How Things Work

How things work #1:

The following official city notice was published in The Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post recently, but not in the normal spot with the other notices; this one was published in the sports section. Also notice that it was published right at the end of the year, when many people were either gone or busy with the holiday season.

If you plug the address given for the property in question into Google Maps, you get a location in the middle of the local public high school parking lot.

Planned uses for the property in question include everything but the kitchen sink. (Oh wait, one of those planned businesses might just sell those too!)

The brand new city mayor is also a realtor and a property developer. (He happens to share grandchildren with my ex-husband who, along with his brother, is also a property developer.) Another coincidence: one of the persons listed here shares the same last name as one of the main families behind the large organized stalking ring that is based in the San Antonio area.

How things work #2:

The following letter to the editor of The Kerrville Daily Times provides an explanation for why I don't expect to be able to receive a vaccine for Covid19 any time soon.

 

The Fireplug Incident

A few months after my divorce was finalized, city workers began installing a new water line across our front yard next to the street. At the time, my property was just outside the city limits, but there had been talk for several years about the city annexing our area, so I assumed the new pipe installation was related to that. (We have our own well and septic system.)

My children and I were surprised when the work began on our property, since we'd never been notified about it by anyone. We were even more surprised when we saw what looked like a large pipe sticking up out of the ground and covered with black plastic that was put in by the street in our front yard almost directly opposite our front door. We assumed this was for hook-ups to city water and sewer, should we ever want them, and I also assumed it would eventually be made more cosmetically acceptable.

Imagine our shock one day when the city workers finally removed the black plastic covering to reveal a bright red fire hydrant in the center of our front yard! Our house has two stories and sits on a hillside below the level of the street, so every view from the front of our house now looked out onto this hydrant. It was an eyesore we'd never been consulted about, and it seriously devalued our house and property. There was only one possible reason for its installation in that way and in that position: harassment. My kids and I were livid.

I immediately fired off the letter to the city shown here. A few days later, I received a reply from the mayor saying the city had notified my ex-husband about the work and asked him to tell us (even though they were well aware my ex- didn't live here anymore and no longer owned the property).

The mayor apologized to us. He said he'd personally driven by our house and agreed the hydrant's placement was offensive. He assured us the city would relocate the hydrant as soon as possible, and within a few days, it was moved a short distance down the street--still on our property, but out-of-sight from the front of our house. However, small protruding pipes and a rectangular metal cover were left behind in the spot where the hydrant had been, and they are still clearly visible in the middle of our front yard today (marking where the hydrant was originally installed).

I am also posting a copy of a letter I received from my ex-husband in 2003 that discusses this incident. In this letter, my ex- agrees that the original location of the hydrant was harassment. The "outlot" he refers to is his property bordering mine which did not have its agricultural exemption questioned when mine did, even though my property was clearly being used for agricultural purposes and his clearly was not.

While I'm posting my ex-husband's letter here to help document "the fireplug incident", it is also important for readers to go back a few posts and consider it along with the documents posted under "Chronologic Order". This letter is a good example of what I meant in the earlier post when I said my ex- would not give me copies of the documentation of agricultural use of our land I knew he had. Here you can see how he skirts the issue in various ways without ever actually providing me with what I'd asked him for (and what he knew I really needed).

Notice also that my ex- is aware I haven't been able to obtain legal representation and that he tries to sent me to one of his father's law partners. Although I didn't know it at the time, the particular family he talks about this lawyer representing just happens to own a large parcel of land near ours and also happens to own the major construction company employing the owner of the property to the west of us, the sme man who also happens to be a civil engineer, a pilot, the husband of a local doctor, and a school board member (as well as a close associate of my ex-husband's).

Campaigns

Shown above are some excerpts from campaign ads published by candidates challenging the incumbent in the 2000 election for sheriff of Gillespie County. Despite their efforts, the incumbent was re-elected.

