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The new band has an ever-growing following both in and out of town, and, in DFW, they’re recharging the local hardcore scene. B Y
FEATURE Near Granbury, Hood County News is part of a journalism revitalization effort with few peers. BY K AT H Y C RU Z
S T E V E
NEWS In claiming she stood against BLM instead of with them, as she did, former mayor Betsy Price has gone full MAGA. What a shame. BY S TAT I C
S T E W A R D
METROPOLIS A Chicago civil rights attorney files suit against Fort Worth police for allegedly botching an arrest that led to a baby’s death in a jail cell. BY EDWARD BROWN
BOOKS Two locked-down musicians did what anyone else would do: write a comic book. BY STEVE STEWARD
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INSIDE 8
Jim Erickson, Circulation Director
Jane Says
The food may need a little work, but the cocktails are on point at this surprisingly unassuming Southlake destination. By Kristian Lin
Get a Whiff
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Comic Book Guys
Ozone unleashes the kind of hardcore fury needed to reignite the scene. By Steve Steward
Ryan Burger, Art Director
Gl’urk and Bo travel the spaceways in this new local comic.
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By Steve Steward
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By Kathy Cruz
Bob Niehoff, General Manager
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In revitalizing local journalism, this Granbury group is keeping big wigs in check and more.
Anthony Mariani, Editor Lee Newquist, Publisher
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Vo lum e 17
3
Justice for Chasity
Three national civil rights law firms are combining resources to sue Fort Worth and Tarrant County law enforcement for the wrongful death of a newborn in jail in 2020. B Y
E D W A R D
B R O W N
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When Jarrett Adams learned about the 2020 arrest of Chasity Congious and the subsequent loss of her newborn child in Tarrant County Jail, the Chicago civil rights attorney couldn’t sleep for days on end. Congious has schizophrenia, mental
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METROPOLIS
health disorders, and mild mental retardation, Adams said, based on documented information, and Fort Worth police officers should have treated the crisis that led to her arrest as a medical problem, not a crime. Adams spent the last 12 months researching the incidents that led to Congious’ arrest by Fort Worth police officer David Nguyen, her detention in Tarrant County Jail, the institution presided over by Sheriff Bill Waybourn, and the death of Congious’ newborn daughter while under the supervision of two jailers. Adams claims Fort Worth police have sought to block his requests for documents related to the expectant mother’s arrest, so he recently filed suit in the Fort Worth division of U.S. District Court. Through discovery procedures, Adams and attorneys with two firms who co-filed the expansive lawsuit will compel the Fort Worth police, the City of Fort Worth, Tarrant County, and the Tarrant County Sheriff ’s Department to release evidence related to the case that Adams’ legal team will use to build their case for a trial early next year. Adams, who spoke with me from one of three offices he fields across the United States, said the three firms have allocated
substantial resources into this case and that the team plans to see the civil suit through no matter how long it lasts. He believes national attention from the litigation may bring the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the county jail, Tarrant County Jail, that saw 17 custodial deaths in 2020, a shockingly high number compared to other, similarly sized facilities. ABC News reported that cities pay out around $300 million a year to settle lawsuits that involve police misconduct and brutality. Those payouts come from taxpayers and not the police departments that are at fault. Police reform advocates are increasingly calling for police departments or their well-monied unions to foot those bills instead of the public. A spokesperson for the city said they are aware of the lawsuit but that city policy prohibits discussions or comments on pending litigation. Fort Worth police’s media team also did not reply to requests for comment. The sheriff ’s department also declined to comment on the lawsuit but said that staffers at John Peter Smith Hospital (JPS) are onsite 24/7 inside Tarrant County Jail and that they provide medical care for inmates and pregnant inmates.
“Our hope is this,” Adams said. “We are not coming down to destroy Tarrant County Jail. What we are trying to do is to improve the conditions for the citizens who come through that jail.”
I referred to court documents and Adams’ extensive interviews with the Congious family for the following timeline. In early 2020, Congious was experiencing a mental health crisis at her home. She was four months pregnant, and her family feared for the unborn child’s life. Family members called Fort Worth police and requested that officers take Congious to the psychiatric ward of JPS for involuntary commitment. “Despite the family’s request for medical assistance, [Officer] Nguyen arrested Chasity,” reads part of Adams’ legal complaint. Her “arrest was made without a warrant. Immediately before she was arrested by [Officer] Nguyen, [she] was not violating any laws, rules, or ordinances. There was no probable cause or justification for the arrest of Chasity Congious on Jan. 15, 2020.” continued on page 6
S T A T I C
Following the murder of George Floyd in mid-2020 and the resulting protests that erupted in Fort Worth and across the globe, then-mayor Betsy Price navigated a tense situation with what appeared to be a sincere desire to unify the city and prevent acts of violence by either side of the political divide. Her rhetoric never parroted the former president’s characterizations that Black protestors were “thugs” or his calls to shoot looters even as the vast majority of protests remained peaceful calls to end police brutality against unarmed Black and brown citizens. After announcing her bid for county judge, Tarrant’s head elected position, Price once again never pandered to racist stereotypes. Not anymore. A photo tweeted by a Star-Telegram reporter showed Price’s campaign truck with the message, “Betsy Price Stood Against Black Lives Matter.” “You can’t make this up,” read a Facebook response by Deborah Peoples, the Democratic candidate for county judge who almost won Fort Worth’s mayorship last year. “Right out of Betsy Price’s mouth, she ‘stood AGAINST Black Lives Matter,’ ’’ Peoples continued. “I’m sure this made people of color feel safe under her leadership. Wonder how she’ll spin this on our side of town? Guess you have to play the race card to run on the Republican ticket.” It was yet another example of a privileged white person shitting on a
seven-member school board, and she presumably knows when it’s time to pay back favors. Smith ponied up a cool $2,000 to the O’Hare campaign while another Southlake Families-backed school board member, Andrew Yaeger, went cheapo with a $50 contribution. We can only imagine how poorly he tips. (Just as poorly as every wealthy, entitled white person, is the answer.) Tarrant’s district clerk, Tom Wilder, who’s paid by taxpayers, donated $5,750 to O’Hare. The generosity makes sense since Wilder shares O’Hare’s love of delusional conspiracy theories. Wilder has stated publicly that our news magazine is funded by left-leaning “donors” who are on the lookout for prostitutes. More right-wing projection? Nearly $50,000 in disclosed campaign expenses went to Axios Strategies, the far-right consulting firm founded by a former Ted “Cancun” Cruz campaign chief. No self-respecting publication would dare reshare the bullshit and completely fabricated press releases that we receive from Axios, which leaves Parler and whatever sad online outlets remain for those who lose sleep over the looming Deep State takeover as possible recipients of Axios payouts. O’Hare logged four pages of parking meter fees, which is funny because, for a guy who is meticulous about logging expenses, you’d think he’d care about Texas Ethics Commission rules governing documentation of donors. Not one donor — not even Tom “Sexy Pizza-Gate” Wilder — disclosed their address as required by law. A few chain establishments benefited from meetings with O’Hare and
his crew, according to the campaign disclosures. Cheddars, Cheesecake Factory, and P.F. Chang’s played host to Timmy boy and his rancid fanboys and -girls on several occasions. We can only hope that if Tim et al. walked in with their white hoods on, they would have gotten the boot. As a big fan of all three restos, I’d like to believe they would. O’Hare’s campaign, like Southlake politics, is a dumpster fire of white fragility and a desire to return to the good ol’ days when homosexuals didn’t do things heteros do, like buy furniture and eat at restaurants, and Blacks knew better than to assert their constitutional and civil rights. Until last week, Price was largely known as a moderate voice in a conservative party that has hitched its future to a disgraced former president who has been credibly accused of rape by nearly 30 women, who was sued by the federal government for not renting to Blacks, and who … oh, the list goes on. He’s a piece of shit. End of story. Going MAGA reeks of desperation. By revising her history to say she stood against Black Lives Matter, Price is joining a swelling group of wealthy whites who see revising history as their last best hope to slowing or stopping this country’s steady march toward social justice and racial and LGBTQ+ equity. This column reflects the opinions of the editorial board and not necessarily the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com. Submissions will be edited for factuality and clarity.
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B Y
Former upstanding politician Betsy Price has no problem shitting on marginalized minorities if that means winning the Republican primary against a Trumpy opponent.
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By selling out to bigoted dumpster Trumpsters, once-respectable Betsy Price’s campaign forecasts dark days ahead.
FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY
Primary Reasons to Worry
C o u r t e s y o f Tw i t t e r
Static
marginalized community that has the gall to demand an end to racist policing that too frequently ends with the death of unarmed Black men and women who had the misfortune to be pulled over for something as innocent as a busted taillight. It defies belief that Price does not understand the dog whistle that she is using to entice right-wing asshats who falsely believe that nonwhites are more prone to crime and violence or that Black Lives Matter is a Marxist movement that will place the gay mafia in charge of our children’s schools. Price knows what that rhetoric means, and it’s a horrifying conceit that the Republican party is now in the hands of white supremacists who have mastered the art of projecting their inward racist beliefs on others. Our news magazine is seeing this convoluted argument more and more often. Post anything that touches on race and racism on Instagram (@FortWorthWeekly), and we invariably draw rebukes by white men and women that somehow our publication is the real problem because we keep “stirring it up.” Price’s sudden disdain for peaceful Black protesters likely reflects her March primary runoff against Tim O’Hare, the former chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party and mastermind behind the right-wing shitshow that has become Southlake politics. Recent campaign finance disclosures show that Price has raised $334,872 while O’Hare collected $309,050 for his campaign. It’s getting close. One-sixth of O’Hare’s war chest is floated by billionaire Trump supporter Monte Bennett. The $50,000 check may amount to butt hurt that Bennett still feels about a perfectly legal annexation of his property several years ago by the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD) as part of a pipeline construction project. Price never made waves about TRWD dealings during her time in office, and O’Hare has already proven that he holds considerable sway over the local district attorney’s office. An O’Hare win in March may mean payback time for TRWD. O’Hare, who claims to have founded Southlake Families PAC despite any public documentation proving it, may have asked the DA in 2020 to indict two school board members on misdemeanor charges as a means of flipping a school board vote in favor of conspiracy nuts who now control the governing body that oversees Southlake’s public schools (“Rising Partisanship,” Oct 2021). The DA’s favor put “religious freedom” attorney Hannah Smith on the
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The document goes on to allege that Officer Nguyen falsified a police report to justify the arrest. Adams said Congious’ family rebukes police allegations that she assaulted her family members before her arrest. Upon arrival at Tarrant County Jail, Adams says, Magistrate Judge Jenny Pearce failed in her duties to comply with the Sandra Bland Act — the 2017 Texas law that mandates that certain steps are taken to divert defendants with mental health problems to treatment centers — and placed Congious in jail on a probation hold that denied the expectant mother the option of posting bail for release. During detention, Congious refused to take medications for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and pregnancy. By late January, mental health professionals began noting that she was becoming nonverbal. Then she began refusing food. By April and toward the end of her pregnancy, Congious would stand and stare at her jail cell door for hours on end. At no point during her five months in jail did she have a court hearing. Adams’ complaint alleges that medical staff had notified jailers that Congious did not have the mental capacity to know when she went into contractions. When the pregnant mother did go into labor, the complaint reads, she did so alone in an isolation cell. Adams said the idea that jailers didn’t hear Congious’ tormented screams as she went through labor and delivered a newborn defies belief. When jailers entered her room in midMay for a routine check, they found blood everywhere. Her newborn daughter, named Z.C.H. in court documents, was strangled from an umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. Congious was bleeding out from a severe perineal tear. Both mother and newborn were rushed to Cook Children’s Hospital where Z.C.H. was pronounced dead. Had Congious been allowed to give birth in a hospital, Adams said, Z.C.H. would be alive and well today. Sheriff ’s department staffers allegedly denied Congious the right to hold her braindead child before the baby girl was taken off life support. “The mom made a request that she be given an opportunity to go to the funeral,” Adams said. “They denied that request. It was within their discretion to allow the mother to attend the funeral.” In mid-June, the local district attorney’s office voluntarily dismissed the false charges that Officer Nguyen levied against Congious, and she was sent to JPS for inpatient treatment for a few months before being released to the care of her mother. There is no word on whether Nguyen has been disciplined his false charges.
Tarrant County Jail has failed inspections by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) three of the last seven years. Population deaths at the county jail remain disproportionately high — six (2019), 17 (2020), 13 (2021) — compared to neighboring counties. According to the Dallas Morning News, Tarrant’s jail averages around 3.5 times as many
detainee deaths as Dallas’ county jail. Over the past five years, Tarrant County Jail deaths have far exceeded those at nearby Denton and Collin county jails, the newspaper said, based on county figures. In August, our news magazine read through nearly 400 pages of complaints that were recently filed by members of Tarrant County’s jail population (“Treated ‘Like Animals,’ ” Aug. 2021). The first-hand accounts described one detainee who slit his wrists to escape sexual harassment by a jailer. Another member of the jail population said she prayed for death during the worst periods of her battle with COVID-19. One letter described beatings by jail guards that left one man begging to not be returned to Tarrant’s jail once he recovered in a hospital. Across the state documenting human rights abuses in Texas jails falls on the small but adept team at Texas Jail Project (TJP), a nonprofit that fields complaints by jail populations and advocates for humane conditions for the largely poor and disproportionately Black and brown men and women who wait in jail for their day in court because they cannot afford to post bail. In 2019 and at the urging of TJP staffers, state leaders passed HB 1651, which mandated that pregnant jail population members have access to OB/GYN doctors and that pregnant prisoners in labor be provided appropriate care and transportation to a hospital. Krishnaveni Gundu, TJP executive director, said multiple systems that were designed to protect individuals like Congious failed her and led to a horrific and traumatizing experience in Tarrant County Jail. “She should never have been arrested during a mental health crisis,” Gundu said. “She should never have been incarcerated for months on end and allowed to [be detained] without medication. Every system responded punitively. Instead of mitigating harm, they perpetrated more harm.” Nearly 70% of cases when Texas jails run into noncompliance issues with TCJS deal with failures to protect and treat detainees with mental health problems and with an elevated risk of committing suicide, Gundu said. “Texas county jails book anywhere between 300 to 400 pregnant people per month,” she said, based on documented information that I confirmed. “Based on the complaints we receive at TJP, we know that medical neglect of pregnant people is unfortunately far more common than what the public hears or knows about.” Adams said that he is confident that the persons and groups who are culpable in Z.C.H.’s death and Congious’ baseless arrest and inhumane confinement will be held liable for their actions. “Sheriff Bill Waybourn is a showman,” Adams said. The attorney alleges that Waybourn has made misleading public generalizations about the Congious case that he will have to answer for in front of a jury, likely next spring. “If you put this in front of a jury, and you have a jury made up of parents, I don’t think [the defendants in this case] want to see that judgment,” Adams said. “What about the pain Chastity was in while giving birth and bleeding? She never held the baby. I can only imagine the heartstrings of a jury after they hear that. Not only did it happen, but it didn’t have to happen.” l
“A roaring, wondrous whirlpool of a show”
This exhibition is organized by Tate Britain in association with the Kimbell Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities and by the Texas Commission on the Arts and the Fort Worth Tourism Public Improvement District.
Promotional support provided by
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– The Guardian
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Two guys who didn’t know squat about community newspapers may be saving part of the local industry. B Y
K A T H Y
C R U Z
There is now more work for the crew in the HCN’s insert room, where owner Paul Hyde 8 worked as a kid.
David Montesino
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D
uring the pandemic, when I was between treadmills and fitness centers were closed, I did my daily five-mile walks under starry skies in predawn darkness. With no TV to watch, I passed the time praying. I petitioned God to save the Hood County News. The newspaper in our idyllic lake community 35 miles southwest of Fort Worth had been slowly dying for years, and the COVID-19 pandemic seemed poised to finish the job. The U.S. Census Bureau had deemed us the ninth fastest-growing county in the country based on growth that occurred between July 1, 2017, and July 1, 2018, yet the 100-year-old institution — which had evolved from a paper whose editor was the grandson of Alamo hero Davy Crockett — all but had a tag on its toe. There were reasons, and some would say I was one of them. Covering elections and local government is a tough gig here. I wanted my few remaining co-workers and I to stay employed in our little corner of the world in Granbury, but there were other, more important reasons for my appeals to God. Newspapers play an important role in our democracy, and, in case you’ve been in a coma, ours is in peril. Community watchdogs are dying off at a time when our republic is under attack from within. When newspapers die, corruption goes unchecked, taxes go up, and voter participation goes down. Roughly 1,800 newspapers in this country have closed since 2004, and about 1,700 of them were weeklies in small communities, according to an autopsy of the industry performed by Penny Abernathy, a professor at the University of North
Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Her research showed that closures have occurred at a pace of about 100 per year, and some of those newspapers were the only source of news in their communities. Some papers were family-owned, and some had been in business for more than a century. When a small daily or weekly newspaper closes, Abernathy told Poynter last October, “you lose the journalist who was gonna show up at your school board meeting, your planning board meeting, your county commissioner meeting.” Advertisements have been the lifeblood of newspapers, but the rise of social media left advertisers less reliant on print ads. Finding a way to adapt and raise revenue in other ways became crucial for survival, and many newspapers didn’t meet the challenge. As a result, the country became a graveyard for papers that had once informed readers about local issues that impacted them and served as their community’s scrapbook, chronicling births, deaths, sports wins, graduations, marriages, and the big fish that didn’t get away. Hedge funds purchased a slew of newspapers, then gutted their newsrooms and filled their pages with wire service stories and press releases. Reporters and editors who were invested in their communities and who had historical knowledge of those communities were sacrificed by those who wanted to make a fast buck. The result was the formation of news deserts. The void became even more perilous when larger dailies that had once assigned reporters to cover smaller towns in their coverage area could no longer do so because their own newsrooms had been slashed. Among those let go were investigative reporters who had won Pulitzer Prizes and other major awards for exposing government waste and corruption, grave injustices, and environmental issues that affected public health and safety. Publishers who had once felt pride in those awards traded future honors for cheaper labor. At the HCN, staff diminished over a period of years through layoffs and attrition. Advertising and subscriptions declined year over year. Cost-cutting measures lowered the quality of our twice-weekly product, making it less appealing and harder to sell. This resulted in the need for more cost-cutting measures, which lowered the quality of our product even more. It was the proverbial vicious cycle. One day, instead of parking in the spot I had been assigned upon my arrival at HCN in November 2007, I pulled up to the gate leading to our side courtyard, where there is a door. I didn’t bother to ask permission, and no one challenged it. What would have been the point? Our parking lot had become a waste of valuable real estate. In February 2018, we lost Mary Vinson. Although she had been the paper’s staff photographer and a beloved community liaison since January 2001, she was tossed out
David Montesino
Going Viral Old School-Style
At the close of 2021, press jobs at the HCN were up about 35% over pre-pandemic 2019.
