We Have A Problem

[mccoysintx]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Bradbury [mailto:jim@bradburycounsel.com]
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 6:45 PM
To: nyul@prodigy.net; 'Bill Campbell'; 'Randy Means'; libby59@sbcglobal.net; 'Joe Waller'; 'Jim Marshall'; tifrichey@airmail.net; 'Tanya S. Dohoney'
Subject: FW: We Have A Problem.

Pls distrib as you see fit.

Friends and Neighbors-

I am writing you to address a significant issue, which I ask you to think about. As everyone knows, urban drilling has presented us all with a mixture of benefits, questions and burdens as we have moved through the story of the Barnett Shale. For most of this year, the City Of Fort Worth’s Gas Drilling Task Force has been meeting almost weekly to learn, discuss and debate what changes and protections our City needs. These changes are coming up for consideration by the City Council within a few weeks and I hope that you will familiarize yourself with these changes to be better informed. But that’s not why I am writing you tonight.

Many people believe that we have an urban drilling problem here in Fort Worth and for sure we have a lot to learn and a lot of issues to address. But there are a lot of intelligent people giving thought to solving those problems. We do have a problem, but I don’t think that it’s urban drilling. I think that our problem is Chesapeake. More to the point, I think that our problem is how a few key individuals at Chesapeake think that they should conduct their affairs here in Fort Worth.

There are far more reliable sources than me, but I have been involved a number of gas drilling debates and debacles and have had the opportunity to observe how the various operators interact with neighborhoods, City Staff, elected officials and their approaches to problem solving. While it may shock some of you to hear me say this, but a number of our operators are trying to get it right. You don’t see their name in the newspaper for threatening homeowners because they avoid it. There is one name we keep hearing though.

Time and again, its Chesapeake. I don’t think it’s coincidence and I don’t think its just because Chesapeake has more to do. I think it’s because a handful of Chesapeake executives have come to believe that they write the rules.

Last night, Chesapeake went over the line and I am not willing to give them a pass on it and hope that you don’t either. The City of Fort Worth scheduled an informational meeting at the Botanic Gardens to present the recommended changes and protections to the current ordinance. These recommendations involved nine months of work by an all volunteer Task Force, hours that cannot be counted by City Staff and an enormous amount of effort by various groups in the City to study these complicated issues. When the recommendations were revealed to City Council several weeks ago, Chesapeake was furious.

What made them angry was that City of Fort Worth Staff, the Mayor and Council all supported additional protections over and above the Task Force recommendations. You should be pleased because they were looking out for you. But they didn’t ask Chesapeake ahead of time and Chesapeake doesn’t want these additional protections put into the ordinance.

So Chesapeake decided to show the City and all of us a lesson. Chesapeake orchestrated its employees, contractors, subcontractors any anyone else that is financially beholden to them to show up at the Botanic Gardens. What resulted was a fiasco, but Chesapeake was pleased and the smiles proved it. Some estimates had Chesapeake’s entourage at 850 people, who were apparently asked to show up early and take up as much space as possible. When residents began arriving for the meeting, there was little parking left and very little room in the meeting. Chesapeake PR employees had created and handed out stickers to all of its employees, contractors and subcontractors to show their solidarity to what was I presume their message your ordinance changes are going to threaten my job. Now think about that for a minute.

What kind of company tells its employees, contractors and subcontractors in the midst of an enormous downturn, that they better get down to a City informational meeting and defend their jobs against what the City plans to do in the way of protections. They had no choice, they had to come. They all have jobs and need to keep them. They weren’t the problem, it’s those same few people that thought that the City would learn its lesson if they made a spectacle of throngs of energy workers opposing changes. But last night wasn’t supposed to be a debate. It was organized to inform neighborhoods about how the City was proposing to protect them. And when citizens began to show up, there was no room to park and no room in the Botanic Gardens presentation. The Fire Marshall had to turn people away. That’s not how we do things here. And if you think about it you don’t see any other operators conducting their affairs in that manner.

So form your own opinion and I am fine if you disagree with mine-just think about it.

Jim Bradbury



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