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Great showing last night in the most watched local control battle over groundwater in Texas, Lost Pines! Thanks to the good folks of Lee County, we have our very first chapter of the League. We need 100 more! Our conference call this Saturday at 9 am will focus on how to build for local control. Reply for conference instructions. Mark your calendars! Wed., September 10, 7 pm. The Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District will make a decision (they put it on hold last night) on the End Op, LP water grab on September 10th in Bastrop. Y’all come! Spread the word from here about it. Pack the house again! Mon-Tues, September 15-16. Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance Conference , Bastrop Convention Center. More here.   We especially encourage you to attend the water panel that League Board Member, Michele Gangnes will be on. Reserve now! Here is Henry Urban and Andy Meyer , Paige landowners, at Mayer Auctions last Saturday. We’re also seeing local businesses carrying our signs and helping out with signatures. Thank you all and keep it up! We also thank Lee County Judge Paul Fischer and Giddings Mayor John Dowell for joining us at our meetings recently. We hope to see more local officials stepping up! Folks, this is what local control looks like. Want a little bit of it? Be on the call this Saturday! Think about 10,000 organized independent voters in Texas — to help us reach the 5-6 million who currently identify as independents but have no way of making their voices heard. That’s the ticket, if you want to shake up Texas. There’s lots more to tell you, but we’ll wait for Saturday. Or, anytime, just give us a call and we’ll be there. P.S. Thanks to the many people who signed up this week. Now each one, reach one! Keep those new members a comin’!

And please spread the word to your neighbors and friends.

A hearty welcome to all you new folks joining the League of Independent Voters of Texas and/or signing our petition! The League holds conference calls every other Saturday at 9 am. Our next one is on Saturday, August 16th, at 9 a.m. (not tomorrow) Topic: A full report on of the items below. IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS! BASTROP & LEE COUNTIANS SHOW UP FOR THIS! Next Wednesday, Aug. 13, 7 pm, Bastrop Convention Center : For well over a year, landowners of Lee and Bastrop counties have been seeking a voice to stop water marketer, EndOp, L.P., from a raid on their groundwater. Finally, they will get a chance to state their case at the same time the Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District deliberates on EndOp’s permit application to pump 46,000 acre-feet-per year of Lee and Bastrop counties’ groundwate r. Here’s a flier you can print and post or share if from our events page here . More details from Environmental Stewardship . FIRST LEAGUE CHAPTER FOUNDED – Yeehaw! We had a smashing success last night in Giddings with the founding of first chapter of the League of Independent Voters! Thanks to all the attendees and new members. Special thanks the organizers (Gary & Dorothy Gerdes, Henry Urban and Michele Gangnes) AND to Lee County Judge Paul Fischer and Giddings Mayor John Dowell for sharing and listening! MARVIN NICHOLS RESERVOIR : A hearing in Austin on Thursday gave the folks who’ve been fighting the long-opposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir some glimmer of hope that the Texas Water Development Board might be listening. Still, it’s not clear that they’re willing to tell Dallas, a well-known water hog, they must conserve first before preying on their neighbor’s land and water! Read this from the Texarkana Gazette . (This will be be the subject of our conference call on Sept. 6.) FARM AND RANCH FREEDOM ALLIANCE CONFERENCE . Sept. 15-16, Bastrop Convention Center. (Registration goes up Aug. 15). We at the League couldn’t be more insistent on protecting our resources so that Texans can grow food as close to where they live as possible. Several of our leaders will be presenting at their yearly conference. We hope to see you all there! Click here for the conference lowdown . The Little Things You Can Do: Join the League here . Sign our Petition and pass it on from here . Like our Facebook page here . #GaryGerdes #JudgePaulFischer #LeeCounty #MayorJohnDowell