of the lifeboat amid another round of layoffs. Funny, the number of nautical references that applied. A sinking ship and all that. After Mary was let go, a former colleague, referring to the HCN’s seeming inability to save itself, posted on Facebook a line from Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” “At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in.” In other words, it was just a matter of time. Those of us on staff knew we were on the Titanic/Edmund Fitzgerald with no ability to alter our course. In March 2020, COVID-19 hit, and businesses deemed “nonessential” were ordered temporarily closed. Newspapers were considered essential, so we were able to stay open. However, businesses that were closed had no need to advertise and no money to advertise with. On Tuesday, March 31, 2020, our longtime publisher, Jerry Tidwell, who owned the paper along with the Roberts Publishing Group and other shareholders, sent an email announcing that there would be a staff meeting after we went to press that morning with Wednesday’s issue. Guessing what the topic was going to be wasn’t hard, especially since Jerry’s son, our general manager, kept carrying items from his office to his car, using the side door by my cubicle. The main hatchway officially caved in, not at 7 p.m. but around 11 a.m., when our diminished staff gathered around Jerry between my cubicle and the kitchen. The editor and I would be the only ones left on the editorial staff. Blake Roberts, vice president of the Roberts Publishing Group, was driving in from West Texas to take control, and Jerry himself might soon be gone. Jerry said he had advised the board to shut the newspaper’s doors. Its members had refused. I was angered by Jerry’s recommendation, and thankful that the board had refused to give up on a newspaper in one of the fastest-growing counties in the
country, even though I figured their reasons were probably financial and not based on principle or a commitment to journalism. Jerry retired. He continued trying to find a buyer for both the paper and the real estate, though. He rang up local attorney Paul Hyde, whose law firm was growing and needed more space. At first Paul thought the conversation was just about him buying the building, then he realized that Jerry wanted him to buy the paper, too. Hell, no. Paul’s friends had the same reaction. Newspapers are a dying industry, they told him, as if the choir needed to hear some preaching. Jerry and Paul kept talking, though, and eventually Paul started to soften. His hard no became a hard maybe. He started thinking about the HCN’s legacy and about the treasures buried within its archives, like the picture of himself at age 3, overcome with joy after receiving the gift of a stuffed Santa at the Peppermint House day care center. The building on West Pearl Street that was once the site of the Peppermint House is now the headquarters for Paul’s Hyde Law Firm. He likes to joke that he occasionally still enjoys juice and cookies there for old times’ sake. The more Paul and Jerry talked, the more Paul realized how much the HCN had been part of his life and his family’s life. His mother Beverly Hyde had even worked at the HCN for a while as a staff writer back in the day. Paul reminisced about how he had earned a few bucks as a kid working in the HCN’s insert room, where advertising inserts are placed inside newspapers. He simply showed up one day to replace his older brother John, just as John had done when he showed up to replace another brother, James III, after the eldest boy was ready to move on. Paul relates with amusement that Jerry interviewed only one Hyde boy: James III. He apparently assumed that James’ brothers would work just as hard as he did. As Jerry kept trying to convince Paul continued on page 9
When he did, I looked up to see a 6-foot1-inch, 295-pound bear of a man with a head of white hair, the kind of guy you might expect to have a name like Sam Houston or to shove you out of the path of an out-of-control beer truck. At the time of his arrival at the HCN, Sam, who had led a colorful life, knew plenty about concert promotion, quarter horse breeding, and how to represent accused murderers in courtrooms, but he didn’t know spit about journalism. He did have some definite thoughts about how to run a business. Decades
continued on page 10
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Sam walked through the doors of the HCN offices on June 30, 2020 — his 64th birthday. My cubicle was in the back of the building, so I couldn’t see him. I was aware of his arrival, though, because noise travels in big empty spaces. I continued working, knowing that eventually he would come for me.
Granbury attorney Paul Hyde (right) created the Hyde Media Group for the purpose of purchasing the Hood County News after his friend Sam Houston (left) agreed to run the operation.
Most eye-opening for Sam was the company’s finances. With permission from Jerry, he examined the books and conferred with Cher. He quickly found where money was being wasted and where money could be made. Sam crunched numbers at the office and crunched them again at home. Even figuring conservatively, he began to think that the HCN could survive and even turn a profit. Paul trusted Sam’s assessment and went through with the sale in August of 2020. The HCN began to turn around with astonishing speed. Without Paul having to invest another dime, Sam brought back some of my coworkers who had been laid off, including Mary, which resulted in a lot of positive social media buzz. He even hired additional people, including Mark Wilson and Ashley Inge, the only two on-site writers at the Gannett-owned Stephenville Empire-Tribune. “The cavalry came,” one of them said about the day Sam showed up in person to ask the pair if they would like to come work for the Hyde Media Group. The two quit Gannett on the spot. (The Empire-Tribune was previously owned by GateHouse, which merged with Gannett under the Gannett name in late 2019, becoming the largest newspaper chain in the country. Both companies had reputations for gutting newspapers.) In hardly any time at all, our parking lot went from looking like a ghost town to
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to buy the HCN, the paper managed to keep stumbling along, its doors kept open through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) by the Small Business Administration (SBA). At some point during all this, Paul and his friend Sam Houston made plans to meet for lunch. The two had met when Sam managed Granbury Live, an entertainment venue on the square. They immediately hit it off and became friends. One night Paul called Sam at home to firm up plans for lunch the next day. During that brief conversation, Paul asked, “By the way, what do you know about newspapers?” Nothing, Sam replied, except that he had been reading newspapers every day since he was a kid. Paul said nothing more, just that he would see Sam the next day. Hanging up, Sam turned to his wife and said, “Paul’s buying the paper, and he wants me to run it.”
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earlier, the results of a college aptitude test had indicated that Sam might be suited for figuring out why struggling companies were imperiled and then teaching those companies how to fix the problem. I think we staffers probably assumed that the sale was going to happen, but Sam knew something we didn’t: that the purchase was not at all certain. Sam told Paul that he would work for free to learn enough about the HCN to determine whether buying it would be a wise investment. Sam showed up every day and was the first to arrive. He also came in on weekends, having been given a key and the alarm passcode, because why wouldn’t that make sense in the crazy existence we were living? At first, Sam was loathe to take our bookkeeper Cher’s recommendation to take over Jerry’s office. He went ahead and did it. After all, there was no one to offend. Blake Roberts had been on site for only a couple of days before having to head back to his own newspaper, the Andrews County News. Almost immediately, staffers began coming to Sam for direction on what to do about this or what to do about that. He sensed their frustration when he said that he had no authority to tell them what to do and could only offer advice. After a couple of days of this, Sam, with Paul’s approval, took charge of the operation. “It was very clear to me five minutes in that these people were starved for leadership, starved for direction, and starved for a plan,” Sam said.
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To All Interested Persons and Parties:
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TXI Operations, LP, has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for an Air Quality Standard Permit, Registration No. 52464L025, which would authorize construction of a temporary concrete batch plant located at the following driving directions: from 0.7 miles south on Wolff Crossing from the State Highway 114 intersection, Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas 76247. This application is being processed in an expedited manner, as allowed by the commission’s rules in 30 Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 101, Subchapter J. Additional information concerning this application is contained in the public notice section of this newspaper.
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS AND PARTIES:
Oil States Industries, Inc., has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for an amendment to and renewal of Air Quality Permit No. 91839, which would authorize modification to and continued operation of a OSI Arlington Facility located at 7701-C South Cooper Street, Arlington, Tarrant County, Texas 76001. Additional information concerning these applications is contained in the public notice section of this newspaper.
looking like what we had become: a thriving, successful business. Sam hired a managing editor: David Montesino. We’d never had a managing editor before. Sam had big plans and knew that a managing editor would be needed. On June 30, 2021, the first anniversary of Sam’s arrival, the HCN announced that the Hyde Media Group had become a true media “group.” It had acquired three additional newspapers: Azle News, The Gatesville Messenger, and The Springtown Epigraph. Once the flagship of the Roberts enterprise, the HCN is now the crown jewel of the Hyde Media Group and a headquarters where copy editing, page layout, web management, and ad design are being handled for all four newspapers in the cluster. Those services have freed up staffers to focus more intently on reporting the news in their communities. We now have planning meetings, and stories are scheduled in advance for multiple issues. No more hair-on-fire scrambling. Sam invited elected officials and others to contribute columns to the HCN. This put more voices in our paper, created goodwill among the community, and added more pages to the paper without burdening the reporting staff. There are more feature stories about interesting people in the community. The sale of an HCN-owned van that had been sitting unused provided seed money for technology upgrades that included a new server system and phone system as well as a new, better website. Sam’s strategy for success was the opposite of cutting corners. Instead of diminished quality, he focused on producing a quality product, put out by the best people he could find. “I’m all about getting the best players on my team,” he said. Large color photos shot by gifted staffers, two of whom are skilled at drone photography, began to fill the HCN’s pages and website, replacing courtesy photos shot with cell phones. A heavy focus on school sports photography was designed to appeal to proud parents and grandparents as well as supporters in the community. The HCN now has a social media director who manages our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts and a webmaster who is also managing the new websites of the HCN’s sibling papers. Sam put his own talents as a public speaker and performer to work in creating kinship and promoting the new HCN. He spoke to civic groups and other organizations, promising fair coverage, and a commitment to the community. His talks were wellreceived, and so are his “From My Front Porch” columns that are in every issue. In the spring of 2021, Sam donned vintage clothing and took to the stage at the historic Granbury Opera House on the square to perform his one-man play The Lion of
Texas: A Conversation with Sam Houston. The shows were to raise money for the Granbury Theatre Company, which lost about $1 million in 2020 because of the pandemic. Sam knew I was in the audience at one of those shows and drew laughs when he goodnaturedly ad-libbed a line about me. While relating that as a teen in the early 1800s Houston had disappeared into the woods to live with Indians, Sam said that these days such an occurrence would prompt an AMBER alert and maybe even a story in the Hood County News written by Kathy Cruz. As I watched him onstage, I felt as if I had traveled back in time. The feeling wasn’t because Sam was portraying the legendary American general and statesman who played an important role in the Texas Revolution. It was because the publisher of a local newspaper was doing something to help the community he loved and which his newspaper served. It fit with Sam’s philosophy on how to restore the HCN and the community newspaper industry as a whole. He calls it “Mayberry on steroids.”
