Looking for info regarding bush* deal with Arlington baseball stadium...

[Javaman]

There was someone on here yesterday talking about how moron* in his deal to get the land for the Arlington Texas Rangers stadium build, had offered people a compensation amount, but if they turned it down, they would go ahead and build the stadium anyway, thus kicking them off their own land.

anyone have a link to info on that?

[Richardo]

1. John Dean's "Worse Than Watergate" described that transaction

but my feeble memory has lost most of it :eyes:

[teach1st]

2. Stealing Home

Stealing Home

BY ROBERT BRYCE • THE TEXAS OBSERVER, MAY 9, 1997

http://www.mollyivins.com/showMisc.asp?FileName=970509_f1.htm

George W. Bush loves baseball. And why not? After all, baseball has been very good to the governor. When it comes to power, the governor is a true triple-threat. Consider his record: (1) His initial baseball investment of $600,000 carries the current potential of a 2,500 percent return. (2) Through savvy P.R. and political maneuvering, he and his partners have persuaded a city and the state to directly subsidize a facility for their business. (3) Not content with taxpayer subsidies, he and his fellow owners have also successfully used the power of government to take land from other private citizens so it could be used for their own private purposes.

Yes, baseball has been very good to Bush. Moreover, the biggest deal Bush has ever done, the career-shaping transaction he boasted of on the campaign trail—the planning, funding and construction of the Texas Rangers’ Ballpark at Arlington—has been largely ignored by the national media as they rush to paint Bush’s presidential portrait.

Yet whether the public interest issue is taxes, size of government, property rights, or public subsidies of private sports ventures, Bush’s personal ownership interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team has been wildly at odds with his publicly declared positions on those issues. And ongoing litigation over the Ballpark deal has revealed documents showing that beginning in 1990, the Rangers management—which included Bush as a managing general partner—conspired to use the government’s power of eminent domain to further its private business interests.

Since he took to the stump three and a half years ago to run for governor, Bush has railed against "big government." On the very first day of his campaign, November 8, 1993, Bush told supporters in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas that "the best way to allocate resources in our society is through the market place. Not through a governing elite, not through red tape and over-regulation, not through some central bureaucracy."

More

[peekaloo]

3. .

http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/pearly/htmls/bush-sec5.html

[AllegroRondo]

4. another thread about it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3930110&mesg_id=3930110

[flyarm]

5. here about arlington and texas rangers!

http://www.bushfiles.com/bushfiles/SweetheartDeal.html

snip:

In 1990 the Rangers agreed to pay any costs that exceeded $135 million on the Ballpark project. Under those terms, the city's position is that the $7.5-million judgment should be paid by Bush and the Rangers. Two days after Hicks purchased the Rangers, Arlington city attorney Jay Doegey told this reporter, "We have a

contract with them that says they will pay anything over $135 million. The costs in the condemnation case are over that amount." But Doegey has not demanded payment; it appears that Arlington city

officials don't want to irritate the owners of the Rangers.

Tom Schieffer, who was a general partner and president of the Rangers, said, "It's not our debt. That's the position we have taken. And that's consistent with what the master agreement says." But now that Schieffer and Bush are cashing in their chips, wouldn't making good on their $7.5-million debt be a nice gesture to the city? "I'm sure we will work out something," said Schieffer.

"I think when it is all said and done, I will have made more money than I ever dreamed I would make," Bush told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. And he's making millions because the Ballpark at Arlington is a gigantic, taxpayer-supported, cash machine. Last year, Financial World magazine named the Ballpark the most profitable venue in baseball. Hicks didn't buy the Rangers because he wants Juan González's autograph. He bought them because he can make a lot of money at the stadium that George W. Bush takes credit for building.

In 1993, while walking through the stadium, Bush told the Houston Chronicle, "When all those people in Austin say, 'He ain't never done anything,' well, this is it." But Bush would have never gotten the

stadium deal off the ground if the city of Arlington had not agreed to use its power of eminent domain to seize the property that belonged to the Mathes family. And evidence presented in the Mathes lawsuit suggests that the Rangers' owners --

remember that Bush was the managing general partner -- were conspiring to use the city's condemnation powers to obtain the thirteen-acre tract a full six months before the ASFDA was even created.

[Czolgosz]

6. I posted this elsewhere, but I'm re-posting it here because this should be

something we ALWAYS bring up whenever we discuss eminent domain.

So as far as I can tell,

1. The Republican dominated court wrote an opinion
2. which was signed by a majority of Republicans
3. which favored big businesses over individuals.

Which part of this is surprising to you?

This is business as usual.

Take the interesting example of one underachieving oilman from west Texas. This is a guy who drove a few oil companies into the ground and then wrongly used his insider knowledge to avoid taking the financial loss personally and ultimately violated SEC rules about reporting the matter. Turns out, this guy was a failure at everything he touched, but his daddy was a big shot politician.

The Texas Rangers baseball team wanted to build a new stadium in Arlington, Texas, and they wanted the government to take land away from Texas families to build the stadium. But the Texas Rangers didn't have the political clout to do this until they came up with the genius idea of selling part of the team (for pennies on the dollar, it was a real sweetheart deal) to this failed oilman with the politically connected daddy. This was basically a Texas version of the deal where the Libyan government hired Billy Carter to help them negotiate the purchase of transport planes while Jimmy Carter was president.

This deal completely screwed the Mathes family out of their land in Arlington, Texas. In fact, the Mathes family didn't even get a one fifth of the fair market value for their land which they were kicked off.

The result? Well, the failed oilman was well paid for helping screw the Mathes family out of their land. The Texas Rangers got the failed oilman $14 million for the part of the team it sold him for only $600,000 (which is a hell of a lot bigger payoff than Billy Carter ever got). In 1993, the Houston Chronicle newspaper asked the failed oilman if he deserved credit for the stadium, he said "When all those people in Austin say, 'He ain't never done anything,' well, this is it."

I don't have to tell you who the failed oilman was, do I?