We hope to see you at events starting this Sunday in La Grange! THIS SUNDAY, Aug. 3. La Grange — at the lovely Bugle Boy, free film showing 2-5 pm. It’s all about fracking, water and the failure of the state of Texas agency charged with regulation — the Texas Railroad Commission. Click here for more ! NEXT THURSDAY, Aug. 7. Giddings , Giddings Library, 7 pm. Stop the Water Grab! Lee Countians are getting organized — be there!!! Click here for more! WEDNESDAY, August 13 , 7 pm, likely at the Bastrop Convention Center. Stay tuned, you Bastrop & Lee County residents. The Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District has called a special meeting to consider the pending permit application for EndOp , in their quest to receive 46,000 acre feet per year from the Simsboro aquifer under Lee and Bastrop counties. (Note: Lost Pines GCD’s regular meeting is on Wednesday, August 20th in Giddings — don’t be confused.) STATEWIDE CANDIDATE DEBATE IN SEPTEMBER – Forth Worth . Wouldn’t you just love to see a candidate debate in the Attorney General’s race AND the hottest State Senate race in Texas? That is Senate District 10, in Senator Wendy Davis’ old Senate District. Reply if you want to help or give us a call! CITY OF AUSTIN RESIDENT? You may know that there is a voter revolt going on in Austin to make growth pay for itself. If you’d like to organize a forum with the City Council candidates running in November, reply to this message or call us at 512-213-4511. Thanks for sending folks to sign the Petition for Local Control and Property Rights — and to Stop the Water Grab — on our home page. Keep it going! PS If everyone receiving our messages joined the League — starting at even the modest $10 per year — we would have more than enough funds to do our work this year.  Please join up y’all! #EndOp #LostPinesGroundwaterConservationDistrict #RailroadCommission #waterconservation

Thanks for signing our local control petition — if you’ve done it. Spread it for us, won’t you ? We still have “Stop the Water Grab” yard signs – reply if you want one! Join our bi-weekly conference call this Saturday at 9 am. It will be with Cathy McMullen of Pass the Ban . Cathy will explain why the citizens of Denton are using the most powerful tool for local control that exists in Texas — the petition for a public vote. Denton voters will have the option to regulate fracking in their city limits. Join us! Reply if you need the number. Railroad Commission Reform? Should we be screaming from the rooftops that the RRC is “quietly” making recommendations to close the infamous “T-4 loophole”? Remember, we Texans (Julia Trigg Crawford, Debra Medina, David Holland, Jim Hightower…and more) been telling you — for years — that all the pipeline companies have to do to get the power to seize your land through eminent domain, is check a box on a T-4 form at the RRC that they are “common carriers”. No questions asked. What we’d like to scream is more like, “what took ya so long?”, since the Texas Supreme Court, no less, said the T-4 was a problem – in the Denbury Green decision rendered in 2011! Maybe we shouldn’t look a gift-horse in the mouth. Here are the proposed changes , which we applaud. (There are others needed on eminent domain reform, but that’s not really the RRC’s purview). Can we be honest? While the RRC recommendations are mostly very positive, no one believes the agency anymore . So, even if they do pass these rules, will they really enforce them? If they mean to enforce them, where is the request for additional funding to do so? Can we stop pretending? Did you catch outgoing RRC Chairman, Barry Smitherman’s attempt to undermine the rights of Denton citizens to local control? Is it not the people’s right, under the Texas constitution, to regulate fracking within their city limits, especially in light of failure of the RRC and the Denton City Council to do so? Smitherman, the dutiful industry lapdog embarrasses himself in this letter — click here . The truth is that we Texans are at the mercy of the hogs in oil and gas gone wild. They are happy as pigs in slop with no regulation. And most every state official is going along with this. You certainly don’t hear candidates in either party running for the highest offices — Governor and Lt. Governor — breathing a word about this, do you? Please, y’all, prove us wrong! Join us on Saturday’s call. Simpson takes the independent political cake…again! Remember, Rep. David Simpson (R-Longview) was the ONLY Texas House member who stood up for our water against Proposition 6 last November. Now he’s raised the bar on the discussion about the border crisis. Though the League has no position on this issue, we deeply appreciate politicians (and, for that matter, newspapers), who take a stand for what they think is right regardless of the stampede going in the opposite direction. Read this in the Longview paper ! Mark Your Calendars! Lee County : Thursday, August 7, at 7 pm, the League is holding a meeting at the Giddings Library. We’ll be talking about…you guessed it…how to continue the battle to win protection of groundwater from pumping at levels that harm aquifers. Come get a “Stop the Water Grab” yard sign. Details here for you to share ! Fayette County :   Sunday, August 3rd, 2-5 pm, there’s a free film showing of Gasland II at the Bugle Boy in La Grange. League Board member and a leader in the fight for eminent domain and fracking reform, former DISH Mayor, Calvin Tillman, who is featured in the film, will be on hand for comments following this event. Details here – reserve a FREE seat now! Open League Board Meeting : We will have a strategy and planning session soon. If you’re interested in attending, let us know — members only, please! Is it not yet clear why we all need to take a step back from the parties and tell them no one owns our votes? Get along, little dogies — join the League, if you haven’t yet, pay some dues, or send us a donation AND/OR volunteer some time to us! We appreciate y’all, especially Charlotte, who donated substantial hours to our administrative needs this week! Wanna talk about any of this? Share a comment below…we love hearing from ya! #JimHightower #DebraMedina #JuliaTriggCrawford #DavidSimpson #davidholland