On Friday, March 29, 1991, The Oklahoman, the Sooner State’s largest daily newspaper, published an Associated Press article about an attack that had occurred the day before on a special district judge at the Stephens County Courthouse in Duncan. The judge, Lee McIntire, 27, had been rushed to a hospital with a head injury after a man threw her against a concrete wall as she and her court reporter waited for an elevator in the building’s basement. “A local attorney carried McIntire into the sheriff ’s department, where an ambulance was called,” the AP reported. That day marked both the first and last time that then-34-year-old Sam Houston wore the most expensive suit he had ever owned. The young attorney had arrived at the courthouse for a 1 p.m. court hearing, parking in the back and entering through the basement where there was a snack bar. He stopped at a vending machine for a pack of gum and greeted the judge as she walked past. Sam noticed that a man seemed to be following her and her court reporter. “It seemed to me that his pace was picking up and the elevator doors weren’t open, so there wasn’t any reason to be running towards the elevator,” Sam told me. “So, I dropped my briefcase and started running towards her because it just didn’t smell right. And when I got halfway there, he put his arm around her throat and she went flying against the concrete wall, and immediately there was blood everywhere. I thought he had slit her throat.” The court reporter was eight months pregnant, and Sam feared that she was next. Assuming the man had a knife, Sam figured that if he could pin the man’s arms, continued on page 11
The fictional town of Mayberry was made famous by The Andy Griffith Show in the 1960s. In the decades since, the town’s name has become synonymous with innocence and simpler times. That innocence and simplicity no longer exist, yet the need to feel part of something,
to belong somewhere, still lives within us. Sam’s “Mayberry on steroids” strategy is working. It’s drawing readers back into the fold of their community newspaper. The HCN closed out 2021, another COVID-19 year, with a 12%-13% increase in display advertising revenue and a rise in print jobs for our web press of about 35% over what they had been in pre-pandemic 2019. Subscriptions are increasing at a rate of about 2% every month, even with the number of subscribers we lose through deaths and relocations. Since Sam first arrived in June 2020, he has added 15 full-time employees to the HCN’s payroll and many part-timers. continued on page 12
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his own arms might get cut up a bit, but the man wouldn’t be able to attack the court reporter. As the man, Frank Edward Talton, stared at the injured judge, Sam ran up behind him and punched him in one of his kidneys, which caused his hands to drop. Sam then grabbed Talton in a bear hug and yelled at the court reporter to get help from the sheriff ’s office, which was just feet away. When several deputies came running, Sam released his grip. Talton ran and was captured in the parking lot. While the deputies took him into custody, Sam scooped McIntire into his arms and carried her to the sheriff ’s office, where an ambulance was called. Only later did he realize that his new suit was stained with her blood. Fortunately for McIntire, her throat had not been slit. The gush of blood was due to her head wound, which required nine stitches to close. Talton, whom Sam said was found to have mental issues, was charged with assault and battery with intent to kill. After Sam told me that story during one of the long talks we had after he first arrived at the HCN, I started to think that maybe my first impression of him had been accurate and that maybe he really could be trusted. Sam does seem focused on shoving us out of the way of out-of-control beer trucks or those who would do us harm. For months after we began publishing under our new ownership, Democrats and Republicans alike believed that I had been muzzled. I haven’t. We’re just not taking on everything that comes along as if it is our duty to do so. Sam assured me that while we may do some things differently, we would continue reporting the news. He has kept his word. We did not let the threat of political backlash keep us from reporting on the bullying of our elections administrator, who ended up resigning in November. She was the second elections administrator to leave after being targeted by a political faction despite receiving praise from the state for her handling of elections. That situation made national news. And a few months ago, we reported on a constable whom members of the Commissioners Court said they hadn’t seen since January 2021, even though he was continuing to draw a paycheck from the county. Documents that I obtained through open records requests proved that his work output had gone down considerably during those months when the county judge and commissioners said he was missing in action. There are some things we held back on that we probably would have reported on in the old days, like the candidate in a Granbury special election who threatened to sue the city and another candidate over a residency issue. The man followed through on that threat. However, his lawyer filed the lawsuit in the wrong court. Even though we had a
took to social media to claim that we had censored him. At the new HCN, we are happy to sell ad space to candidates and pretty much leave it at that. No more getting flattened by a beer truck.
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copy of the lawsuit, a copy of the demand letter sent to the city, and the city attorney’s response to that demand letter, we waited to see if the lawsuit would be refiled with the proper court. It wasn’t. Therefore, no story. And here is another difference between the old HCN and the new one: We are not publishing voters guides containing Q&As with candidates, at least not for now. During the last few election cycles under our previous ownership, a few candidates got the bright idea of using the free space we gave them to insult us. When we added a rule to prevent that from happening again and then refused to publish the responses of two candidates who broke that rule, one submitted revised answers. The other one
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Dinner with the Modern Lights
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Fridays through February 4 from 5 to 8:30 pm Executive Chef Jett Mora welcomes you with warm hospitality, creative cuisine, and a seasonal menu rooted in Texas ingredients. Create your own holiday memories on Friday nights at Café Modern. Seating is available from 5 to 8:30 pm. For reservations, call 817.840.2157. The Modern trees will be illuminated with an array of festive lights in celebration of the holiday season. The museum galleries are open for FREE until 8 pm on Fridays.
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth 3200 Darnell Street Fort Worth, Texas 76107 817.738.9215
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Among the four newspapers, the Hyde Media Group employs about 60 people. There is racial diversity, and people with physical challenges have been hired. The HCN has an intern, a Tarleton University student named Triston McGehee who is being groomed for a full-time staff position with the Gatesville paper. Sam is determined that we will mentor more Tristons and that the Hyde Media Group will give students like him the best training possible for a career in journalism. Sam has even bigger plans than those he has already brought to fruition. He and Paul have made it clear that the Hyde Media Group is not done acquiring papers. Both have fielded calls from publishers asking if they might be interested in buying their newspaper. For now, though, the Hyde Media Group will remain a four-newspaper operation because Paul and Sam are being cautious and deliberate with the media company’s growth. At the HCN’s lowest point, the paper was just eight pages. It is now regularly 18-22 pages. Sam plans to up that to 24-28 per issue. The aim for the other papers is for them to routinely be 16 pages and, as Sam says, “all color, all the time.” Whereas the “old” HCN focused on those over 50, Sam intends to keep reaching out to younger audiences, offering them such tips as fun things they can do with their kids during Christmas break. For the next school year, he has a plan that he believes will increase the HCN’s subscribers while helping parents fundraise for their kids’ school clubs and organizations. With both Granbury and Cresson exploding in growth, Sam views every planned housing development as that many more subscribers. As for the additional retail that’s coming, that means more advertisers who will benefit from the HCN’s plan to soon start embedding ads and ad-related videos in online news articles. The viewership of those news articles is on the rise. The month of December brought a 30% spike in engagement on the HCN’s Facebook page, where posts contain links that drive viewers to the newspaper’s website. Sam expects that 2022 will bring an additional $500,000-$750,000 in display advertising among the Hyde Media Group’s four newspapers. He has vowed that when revenue streams increase the newspapers’ profits, they will be shared with employees. I have no reason to doubt him on this, having personally benefited from his generosity. He gave me my own office, the title of senior staff writer, and, after a particularly hectic news cycle that resulted in my byline on every story on Page 1, a raise. At 65, Sam figures he maybe has 10 good years left, and he intends to spend them right here with us. “This has taken too much of me,” he told me, in reference to this being his last
career stop. “I feel a responsibility to people who work here. I have a great affection for them, and I want them to know that they have a job.” Others may see newspapers as a dying industry, but to Sam the business is bursting with potential. He believes that the Hyde Media Group’s newspapers will still be in print 10-15 years from now, and he has every intention of pulling in younger generations who prefer to read their news online. “I think there’s a ton of additional revenues,” he said of the industry that once relied solely on subscriptions and print ads. “We’re not operating like a friggin’ 1995 newspaper.” Sam aspires to convince Hyde Media Group communities that their local newspaper is their source for all local news, whether that news pertains to the school bond election or a toppled sign at Burger King. As for me, I feel that God answered my prayers in a way I never could have imagined. And I find it interesting that Sam, too, has similar thoughts about how he ended up here. “I have sat on my porch having a glass of rum and thought about this lots of times,” he told me. “And I absolutely believe that the good Lord knew about this a long, long, long time ago, and all of the things I’ve done have brought me right here. “Why on God’s green earth when I was a kid would I cut out Joseph Pulitzer’s quote in the Post-Dispatch and carry it in my wallet for the next 10-12 years? I mean, I never thought about being a newspaper person at all, but the skills I have in marketing, in business, the mediation, the management, the legal, I use every single day.” The Pulitzer quote, in continuous use on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial page since November 1911, is this: “I know that my retirement will make no difference in its cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.” The only reason Sam stopped carrying that quote years ago was because he lost his wallet. He apparently never stopped caring about newspapers, and never lost sight of how important they are. Now, as a publisher and as chief operating officer of the Hyde Media Group, roles that require him to focus on the financial bottom line, he feels that newspapers have just as much potential, if not more, than they had in the industry’s heyday. He aims to prove it. “We’re just getting started,” he said. l
BOOKS Gl’urk and Bo The downtime during lockdown allowed these two Fort Worth musicians to launch their own comic book. S T E W A R D
Gl’urk and Bo are out to save the universe, one toke at a time.
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In the true spirit of the holidays, United Way of Tarrant County is working to bring a bit of cheer and happiness to those in need. 1 in 5 children were already living below the poverty level prior to the pandemic*. The ongoing impact of Covid-19 and the financial burdens of Winter Storm Uri have only exacerbated the issue. Your holiday gift will make a huge difference and help us ensure struggling families have food and support for rent, utilities and other critical needs so they can experience the joy of the season. Please consider making a tax-deductible gift by the end of the year to our Community Fund.
MAKE A GIFT TODAY AT:
WWW.UNITEDWAYTARRANT.ORG/DONATE *Kids Count Data Center *Annie E. Casey Foundation
Scan to give!
