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.
LOL......I'm not sure that applies to CARPETBAGGERS!
Truly a festival of losers.
Being TEXAN is a state of mind and attitude. Some get it. Some don't. President Bush get's it.
Does she owe back taxes?
5 acres hardly constitutes a ranch... in Texas it's more of a front yard... laugh...
True!
Good idea - One of the strangest things I've read in all of this is that the guy said he's transferring it in SEPTEMBER. I wonder why.... Especially since we know that it's August that they'll use it the most...
Idiot comment.
ping
Someone should buy the land all around hers and set up a hog operation.
By that definition, Stephen F. Austin, a native of Virginia whose father was a native of Connecticut and who was in part educated in Connecticut, would not qualify as a Texan. I do not think a Texan must exclusively be someone of Anglo-Southern descent. You would, for starters, exclude Texans of German, Czech, Polish, Hispanic, and Cajun descent who have lived in the Lone Star State for generations.
He probably has no intention of transferring it to her. Heh.
You and I both know that's not possible. If anything, they'd be encouraging her to be even more rude and hateful.
At what point is Sheehan going to be considered a stalker? Sheesh!
Ok, not her hardcore supporters, but those who turn on the 6 o'clock news, see her and say 'That poor woman, her son was killed. I wish Bush would bring home the troops. Wow, it's going to rain tomorrow, better get the umbrella ready.'
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