Unfortunately, our server went down on July 4th, a few hours after we sent you a request to sign our Petition for Local Control and Property Rights. So, please try again if you missed it! Yes, we know that we are petitioning the politically deaf! The Governor, several state agencies and candidates running in November have their own narrow agendas — usually. But this is really not about them. It’s really about building a statewide network of people to flood the legislature in January 2015. Click here and do the deed ! Please use the Facebook link to send it out to your friends! Our next conference call is THIS Saturday at 9 am. Our special guest is Kathy Hubbard of the Brazos River Bottom Alliance . Visit this section of our website to read more about this important battle to protect the most PRIME FARMLAND in Texas from eminent domain abuse, or click on the picture to watch the video. If you have the conference line already, please use it. If not, reply to this message or call us for it. Now make sure you sign the petition and pass it on won’t ya?! (And don’t forget to join the League, but of course!) #farmland

[youtube]XLtxCNGkw1A[/youtube] Jim Hightower at the Capitol with Julia Trigg Crawford and Debra Medina, June 2013 If you believe that Texans must and can unite — call it the green tea party, if you like — across the partisan divide, to protect our land, water, air and property rights, please sign this petition for Local Control and Property Rights. Then spread it across the land! Here’s the text of the petition — be sure to sign it in the window below it and use the Facebook button to share it: Dear Governor, Commissioners of State Agencies and leaders of both parties: Whereas, the Governor of Texas, Texas state agencies (including the Railroad Commission, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Texas Water Development Board) and leaders in both parties, are so influenced by the top two lobbies in Texas (real estate and oil and gas), that they are ignoring the clear and present dangers to our land, water, air, and property rights posed by out-of-control population growth and unregulated oil and gas activities, including natural gas fracturing and dangerous pipelines; Therefore, we urge these reforms in the 2015 legislative session and that current candidates running in the November election adopt these reforms: • Prioritize conservation first – prohibiting the use of state water funds for municipalities that have yet to enact serious and concerted conservation. • Prohibit development in areas without their own water supply. • Prohibit the use of tax dollars by all government entities to promote population growth. • Expand to rural areas Texans’ rights to petition for a public vote in order to bring about more local control of natural resources and private property so that we may, ourselves, do what the state of Texas is failing to do. [emailpetition id=”4″] You can also print the petition here. We suggest you read this national article from Men’s Journal by writer Paul Solotaroff, “ Who Stole Our Water “. Join us every other Saturday at 9 am for our statewide conference calls! Call us at 512-213-4511 or email us at info@IndependentLeagueTX.org for more info! Spread the word, y’all! Texas is for us all to share, not the few to take!

