The truth about the Johnson County CASA Weather Radar Project.

Here is a Facebook post by a Johnson County resident that is factually inaccurate.

Here are the facts:

First, I resigned my council seat months ago to run for commissioner under the terms of my city charter.  I knew going into this race it was all or nothing for me.  I love being on the Joshua City Council, but feel strongly about serving Johnson County as a Commissioner.  I am able to continue serving my city until May at our next election when my replacement will be elected to serve the remaining year of my second three year term.

CASA:  Until I explained it to Dan Roberts at his restaurant in Cleburne, TX last week, he thought it had something to do with Court Appointed Special Advocates, also known as CASA.  For the benefit of everyone reading this it is Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere. It started years ago as a collaborative effort in academia between the University of Massachusetts and the University of Colorado among others.  A test was set up in rural Oklahoma and proved the system for several years.  They then wanted to deploy it indefinitely in an urban environment and chose the DFW metroplex.  They chose the NCTCOG (North Central Texas Council of Governments) to partner with to manage the project and a DFW CASA Radar board was established.  After being appointed to the NCTCOG Executive Board in June of 2012 I first saw a presentation of the CASA project in August of 2012.  I was excited about the technology and the potential it had to better warn and protect the people of Johnson County so I asked Molly Thoerner, the NCTCOG Emergency Preparedness Director, how we could get a radar in Johnson County.  She said they were working on putting together radar sites and needed host cities.  In October she came to me after a meeting and said that the CASA scientists had identified the Joshua area as a potential site and asked if I could help them find a location.  I was thrilled!  I found two potential sites based on the criteria I was given and scheduled a presentation to my city council by a member of the CASA team.  I then reached out to the mayors of Burleson and Cleburne about sharing the estimated $50,000 cost to install the radar (the $500,000 radar was being donated by the manufacturer).  In January of 2013 I discovered that our own Precinct 4 Commissioner, Don Beeson, was a member of the CASA Radar board.  I thought that would surely help us get a radar so I reached out to Don and told him what I was working on.  I asked about getting the county into the partnership I was trying to build to fund the installation.  Don admitted that he had not been to very many of the CASA Radar Board meetings, but he was interested.  I don’t know how many meetings Don attended after that conversation, but he was not at the ones I attended.  From that point forward things started moving pretty quickly.  In February of 2013 Jamie Moore was hired as Johnson County's new Emergency Management Coordinator.  Jamie and I hit it off quickly and his interest in CASA was a welcome addition to help move things forward.  A member of the NCTCOG Emergency Preparedness board came to Cleburne and we met with many of the county’s fire chiefs to talk to them about the radar’s potential and the need to get more cities involved to share the cost.  I contacted more Johnson County city mayors and city managers and scheduled a meeting at the Joshua Fire Station to talk about how we would share the cost.  I thought a population based share would be most fair so I worked out a formula based on our 2010 census data.  Within a few weeks of that meeting we had commitments from Joshua, Cleburne, Burleson, Godley and Alvarado.  Fire Chief Van Winkle from Alvarado, by the way, contacted Sabre Industries in Alvarado who agreed to donate the tower for the radar so our installation cost was already coming down.  Around this same time Jamie and I presented the project to the Commissioners Court who agreed to participate in the hosting cost share.  Right after that the Emergency Services District also agreed to participate.  

During this same time period we were trying to nail down our site.  When I plotted the effective radius of the radar from Joshua it left the extreme southeastern and southwestern corners of the county uncovered.  Cleburne was a good fit, but provided less overlap into Tarrant County and the CASA system depends on a certain amount of overlap for maximum effectiveness.  Remember, this is a network of small radars working together in the region, not just one.  Jamie Moore and I worked with Cleburne Fire Chief, Clint Ishmael on a Cleburne site and first looked at an existing tower site on the south side of the city, but the necessary high speed internet access was going to be too costly to provide.  Jamie then suggested his office, the Johnson County EOC (Emergency Operations Center) on Kilpatrick Ave. in Cleburne which did have all the required infrastructure.  A CASA engineer came down and Jamie and I walked him through the site.  I also posed an idea to him that I had.  The radar works though an internet based system sending its data to a central gathering point and then providing the information back out over a web based system that the subscribers log into.  I thought since the radar would physically be right outside the EOC perhaps we could have a direct link failover that would allow us to view the feed from our own radar even if the network line went down that connects us to the rest of the network.  That had never been done before other than at his research office in Massachusetts, but he told us how we could do that here and that’s what we will be doing.  

