Posted on 07/28/2006 7:36:20 AM PDT by LA Woman3
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.
Transfer planned
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.
‘It will keep traffic off’
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.”
Tommy Witherspoon contributed to this story.
I doubt it unless the buyer violates some zoning laws, doesn't pay property taxes (which I've read Sheehan is guilty of in California), or other infraction.
The sale is likely legal. However,the buyer (and Sheehan) have now dug their own holes as far as Crawford residents go.
She can't stop the dance now.First,because she's insane-second,because if she ever slows down that long,she'll have too much time to remember and contemplate what an unfeeling b*tch she was to her own son,and how she's desecrated his memory and all that she knows,in her heart,that he stood for. One day she'll have to,though. I hope she has someone to call on that day.
It took 2 years, but yes he does.
She may live in Texas, it is a free country, but she will never be a Texan.
There goes the neighborhood.
Ann Coulter said this MONTHS ago and she was, of course, dead right.
Heck,she's not even a real American-she's a traitor to America and to her own son(for whom she didn't have the time of day until he was dead and she could grandstand on his grave because she's an attention whore,and this was her chance).
A good example of where eminent domain rulings could come in handy!
Didn't it come to light during her original protest in Crawford that she wasn't in fact camping out in the field or ditch, but was staying at a motel in Waco with all the conveniences while the lesser moonbats stayed back in Crawford at the so-called peace house or out in the open? Unless the media is around, I don't look for Crazy Cindy to spend too much time hanging around Crawford.
Kill her with kindness. Have Laura bring her a pecan pie the day she moves in. Have George and Laura throw a BBQ picnic for their neighbors and invite her. Have the town be as sweet as sugar to her.
The media will then have the option of ignoring her (which will kill "Peace Mom"), or displaying how she reacts (which will kill her image for moderates).
Sidney and the rest of these chucklebutts have to stop being given their desired default title of "peace activists".They are left wing agitators.
Good morning! The poor creature has delusions that now that she's a landowner we will accept her and all live in peaceful harmony. Shame on her for duping the Ramseys.
God,what a waste of oxygen she is-no reason to live except to mock her son and harrass the President. May she meet with a huge rattlesnake while she's there.
I sure hope this fu@ktarded woman has no idea what's coming.
Time to get a permit to camp outside the traitor's property and protest.
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