Sheehan land purchase for protests irks Texas town

CRAWFORD, Texas -- Like many folks in President Bush's adopted hometown, 83-year-old Robert Westerfield isn't exactly rolling out the welcome mat for the town's newest resident: war protester Cindy Sheehan.

``I wish she'd stay away. Crawford's a Republican town, and she's a dumb Democrat," Westerfield, a lifelong Crawford resident, said last week while sitting on a bench outside a gas station on Main Street.

Sheehan, whose monthlong war protest near Bush's ranch last summer attracted more than 10,000 demonstrators, recently funded the purchase of a 5-acre parcel near downtown to be used for future protests, including one next month.

The protesters' group said it outgrew a 1-acre lot about a mile from Bush's ranch that a sympathetic landowner provided.

Now many of the town's 700 residents fear the traffic congestion, noise from rallies, and odor from portable toilets -- complaints from residents near the other campsite -- will affect those closer to town.

``When it's here, it affects a different set of people," Teresa Bowdoin said.

Gerry Fonseca, a Vietnam veteran who attended the protests in August and April, returned to Crawford in June to help the group look for property.

Fonseca said he doubts that any Crawford landowner would have sold to Sheehan or other protesters, so he didn't reveal his connection. Fonseca, who lost his Slidell, La., home in Hurricane Katrina, told sellers about that part of his life and that he wanted to build.

He bought the $52,500 lot in mid-July, using insurance money that Sheehan received after her oldest son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004.

The lot is a tenth of a mile from a small ``Welcome to Crawford" billboard featuring a picture of Bush, smiling with his hand in a thumbs-up sign, and his wife. It is more than 7 miles from Bush's ranch. ``This is close enough. We're still protesting in the community that he chose to live in," Fonseca said.

Sheehan said that when the camp is no longer needed, she plans to donate the land to the city for a park to be named Specialist Casey Sheehan Memorial Peace Park. Sheehan said it would have a playground, because ``Casey loved children and peace."