Map of nearby neighborhood groups

You might find it interesting to see what other neighborhood alliances have formed in the south Arlington area to negotiate gas lease deals. Here is a map I created with the general boundaries of those groups. Much of this information was gleaned from the Barnett Shale Blog.

Map of SW Arlington neighborhood alliances (not a complete list)

Also, here a map of the general boundaries of our own group’s area.

Map of NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP area

Tentative deal reached with Paloma Resources

The NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP Negotiation Committee, after careful consideration voted unanimously, to enter into a gas lease agreement with Paloma Resources.  An offer has been made which matches the highest offers seen in Arlington – $16,850 per acre.  

The details of the lease agreement will be discussed at a general neighborhood meeting that will likely take place sometime this upcoming week.   Currently, there is no date set but Bob Haelle is coordinating that effort and we will advise you ASAP both via email and this blog. 

Many well-deserved thanks go out to the wonderful members of our group who were patient and diligent in staying the course in the face pressure to opt for a quick settlement.    This could have never been done without your support.  Look for more posts and email very soon.

It’s gonna be a Happy New Year

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season and that if you traveled for the Christmas festivities that you had a safe return home. Bob sent out a note yesterday thanking everyone for their patience and steadfastness in keeping our group on one accord and I concur with him. We’ve had a couple of issues with duplicate or missing forms but that issue is nearly resolved.

To summarize Bob’s email, we are getting close to concluding the business of getting an agreement with one of the gas companies. The lease proposal will be completed shortly after which we will have the attorney (whose services have been kindly donated) look it over to ensure its legal integrity.

After that, the gas company representatives and our lease negotiation committee will sit down to do some hagglin’ and horse tradin’. Once we reach an acceptable agreement, a signing day and place will be set. At that point, our group members who stuck with us will be able take a very pleasant stroll down to their respective banks to make a well earned deposit.

We want everyone who is within our boundaries (click here to see map) to benefit from our group’s negotiation. Talk to or call your neighbors. If they have not yet joined our group and they are still unsigned.  Let them know that the deadline is fast approaching when we will have to cut off membership to our group.   To get on board with us just have them download our new member information form (see link below) and follow the written instructions on it. They will need to act fast to turn in their form and be counted in our group.

Again, we want to thank all of our members for sticking with us and staying the course. Your dedication is about to reap rewards.

I wish you all a very safe and Happy New Year and a very prosperous one as well.

NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP New Member Information form

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog

As the familiar saying goes. I ran across a good story in the Dallas Morning News from last month about one Grand Prairie resident, 63-year-old Doranna Corley, who began getting involved in helping people in her neighborhood and ones nearby to understand what is at stake for them with the Barnett Shale gas drilling and mineral rights leasing and how not to get taken advantage of in the process. The article says:

Mrs. Corley is the leader of a grassroots movement to assemble Grand Prairie’s underrepresented neighborhoods – some of which haven’t organized in decades – to inform residents about gas well drilling. Spurred by a bad experience with a drilling company, she launched her door-to-door campaign, issuing fliers and planting yard signs. The first meeting drew more than 400 people.

As I noted a few weeks ago, none of the neighborhoods in our alliance, Neighborhod Group, had an established formal neighborhood association when we began this gas lease endeavor. Nevertheless, this does not mean that we can’t engage the big boys of the energy world and come out with an advantageous contract. It will take tenacity, patience, ingenuity and most of all the commitment, especially from the homeowners we represent to see this process throught to the end. Mrs. Corley is a great example of all of those traits.

Mrs. Corley, consider yourself saluted!

3000th pageview milestone

Just a quick note to let you know that today the NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP Gas Lease Blog surpassed 3000 pageviews since I first clicked “publish” last month. Not bad, for a li’l ol’ blog that began as a way to keep neighbors on a dozen or so streets (Coronet Estates) updated on efforts to organize a group to negotiate a gas lease with the energy companies.

Once we began incorporating other subdivisions and neighborhoods our group began to grow faster and it was then I decided to change the name of the blog to its current name to encompass all of the neighborhoods we represent.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and read what’s going on. If you want to see something on the blog that relates to gas leases or gas drilling drop me a line at arlingtongasdrilling (at) gmail.com and tell me about it. I’ll see what I can do.

Be the Tortoise, not the Hare

The moral of the Tortoise and the Hare story was that “slow and steady often wins the race”. In essence, that is what we are trying to accomplish with Neighborhood Group. We want our our neighbors to join us in the worthy common cause which is negotiating the best gas lease deal possible for all of our members. But we’re not identifying with the tortoise just for the purpose of being slow. Our goal is to put together a lease with generous financial terms for you, our members, but to also include stipulations and fair conditions that the energy company will abide by. Above all, the Negotiation Committee wants to “get it right the first time” when it comes to this gas lease issue. We feel that we would be doing you a disservice if we were to haphazardly slap together a contract proposal that had more holes than your grandmother’s doily.

We understand that some folks were hoping a deal could be negotiated prior to Christmas in order to have a little extra “holiday cash”. However, rushing to meet a deadline like that would be counterproductive to our group. The Negotiation Committee is carefully looking at the best way to reward your commitment to our group with this lease, not only in the short term but in the years to come as well.

You all have been models of patience and steadfastness and we humbly thank you. Now we ask for your continued patience and support in the next few critical weeks as we craft the details of this contract with your best interests as our guide. Let’s win together!

Don’t take the bait!

In the coming days expect to see a flurry of offers from land brokers trying to get you to sign a gas lease for your mineral rights….as an individual.  You’ll find big envelopes in your mailbox, flyers on your door with offers and even phone calls and voicemails trying to sway you into signing away your mineral rights.

