By Shirley Gansser

The widening of Keller Hicks Rd from Alta Vista to Park Vista has been delayed again due to the City of Fort Worth’s inability to secure the funds from the already approved Critical Needs package (2007) and the 2008 Bond package. The City says that because of decreased revenue, the City’s debt service capacity has been decreased. Unless the City Council takes action to increase the debt service capacity, it appears the soonest the money to build this road will not happen until after 2013 with construction most likely not being started until sometime after that.

Under these same financial constraints, however, the City did secure funds from the market to build the bridges for the Trinity River Vision Project. The rhetoric one hears when asking about this decision is truly amazing. As each of you fight the traffic daily, remember that we have no one to blame for these continual delays and spending priorities except ourselves. City Hall listens to the voters – after all, that is how they are elected and keep their jobs! Consistently, the voter turnout in VOWS has been, at best, abysmal – two to three percent of the eligible voters actually VOTE. No wonder our needs are ignored!

In addition, we don’t have bike trails, a library, we have to pay to maintain our parks and green spaces (which were paid for by the developer), we have to pay extra (from our dues) to have adequate police protection – and we still pay our taxes to the City. The fact of the matter is that our tax money is being spent in other parts of the City. No one knows how each person votes – just the very act of voting in any election increases our potential impact on how we are treated and how much the City listens. Additionally, there are no plans in place at City Hall to widen Keller Hicks from Park Vista to 377 or to widen Keller Hicks from the schools to Old Denton – but there are lots of “reasons” why not.