Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2005 12:58 AM
Subject: Involuntary Annexation of Willow Springs Ranch Area
Dear Mayor and City Council,
As elected officials serving the public's interest it is extremely important for you all to listen to our concerns. The planning department management, Bob Riley, appears to not be telling you everything that happened nor even the correct timeline that occurred for notification. He apparently has a skewed agenda and has not listened to us on any level of reason nor has he reported our concerns to the City Council as promised during any of our previous meetings. I am personally upset that Mr. Riley made NO effort to report to Council as promised from our previous meeting last month. However, I am even more upset that the City Council appears unwilling to listen to the property owners concerns from the Willow Springs Ranch area.
The current peace officer availability effort is 7 officers from the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office patrol this area on a 7x24 basis and are on site within 5 to 7 minutes from any call. The city has proposed only one officer and a much larger geographical territory to patrol leaving us in an unsafe condition and a minimal waiting time of 45 minutes or longer even in a life threatening situation. The wait time could be much longer for normal police call incident reports ! If this was your family waiting for a policeman to arrive how would you vote ?
Our current fire department services arrive within 5 to 7 minutes after a call from both Saginaw and Haslet and have proven to contain any fire within a few minutes from their arrival. The City of Fort Worth has proposed one small fire truck with less than 5 minutes of on-board water ! The truck is to be located in a rented building approximately 45 minutes from our location (if no trains are blocking the crossings). Please understand, two homes have already been destroyed in Sandera Ranch because of the inadequate response time from the nearest Fort Worth Fire department. How many additional homes and lives must be ruined before the City of Fort Worth provides adequate protection services ? Why is this area not being allowed adequate fire protection services and a city owned property with the usual three trucks as in most fire stations ? It seems reasonable in my opinion that renting a temporary building will cost taxpayers much more than building now to service this area. What studies and proof have been completed to indicate paying rent for temporary building is a responsible fiscal decision that will save taxpayers money and protect their assets from destruction by fire ? How long does it take for any wood framed house to be totally engulfed in flames ? Do you think that 45 minutes waiting time is adequate response time for the safety of families ? What if this was your home ?
Additionally, in Sandera Ranch one man has already died from a heart attack while waiting over 45 minutes for ambulance service from the City of Fort Worth. Please understand the current ambulance services from both Saginaw and Haslet arrive in our neighborhood within 5 to 7 minutes when called. Saginaw and Haslet have no formal or informal agreement with the City of Fort Worth. Your City has previously tried to use brute force to control everything instead of using essential ethical management practices of courtesy and providing customer services with its neighbors from both of these communities.
If you mistakenly vote to annex our Willow Springs Ranch neighborhood our lives will be ruined from the criminals which will steal our property while waiting for your already overburdened police department to show up, your fire department to respond before our homes are completely destroyed, or even an ambulance to respond to our aged population with heart problems or stroke. You should have the ethics and morals to ensure this doesn't happen by delaying the annexation decision or vote to remove it from consideration for a few more years.
Please help me understand your personal reasoning in this process and I hope you are willing to listen to ours. Why would you ever consider full annexation of our homes at this time instead of taking a more reasonable approach and waiting a few years until the health and welfare infrastructure is available to justify the annexation ? Why the unreasonable timeline of NOW instead of simply waiting a few years ? We simply want to protect our families from harm's way. Allowing us some additional time would make us feel like we need to belong to the Fort Worth community instead of hating the thought of it because we are left in an unsafe condition. If you make the decision to force full annexation on us based upon the skewed misinformation, bad judgment, and false budget projections from your planning staff then you must be ignorant of our concerns and the financial facts. Mr. Riley must have intentionally kept our conversations and information from the City Council even though he has promised to convey our anxiety and concerns about full annexation in such a short time frame. His reported dates are incorrect as the first any of us property owners heard about the Limited Purpose Annexation was after our homes were already built in 2004 and in the spring of 2005 ! MR. Riley claims the limited purpose annexation took place five days after the Plat was made ! This should raise someone's eyebrows on the potential ethical behavior of such an individual. Additionally, the planning department and members of the City Council signed that Plat ! Why sign it if your intentions were to not live up to the agreement ?
Please understand that if you plan to vote for our neighborhood to be fully annexed in November then we have nothing else to lose. It will be a life threatening situation for us homeowners and I just do not understand how you can ignore our voices and sleep at night. We cannot afford to become part of the City of Fort Worth right now but will gladly welcome them as friends and neighbors in a few more years. Why would you want us as an enemy for your future instead of a friend ? Why is this the only home sub-division that is being attacked by Fort Worth at this time ? Is this a retribution response to losing a law suit from this developer in 2002 ? Why will you not listen to reason and is their anything we can do or provide you which will allow you to hear our combined voices ? Our voices have not changed since we first heard about the Limited Propose Annexation last spring (not as Bob Riley stated as 2003). When the Plat was made and when our Title policies were issued it stated "Unincorporated Tarrant County" not "Limited purpose annexed by the City of Fort Worth."
I sincerely hope you are not unreasonable and are willing to discuss this further with our home owners before considering or making such a unfavorable vote. I will be at your City Council meeting to help you better understand our position and our concerns. None of us want to feel unsafe or forced into a life threatening situation and I am sure you can understand how strongly we feel about this issue.
Sincerely,
Stephen Ruten
Haslet, Texas