Don’t do it!  The offer will likely be below what other nearby neighborhood alliances have received recently.  Those other neighborhood groups were able to negotiate much higher amounts and better lease terms because the residents were committed to sticking together and negotiating as a group.  There is strength in numbers.

We are asking our group members to hold steady and not sign the lease papers that they receive in the mail.  By signing now, the gas companies are dictating the terms and amounts.  We have a great negotiating team in place that is knowledgeable and highly committed to bargaining for the best possible lease for all of our great group of members. Additionally, we are also homeowners and have a vested interest in seeing all of our neighbors succeed with a great gas lease.

Don’t just settle for the arbitrary amount that the gas companies feel they can get away with.  After all, when they started making offers they thought our mineral rights were worth much less than they seem to think they are worth now.  Now that they know we have a strong group, they would like nothing better than to get our members to sign for less than what they know they’ll have to offer in the end.  By standing firm with us, our group members are reinforcing the signal to the land brokers and energy companies that they will have to come to the negotiating table ready with offers that are equal to or better that what we are seeing around our vicinity.

NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP member meeting exceeds expectations! (Part II)

[continued from Part 1]

The primary task of this committee is to work out the best, most favorable and well thought out gas lease terms to present to the gas companies which are seeking to lease our mineral rights. The committe will begin work on this right away and will likely meet early next week to begin nailing down contract details.

One other major announcement is that, as a courtesy, the Texas Conference Association of Seventh Day Adventists has granted us access to their attorneys in matters regarding the NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP gas lease contract. This means that our group we will be able to tap into their knowledge and expertise and the experience of their oil and gas attorneys will add another layer of professionalism to our efforts.
As I stated earlier, the main purpose of this meeting was to bring our members together as a group. This accomplished several things. First, we were able to collect data forms from many of you. This will keep our member list as up-to-date as possible. Secondly, last night’s meeting let everyone know that we still have a little more ground to cover regarding the gas lease negotiations. Now that we have a Negotiating Committee in place we will be able to begin hammering out the contract details that will best serve our community. Also, going forward from here we now access to some much appreciated expertise and knowledge in this arena, namely, the Texas Conference Association attorneys.

Finally, this meeting provided a first-hand look at the strength of numbers that our group represents. That was impressive, in my opinion. Quite a change from where we were serveral months ago. I know that with your help we will continue to expand our group for the good of us all.

I will to provide updates on the Negotiating Committee’s activity as I am able to report them. Naturally, the committee will, at times, need to keep certain information restricted in order to more effectively advocate for you and secure the best possible gas lease deal for our group members.

Rest assured that we are working with your best interests at heart. And since we are “neighbors helping neighbors” your best interests are our best interests as well.

Thanks and congratulations to everyone who showed up last night. Your presence made this meeting a pleasant surprise for me personally and a big success for our common cause.

NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP member meeting exceeds expectations! (Part I)

What an incredible sight to see a standing-room only crowd turn out for at last night’s NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP gas lease meeting. A special thank you goes out to Burton Academy for allowing the meeting to take place in their gymnasium. There were approximately 300 neighbors and friends taking up every available space in the auditorium bleachers. And there were many dozens more standing along either end of the basketball court.

I heard from several neighbors who wanted to attend who found the parking area completely full when they arrived! For those who either were unable to make it to the meeting due to prior committments or other reasons, this brief recap will let you know what was discussed.

This meeting was really about getting all the members together and getting all of us on the same page as to where we stand as of this moment and what our next step will be.

At the beginning of the meeting Bob Haelle briefly went over the history of offers that had been put forth by some of the land brokerage companies. He noted how things have changed in a few short months. The initial offer was received in this area was from from Dale Property Services for $5500 per acre with $1000 minimun, 25% royalty and 5 year primary term. Another broker has been trying to make inroads in this vicinity and the competition between the two has been driving the per acre price steadily upward. The last written offer received was from Dale was for $7500 per acre and $1200 minimum, 25% royalty and a 3 year primary term with a 2 year option. Bob contrasted those offers with the agreement that was recently reached between a nearby alliance of homeowners associations and Dale Property Services.

Bob also announced that the cutoff date to join the group would be extended. Regrettably, if you have already signed a lease contract with Dale or any other company joining with our group to negotiate a contract is simply not an option for you. For everyone else, there is still time to call on your neighbors and get them to join us as we negotiate a favorable gas lease deal for our group. However, there will be a time when we announce a cutoff date to join our group. For now, though, there is still time to get more neighbors on board with us which will only serve to further bolster our presence at the bargaining table.

Seeing the great turnout last night was a good confirmation that we are on the right track in building our group. The messages of support and encouragement we’ve received from many of you in the last several weeks has been energizing. And now, NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP is ready to proceed to the next stage, the formation of a Negotiation Committee. This was the first major announcement last night.

The primary task of this committee is to work out the best, most favorable and well thought out gas lease terms to present to the gas companies which are seeking to lease our mineral rights. The committe will begin work on this right away and will likely meet early next week to begin nailing down contract details.

[continued in Part 2]

Growth of Neighborhood Group spurs a blog name change

Watching the progress of our group has been amazing! What started out as an effort to band neighbors together around Coronet Estates to challenge the gas companies for a better gas lease deal has ballooned to an area of several square kilometers (see Neighborhood Group’s area map).

Therefore, in order to reflect the growth of our group from one subdivision to now over a dozen, I am changing the name of the blog from Coronet Estates Homeowners Weblog to NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP Gas Lease Blog. This name is more encompassing of who we are and why we have come together.

Thanks to everyone for standing together with us. Let’s continue to keep this alliance strong and we will all reap the benefits of our solidarity!