Mitchell: The man who fought city hall -- and kicked butt.

Whoever said you can't fight city hall never duked it out with Fred Mitchell. The slight, 71-year-old retiree with a smoker's cough has waged a seven-year battle against Arlington City Hall over its Johnson Creek buyout plan, and he's on the verge of whuppin' some seasoned bureaucrats into submission.

Mitchell's home in the 700 block of East Mitchell Street is among 144 houses that the city and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the mid-1990s deemed as prone to flooding and pegged for demolition. Almost all of those houses are now gone. His wife died a few months ago. Yet he remains, a solitary figure in a house surrounded by vacant lots. A man with a bundle of documents that he believes proves his theory that the city, using outdated and incorrect floodplain maps, is illegally forcing people to sell their homes to make way for new businesses.

ÒI'm just afraid that if I let them do this to me, they can do this to a lot more people in the name of redevelopment,Ó he said.

So he has battled on, using lawyers, phone calls to city departments, letters to elected officials, and pleas for news coverage by the Arlington Star-Telegram (ignored by a newspaper that often cheerleads rather than scrutinizes community projects).

His fight paid off. City leaders are now offering Mitchell something called a life estate, agreeing to buy his house and property but allowing him to stay on it until he dies.

Everybody is ready to move on except Mitchell, whose life has become irrevocably shaped by years of fighting with people he views as liars bent on manipulating a system to harass and cheat homeowners. He carried on much of the battle while caring for his wife, Esther, stricken by a never-diagnosed ailment that Mitchell believes was brought on by worries over losing their home. He fed her, bathed her, watched her waste away to 70 pounds before she died in December.

ÒWhen my wife died, I owed it to her to follow through with this,Ó he said. ÒThe stress and anxiety that the city caused her is what made her immune system go crazy. She saw five doctors, and they did hundreds of blood tests, bone marrow tests, bone density tests. All the tests showed negative. They couldn't come to conclusions about why she was losing seven pounds a year. All of this started when the city said they were going to buy us out.Ó

Esther was 80 when she died. ÒShe was just bones covered by skin,Ó he said. ÒIt was just awful.Ó

She was dead before the Corps of Engineers expressed a willingness to offer a life estate agreement. Roger Venables, the city's real estate manager, came by Mitchell's house in April and personally explained the life estate and delivered a warranty deed. Mitchell looked it over and was willing to accept the city's offer of $103,000 and permission to stay in his house until he dies. But one caveat stopped him. Listed among the conditions was a 111-word sentence dripping in legalese, which Mitchell interpreted as preventing him from seeking legal action against Arlington. He blames his wife's death on the city and is considering a lawsuit. ÒThey didn't want me to use the money they give me to then turn around and sue them,Ó he said.

Mitchell wouldn't sign it. The city threatened eminent domain. Mitchell refused to budge. On May 27, Venables told Mitchell he would try to get the caveat changed. Venables told the Weekly that Mitchell has misinterpreted the condition; it's only there to prevent him from suing in case of flooding.

Mitchell is about to win the battle, but he isn't happy. He's seen too much of what he considers corruption by government entities trying to push residents out of their homes.

The Corps of Engineers in the mid-1990s studied Johnson Creek and its flood history. The resulting report showed 144 homes to be in a 25-year floodplain, suggested they be torn down, and offered ideas for improving the flow of the often-dangerous creek by creating concrete channels. The plan didn't excite city leaders such as former Mayor Richard Greene, who touted a bigger vision that would have included creekside business developments, a retention lake, and hike-and-bike trails. Development costs were estimated at $150 million, but city leaders expected new businesses to boost tax rolls and more than make up the difference, while creating a more beautiful and less flood-prone creek.