A thought-provoking recent column by T. R. Fehrenbach entitled "Bad governance is the electorate's just deserts [sic]--harsh, yes, but true" concluded, "And people still get the kind of government they deserve." I wonder what he'd say if told that a criminal defense attorney who is originally from back east recently ran for mayor of Fredericksburg? (This candidate backed out of the race at the last minute in favor of a local candidate who was not elected.)

A Good Ear

Many years ago I took some advanced training in music and discovered I had a naturally good ear for it. Occasionally this ability comes in handy.

When the man who called me on 9/13/07 and said he was an FBI agent but couldn’t decide which office he was from—he first said “Milwaukee” and then said “Oh, sorry, I meant San Antonio”--was talking, I immediately noticed his unusual and distinctive high-pitched voice. During my conversation with him, I became even more alarmed when he tried to convince me to sell my property and leave town and then started quizzing me about whether I’d ever gone to the DEA with information about local drug trafficking we’d observed and uncovered. At that point I realized he’d never even given me his name, and I ended the conversation as quickly as possible.

After I got off the phone from this call, I was so suspicious and frightened that I immediately began contacting both the San Antonio FBI office and, later after I’d had no response from them, the DOJ, asking them to either confirm or investigate the call and caller. Eventually, I received only a strange letter from the DOJ refusing to either confirm or deny that the caller was in fact an FBI agent, but I continued to remember the man’s distinctive voice and felt sure I’d recognize it if I ever heard it again.

Recently I did. I’d made an appointment with the local dealer to have routine servicing done on my vehicle, and I drove over, parked outside, entered the side door of the showroom, checked in my vehicle with the service manager (who’s one of the owners), and sat down in the waiting area. A few minutes later, a gray-haired man I didn’t know walked in greeted the service manager (but did not check in a vehicle as far as I could tell), and then proceeded to walk very slowly directly in front of me, which was odd. The man passed me and then proceeded to cross the rest of the showroom and sit down in a chair in front of the sales manager’s desk (also one of the owners). The two of them then started what turned into a lengthy and loud conversation about politics (mainly how much they hated President Obama). As they talked, I could scarcely believe my ears—I immediately recognized the stranger’s distinctive high-pitched voice as my suspicious caller of 2 years ago.

My suspicions seemed to be confirmed when the sales manager called the stranger “Jim”, since I’d always believed my caller was a former Secret Service agent and DHS consultant named Jim Ferrier who was from Wisconsin. Earlier in 2007, my lawyer at the time had provided me with a letter (but no report) from Mr. Ferrier stating he would be willing to testify in court as an expert witness that the fraudulent trust document forming the basis of the case was not manipulated, which I knew for a fact to be untrue. Mr. Ferrier was the only person I knew of from Wisconsin, and he had quit the case abruptly when I pointed out to my attorney that my ex-husband had a WI checking account, that there was a prominent local realtor named Ferrier who had a local maiden name (probably Ferrier’s wife, by her age), and that there was a speech therapist at the local hospital who was also named Ferrier (their son?).

The two men were soon joined by the female office manager of the dealership, who came out of her office, pulled up a chair, and joined the men in talking loudly. This office manager happens to be the sister of a local police investigator who had just returned from a trip to Quantico, VA with his partner after being asked to present a local unsolved homicide case to FBI profilers there. (This case involved local police officers arriving on the scene extremely quickly and originally ruling the death accidental until a M.E. ruled it a homicide.)

The three of them continued to talk loudly for the rest of the time I was there, and I believe the stranger left right after I did. It’s also important to note that another of the owners of this dealership (all brothers) was the mayor of our city at the time my husband left—and at the same time that the brakes on my vehicle kept suddenly failing and the dealership could not seem to fix them despite repeated attempts over a 6-month period. I believe the former mayor joined the conversation group at some point, but I got busy with my own business and lost track of the group while checking out and preparing to leave.

As I said before, sometimes my good musical ear comes in handy. Now I know what my suspicious caller looks like as well as sounds like, which means I’ll be able to identify him every time he sits down near me at high school football games, my children’s music concerts, etc. as other local law enforcement officers and associates of my ex-husband and his family routinely do to harass me. (You can bet I’ll be logging each of these events in my logbook of incidents, too.)