Roll out the welcome wagon: Cindy Sheehan’s moving to Crawford

CRAWFORD — When peace activist Cindy Sheehan returns here next month to protest the war in Iraq, she won’t be a guest. She’ll be one of Crawford’s newest residents.

Sheehan’s peace group, Gold Star Families for Peace, said on its Web site Thursday that Sheehan had purchased five acres on State Highway 317, about a half-mile north of the sole traffic light here. County records indicate she is acquiring the property through a third party who himself recently purchased it.

On her Web site, Sheehan says she’s already planning to mount next month’s war protest on the property, again timed for the period when President Bush routinely spends his vacation at his Central Texas ranch. The Bush ranch is several miles west of Sheehan’s place, and area residents are largely defensive of the president.

“Well, there’s not much we can do about it,” said Jamie Burgess of the Red Bull gift shop in town. “I guess she has the right to buy (property) here.”

Longtime Crawford resident Bobby D. Ramsey sold a little more than five acres to Gerald T. Fonseca, a New Orleans native who said he was displaced by Hurricane Katrina last fall. Fonseca was in Crawford along with hundreds of other war protesters when the hurricane destroyed his home Aug. 29.

Fonseca, who identifies himself as a Vietnam veteran and a member of Veterans for Peace, had been living more recently in Eagle Rock, Mo., with relatives. He has been in Crawford the past four weeks, staying at the Crawford Peace House.

While Fonseca’s name is on the deed as the land’s new owner, Sheehan’s protest group will use the property for this year’s Camp Casey, the peace camp named for Sheehan’s son, Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old Fort Hood soldier killed in Iraq in 2004.

In September, Fonseca said, ownership of the land will be transferred to Sheehan.

Ramsey, who soon may find unexpected neighbors when protesters move into a huge tent on the property he sold, said he was unaware before the sale that it would be used by Sheehan to host Camp Casey in August.

“(Fonseca) said he was going to build a home and, one day, a shop (on the land),” Ramsey said Thursday, speaking from his adjacent property in Crawford. “He told me that Katrina wiped him out.. . . . It didn’t even occur to me that he could use it for this.”

Fonseca confirmed he never indicated to his new neighbors that the land would be transferred to Sheehan, but he said that was always the plan. He said the $52,500 used to pay for the property — a spread of rustic, wooded prairie with no houses — came from Sheehan and her Gold Star Families for Peace.

Fonseca said he acted as “an agent” for Sheehan, negotiating the purchase and closing the deal with Ramsey.

“They’re really good neighbors,” Fonseca said of families nearby. “The idea again is that we’re here to be good neighbors, to make it as comfortable as we can for everyone.”

While Sheehan frequently attacks Bush for his policy on the war in Iraq, she has often discussed, like Bush, how much she likes Crawford and Central Texas. On her Web site, Sheehan says she originally “never understood how George Bush could pick such a place as Crawford to have his home.”

She goes on to say, however, that “after spending an entire year there in every season, I totally understand. I even get upset when people put Crawford down in any way.”

Bush, whose presidency has been marked by frequent retreats to his Prairie Chapel Ranch, purchased his property near Crawford in 1999. Crawford has been the site of numerous protests since he became president in 2001.

Sheehan gained international fame last August when she led war protests from a roadside ditch near the president’s ranch, demanding Bush interrupt his vacation to meet and discuss the war. The month also saw counterprotests staged by supporters of the president.

Citing concerns about traffic safety and roadside sanitation, county commissioners later passed an ordinance outlawing anyone from camping along the road near Bush’s ranch, which subsequently sparked legal challenges over free speech issues.

McLennan County Commissioner Ray Meadows, whose precinct includes both the Bush ranch and the five acres Sheehan will soon own, said he was glad to see the so-called “peace mom” moving in because it would likely preclude last summer’s roadside protests near the Bush ranch.

“It’ll keep the traffic off Prairie Chapel Road,” he said Thursday. “I am ecstatic about it. It will keep them off the road and keep traffic moving.”

He went on to jest that Sheehan’s protest group was “all just a part of summer now.”

On her Web site, Sheehan said she was enthusiastic about the new Crawford site because the peace movement had outgrown sites used last year, “and we needed to move on to bigger property.”

Sheehan says this summer’s war protest will run from Aug. 13 to Sept. 2. White House reports indicate President Bush plans to spend far less time at his ranch this August than usual.

Retired postmaster Joyce Holmes said she could understand how property owners near the Sheehan spread might be anxious about next month.