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If necessity is the mother of invention, I like to think of boredom as invention’s sketchy uncle or chaotic aunt. Born of having too much time on one’s hands, boredom is a motivator for one to act out in various ways, and these behaviors are loosely organized along a spectrum between the poles of creation and destruction. This is a long way of saying that another interesting reality caused by the pandemic was what people did with their days stuck at home. Apparently, many people baked bread instead of braining their partner with a frying pan, and all that loaf production was directly related to a sudden influx of heretofore unconsidered
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a Kickstarter campaign to fund the issue’s print run. “Ben learned a lot about running a Kickstarter campaign,” King said. “He learned a lot about being a producer as well as an editor, and he figured out how to maximize the Kickstarter, so when we did the second one, we were able to get more funding.” Since Gl’urk & Bo’s debut, King and Napier have been partners in their own imprint called BG Comics. “When we were looking at publishing it,” King said, “there are a lot of indie creators who make their own imprint, like a band starting their own record label.” Producing the comic also drew upon Napier’s prior experience working at a comic book shop, which led to his opening a store of his own. “It’s a big leap between wanting to make comics to wanting to sell them,” Napier said. “When I worked at that shop, I was curious and listening to a lot of industry podcasts, where people talk about working for Image now but they started in comics retail, so I learned that side of the industry, so there seemed to be a lot of value in cross-training, understanding that side of thing.” He was also already spending $50-
100 a week on comics, so it made even more sense to open his own business. “With the employee discount, I almost broke even,” Napier joked. “I basically hung in there at the shop in Keller and wanted to learn as much as I could about running a shop, and I was there a week and thought, Well, I should totally open one of these and figure out a place that doesn’t have a store like this.” Napier opened Mansfield Comics & Manga on June 1, 2021, as a “minishop” in a consignment space within a business called the Local Farmer in downtown Mansfield, but he’s done well enough that he has been able to lease a bigger, better, more permanent location on FM 157, just north of 287. He is in the process of finishing the remodel and aims to open on March 1. As for the Gl’urk and Bo, their fate is being determined by King, Napier, and Hoskisson, who are currently finishing the production of the comic’s third issue. Like the previous two issues, BG Comics will launch a Kickstarter to cover the printing, and like their flagship title’s heroes, King and Napier’s adventure in the world of comics is wide open. Not bad for a couple of guys killing time. Keep up with the plot at BGComics. com. l
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leisure time. Like all those bread bakers, Fort Worth musicians Taylor Shelton King and Ben Napier needed a project to occupy the sudden onset of idle hours, but instead of figuring out the art of sourdough starters, they learned how to make a comic book. What started as a matter of seeing if they could even pull off scripting one has now resulted in two published issues and even a retail store. At the start of the pandemic, King was furloughed from his job as a gallery restoration artist. He occupied his day with a lot of gardening and reading. He and Napier live near each other on the East Side, and King would walk over to Napier’s house to hang out. “We were just sitting on his porch smoking, and [Ben] was like, ‘Hey, I’ve been thinking about making comics,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, really? Because I have lots of story ideas.’ And we just kicked [ideas] around, and Gl’urk and Bo is basically a real simple sci-fi short story idea I had.” Gl’urk and Bo are the titular characters in an ongoing comic book set in a spacefaring future dominated by greedy corporations, a pair of space
truckers who kill the time between destinations smoking space weed until that blissful occupation is interrupted by some cosmic horror. If you’ve seen Heavy Metal (or the low-budget 1996 Dennis Hopper sci-fi comedy literally called Space Truckers), you’ll be familiar with this story. Referencing the [space truckers on space-dope trope from Heavy Metal was by design. “I thought it was really funny that they were trusted to be the pilots of that giant ship and land in that spaceship and then crash-land,” King said. “They cause, like, trillions of dollars in damage, and I loved how bleak it was. The evils of late-late-late-stage capitalism. And that’s sort of what Gl’urk and Bo is about. We borrowed the social setting.” King and Napier dived into the world of comic book production how-to, poring over Reddit and other forums for advice and spending hours listening to podcasts from creators. Eventually, the duo used Reddit to audition artists, finding the right fit in an Australian freelancer named Tom Hoskisson and a colorist named Jimmy G, who worked with King’s scripts and Napier’s edits. King and Napier paid for all artists’ work out of their own pockets, and then, when their first issue’s story, art, and layout were completed, they launched
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stagewest.org 817-784-9378
821 West Vickery, Fort Worth 76104
Make reservations for pre--how dining
Make & Take: Found Object Jewelry Tue, Feb 1, at 6pm
Unique curated experiences each month
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FEB 3-20
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Church & State
2524 White Settlement Road Fort Worth • 817-265-3973
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Showtimes are 4pm, 6pm, and 8pm today, 5pm Sat, and noon, 2pm, and 4pm Sun. Tickets are $10. Sunday noon shows are always half price.
At 7pm, the Water District Accountability Project hosts a free screening Tuesday of Chinatown, the 1974 movie starring Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson, at the University Christian Church (2720 S University Dr, 817-7215846). WDAP volunteer Doreen Geiger says, “See what was put on film about water hustlers and land grab schemers half a century ago. You may recognize many of the characters and their currentday counterparts in the saga of Cowtown’s Panther Island.” This screening may also be your only chance to see a Roman Polanski film at a church, but I digress. Doors open at 6:30pm, and complimentary refreshments will be served. Must be vaccinated and masked to attend.
Cirque Italia — the traveling Cirque du Soleilstyle dance/acrobatics Thursday troupe — is back. Their new production, Cirque Alcatraz is “where our criminals, lunatics, and gangsters are all waiting to bring you an experience you’ve never had before.” Find them under the orange striped big-top tent outside of the Grand Prairie Premium Outlets (2950 W I-20, Grand Prairie, 941-704-8572) today and Fri 7:30pm, Sat 6:30pm and 9:30pm, and Sun 5:30pm and 8:30pm. Tickets are $10-50 at Orange. CirqueItalia.com.
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Magnolia at the Modern — an ongoing series featuring critically Friday acclaimed films screened in the auditorium of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (3200 Darnell St, 817-738-9215) — just released its January/February schedule. Up first is Parallel Mothers, a drama/comedy starring Penelope Cruz about a middleaged woman and an adolescent bonding with each other at a hospital while confronting motherhood from different perspectives. The film is 122 minutes long and is in Spanish with English subtitles.
Today and Sunday, head to the Hurst Conference Center (1601 Campus Saturday Dr, Hurst, 817-581-0044) for Cowtown Comic Con & Horror Fest. Dress in your favorite cosplay garb and meet special celebrity guests, other cosplayers, and vendors from the worlds of art, comics, horror, sci-fi, and more. Meet actor Thom Mathews from the Friday the 13th franchise, comic book artist Ken Salinas, Alicia Taylor of Cherry Bombs (wife of Slipknot’s Corey Taylor), actor Paul Taylor who played Pinhead in Hellraiser Judgment, and many more. Tickets are $15 per day or $25 for a twoday pass at CowtownComicCon.com.
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On Thursdays thru Sundays at various times thru Sun, Feb 20, Stage Sunday West (821 W Vickery Blvd, 817-784-9378) presents Church & State: A Comedy by Jason Odell Williams in which a senator has a crisis of faith right before his reelection bid begins and makes an off-the-cuff public comment that puts his entire campaign in jeopardy and sends his team reeling. Tickets are $20 at StageWest.org.
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From 6pm to 7:30pm, Wisconsin-based Stone City Farm (@ Monday StoneCityFarm) will teach you how to make all-natural goat milk soap at the Brews & Soap Making event at Denton County Brewing Company (200 E McKinney St, Denton, 940-4350710). The class fee is $60 but includes all the material needed to make two pounds of soap to take home, including exfoliant options, essential oils, fragrances, base oils, and raw goat milk as the liquid for the soap. For more info or to register, visit StoneCityFarm.com.
Cour tesy Stage West
NIGHT&DAY Parallel Mothers screens at Magnolia at the Modern thru Sunday.
Cour tesy Sony Pictures
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See Church & State at Stage West thru Sun, Feb 20.
Newly founded Ark Church is posing a Wednesday question: Can you be queer and a Christian? At 6pm, they would like to explain why they believe that “yes!” is the resounding answer. At 6pm, head to Tulips FTW (112 St. Louis Av, 817-367-9798) for Beer & Bible, the church’s first gathering. You will hear the story of how the Ark Church (@ArkChurchDFW) came to start its “completely gay-affirming, inclusive church, using the Bible as our foundation” while chatting about the Book of Acts and drinking some pints.
By Jennifer Bovee
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221 E Broadway Ave 817-332-4364 Heart of Fort Worth’s South Main Village!
www.DoggieDiggsFortWorth.com
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EATS & drinks Sweet Jane
This Southlake wine bar has variable eats to go with their dazzling drinks. Jane, 1151 E Southlake Blvd, Southlake. 8am-11pm Mon-Thu, 8am-midnight Fri-Sat, 8am-10pm Sun. All major credit cards accepted. 817-424-JANE. S T O R Y A N D P H O T O S B Y K R I S T I A N L I N
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Square would be upscale, but Jane doesn’t wear its ritziness on its sleeve. It’s a more or less unassuming place, though the black and white marble interior and matching chairs do signal to you that the
establishment is serious about quality. I sat outdoors on the patio space, where the concrete sidewalk is covered with turf and the TVs show whatever big game is on. This way, I was able to share the space
“Best Thai Food”
FIRST BLUE ZONES
– FW Weekly Critics Choice 2015, 2017 & 2019
APPROVED THAI RESTAURANTS IN FW!
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You probably figured that a wine bar across the street from Southlake Town
Waffle fries and truffle sliders are for those who like their burgers and fries dressed up.
