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Michael Davis
Sarah Dodd
James Northrup
Barbara Senter
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02/02/06 Don Hill thinks
he's playing a Monopoly game!
Wednesday, one of the news/talk radio stations was on at my
desk, and I heard Councilman James Fantroy say he didn't see how we could do a
deal with Billy Bob Barnett or Dallas City Limits because "they don't have any money".
I almost fell out of my chair.
Ch. 11's ace reporter, Sarah
Dodd, broke the story Tuesday that the deal was problematic.
Mayor Miller stated the obvious in the interview:
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"All the problems stem from one
fundamental flaw: the developer is asking for $20 million in tax money,
but he has no money of his own and no track record on a project this size.
That's pretty much a non-starter for me." |
That would make sense in any other
city, but this is Dallas. We cut city services to regular Joe Taxpayer,
but we give tax abatements to that Son of a Bigamist Billionaire Ray Hunt.
We neglect maintenance on our municipal facilities, but we give $20 million
dollars to a development right across the freeway from North Park that promises
more apartments, when all the problems Vickery Meadow has are the concentration
of once hip and happening apartment complexes.
Here's my favorite Dallas way -- We build a sports arena, when we already have
one that is still carrying a multi-million dollar debt. To pay for that
sports arena which is the exclusive toy of a billionaire and a wanna-be
billionaire, we levy a tax on hotels and car rentals that has lived up to our
warning that it would destroy our struggling convention business. Add
insult to injury, we have spent millions improving and expanding our convention
center and can't get anyone to use it because IT COSTS TOO MUCH TO STAY IN OUR
CITY.
Yes, Perot and Hicks' Arena is extremely successful and is a big money maker,
but Dallas taxpayers only get $3 million in annual rent. That doesn't even
cover the debt service on Reunion.
To make matters worse, we are about to give Reunion and all its parking to that
Son of a Bigamist Ray Hunt in exchange for HALF of a little used parking lot
near the little used Convention Center. On top of that, Joe Taypayer will
have to pay for the demolition of Reunion BEFORE WE GIVE IT TO RAY
HUNT. Bill Blaydes, Ed Oakley and Don Hill were rationalizing the land
swap because it was necessary to get Barnett's Dallas City Limits going.
Never mind that no one had any details, and apparently we now are learning that
Barnett doesn't have the resources to do the deal in the first place.
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Dallas City Limits' fiscal data sought;
Council split on
viability of entertainment project, focuses on 'legal issues'
06:32 AM CST on Thursday, February 2, 2006
by DAVE
LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News |
The
backers of an expansive downtown entertainment complex proposal have two
weeks to produce financial records and address unspecified "legal issues"
before the Dallas City Council continues negotiations.
... Council members, however, differed on whether
the proposed $250 million concept is unraveling or remains on line for
council approval in some fashion. And they differed on what tax incentives,
if any, the city should offer development company Dallas City Limits, which
is seeking public aid.
... "They still haven't
shown us that they have money. We've never seen that they have the
wherewithal to build it," Mayor Laura Miller said of Dallas City
Limits, repeating her longtime criticism of the proposal.
... Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill,
listening nearby, interjected: "That is so inappropriate. They've invested –
according to our staff – they've invested $10 million into this project
already. That's ludicrous."
... Ms. Miller fired back. "I will always be
against putting taxpayer money in projects where the person asking for the
money has no money of their own," she said.
... The complicated project involves a three-way
land swap that, if executed, ultimately would give the city control of a
tract of nearly vacant land next to the Dallas Convention Center – land it
hopes to sell to Dallas City Limits to develop into the entertainment
complex.
Council member Mitchell Rasansky said
one legal issue involves "covenants that are attached to Reunion" Arena, one
of the pieces of the proposed land swap, but he would not discuss specifics.
The city has previously entered into agreements
governing the use of Reunion Arena, which is slated for demolition as part
of the land swap.
Dallas City Limits executive Bill
Beuck ... declined to discuss details of Dallas
City Limits' financial situation, or why the group hasn't presented the city
with the financial material it wants. The city has not, however, presented
Dallas City Limits with its terms for the project, which would presumably
reveal any tax incentives Dallas plans to offer.
A preliminary term sheet valued
Dallas' tax incentive offering at $20 million.
... Mr. Rasansky said after the closed-door
meeting that the city shouldn't swap land at all.
... "If they have the financial capability to do
this, let them show us," Mr. Rasansky said. "
... "The general consensus is that we're going to
keep working things through the economic development committee until it
makes it, or it's dead," said council member Bill Blaydes, the committee's
chairman.
... The proposed land swap works like this: Dallas
would transfer its ownership of Reunion Arena to billionaire oilman Ray
Hunt's Woodbine Development Corp., which has said it plans to demolish the
facility to make way for an unspecified project.
Woodbine would give Dallas part of a
little-used parking lot – known as Lot E – that the company owns near the
struggling Dallas Convention Center, which the city also owns.
After coupling Lot E with land the
city already owns, government officials would sell the property to Dallas
City Limits for $30 million, according to preliminary terms.
... Dallas City Limits would be a $250 million
project, the centerpiece of which would be a 400,000-square-foot
entertainment complex featuring shops, restaurants, nightclubs, a health
club, a concert hall and an outdoor arena. Mr.
