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 don't believe for a second she bought 5 acres with the money she got from the armed forces when her son was killed! I wish she would STFU and go away!
There's something that should be checked out...thoroughly.
What a gaggle of unemployable assclowns.
A straw purchase! Somebody alert Bloomberg! I certainly hope Fonseca declares this on his tax returns.
Great. Last time she was there the entire town was flooded with "get a life, Go Home" signs and now she's going to be "home" in crawford.
She's gonna have a hard time shopping though because Crawford is definitely "Bush Country"
She has completely and utterly lost her mind. Its no longer about her son its about her.
Sounds like old Cindy had turned from protestor to stalker.
That woman's just not right. In fact, she's a few fries short of a Happy Meal!
Do you think for 1 minute the vast majority of Crawford, TX is going to welcome you?
You were, from everything I have read, a bad mother who could not even be bothered to speak to her son the last time he called home from Iraq. It's all about you, it always has been.
You have used your son's death to push your sick version of fame and the most twisted leftist vision of the world. If you honestly cared about peace or the lives of Soldiers, then please explain how you can call the animals who killed your son "freedom fighters"?
...there go the property values and the neighborhood...
The good people of Crawford don't deserve this. Nor does the President. Note how this purchase was conducted dishonestly to deceive people. Nice way to honor a dead soldier's honor, mother sheehan.
Has Casey got a headstone yet?
If anyone is surprised by how low this woman actually is, visit the two replies to an earlier thread. Here is what reply #73 is, and I also heard this report.
“(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.”
So let me get this right, Fonseca knows all along he's buying the property as a front for Sheehan yet tells the seller he's going to build on the site. yet he believes they can be 'good neighbors' when the entire deal was built upon a deceit. Yeah, right! Once a lying a$$, always a lying a$$.
So is there any legal action the seller can take after being deceived by the buyer? I know zero about law.
At first I was po'd but then after thinking about it some more am okay with it. Dissent is good. Let her bunch stay in the headlines. They are the best advertisement conservatives could ask for.
Ya know, she may not be able to get the waitress to come over at the local cafe! People in the south are funny like that about folks they don't cotton to...
If anyone was ever the very defintion of "despicable",it's Sheehag. I hate that woman. One day she will have to "just shut up"-she has some monumental bad karma coming around for this contemptible cynical dancing on the grave of her son,a hero who gave his life. (You know,the forgotten son-for whom all this dancing in blood was supposedly about).
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