President's Message
Dear EFWBA Members,
I would like to thank everyone for their hard work and dedication in organizing the Installation Banquet for this year. For those who didn't come, the event was an unbelievable success. Most generally hard work will always produce success. The theme this year was a Mexican Fiesta and the event was catered by the Mexican Inn Café and the food could not have been better!! They brought along plenty of service personnel and the food quantity was not to believed. Needless to say, our heartiest thanks go out to them as we feel they went above and beyond the normal catering services. Please go by the Mexican Inn for lunch or dinner (there is always a coupon in the Greater Meadowbrook Shopping News) and tell them I sent you.
I would also like to offer special thanks and appreciation to Mr. Scott Chesner (introducing him as David Finfrock was just a joke) for being our MC for the evening and to Councilman Ralph McCloud for swearing in our 2003 Board Members.
As stated in the last two newsletters, 2003 will be upon us before we know it, and ther are a number of critical issues that we will be forced to address here at the end of the year and for most of the coming year. We will need to deal with at least one bond issue to be voted on dealing with capitol improvements for the entire city. We in East Fort Worth have been told that we didn't hardly get anything in the 1998 Capital Improvement Program because "we didn't ask for anything." I think that will change...we have plenty to ask for this time, and we are in the process of formulating our needs. Please let us know if you have ideas for improvements in your neighborhood or business district.
We also have an election in 2003...surprise to no one right???? It is starting to look as though city council and mayor will have plenty of competition this time around, and perhaps it is time for the new ideas and the debate of issues that a competitive campaign will bring out. We will have the opportunity to hear from Mayor Barr at our January 2nd general meeting. I will try to keep the Association's business at the meeting to a minimum so that Mayor Barr can have the maximum amount of time to address the audience. I know our membership has many, many questions.
Finally, the citizens of Fort Worth are being asked to swallow the idea that their vote is not wanted or needed for this city to spend 160 million dollars on a city owned hotel. I will not debate the feasibility of such a project because there are credible arguments for each side of the debate, I just want the opportunity to vote on the issue. As you all probably know by now, there is a petition being circulated to force a referendum on the hotel issue. If you believe, as I do, that this decision should be left to the citizens of Fort Worth...then sign the petition. If not, then plans will go forward with a city owned hotel in spite of serious questions. At a bare minimum, if there ultimately is a city owned hotel, we should at least make certain that the hotel and it's amenities are never used as a "perk" for city staff or city council and that the hotel room prices are never allowed to go below fair market value in Fort Worth and the surrounding ares.
The December general meeting will feature the Eastern Hills High School Concert Ensemble as our program. The mixture of music will be a surprise but Gwen McWilliams has promised the program will be fun and entertaining.
REMEMBER...YOUR VOTE AND OPINIONS COUNT. STAND UP AND BE PROUD...SPEAK UP AND BE HEARD!!
—Louis McBee