Beuck said construction could begin as soon as spring, pending council
approval.
A later project
phase calls for an expansion south of Interstate 30 into the Cedars
neighborhood along the Trinity River, which would feature an equestrian
center, a horse-racing track with pari-mutuel wagering, a polo field,
residential apartments and condominiums, and a
4,000-seat indoor arena, according to project plans.
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The Lord move in mysterious ways.
Had former City Manager John Ware and Con Jerk/Ron Kirk not got us in such
one-side deal with Ross Perot, Jr. and Tom Hicks over their basketball/hockey
arena, we would be more vulnerable to Don Hill, Ed Oakley and Bill Blaydes doing
another lop-sided deal with Billy Bob Barnett. The Ware/Kirk/Perot/Hicks
deal prohibits the city from offering tax incentives or even participating any
deal that will result in a "covered" entertainment facility seating over a
certain number that might compete with their arena. Remember, they keep
all the revenue from their bookings at their arena. They even were able to
keep all the bookings from Reunion, which they deliberately ran into the ground
BEFORE they dumped it back on Joe Taxpayer.
The FBI's favorite target Don Hill who drives other people's cars that the
"other person" didn't own in the first place, has no problem doling out other
people's money (Joe Taxpayer's money) for deals that aren't viable and don't
make any sense. Don Hill hasn't even spent the $3 million that was
designated as discretionary bond spending in his district 3 years ago -- $3
million that we are paying interest on, that is not doing anything productive
for his district or the city but costing Joe Taxpayer a lot of money.
It's beginning to get tiresome to have Mayor Miller and Councilman Rasansky
state the obvious, only to have Bill Blaydes, Ed Oakley and Don Hill disregard
common sense and squander Joe Taxpayer's money on hair brain deals that only
benefit billionaires and millionaires who could have done their project without
Joe Taxpayer getting hit again.
If our billion-dollar investment in the Trinity Project is half as successful as
promised (which we know is another pipe dream), that land where Billy Bob
Barnett wants to do his development will be astronomically valuable. That
half of a little used parking lot (that Blaydes, Hill and Oakley want to trade
Reunion Arena and all its parking for) will be much more valuable. For
that matter, Reunion and all of its related property will be incredibly more
valuable.
Why are we even considering this? Well, you know why. That Son of a
Bigamist Ray Hunt wants Reunion. Billy Bob Barnett is giving Hunt's
puppets on the council (Sandra Dee Griffith, I'm only a dentist Garcia, Weeping
William Blaydes, Flip Flop Oakley, the FBI's favorite target Hill and Angela
Hunt) the flimsiest excuse to waste Joe Taxpayer's money again.
If Billy Bob's lame deal were not on the table, Hunt's puppets would find
another excuse to give that Son of a Bigamist Billionaire our property and make
us pay him to take it off our hands.
Don Hill drives other people's cars and doesn't report the contributions on his
financial reports. You can understand why Hill doesn't have a problem with
Billy Bob Barnett using other people's money to do a deal that Barnett can't get
a bank to finance.
Even Councilman Fantroy seemed concerned about the city putting Joe Taxpayer's
money in a deal with a group that doesn't have any money of their own.
That concern is completely lost on Don Hill, who has had consistently been
delinquent in paying his federal taxes.
Dave Levinthal quotes Hill's response to the Mayor's concerns as
"That is so inappropriate. They've invested – according to our staff – they've
invested $10 million into this project already. That's ludicrous."
This is supposedly a
$250 million project, and Hill's impressed that they have invested $10 million
already? Mind you, they want $20 million from Joe Taxpayer, and they have
only invested $10 million to date!
Goffer Jeffers (Hill's personal PR man at Belo) still touts Don Hill as a viable
mayoral candidate after all we know about him and his deals at council.
Inquiry
wouldn't rule out Hill as mayor candidate.
Go back and read the report by KTVT-11's Todd Bensman & Robert Riggs,
CBS 11 Bensman & Riggs,
as well as DallasArena.com's commentary,
Time to Go.
If the African-American community would support someone like Don Hill for Mayor,
then we might as well just give up and head for the city limits.
With the exception of Mayor Miller, Councilman Rasansky, Ron Natinksy and Linda
Koop, most of this council do not understand they have a fiduciary
responsibility NOT TO SQUANDER OUR MONEY.
Don Hill, who thinks we should waste $20 million when the developer at best has
only got $10 million of his own money in the deal, is one of those pushing for a
Billion + bond package for Dallas voters to approve. I've got news for Don
Hill, a lot of people will not be supporting that bond package based primarily
on the way Don Hill personally has conducted himself in public office.
By the time the bond package comes up in November, those mayoral wannabe's who
have been floating their names out there will have to be taking serious steps to
raise money and name identification for a May, 2007 election. The good
news for all of us -- Don Hill and Brain-Dead and Shakedown Chaney are termed
out and can't run for their council seats in 2007. If Sandra Dee Griffith,
Flip Flop Oakley and Weeping William actually do run for mayor, they can't
simultaneously run for their council seats. We could kill a lot of birds
with one stone.
We might have a council in 2007 that
actually has some concern for how they spend Other People's Money.
sb
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