The Theft

Once upon a time in a corrupt city in the northern part of the State of Texas, a motley band calling themselves Bad Dealers told Dallas voters (alive or dead) that Ross Perot, Jr. was not a man to be trusted. The Bad Dealers called the untrustworthy Perot, Jr. and his sidekick, Tom Hicks, Robber Barons.

The Robber Barons had mountains of money, some of which was gained from citizens in other corrupt cities. The Robber Barons used their ill-gotten gains to hire sorcerers and witches to cast a spell over just enough dead or alive voters to get the key to the city treasury.

The Bad Dealers were ridiculed when they warned the citizens not to succumb to the siren's song. Many citizens listened to the Bad Dealers -- probably more than did not, but there were evil forces about in the corrupt city of northern Texas, and the Robber Barons prevailed. There was suspicion then that not all votes cast were true, but the Robber Barons controlled the town crier, the low mayor and his Large White Shadow. The motley band of Bad Dealers was shouted down by the forces of evil, but the Bad Dealers would not be silenced.

The Bad Dealers waited and watched as one by one their dire warnings came true. Even they were surprised at the audacity of the Robber Barons and their low mayor with his Large White Shadow. One by one.

Robber Baron Perot, Jr. made great promises to the lowly serfs of voting age in the corrupt city of northern Texas, but he had made great promises to the high and low citizens of Kansas City in times prior, only to leave them stranded with a big old castle (convention center) expanded to his specifications but no gold from RB Perot. How could this be?

The corrupt city's only town crier ( The Dallas Managed News) offered only "happy talk" and "fairy tales", but no news that would break the trance cast by the low mayor and his Large White Shadow. The DMN even held back information that might have given pause to voting serfs, such as the low mayor's wife holding Half a Million in stock options in a company owned by Robber Baron Hicks.

Like most fairy tales, you have heard this one so often, you know how it ends. Maybe not!

Even though he works for The Dallas Managed News, Dave Michaels is a straight shooter. If you missed Perot, Dallas in showdown over Victory, Some on council wary of $43 million request but fear losing project 03/24/2002 by DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News, use the link to read it. He really nails it!

Michaels says:

Dallas sat at the poker table with Mr. Perot in 1997 and 1998 and agreed to a $150 million package of subsidies to help build American Airlines Center.

That's not quite what happened. There was no high stakes game going on -- it was highway robbery. Rather than a poker game analogy, what Robber Baron Perot and City MisManager John Ware did was more like a stage coach robbery with the coach driver advising the desperados where to strike and who would have the most money among the passengers. The stage coach driver would get his compensation later when he delivered the fleeced passengers to their destination. When the passengers learn of the driver's deception, they are too embarrassed to speak out.

xxxxx:
$500,000 more in tax revenue? We only get the benefit of sales tax at AA, so that would have to be an increase in revenues of over $6,000,000/year or $500,000/month to generate $500,000 more at .0825 rate. This seems high to me.

The Dallas Morning News article references a $500,000 increase in tax revenues to the city. Let?s examine their claim.

1) Since the AA Center is legally owned by the city for the next 30 years, there are no property taxes. So this does not apply.

2) If DMN is referring to $500,000 more in property taxes for the surrounding acreage, that land is all in the Arena TIF, so the city gets NO increase in tax revenues until the TIF is paid off in 20 years.

3) The only tax revenues we get so far are from sales taxes. If the $500,000 figure refers to sales tax revenue for 6 months, then something is amiss. I believe the city sales tax rate is 1%. In order to generate $500,000 more in tax revenue for the city for 6 months, the AA Center would have to generate revenues at the rate of $100,000,000 more per year than Reunion Arena.

Let?s say the AAC did generate $500,000 more in sales tax revenues for 6 months. That would mean an increase in taxes to the city of $1,000,000/year if it keeps up. Since we invested over $150,000,000 in the project, we are getting an annualized return of .67% on our money. Wow! That?s POINT 67 PERCENT, not 67%.

The City of Dallas borrows money at approximately 5%, so our cost to borrow $150,000,000 is about $7,500,000/year. This means we would be losing about $6,500,000 on this deal per year.
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Bob Hosea:
I do not know what ****ed you off enough to start your alternative (God knows there are enough possible reasons), but I am glad you did.

The establishment in this town is, and has been for a long time, a giant elastic rubber balloon badly in need of a straight pin. Please keep it up.
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We keep being told how successful the Hicks/Perot arena is -- but what good does that do us? There's no new money in the tax base to pay for the extra police protection needed in the area. There's no new development as was promised by the likes of Mayor PreTend Mary Poss.

So what if the new arena "generated $500,000 more in tax revenue for the city compared with what Reunion Arena produced in a comparable period in the previous year." Most new sports facilities do well their first year because people want to experience their novelty. Look what we had to spend to get "$500,000 more". Millions in lost property tax revenue for the city, the county, the school district! Spending $125 Million to earn 1/2 of $1 Million doesn't sound like a winner to me.

Michaels lists 5 council members who are supporting the latest Perot/Palladium raid on public money -- Don Hill, Maxine Thornton-Reese, James Fantroy, John Loza and Mary Poss. None of them are a surprise, but why does Mary Poss not have to recuse herself for having a conflict of interest in any matter related to the Perot's? Her husband works for the Perot's. He moves in and out of those companies. Poss should not even comment on this latest Perot assault.

It is an assault. It is an evil game being played by RB Perot, Jr. Michaels quotes him as saying:

Ross Perot, Jr. is no real estate investor. He uses his leverage of big money to coerce city councils into giving him more money. When you start out with the financial backing of that little tyrant Ross Perot, you can take chances and you can bully elected officials into doing projects a city can't afford. An investor puts his own money into a project. A Robber Baron uses corrupt public officials (elected and appointed) to leverage public money so that he makes money off of lowly voting serfs. There is a difference.

I once told some East Coast reporter that Ross Perot, Jr. was the ultimate welfare baby. He has been on the public dole since his daddy figured out how easy it is to bamboozle government officials. It's a family tradition of stealing public money for their private empire.

Michaels quotes Ft. Worth council woman, Becky Haskin:

Ms. Haskin got it wrong because there is no game. City Councils, no matter the city, are not supposed to just roll over because some rich man's son comes to town with $$ in his pockets and exploitation on his mind.