4630 SW Loop 820 | Fort Worth• 817-731-0455 order online for pickup Thaiselectrestaurant.com
with college football fans or a bachelorette party while still feeling safe. I was less impressed with Jane’s weekend brunch fare. The vegetable frittata continued on page 19
SPICE
“Best Thai Food”
– FW Weekly Critics Choice 2016 – FW Weekly 411 W. Magnolia Ave readers Choice Fort Worth • 817-984-1800 2017, 2019, order online for pickup at Spicedfw.com 2020 & 2021
Thai Kitchen & Bar
THE BEST THAI IN FORT WORTH
FORT WORTH ARLINGTON
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K I N T A R O R A M E N . C O M
$
10
Lunch Special M–F 11am–2pm
Tuk Tuk Thai
Thai Street Food Food to go & Catering
BYOB
Free Delivery Limited Area & Minimum $20 The coconut cold brew adds chocolate and rum to the party.
3431 W 7th St • Fort Worth, TX 76107
817.332.3339
Eats & Drinks
continued on page 20
Jane Wagyu truffle sliders ................................. $16 French toast balls ..................................... $12 Vegetable frittata ...................................... $12 Waffle fries ................................................ $7
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was baked in a big piece of paper similar to a cupcake liner, which prevented any crisping on the outside. The combination of spinach, mushroom, and sage cheese wasn’t overly memorable. The French toast balls are, in reality, closer to doughnut holes. Far be it from me to complain about fried dough, cinnamon sugar, and maple syrup for dipping, but I can order something similar at IHOP without all the foofaraw. These brunch entries were too small to be satisfying on their own, so even though the prices are reasonable, you’ll make up for it by ordering more than one. The pork belly that I had has sadly been taken off the menu, which is too bad, because I appreciated those five sushi-like slices of crispy pork where you could actually taste the maple flavor on it. As a side dish, I ordered waffle fries. You may carp about those not coming automatically as a side with the entrées, but the kitchen does give you quite a big bowl of those spuds, with a light sprinkling of herbs and housemade ketchup and Thousand Island dressing for dipping. I found a happy surprise in the bottom of my bowl: The punchedout holes of potato were fried up as well, making for tasty crunchy bits. I also ordered those fries with the wagyu truffle sliders, which featured a heady mix of onions fried until golden and truffle cream to go with the beef. There was so
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GIOVANNI’S I TA L I A N K I T C H E N
store hours Tuesday - Friday saturday & sunday 4pm to 10pm 11Am to 10pm Closed Monday
5733 crowley rd • fort worth tx 76134
Eats & Drinks continued from page 18
much cream, in fact, that it compromised the structural integrity of the burger — one bite sent the miniature patty sliding halfway out of the bun amid a shower of onions. I will say that the excess cream made for an even better dipping sauce for the fries than the ketchup. There was a point of concern when I found something on one of the patties. It seemed too fibrous to be someone’s hair. Could it have been one of the dandelion seeds that were falling on my table? (And where in that strip mall were there dandelions?) The waiter apologized to me, and the kitchen sent out a slider to replace that, and since that was the only mishap I encountered during my visits to Jane, I’m chalking this up to the perils of dining outside.
Jane does offer a couple of dessert entries, but I found the real creativity going on with the cocktails. The spicy pear margarita is based on mezcal rather than tequila. I’ve never been much of a fan of the smoky taste of mezcal, but here it was balanced beautifully with the sweetness of agave syrup, the heat of chile flakes, and the fruit flavor of the spiced pear liqueur. It all made for a bracing concoction, even if the dehydrated pineapple garnish proved unnecessary. If your palate runs darker, the coconut cold brew offers a smooth interplay of coffee, coconut milk, chocolate bitters, and Flor de Caña rum, whose sweetness tempered the bitterness and richness of the other ingredients. The drinks and a focused, carefully curated wine list make Jane a destination in Southlake, but some small improvements in the food would make it truly special. l
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817.551.3713 | GIOVANNISFW.COM
The vegetable frittata comes with a side salad.
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The spicy pear margarita is a bracing drink with a winter flavor.
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1.) At 6pm Thu, Donnis Todd — the master distiller at Garrison Brothers Distillery (@ GarrisonBros) — is partnering with Cafe Modern (Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell St, 817-840-2157) to present a five-course Chef Pairing Dinner with each dish paired with a cocktail or neat pour of bourbon whiskey. For a full menu description, see the event page at Facebook.com/GarrisonBros/Events. Tickets are $185 at TheModern.org/ Program/Bourbon-Dinner. 2.) From 7pm to 10pm Fri, Rahr & Sons Brewing Co. (701 Galveston Av, 817-8109266) is celebrating the New Year with Lucky You Chinese New Year PopUp. Tickets are $22-25 and include two pints of Rahr beer (or soft drinks for the teetotalers), a souvenir Chinese New Year
3.) Panther Island Brewing (501 N Main St, 817-882-8121) is also vying for your attention Friday by bringing back its OG Friday Tours. On the last Friday of each month, head to Panther Island at 5pm for three beers and a souvenir glass for $10, followed by a brewery tour at 7pm. Panther Island will feature different musicians, food trucks, and special beer releases each month. 4.) If you can’t put down the beer or the Girl Scout cookies, you might need help. By help, I mean, Do you know how to pair them? Legal Draft Beer Co. (500 E Division St, Arlington, 817-962-2210) is here to guide you. From 1pm to 5pm Sun, come to the Girl Scout Cookie Pairing event, where you’ll enjoy five different cookies and a flight of five 5-ounce beers for $20. For the under-21 (or sober) crowd, there’s a $15 option with nonalcoholic root beer. For tickets and more info, visit LegalDraftBeer.com.
6.) For this month’s special dining event, World of Beer (3252 W 7th St, 682-7087021) invites you to Breakfast in Bed Brunch. Pajamas are highly encouraged. Along with its regular brunch menu, cereal donut bites and blueberry wheat French toast will be available for purchase, along with Pillow Fight Shots and other brunch cocktails. For more information, visit WorldofBeer.com/Breakfast-in-BedBrunch. Cour tesy Facebook
While the next few weeks will be very loveydovey and Valentine’s Day-centric, we’re not quite there mentally. Meanwhile, here are eight upcoming food and booze events happening before and after V-tine’s Day.
pint glass, and a bao-bun sandwich of your choice. It comes with mixed greens, pickled vegetables, and edamame hummus and is garnished with green onions and sesame seeds. Sauce options are BST (black pepper, salt, and Togarashi), Death Sauce, Ninja Sauce, or peanut satay curry.
7.) From 10:30am to 2:30pm Sat, Feb 12, St. Demetrios Greek Church (2020 NW 21st St, 817-626-5578) hosts its Fifth Annual Big Fat Greek Fair, featuring vendors of crafts, food trucks, and Greek pastries for sale. Admission and parking are free.
Compete (or sample) at the Gumbo CookOff at Twilite in February.
5.) One of the events at the 2022 Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo is a special brunch. At 11am Sun, head to Bubbles & Bites Brunch Tasting, in which area chefs pair food with sparkling wines from around the world. Tickets are $60 on EventBrite.com and include general admission to the stock show grounds. For updates on participating restaurants, keep an eye on the event page at Facebook.com/ FWSSR/Events.
8.) Are you really into gumbo? From 5pm to 9pm Sat, Feb 26, sample gumbos made by 20 amateur, home-cook, and expert competitors at the Third Annual Gumbo Cook-Off at Twilite Lounge (212 Lipscomb St, 817-720-5483). This event is free to attend. If you’re interested in competing, email GumboCookOff22@ gmail.com.
By Jennifer Bovee
FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY
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MUSIC S T E V E
S T E W A R D
I don’t know what the best metaphor for Ozone’s 2020 genesis is. A forest fire clearing away the old growth so new trees can rise? A catastrophic flood providing a break from decades of drought? Whatever it is, it’s another way of saying there were silver linings in the cloud of the pandemic, and, also, the silver lining is a hardcore band.
jan 26 jan 27 Jan 28 jan 29 jan 31
kin faux
feb 2
carter faith
austin allsup feb brenden 1 kyle
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feb 3 feb 4
Zane Daniel
feb 5
Ozone: “We’re a true-blue hardcore band, and I think people want that kind of hardcore punk attitude.”
straight tequila night chad cooke band prophets & outlaws
jake worthington poo live crew david nail
Jan. 14 - Feb. 5
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B Y
LIVE MUSIC LINEUP
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The new band has an evergrowing following both in and out of town, and, in DFW, they’re recharging the local hardcore scene.
ROADHOUSE
This was a thought I had on my way home from talking to the members of Ozone, a local hardcore five-piece that are kind of a big deal, despite having played only six months of shows. The band formed at the end of 2019, when vocalist Joe Kelly introduced guitarist Mikey Razo, a new buddy with whom he’d bonded over music, to Ty Yarborough, an old buddy and a guitarist with whom Kelly had been in a band called Sold Short. The three of them jammed with two of Kelly and Yarborough’s other friends, bassist Clayton Newman and drummer Josaph, all of whom had developed their prodigious skills playing in metalcore bands at all-ages places like The Door in the Stockyards, then later at 1919 Hemphill. Because of lockdown orders, Ozone gestated until last July, when they blasted, seemingly out of nowhere, fully formed and ready to attack like a swarm of yellowjackets boiling out of a hole in
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a vacant lot. But the lockdown was to their benefit. With venues shuttered, they had ample time to write and record music, tracking their songs at Cloudland Recording Studios with their friend Rubio and putting them on social media. Their first two releases — a self-titled four-song EP and a four-song follow-up EP entitled Ozone 2 — caught on and spread like a lit cigarette tossed into a field of dead grass. Ten months and a dozen or so shows across Texas and three other states later (their first three shows were in Denton, Chicago, and St. Louis), Ozone is at the forefront of Texas’ hardcore scene. While their releases — to which they added a pair of digitally released songs in December that are coming out in the
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Ozone
The impact of Power spring as a vinyl flexi-disc Fri w/Kept in Line, Urn, Trip, the massively popular from San Antonio-based Character Assassination, and Sincemybeloved at Dallas-based thrash band Coreuption Records — Tulips FTW, 112 St. Louis that folded in the wake did fire up interest in the Av, FW. $10. 817-367-9798. of singer Riley Gale’s band, Ozone also knows sudden death in August the pandemic has driven people to the shows, a response to a year 2020, cannot be understated. Certainly, Yarborough prefers to highlight his band’s and a half of being cooped up at home. “It was kind of a perfect storm of hardcore foundation, but he reveres Power things,” Yarborough said. “People were Trip the same as everyone else. “Power Trip is in the DNA we’re born of. … We want to eager to see bands again.” But he also thinks being a hardcore be a hardcore band, but we’re not trying to limit what we’re willing to sound like.” band has a lot of appeal. Ozone’s amenity to letting the other “We’re a true-blue hardcore band,” he said, “and I think people want that kind genres seep into their sound is clearly of hardcore punk attitude. Not that it’s resonating with their fans, and the fans nonexistent around here, but I think most keep coming back, along with more and of the hardcore, most of the punk bands more new ones. They are also happy around here are always metal-tinged. to play mixed bills. Razo cites a recent Power Trip … a lot of bands bear [Power show at Tulips FTW that was “us, a death metal band, and a regular rock band, and Trip’s] influence.”
