David Tuthill
                             

1/23/08 - Jr. promises to announce first major corporate relocation after 10 years.

With all the hoopla about the claimed success of the Hicks/Perot arena and related development, it's been hard to respond.  When someone is outright lying, any response only continues the lie and becomes a debate.  Look at what happened to Barry Obama when he called out Mrs. Clinton in South Carolina.  Liars are always ready with more lies.  If you ignore the lie, people take your silence for acquiescence. 

On one A.M. station, I caught a bit of an interview with Ross, Jr., where he claimed to have a Fortune 500 corporation about to announce its relocation to Victory.  That's great, but it's been 10 years!  Why has it taken so long when Jr.'s had a free ride on property taxes?

Never forget that the city's general fund is only getting taxes from Jr. based on the value of the land BEFORE he put those fancy buildings on it.  The additional taxes that ought to be going for police and fire salaries, citywide street improvements and citywide park maintenance are being spent ONLY in the Victory area.  Your neighborhood streets (business or residential) have to wait in line for the council or city manager to get to them even though you paid your property taxes in full to the city's general fund, but Jr. gets to spend his taxes as he wants - fixing the streets in his business neighborhood, hiring more security, even more buildings.  That's just not right!

It is ironic that the Hard Rock Cafe building (old McKinney Avenue Baptist Church) was torn down this month while the big shots celebrate stealing an election 10 years ago.  Many Uptown/Oak Lawn area residents feel great pain to lose that old church.  I loved that old church, but I also loved those silos near Stemmons that Jr. demolished.  They were always there, and then they weren't.  That old church was always on McKinney, and now it's not.  We don't care about old stuff in Dallas, regardless of the connection to our past.

Con Jerk/Ron Kirk wrote an op-ed for The Dallas Managed News crediting the Hicks/Perot arena as the impetus for everything good that has happened in or near Downtown.  As "It's a Bad Deal!!" said 10 years ago, the area where Ross, Jr. and Hicks decided to put their arena (which you and I had to finance) was already hot and being developed.  Harwood had already started its significant project on Harry Hines and has continued with several buildings that were designed and planned before Victory.  At the time, Jr. admitted buying the Mavericks was a real estate deal for him, that he knew nothing about Basketball and cared less about learning more.

When Reunion Arena was home to the Mavericks and Stars, the West End was rocking and prosperous.  We warned the West End Association the plans for the new arena and the Victory project would draw away most of their patrons.  They ignored us and supported the arena in the election.  We were right.

There are X numbers of people who go to games and dine out and party hearty.  Building new facilities does not mean you get new people.  It just means the party crowd will move to the new joints, and the old hangouts go begging for business.  Other DFW cities compete for the club goers now.

For me, the fight was never about a new arena.  We had an 18-year old arena that taxpayers had funded, where the Stars won the Stanley Cup.  If the owners of the sports teams wanted more than what taxpayers had built for them, both Hicks and Jr. were financially able to build their own arena -- like most businesses have to build their own work places.  It wasn't just about taxpayers funding a second arena when there still was a substantial debt on Reunion.  What bothered me most was taxing an unrelated industry to benefit two billionaires.

Taxing car rentals and hotel/motel rooms to fund a professional sports arena was and is wrong.  There were not and are not great hordes of tourists coming to Dallas to see the Stars or the Mavericks, unless you are talking about hordes of non-Dallas people coming from area suburbs.   The arena tax was never a tourist tax.  Tourists rent their cars at DFW.  Locals make up the bulk of cars rented in the city limits of Dallas.  Many low-income families rent vans and cars on the weekend.  So, two of the wealthiest men in this town sponged off hardworking low-income and middle-income Dallas taxpayers.

We also warned the arena tax on car rentals and hotel/motel rooms would damage if not kill our struggling convention business.  Dallas had always been low on amenities for conventioneers, but high on affordable hotel/motel rooms and car rentals.  The arena tax put the cost of convention-ing in Dallas right up there with San Francisco.  Thanks to the Hicks/Perot/Kirk sales tax, you can hold a convention cheaper in Las Vegas than Dallas. 

So, 10 years later, we have a plaza for a New Years Eve event.  We already have a great big plaza in front of City Hall.  Well, the street bums have that great big plaza.  We have a great big convention center, but not much convention business.  The West End restaurants that were so dependent on the crowds from Reunion are really struggling because they are just too far from the Hicks/Perot arena to compete.

Con Jerk also credits former City Manager John Ware for the arena's success due to the help he gave Perot and Hicks during the contract negotiations.  John Ware was being paid a substantial salary by Dallas taxpayers.  He had a fiduciary duty to us, to protect our interest.  Instead, he drafted a contract that was completely one-sided in favor of Hicks and Perot with little or no benefit back to Dallas taxpayers.  He did such a good job for them, Hicks gave Ware a job a few months later that doubled his income.  Not surprisingly, Con Jerk never mentions the $750K stock option Hicks steered to Mrs. Con Jerk.  But then, The Dallas Managed News never reported it either until several months AFTER the arena election even though they had the information months BEFORE the election.

If all of their promises had been kept, which they haven't, nothing would make it a good deal for Dallas taxpayers.  It's a good deal for some people who go to hockey and basketball games, but their tickets don't pay for the arena. 

Maybe the wrong way the arena came about and how Hicks and Perot are profiting off wrongly diverted public moneys has put a jinx on the Stars and the Mavericks.  They are such good teams, and then lose to much less talent.  Jerry Jones may already be feeling the bad karma from his land theft in Arlington.  (Are you as sick of his TV ads as everyone I know?)

That old saying, "two wrongs don't make a right" is so apropos.  Hicks and Perot bought off the City Manager and the Mayor for pennies on the dollar to get access to the municipal pot of gold.  Everyone on the arena side lied about their intentions, what it was going to cost and the detrimental consequences of building the arena north of Downtown. 

Any way you look at the arena scam, it was a Bad Deal!! - even 10 years later.

sb