“I know if I were living out that close, I’d be just like they are,” Holmes said. “I wouldn’t want all that commotion around me.”

Crawford upset about Sheehan's land purchase for protests

By ANGELA K. BROWN

Associated Press Writer

CRAWFORD, Texas — Like many folks in President Bush's adopted hometown, 83-year-old Robert Westerfield isn't exactly rolling out the welcome mat for the town's newest resident, war protester Cindy Sheehan.

"I'd wish they'd go away and never come back," Westerfield, a lifelong Crawford resident, said Friday while sitting on a bench outside a gas station on Main Street. "I wish she'd stay away. Crawford's a Republican town, and she's a dumb Democrat."

Sheehan, whose monthlong war protest near Bush's ranch last summer attracted more than 10,000 demonstrators, recently bankrolled the purchase of a 5-acre parcel near downtown to be used for future protests, including one next month.

The group said it outgrew its 1-acre lot provided by a sympathetic landowner about a mile from Bush's ranch, where several hundred demonstrators returned to camp over Thanksgiving and Easter.

Now many of the 700 residents fear that the traffic congestion, noise from rallies and odor from portable toilets — complaints from county residents near the other campsite — will affect those closer to town.

"When it's here, it affects a different set of people," Teresa Bowdoin said.

Gerry Fonseca, a Vietnam veteran who attended the protests in August and April, returned to Crawford in June to help the group look for property.

Fonseca said he doubts that any Crawford landowner would have sold to Sheehan or other protesters, so he didn't reveal his connection. Fonseca, who lost his Slidell, La., home in Hurricane Katrina, told sellers about that part of his life and that he wanted to build.

He bought the $52,500 lot in mid-July, using insurance money that Sheehan received after her oldest son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Fonseca revealed the plans to his new next-door neighbor while seeking permission for electric lines to be strung 160 feet across the neighbor's property. Fonseca said the man initially agreed but then refused after others found out and became angry that the lot would be used as the new war protest site.

"I can understand why they were upset, but I didn't expect so much resistance," Fonseca said. "We are going to do everything we can to be good neighbors."

The lot is a tenth of a mile from a small "Welcome to Crawford" billboard featuring a picture of Bush, smiling with his hand in a thumbs-up sign, and his wife.

The land is comprised of about half pasture and half tree groves. Trucks began dumping gravel Friday for a driveway, and water lines will be installed next week. Fonseca said he is still trying to arrange for electricity to be hooked up, as well.

Although the site is more than 7 miles from Bush's ranch, it will have more space for the group's large activities tent, camping area and parking.

"This is close enough. We're still protesting in the community that he (Bush) chose to live in," Fonseca said.

Sheehan said that when the camp is no longer needed, she plans to donate the land to the city for a park to be named Spc. Casey Sheehan Memorial Peace Park. Sheehan said it would have a playground, because "Casey loved children and peace."

When Sheehan first arrived in Crawford last August, demanding to meet with the president during his monthlong working vacation, she and others set up tents in ditches off the winding, two-lane road leading to the ranch.

But the area became crowded as weekend protests swelled to several thousand people — and spurred counter protests with Bush supporters — so a sympathetic landowner let the group use his parcel that was even closer to the ranch.

Then last fall, county commissioners enacted roadside camping and parking bans to prevent similar protests. But some demonstrators returned to Sheehan's original makeshift campsite during the November and April protests for a civil disobedience action and were arrested. Sheehan was not among them.

In late June, Sheehan and four others sued the county over the ordinances, saying they want to return to what became an "international symbol of protest against the Iraq war."

Tammara Rosenleaf, one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs, said she is glad the group now owns a lot but that some protesters may return to Sheehan's original site because it is considered "the soul of this movement."

Larry Nelson, manager of Crawford Country Style gift shop, said he does not think the protesters will cause traffic problems downtown or keep tourists away.

"When they're in town, it brings out the Bush supporters, and they do business with us," Nelson said.

Bill Johnson, owner of the Yellow Rose of Texas gift shop, disagrees with Sheehan's views of Bush and the war with Iraq and said he hopes protesters are considerate of their new neighbors. Last summer the group disrupted the peaceful country life of some rural residents near Bush's ranch, he said.

"I don't want her rights taken away. Her son fought and died for this country," Johnson said. "But on the other hand, she needs to be respectful for what our country stands for." ___
http://www.wacotrib.com/hp/content/gen/ap/TX_Peace_Mom_Land.html

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.