From that point things actually got a little rocky.  Last summer we were told that the manufacturer was not convinced that Johnson County would be the best place to put the radar.  The site selections had become very competitive and other locations in the metroplex were wanting one of the donated radars.  Jamie and I had several conference calls with the NCTCOG, the CASA team and the manufacturer and we were able to convince them that Johnson County was a key location for weather moving into the metroplex in addition to Johnson County’s potential for population growth and the need to protect our own citizens.  In August of 2013 when we got word that we were indeed going to get a radar I emailed all our stakeholders to share the great news.  I even got a “Great work.” reply from Don Beeson. 

Fast forward to January 2014.  Jamie Moore contacted me and said that the Keene mayor was now interested in looking at the CASA Radar project and asked if I could figure out their cost share and meet at the Emergency Operations Center with them to talk about it.  The mayor loved the project and wanted to get it in front of the Keene City Council for possible action and asked Jamie and I to present it to the council at a meeting in the next few weeks.  Incidentally I had probably met Keene Mayor, John Ackermann, at an event prior to that day, but I had never had a conversation with him.  While chatting before we left it came up that I usually give the invocation at my own city council meetings so he suggested I give the invocation at the Keene meeting the night Jamie and I would be there.  I always jump at the chance to do that because I see it as a great honor to pray before any group and because it takes me out of my comfort zone.  I see every invitation as a chance to be obedient to the Lord.

That brings us to the night of February 13, 2014.  Mayor Ackermann introduced me as a council member from the City of Joshua, not a candidate for commissioner doing the invocation. The Keene City Council agenda lists my name (misspelled A.J. Matthews) along with Jamie Moore and Bob Hamilton presenting the CASA Radar project (Mr. Hamilton did not participate in that item, however).  Jamie Moore began the presentation with a little history and showed a video that CASA put together.  When it came down to the cost for the city of Keene he introduced me and mentioned that we would not have gotten to this point had I not pushed the project.  I went through the Keene cost share with the council and some other information about the project.  I was there not as a candidate, but as an elected official with legitimate business with the City of Keene.  The CASA project is one I care deeply about.  I am most proud of it because so many of us were able to partner together to make it happen which is a first for the CASA project.

Monday, February 17, 2014 I got a call from Paul Gnadt of the Burleson Area Star checking some facts from the meeting for the story he was writing about the Keene council meeting.  At that point, of course, I expected to be quoted in the story or at least mentioned.  After all, I presented part of it and was found to be significant enough for Paul Gnadt to come to me as a source.  When I read the story at keenestar.net on Tuesday I was disappointed and frustrated to find that not only was I not mentioned, but the part of the meeting that I specifically talked about (the cities involved and the cost share) was attributed to Jamie Moore.  I contacted Paul Gnadt and Brian Porter of The Star Group and voiced my disappointment.  The reason I was given for the omission of my participation was that during a campaign the paper limits the exposure of candidates in the interest of fairness.  My thought on that is this: Candidates showing up at all kinds of events such as chamber of commerce lunches, ground-breakings and ribbon cuttings is not newsworthy and is clearly campaign related photo opportunities and networking.  My participation at the Keene council meeting was in an official capacity and not a campaign stop.  I liken it to the continued reporting and pictures of Commissioner Kenny Howell and Judge Roger Harmon as they continue to do business on the commissioners court while running for their respective offices. If any of my opponents participate officially in anything newsworthy I would hope that they too would get the credit they deserve and would expect them all as men of professed integrity to feel the same way about me.

Online now at keenestar.net is a new CASA Radar story giving me credit.  Actually too much credit now.  I told Brian Porter and Paul Gnadt that while I was disappointed in the original story and I believed something should be done I did not believe they were at all malicious in the original story and I did not want to bring any embarrassment on Mr. Gnadt or the newspaper.

A couple facts to correct in the current story:

1.  Jamie Moore and I had not presented the CASA project to any other city councils before the Keene meeting.  The exchange of information with the cities mainly happened in emails and phone calls and at the two meetings noted above with the fire chiefs and the meeting I held at the Joshua Fire Station.
2. The NCTCOG did not ask me to present the project to Johnson County cities.  The only thing they ever asked of me was to find a potential site for the radar.  I took it upon myself to contact the other cities and push forward to get a radar for us.

If you made it to the end of this then you apparently appreciate truth.  Thank you.

A.J.