We apologize for not getting this out to you sooner, but we have a good excuse. We’ve been working night and day to bring the issues that unify urban and rural Texas out to the public with a big bang and this dude, Tex, VERY SOON! We’ll be reporting about it on this Saturday’s conference call at 9 am. (Remember, we now hold these calls every other Saturday at 9 am). If you do not yet have the call-in instructions, just reply to this message or call us. Here’s a quick report from last week and leading up to this Saturday’s call: We are working on a total makeover of our website, and planning crowdfunding (reaching large numbers of people for small donations), to get Texas independents on the map, in the media and on the radar of legislators. We are working on a statewide petition drive to unite urban and rural Texans to protect our property rights, water, air and political rights. We’ll share this on Saturday before we launch it, to get your feedback. We are tracking important interim legislative hearings on groundwater – a full day of hearings yesterday and another today. We’re going to give you a 15-minute report by League board member and water rights ace, Michele Gangnes! (Note that the ‘hide the ball’ tactics of the oil and gas industry were there too.) We are setting up forums in S. Ft. Worth (August 16th) geared towards younger urban voters and picking up chapters in E. Texas! What about you? We’re looking for you to help us set up more in July, August and September. We are planning a statewide meeting to hammer out our plan for the 2015 legislative session. We will discuss the date and place this Saturday and how our by-laws are set up for chapter development and election to our statewide board. Here’s how you can help right now! Get your friends to sign up for FREE to receive our emails right here. Give us your beefs! Go here to Tell TEX — he will explain it. The more original content (your folksy comments) we have, the more we’re easily were more to be found on the internet. See Tex be bowled over by the brilliance of your comments! If you have already paid your dues, get a friend to join us! Those dues fuel our efforts to beat the big money! Join here . That’s it for now. Hope to “see” ya on Saturday. Ride ’em high (the lobbies that is) Texans! PS Do you know how to do a 1-2 minute video? Let’s talk!

For Immediate Release                                                                            June 19, 2014 Former Mayor of the small north Texas town of DISH, Calvin Tillman, filed an open records request today asking the Railroad Commission to provide all correspondence between Railroad Commission officials and staff, the Office of the Governor, other public officials, lobbyists and private enterprises doing business before the RRC, related to “the decision by the RRC to ban staff from doing media interviews.” Click here for the open records request . Tillman said, “For years, many local officials like myself, together with thousands of citizens, have done all we could to get the Railroad Commission to listen to the concerns we have about the potential for groundwater contamination, air pollution and destruction of a whole way of life we have in rural Texas by the oil and gas industry’s new practice of hydraulic fracturing. My kids got so seriously ill, it forced me to resign and leave my own community. The Railroad Commission continues to demonstrate what we have known for years — they are captives of the industry.” Michele Gangnes, water rights activist from Lee County and fellow board member to Tillman with the new League of Independent Voters of Texas, said, “The no-interview policy was put in place a couple of years ago, about the same time the production from fracking ramped up in Texas. But now that fracking, which the Railroad Commission is supposed to regulate, is in the spotlight as a serious contamination risk to our state’s groundwater, citizens are wondering why claims of groundwater contamination have to be emailed to the agency for an ‘official’ but anonymous staff response. And they wonder why the Railroad Commission continues to hide behind the oil and gas industry’s claims that fracking is perfectly safe.“ A recent WFAA report shed light on the fact that fracking practices in Texas pose very serious contamination risks to our groundwater, regardless of how many scientists for hire have claimed it cannot be proven. “To his credit, Sen. Craig Estes (R-Wichita Falls) who co-chairs the Joint Interim Committee to Study Water Desalination, asked in a hearing on Monday whether wastewater from fracking has already contaminated underground brackish water, a potential source of fresh water from new mega-dollar desalination projects under consideration. That the question is even being asked by a Republican State Senator speaks volumes,” said Linda Curtis, Executive Director of the League of Independent Voters. Tillman, a lifelong Republican and now an unaffiliated independent, has been working with hundreds of local officials throughout the state who want more local control to protect their citizens from eminent domain abuse by pipeline companies and contamination from the fracking industry. Tillman is featured in the popular Gasland and Gasland 2 film documentaries. Gangnes is an attorney and long-time independent voter who helped lead the successful battle to stop the City of San Antonio’s “water grab” of Lee and Bastrop counties’ groundwater over ten years ago. She is currently assisting another citizens revolt in those counties to “Stop the Water Grab” by water marketers and some area officials in the IH-35 growth corridor. Tillman, Gangnes and longtime independent organizer, Linda Curtis, are working together to build the new non-profit, non-partisan citizens lobby for the state’s millions of non-aligned independent voters and to unite them with those who vote in either party primary and who want reform. The League’s purpose is to “unite voters across partisan lines to protect what is uniquely Texan – our land, our water, our clear blue skies and the democratic republic for which we are supposed to stand.” The group’s legislative agenda includes ending the practice of straight ticket voting. See more here . # For more information: Linda Curtis League of Independent Voters of Texas PO Box 651 * Bastrop, TX 78602 512-213-4511* 512-535-0989 home office * 512-657-2089 cell

