in the form of snowfall, will occur in the Fort Worth area today and tonight …

Will it snow, will it snow, will it snow? It’s cold and wet outside right now, so I suppose it may — personally I was planning on going shopping, so maybe I should get out the door ASAP.

Two snow storms in one week, for Fort Worth, is highly unusual, to say the least.

Fall is the best time of the year to plant in Fort Worth. Come to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden’s fall plant sale, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Oct. 10, and stock up on native and adapted plants that can take our heat and live on our annual rainfall. The sale will be in the Grove, the wooded area west of the Trial Garden and the Japanese Garden parking lot. Free parking will be available in the Linden Street parking lot, just off of Montgomery Street. The garden staff will be available to answer your plant questions. Choose from a wide assortment of trees, shrubs, grasses, groundcovers, perennials, vines and spring-flowering bulbs. The sale features many specialty plants grown at the Botanic Garden. In addition, rose, African violet, begonia, iris, daylily, cactus and succulent, and native plant societies will be selling plants. Other vendors will be selling garden-related merchandise. To learn more, contact senior horticulturist Steve Huddleston — Steve.Huddleston(at)FortWorthGov.org.

Photo credit to ktylerconk from Flickr Creative Commons.

In recognition of Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month, all adoptions at the Animal Care and Control Center through October will be half-price. Dogs can be adopted for $35 and cats for $25. Spay/neuter surgery, microchip, rabies vaccination and a city pet license are included in the price.

Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month will be recognized by proclamation during the Oct. 6 Fort Worth City Council meeting at City Hall, 1000 Throckmorton St. The Animal Care and Control Center’s mobile adoption unit will be at City Hall during the council meeting, with dogs and cats available for adoption.

Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month already is recognized nationally by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Also, as of Oct. 1, any pet adopted by a senior citizen (65 and older) is half-price every day.

Each year, more than 20,000 homeless or lost pets come through the Animal Care and Control Center. Though many find happy, loving homes, an estimated 55 percent of the adoptable animals must be euthanized due to overpopulation.

To learn more about pet adoptions or if you are interested in volunteering with the center, call 817-392-PAWS (7297), e-mail animalvolunteers@fortworthgov.org, or visit http://www.fortworthgov.org/animals/

In the past few weeks, a very exciting thing happened nearby: new playground equipment was installed at Kellis Park, near the junction of Trail Lake and Granbury, which is just down the street from Foster Park, known around here as “The Duck Pond” since, well, it has a pond with ducks in it. Here is a map:

I have noticed an increase in the number of kids playing there since the new eqiupment was installed - and we have been there quite a few times ourselves. I am very happy the city is working to improve our parks in this way (down the street at Foster Park they are planting new trees and redoing the sidewalks and bridges over the creek)

Ang trys out the new structure

New swings were part of the improvements

 

One has to wonder if they are serious about proposing this now, since they just said they are closing a number of libraries and pools because the City is supposedly broke. However, “Dallas, Austin, and El Paso are doing it,” so apparently we need to act immediately.

Of course, maybe it wouldn’t cost as much as the pools and libraries.  But couldn’t we know what the fiscal impact would be before agreeing to adopt it, City Council?

But wait, maybe the real reason they’re doing this now is PR/mop-up because of the Rainbow Room incident of Friday June 26th. Now it makes sense.

From the City’s Press Release:

The City Manager’s Diversity Task Force voted unanimously at its Aug. 27 meeting to recommend that Fort Worth begin providing domestic partners of city employees with the same benefits that it now provides to employees’ spouses.

In response to the Task Force’s recommendation, City Manager Dale Fisseler has asked the City Attorney for advice on the legal basis upon which Texas municipalities may provide domestic partner benefits. He also will refer the issue to the city’s two benefits committees that will make recommendations regarding healthcare and retirement. According to the Task Force’s research, the cities o fDallas, Austin, and El Paso currently provide such benefits.

The Diversity Task Force also voted to endorse a recent Human Relations Commission proposal to amend the city’s existing anti-discrimination ordinance to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation based on gender identity and gender expression. The proposed amendment would extend that protection to transgender citizens.

Fort Worth was one of the first cities in the state to adopt an anti-discrimination ordinance and currently prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, age, and sexual orientation.

The Diversity Task Force, comprised of 14 community leaders and 12 city employees, was appointed by the City Manager in mid-July to provide advice on issues affecting Fort Worth’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) citizens. It was charged with providing input on three tasks:

• providing city employees with appropriate customer service training for LGBT citizens
• increasing community awareness of the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance and inclusiveness policies; and
• improving communication between the city and LGBT citizens.

The Task Force also has established three subcommittees to study the issues of human resources, community relations and economic development. The full Task Force is scheduled to meet again at 4:30 p.m. Sept. 24, at City Hall in Room 380. The City Manager has asked the Task Force to complete its work and provide a final report by the end of November.