On Saturday, voters elected two new commissioners to the Tarrant Regional Water District board, and both Jim Lane and Marty Leonard favor spending upward of a half-billion dollars on the Trinity River Vision development that is expected to make downtown investors even richer while displacing hardworking common folk. Meanwhile, the power crowd’s favorite city council candidate, Danny Scarth, also won, narrowly defeating Louis McBee, one of the most refreshing candidates to come along in years. Scarth’s alliance with the “in crowd” was obvious by the campaign contributions he received: Mayor Mike Moncrief ($250), the godfather of downtown CEOs John Roach ($1,000), and the Stockyards’ Holt Hickman ($1,000).
Scarth has taken the mantle from former city council member Becky Haskin and with it her particular perfume. Haskin appointed Scarth to the city’s controversial gas drilling task force, a group dominated by industry types. Scarth came across like a lapdog as the task force ignored fearful homeowners and pushed for an industry-friendly ordinance. It was no surprise to learn a week before the city council election that Scarth’s biggest campaign contributor was fellow task force member Larry Dale ($2,000), one of the city’s most active drillers.
Semper Fi, Terry
Terence Sumner Kirk, the Burleson World War II veteran who risked his life to secretly photograph conditions in a Japanese POW camp, died last week – but not without saying what was on his mind one last time. Fort Worth Weekly readers may remember Kirk from stories two years ago documenting how he made a camera from cardboard and captured images of deprivation while he himself was a POW. With his friends, family, and fellow Marines gathered at the Dallas Fort Worth National Cemetery, his stepdaughter, Carolyn Noonan, read a note Kirk had the foresight to write for the occasion. “Please do not feel sorrow for my passing,” the 89-year-old leatherneck wrote. “I have lived a good life. I have laughed more than I have cried. I have succeeded more than I have failed. And I have been loved more than I deserved. This all adds up to a propitious existence. I hope you all have as good a life as mine.”
He escaped the POW camps with his photographs, wrote a book about his imprisonment, and was eventually awarded the Purple Heart. He left this world the same way he lived in it – with courage and class.