We’re starting to hit pay dirt! Read this and, if you haven’t yet, please  join the League , get a yard sign and get active y’all! Starting tomorrow morning, we will have bi-weekly Saturday morning conference calls at 9 am. These are planning and strategy discussions for building the independent movement, and our call for local control, across Texas. Want to join us for the call tomorrow? Call us at 512-213-4511 or email us at info@IndependentLeagueTX.org . Our first Regional Round Up was a smashing success with 70 attendees from 13 counties! Many attendees are now working to set up chapters, get out “Stop the Water Grab” yard signs and more. If you want a yard sign, call us or reply! Did you hear that the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas mysteriously shut down? Federal “regulators” have failed to make TransCanada disclose what, in fact, is going on. Read the release here . If you live in East Texas and want to work with Texas Pipeline Watch, please let us know and we’ll hook you up. It appears that taxpayer subsidies in the City of Austin are on hold – for now – until the entire council is elected this November under the new 10-1 voting district system! (The 10-1 voter initiative via petition drive, passed in 2012, continues a voter revolt in Travis County.) After giving away the store to some of the wealthiest (Apple) and sleaziest (Formula 1) outfits in the world, Austinites have had enough. Read how lame duck Mayor Lee Leffingwell weeps. We have some more exciting plans to share…so watch for more next week or join us tomorrow.

In the face of the long term denial and interference by the Railroad Commission, there is finally proof that fracking is contaminating our groundwate r. Our keynote speaker tomorrow night, former Mayor and League Board Member Calvin Tillman, will explain this to you — and read this ! We really hope to see you tomorrow night from 6 to 8 pm at the American Legion Hall in Bastrop, next to Bastrop State Par k. Details here . (Read on even if you can’t make it). A few days ago, we told you about this outrageous shell game that Hays County officials are playing with private water profiteers (Forestar Real Estate Group) with public money and how they’re messing with rural Texans who live east of the IH-35 growth corridor. Today we are telling you that this isn’t a rural problem. It is a rural, urban and surburban problem . (The Trans-Texas Corridor wasn’t just a rural problem either. But it took us years to build a unified rural-urban revolt.) We don’t have that much time now. We need to be ready for the 2015 legislative session with a full blown movement for local control that unites citizens across the state and across party lines. Come tomororow night to learn more about what how we can do this, but NOT without YOU! If you can’t get here, watch for a report next week and get ready to bring us to your community.