everybody there seemed to be into all three.” Kelly said the scene appears to be “popping off — all these local bands that are coming out right now, whether they’re metal, hardcore, D-beat, whatever, everyone has been excited about the scene. People have just been going off for bands lately. Every show we’ve been a part of, people show up really excited to see bands.” Ozone’s goal is to keep their fans’ enthusiasm stoked. “Honestly, we want to keep building the scene here,” Yarborough said. “We see the same people consistently at the shows, but we also see new people every time. … And right now, it’s like everyone has a clean slate to come out with new projects and gain steam and get rolling, because of how everything fell off [in 2020 and 2021]. I think it’s a great time for new bands.” l
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Hearsay
Jesse Daniels with local support from Summer Dean, but the week is also stuffed with non-country music. On Wed, Jan 26, if you are good with time management, you can probably make the 8-10pm party at Lola’s Saloon (2736 W 6th St, 817-759-9100) celebrating the vinyl release of Riders of the Stardust Gold, the latest LP from psych-rockers The Cush (out on Ben Harper’s Mad Bunny Records), as well as get to Tulips in time to see local heavy shoegazers Trauma Ray, who headline a lineup that also includes Minneapolis-based shoegaze band Prize Horse, Denver’s emo-influenced Flower Language, and Smothered, a grunge band from Denton. As for Friday night, the bill at MASS (1002 S Main St, 817-707-7774) features three local alt-rock bands: Celestial L’Amour, Pinkhouse, and Fiction Theory, and the sum of these bands’ sounds makes me nostalgic for the Deep Ellum of 25 years ago. You can also go to Tulips to catch up-andcrushing local hardcore band Ozone in the midst of a five-band lineup that also includes Kept in Line, Urn, Character Assassination, and Sincemybeloved. Regardless of your opinion on the stock show, if you live in Fort Worth, it’s nearly impossible not to associate it with the weeks between mid-January and early February every year, even if the event doesn’t end up happening, but with this week’s surfeit of excellent concerts at local clubs, maybe you’ll look back on this time next year and be reminded of something else: all those rad bands you saw. — Steve Steward Contact HearSay at Anthony@FWWeekly.com.
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I don’t know if my distorted sense of time is a function of aging or a permanent penalty to my perception brought on by the events of the past five years, but I thought about it because the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo was canceled only a year ago, yet it feels like a distant memory. This year’s iteration, with its signature traffic and influx of people into town from those rural counties that I think about only when a tornado watch is in effect, seems like such a return to normal that its closure in 2021 almost doesn’t seem like it happened. Am I fond of the stock show? Not especially, but in the way that I don’t care for the Cowboys but am happy for other people when they win, I’m glad the stock show is back. If, however, you don’t share my casual appreciation for the annual rodeo/ petting zoo/carnival, perhaps you’d care to attend the NOT STOCK show Saturday at Tulips FTW (112 St. Louis Av, 817-367-9798), during which longrunning Denton punk ’n’ rollers the Riverboat Gamblers will headline a bill stacked with Austin’s A Giant Dog and Mansfield-by-way-of-Orange-County alt-rockers Olive Vox, with Fort Worth support by Uncle Toasty, Upsetting, and Homewrecker & The Bedwetters. Doors to the show are at 6, and the bands start at 6:30. Tickets are available at Prekindle.com. NOT STOCK’s advertising addresses the perception that the stock show “seems to color the entire region in country music,” and, in fact, Tulips does have a country show on Thursday night, featuring Californian outlaw troubadour
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Fort Worth pysch-rockers The Cush will celebrate the vinyl release of their latest album at Lola’s Saloon on Wed, Jan 26.
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Planned Parenthood Available Via Chat! Along with advice, eligible patients are also able to receive birth control, UTI treatments, and other healthcare appointments via the smartphone app and telehealth appointments. To chat, you can text PPNOW to 774-636.
MIND / BODY / SPIRIT Gateway Church Church time is the BEST time! Join us for online church each weekend. Online services start at 4 pm on Saturdays and are available to watch any time after at https:// gway.ch/GatewayPeople. Hannah in Hurst 817-590-2257 MasseuseToTheStars.com Alternative Health Sessions available immediately by remote with SKYPE, Zoom online or by cell phone. Services include Hypnosis for Health, Reiki, Engergetic Healing Techniques, Guided Medication. Call for a consultation. MT#004747 MUSIC XCHANGE Music Junkie Studios 1617 Park Place #106, FWTX www.MusicJunkieStudios.com We offer lessons on voice, piano, guitar, bass, ukulele, violin, viola, drums, recording, and music for littles! PUBLIC NOTICES TDLR Complaints Any Texans who may be concerned that an unlicensed massage business may be in operation near them, or believe nail salon employees may be human trafficking victims, may now report those concerns directly to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) by emailing ReportHT@TDLR.Texas.gov. RENTALS / REAL ESTATE Cyndy Reep, Realtor Berkshire Hathaway HA Alexander Chandler Realty 2900 S Hulen, FWTX 817-806-4100 Critic’s Choice for Best Realtor in Best Of 2021: “Here in North Texas, ladies — and gentleman, for that matter — tend to do what they want. Realtor Cyndi Reep is no exception. While she does have listings and can certainly help you sell your property, her true love is being a buyer’s agent. Whether it’s buying or leasing a commercial or residential space, she has a flair for helping clients find exactly what they want and need... (Read more at FWWeekly.com.)
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Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
EXAMPLE A NOTICE OF RECEIPT OF APPLICATIONS AND INTENT TO OBTAIN AIR PERMIT (NORI) AMENDMENT AND RENEWAL AIR QUALITY PERMIT NUMBER 91839 APPLICATION Oil States Industries, Inc., has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for an amendment to and renewal of Air Quality Permit Number 91839, which would authorize modifications to and continued operation of a OSI Arlington Facility located at 7701-C South Cooper Street, Tarrant County, Texas 76001. This link to an electronic map of the site or facility's general location is provided as a public courtesy and not part of the application or notice. For exact location, refer to application. http://www.tceq. texas.gov/assets/public/hb610/index.html?lat=32.621111&lng=-97.137222&zoom=13&type=r. The existing facility and/or related facilities will emit the following air contaminants: exempt solvents, organic compounds and particulate matter including particulate matter with diameters of 10 microns or less and 2.5 microns or less. The applications were submitted to the TCEQ on December 23, 2021. The permit renewal will be issued in conjunction with the amendment. This permitting action also includes the incorporation of permits by rule related to this permit. The reasons for any changes or incorporations, to the extent they are included in the renewed permit, may include the enhancement of operational control at the plant or enforceability of the permit. The applications will be available for viewing and copying at the TCEQ central office, the TCEQ Dallas/Fort Worth regional office, and the Arlington Public Library - Southwest Branch, 3311 Southwest Green Oaks Boulevard, Arlington, Tarrant County, Texas beginning the first day of publication of this notice. The facility’s compliance file, if any exists, is available for public review in the Dallas/Fort Worth regional office of the TCEQ. The executive director has determined the applications are administratively complete and will conduct a technical review of the applications. PUBLIC COMMENT. You may submit public comments to the Office of the Chief Clerk at the address below. The TCEQ will consider all public comments in developing a final decision on the applications and the executive director will prepare a response to those comments. PUBLIC MEETING. You may request a public meeting to the Office of the Chief Clerk at the address below. The purpose of a public meeting is to provide the opportunity to submit comments or ask questions about the applications. A public meeting about the applications will be held if requested by an interested person and the executive director determines that there is a significant degree of public interest in the applications or if requested by a local legislator. A public meeting is not a contested case hearing. NOTICE OF APPLICATION AND PRELIMINARY DECISION. In addition to this NORI, 30 Texas Administrative Code (TAC) § 39.419 requires this application to also have a Notice of Application and Preliminary Decision (NAPD) after the application is determined to be technically complete and a draft permit is prepared. Note: The TCEQ may act on this application without issuing a NAPD and without seeking further public comment or providing further opportunity for a contested case hearing if changes to representations in the application make the application no longer subject to the applicability requirements of 30 TAC § 39.402. In such cases, this NORI will be your final notice of this application and you will not have additional opportunities to make comments or request a contested case hearing. If a NAPD is required, it will be published and mailed to those who made comments, submitted hearing requests, or are on the mailing list for this application, and contain the final deadline for submitting public comments. OPPORTUNITY FOR A CONTESTED CASE HEARING. You may request a contested case hearing if you are a person who may be affected by emissions of air contaminants from the facility is entitled to request a hearing. If requesting a contested case hearing, you must submit the following: (1) your name (or for a group or association, an official representative), mailing address, daytime phone number; (2) applicant’s name and permit number; (3) the statement “[I/we] request a contested case hearing”; (4) a specific description of how you would be adversely affected by the application and air emissions from the facility in a way not common to the general public; (5) the location and distance of your property relative to the facility; (6) a description of how you use the property which may be impacted by the facility; and (7) a list of all disputed issues of fact that you submit during the comment period. If the request is made by a group or an association, one or more members who have standing to request a hearing must be identified by name and physical address. The interests which the group or association seeks to protect must also be identified. You may also submit your proposed adjustments to the application/permit which would satisfy your concerns. The deadline to submit a request for a contested case hearing is 30 days after newspaper notice is published. If a request is timely filed, the deadline for requesting a contested case hearing will be extended to 30 days after the mailing of the response to comments. If a hearing request is timely filed, following the close of all applicable comment and request periods, the Executive Director will forward the application and any requests for contested case hearing to the Commissioners for their consideration at a scheduled Commission meeting. The Commission may only grant a request for a contested case hearing on issues the requestor submitted in their timely comments that were not subsequently withdrawn. If a hearing is granted, the subject of a hearing will be limited to disputed issues of fact or mixed questions of fact and law relating to relevant and material air quality concerns submitted during the comment period. Issues such as property values, noise, traffic safety, and zoning are outside of the Commission’s jurisdiction to address in this proceeding. MAILING LIST. In addition to submitting public comments, you may ask to be placed on a mailing list to receive future public notices for this specific applications mailed by the Office of the Chief Clerk by sending a written request to the Office of the Chief Clerk at the address below. AGENCY CONTACTS AND INFORMATION. Public comments and requests must be submitted either electronically at www.tceq.texas. gov/agency/decisions/cc/comments.html, or in writing to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Office of the Chief Clerk, MC-105, P.O. Box 13087, Austin, Texas 78711-3087. Please be aware that any contact information you provide, including your name, phone number, email address and physical address will become part of the agency’s public record. For more information about this permit application or the permitting process, please call the Public Education Program toll free at 1-800-687-4040. Si desea información en Español, puede llamar al 1-800-687-4040. Further information may also be obtained from Oil States Industries, Inc., 1031 Commercial Boulevard North, Arlington, Texas 760017124 or by calling Mr. Mike Bradshaw, HSE Director at (817) 548-4288. Notice Issuance Date: January 4, 2022