The city's 1997 Johnson Creek Corridor Plan noted that land west of Collins Street (Mitchell's neighborhood) Òprovide[s] an opportunity for retail development like restaurants to take advantage of the proximity to the creek and residential neighborhoods.Ó

The Corps' plan suggested removing homes from the creek's 25-year floodplain. Mitchell's was included, even though it's across a street from the creek and perched atop a slight incline. His house wasn't flooded during extremely heavy rains in 1977, nor in the 1989, '90 and '91 rains that flooded most of the other homes designated for removal. Mitchell maintains that floodwaters have never touched his house since it was built in 1959, and said the creek is less likely to flood because it has grown wider and deeper over the years. ÒThirty years ago, Johnson Creek wasn't a decent turtle ditch,Ó Mitchell said. ÒRight now the creek is 10 times as wide and four times as deep as it was when I moved here.Ó Near Mitchell's house, the creek channel is currently about 100 feet across and 20 feet deep.

The map used to designate floodplains near his neighborhood is almost 30 years old. A current map would surely reduce the number of houses in the floodplain and make it impossible for the city to bully homeowners, Mitchell said. ÒTo use a document over 20 years old and call it current is fraud in itself,Ó he said.

The city has updated many of its floodplain maps provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Yet city leaders have not yet updated the map of the Johnson Creek area that pinpoints homes for buyouts, and said they would not seek an update until after the buyouts are complete.

Voters put an end to the city's lavish plans for redevelopment. Twice -- in 1998 and 2000 -- they voted down proposals to fund a citywide Johnson Creek corridor plan.

The city decided to go ahead with the Corps' original, smaller plan to buy and demolish the homes along the creek from Park Row to Collins streets. Mitchell's house would still have to go, although the land would become part of a greenbelt rather than a commercial district. But Mitchell expects the city to pull a switcheroo. ÒOnce the creek is resurveyed or the property is elevated above the flood plain level, nothing can stop them from building whatever they want,Ó he said.

The Corps said any land purchased for the federal flood-control project will remain green space. ÒThere will be bike trails, but that's about it,Ó said Corps project manager Gene Rice.

Legally, however, a city can create commercial development in a greenbelt or park if the Corps and voters agree. In May, Arlington voters overwhelmingly approved a proposition to sell or lease seven acres at another city park for retail development.

Mitchell has become a skeptic. For instance, he pointed out that the original city council member in charge of the Johnson Creek plan was Dixon Holman, former co-owner of a financial company that was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of defrauding shareholders. Holman and his partner Judy Rupay resigned from the city council in 2000 during the SEC investigation. ÒIf they'd screw their own customers, there was no doubt in my mind they would put the screws to the people of the city,Ó Mitchell said.

Then, there was a discrepancy over Mitchell's finish floor elevation, a measurement that determines a house's floodplain designation. In the mid 1990s, a city engineer measured houses in Mitchell's neighborhood. Mitchell later approached the engineer for results and was told his home's elevation was 571.89 feet above sea level, placing him in the 10- to 25-year floodplain. Mitchell hired a private engineer, who came up with a similar 571.78.

Several years later, Mitchell inquired about the city's measurements and was told by several department heads that no measurements existed. Mitchell insisted, and a city official sent a request to the Corps. Rice provided a measurement for Mitchell's house: 570.81, a foot lower than the number given to Mitchell by the city engineer, placing his house in the 5- to 10-year flood plain. Mitchell complained to Congressman Martin Frost, who sent a letter to the Corps. Almost a year later, Rice changed Mitchell's elevation to 571.89 -- the exact measurement that city leaders said didn't exist.

The most obvious sign to Mitchell of a conspiracy is much simpler. His house has never flooded, so how can anyone justify putting him in a floodplain? Corps engineers say that years of development along Johnson Creek have covered pastureland with concrete, increasing the runoff and changing flood patterns.

When told that two nights of heavy thunderstorms last week caused no floodwaters to come close to Mitchell's house, Rice countered that Òjust because the area had a lot of rain, Johnson Creek itself might not have had that much rainfall. Rain falls in strange ways.Ó

And governments work in strange ways, when a house that hasn't flooded in four decades is purchased with taxpayer money to be torn down to save the owner from floodwaters. ÒI've never had flood insurance,Ó Mitchell said. ÒI never felt we'd get wet, and we never did.Ó