Lee and Bastrop Countians issued this tongue-in-cheek warning to the central Texas growth lobby in February. Ads in Times Square began running this week luring more people to Hays County.            Simultaneously with an ad campaign in Times Square intended to lure more people to Hays County and partially paid for with public money, a new non-profit, non-partisan citizens lobby – the League of Independent Voters of Texas — is throwing down in Bastrop, Texas . Citizens from throughout central Texas are coming to Bastrop this Saturday evening to join forces to “Stop the Water Grab” and “Protect Our Land, Our Water and Our Homes with Local Control” at the League’s first “Regional Round Up” from 6 to 8 pm at the American Legion next to Bastrop State Park. Details here .             Michele Gangnes, Lee County water activist and League interim board member , said, “It is the height of arrogance for the Greater San Marcos Partnership to waste taxpayer money on jumbotron ads in New York City, while back at home Hays County officials are busy grabbing groundwater from Lee and Bastrop counties and loading ever more debt on to Hays County residents to pay for what they call ‘inevitable growth’. Do they think anyone is fooled by this con game?”             Gangnes cited the refusal of the Texas Attorney General to bless Hays County’s multi-million dollar contract with Forestar Real Estate Group to reserve vast amounts of Lee County water that Forestar has so far failed to secure. She said, “Until now, Forestar’s latest brazen move against our counties was to sue not only our local Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District, but also the individual volunteer members of the district’s board to get either a permit for the water or millions of dollars in damages. If there were any doubt the ‘growth lobby’ is calling the shots in how public dollars are spent in this state, the teamwork of Forestar, Hays County and now the GSMP leaves no doubt.”             The keynote speaker in Bastrop on Saturday is former North Texas small town Mayor Calvin Tillman, another interim board member of the new League of Independent Voters. Tillman is known throughout Texas and nationally for his work to enact genuine eminent domain reform and other private property protections, to secure more local control over pipeline routing and to assure responsible and respectful operations by the natural gas industry. In so doing, Tillman has worked with hundreds of local Texas officials. Tillman said, “The State of Texas has taken away more and more rights from local governments, but small towns are the purest form of democracy and should have the power to protect their citizens’ land, water and air. Partisanship is not the answer, and citizens need to unite across party lines to join the battle for local control of their lives and property.”             The League’s volunteer Executive Director is Linda Curtis , a Bastrop resident who in 2012 helped lead a cross-partisan voter revolt via citizens petition in the city of Austin for passage of a charter amendment known as “10-1” for district City Council elections and the first independent citizens redistricting commission in the state of Texas. Curtis said, “Austinites used the power of local control through the citizens petition process so effectively that this November Austin voters will have the opportunity to give the central Texas ‘growth machine’ a big swift kick in the pants by electing an entirely new Council to represent each area of the City. Texans must unite now across party lines and prepare to go into the 2015 legislative session with a statewide movement for local control.” Click here for details on the costs of growth.             Like Hays County officials, many Central Texas officials have claimed that they can do nothing to take the foot off the gas pedal of unfettered growth in the midst of historic drought . Meanwhile, public-private partnerships like the Greater San Marcos Partnership, the Governor, and many legislators and other officials, on both sides of the aisle, are doing the bidding of the large-scale real estate lobby. The oil and gas lobby, which is supposedly regulated by the Railroad Commission, continues to allow frackers to use potable water for fracking and to risk contamination of groundwater, including the same water from Lee and Bastrop counties that is so coveted by the real estate developers. Click here for more on fracking risks. Also reporting at this meeting are: James Abshier on Caldwell County citizens’ efforts against a landfill and John Mikus of Texans for Responsible Water and Energy on efforts to protect land, air and water against coal and fracking activities in Fayette County. The remainder of this event is designed for citizens to strategize on what actions they can take to rein in the lobbies that are running roughshod over citizens and local communities. # For more information: Linda Curtis, Director League of Independent Voters of Texas 512-213-4511 * info@IndependentLeagueTX.org