Air Quality Standard Permit for Concrete Batch Plants Proposed Registration No. 52464L025 Application. TXI Operations, LP, has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for an Air Quality Standard Permit, Registration No. 52464L025, which would authorize construction of a temporary concrete batch plant located at the following driving directions: from 0.7 miles south on Wolff Crossing from the State Highway 114 intersection, Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas 76247. This application is being processed in an expedited manner, as allowed by the commission’s rules in 30 Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 101, Subchapter J. This link to an electronic map of the site or facility's general location is provided as a public courtesy and not part of the application or notice. For exact location, refer to application. http:// www.tceq.texas.gov/assets/public/hb610/index.html?lat=33.025596&lng=-97.329259&zoom=13&type=r. The proposed facility will emit the following air contaminants: particulate matter including (but not limited to) aggregate, cement, road dust, and particulate matter with diameters of 10 microns or less and 2.5 microns or less. This application was submitted to the TCEQ on January 7, 2022. The executive director has completed the administrative and technical reviews of the application and determined that the application meets all of the requirements of a standard permit authorized by 30 TAC § 116.611, which would establish the conditions under which the plant must operate. The executive director has made a preliminary decision to issue the registration because it meets all applicable rules. The application, executive director’s preliminary decision, and standard permit will be available for viewing and copying at the TCEQ central office, the TCEQ Dallas/Fort Worth regional office, and at the Haslet Public Library, 100 Gammill Street, Haslet, Tarrant County, Texas 76052, beginning the first day of publication of this notice. The facility’s compliance file, if any exists, is available for public review at the TCEQ Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Office, 2309 Gravel Dr, Fort Worth, Texas. Visit www.tceq.texas.gov/goto/cbp to review the standard permit. Public Comment/Public Meeting. You may submit public comments or request a public meeting. See Contacts section. The TCEQ will consider all public comments in developing a final decision on the application. The deadline to submit public comments or meeting requests is 30 days after newspaper notice is published. Issues such as property values, noise, traffic safety, and zoning are outside of the TCEQ’s jurisdiction to consider in the permit process. The purpose of a public meeting is to provide the opportunity to submit comments or ask questions about the application. A public meeting about the application will be held if the executive director determines that there is a significant degree of public interest in the application or if requested by a local legislator. A public meeting is not a contested case hearing. If a public meeting is held, the deadline to submit public comments is extended to the end of the public meeting. Contested Case Hearing. You may request a contested case hearing. A contested case hearing is a legal proceeding similar to a civil trial in state district court. Unless a written request for a contested case hearing is filed within 30 days from this notice, the executive director may approve the application. A person who may be affected by emissions of air contaminants from the facility is entitled to request a hearing. To request a hearing, a person must actually reside in a permanent residence within 440 yards of the proposed plant. If requesting a contested case hearing, you must submit the following: (1) your name (or for a group or association, an official representative), mailing address, daytime phone number; (2) applicant’s name and registration number; (3) the statement “[I/we] request a contested case hearing;” (4) a specific description of how you would be adversely affected by the application and air emissions from the facility in a way not common to the general public; (5) the location and distance of your property relative to the facility; (6) a description of how you use the property which may be impacted by the facility; and (7) a list of all disputed issues of fact that you submit during the comment period. If the request is made by a group or association, one or more members who have standing to request a hearing must be identified by name and physical address. The interests which the group or association seeks to protect must be identified. You may submit your proposed adjustments to the application which would satisfy your concerns. See Contacts section. TCEQ Action. After the deadline for public comments, the executive director will consider the comments and prepare a response to all relevant and material, or significant public comments. The executive director’s decision on the application, and any response to comments, will be mailed to all persons on the mailing list. If no timely contested case hearing requests are received, or if all hearing requests are withdrawn, the executive director may issue final approval of the application. If all timely hearing requests are not withdrawn, the executive director will not issue final approval of the permit and will forward the application and requests to the Commissioners for their consideration at a scheduled commission meeting. The Commission may only grant a request for a contested case hearing on issues the requestor submitted in their timely comments that were not subsequently withdrawn. If a hearing is granted, the subject of a hearing will be limited to disputed issues of fact or mixed questions of fact and law relating to relevant and material air quality concerns submitted during the comment period. Issues such as property values, noise, traffic safety, and zoning are outside of the Commission’s jurisdiction to address in this proceeding. Mailing List. You may ask to be placed on a mailing list to receive additional information on this specific application. See Contacts section. Information Available Online. For details about the status of the application, visit the Commissioners’ Integrated Database (CID) at www.tceq.texas.gov/goto/cid. Once you have access to the CID using the link, enter the registration number at the top of this notice. Contacts. Public comments and requests must be submitted either electronically at www14.tceq.texas.gov/epic/eComment/, or in writing to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Office of the Chief Clerk, MC-105, P.O. Box 13087, Austin, Texas 78711-3087. Please be aware that any contact information you provide, including your name, phone number, email address and physical address will become part of the agency’s public record. For more information about this application or the permitting process, please call the TCEQ Public Education Program toll free at 1-800-687-4040 or visit their website at www.tceq.texas. gov/goto/pep. Si desea información en Español, puede llamar al 1-800-687-4040. Further information may also be obtained from TXI Operations, LP, 1503 Lyndon B Johnson Freeway Suite 400, Dallas, Texas 75234-6007 or by calling Mr. Jesse Martindale, Environmental Engineer II at (972) 647-3742. Notice Issuance Date: January 26, 2022
NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR AN AIR QUALITY STANDARD PERMIT FOR PERMANENT ROCK AND CONCRETE CRUSHERS PROPOSED AIR QUALITY REGISTRATION NUMBER 166964 APPLICATION. RBE Investment Corp, PO Box 185104, Fort Worth, Texas 761810104 has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for an Air Quality Standard Permit, Registration Number 166964, which would authorize construction of a permanent rock crusher. The facility is proposed to be located at 7900 Trinity Boulevard, Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas 76053. This link to an electronic map of the site or facility's general location is provided as a public courtesy and not part of the application or notice. For exact location, refer to application. http://www.tceq.texas.gov/assets/public/hb610/index.html?lat=32.797192&lng=97.205996&zoom=13&type=r. This application was submitted to the TCEQ on October 29, 2021. The executive director has determined the application was technically complete on November 1, 2021. PUBLIC COMMENT. Written public comments about this application may be submitted at any time during the public comment period. You may submit public comments either in writing to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Office of the Chief Clerk, MC-105, P.O. Box 13087, Austin, Texas 78711-3087, or electronically at www14.tceq.texas.gov/epic/eComment/. Please be aware that any contact information you provide, including your name, phone number, email address and physical address will become part of the agency’s public record. The deadline to submit public comments is 30 days after newspaper notice is published. RESPONSE TO COMMENTS. A written response to all relevant comments will be prepared by the executive director after the comment period closes. The response, along with the executive director’s decision on the application, will be mailed to everyone who submitted public comments and requested to be added to the mailing list. The response to comments will be posted in the permit file for viewing. The executive director shall approve or deny the application not later than 30 days after the end of the public comment period, considering all comments received within the comment period, and base this decision on whether the application meets the requirements of the standard permit. CENTRAL/REGIONAL OFFICE. The application will be available for viewing and copying at the TCEQ Central Office and the TCEQ Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Office, located at 2309 Gravel Drive, Fort Worth, Texas 76118-6951, during the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, beginning the first day of publication of this notice. INFORMATION. For more information about this permit application or the permitting process, please call the Public Education Program toll free at 1-800-687-4040. Si desea información en Español, puede llamar al 1800-687-4040. Further information may also be obtained from RBE Investment Corp, PO Box 185104, Fort Worth, Texas 76181-0104, or by calling Mrs. LaCretia White, Project Manager, Elm Creek Environmental LLC, at (972) 768-9093. Notice Issuance Date: January 21, 2022
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Consolidated Notice of Receipt of Application and Intent to Obtain Permit and Notice of Application and Preliminary Decision
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