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Also, local Democratic legislators will introduce a bill in the next legislative session that will protect Texas property owners from preditory developers looking to take advantage of this law.
Just for the record, I disagree with this decision. However, George Will calling this a liberal victory is a joke considering that we have a 5-4 Republican majority on the Supreme Court.So, absolutely nobody here likes this decision, except maybe Dan. He's oddly quite.
Also, local Democratic legislators will introduce a bill in the next legislative session that will protect Texas property owners from preditory developers looking to take advantage of this law.
well george will is old, in newsweek and loves baseball
he gets a pass on everything
No, over a million idiots watering their lawns in San Antonio has made water a scarce issue. So much so that they have come to Gonzales County, leased water rights from a few induviduals, and can pump water from the Carrizo-Wilcox, which doesn't have water restrictions and takes over 20 years for water to reach the lowest part from the surface - unlike the Edwards.
A few years ago, the citizens of Gonzales county elected a water board to keep that from happening. They ended up turning around and selling the rights out from under the people they were elected by.
Water is the new oil. One of the members of the water board just happened to have 5000 acres over the deepest and thickest part of the carrizo aquifer. SAWS is planning on pumping from there.
We don't mind sharing our water, but the concern is that the water levels in the upper/shallower areas of the aquifer will drop substantially, along with potability.
I don't like the fact that "good neighborhood" is subjective.
I finally agreed with something Nbadan posted.
It's bound to happen to the best of us..
Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.
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The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."
Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.
"This is not a prank" said Clements, "The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development."
SA is going to start getting water from Canyon Lake which will make up about 30% of it's water supply. If you can find it, there was a GREAT series on PBS about Rivers in Texas and the whole water rights thing came up. Funny story, back in the early 90's there was a catfish farm north of San Antonio that had unrestricted water rights and lowered the Edwards Aquifer by 30% in just a couple of years till they shut that baby down.
Good do entary.
They shut it down by buying the water rights, guy and his partner got
rich off that little farm.
Water rights are the new 'white gold'. Land owners with primary water rights will be the new Jeb Clampett's of the 21st century.They shut it down by buying the water rights, guy and his partner got
rich off that little farm.
IMHO, this is bad news and the little guy just got smaller.
Pssst...Toyota did the same thing in San Antonio.
Here's the deal. Developer/Manufacturer wants some land and offers to buy out the homeowners. All agree but as time goes on there's always a few who wants 5x or 10x the value of their land.
This ruling, as is my understanding, protects property owners from their fellow property owners. The lawsuit was one of property owners against property owners.
Can a corporation go in and force 100% of people that doen't want to sell to sell their land sell ? No.
What it's about is, when YOU and 95% of your neighbors want to sell and 5% don't...those 5% can be forced to sell.
It prevents the escalating cost of buying out landowners and people holding out to get a value beyond what their property is worth.
It's simply a decision for THAT particular case, it's not a blanket 'corporations can make you sell your land' at will, thing.
The attempt to grab Justice Souters land doesn't hold up because that's the ONLY land they want. So, that would be like 100% of homeowners saying...no. And so far, only the government has THAT kind of stroke.
This ruling doesn't change that. Tempest in a teapot.
I've heard too many, yes even republicans, that say this is going to be bad for the people and I tend to agree with them.
The only way to really fix this is to amend the cons ution to protect personal real estate property. Only a strong public need should force someone out... not a commercial venture for profit.
Can anyone recall how the Texas Rangers got their stadium built while President Bush was part owner?
According to baseball-statistics.com:
Cost: $191 million
Public financing: $135 million (71%) from a one-half-cent sales tax increase in the city of Arlington over 12 to 15 years
Private financing: $56 million (29%) from the Rangers owners
From a 1997 Texas Observer article by Robert Brice...
Texas ObserverBut through the Arlington stadium deal, Bush, who owns 1.8 percent of the Rangers, has been personally enriched by using the "governing elite" and the "central bureaucracy" not only to confiscate land for private purposes, but to get a huge public subsidy for a stadium that generates profits for himself and the Texas Rangers. Though Bush’s present ownership percentage of the team is relatively small, the asset represents a large part of his personal wealth; moreover, Bush’s deal with the team includes a provision that will almost certainly multiply his future ownership interest to 11 percent.
Briefly, here’s what happened on the Ballpark deal. Bush and his partners in the Rangers convinced Arlington officials to:
• Pass a half cent sales tax to pay for 70 percent of the stadium;
• Use the government’s powers of eminent domain to condemn land the Rangers couldn’t or didn’t want to buy on the open market;
• Give the Rangers control over what happens in and around the stadium;
• Allow the Rangers to buy the stadium (which cost $191 million to construct) for just $60 million;
Finally, after twelve years as the sole occupant and primary beneficiary of the stadium project, the Rangers, a privately owned business, can take le to the most expensive stadium ever built in Texas for the $60 million worth of rent and upkeep they will have already paid the city.
Since he became governor, Bush has not forgotten the Rangers. Although he put his stocks and other assets in a blind trust when he took office, he kept under his own control his ownership interest in the Rangers (held through a company called GWB Rangers, Inc.) Based on published estimates of his net worth, that interest represents his single most valuable asset. According to his most recent financial disclosure filing with the Texas Ethics Commission, Bush’s limited partnership interest in the Rangers went into the blind trust in January of 1995. But he didn’t transfer his general partnership interest because, as he attempted to explain in a brief press conference at the Governor’s Mansion on April 11, that would have been an "unnecessary" change in ownership. And a change in ownership, he said, "would have required a vote of the baseball owners to do so. And it became unnecessary. We just didn’t think it was necessary to get that vote. Secondly, I own it. I mean, there’s no question I own it. . . So it’s not necessary." (It’s worth remembering here that the major league baseball owners as a group cons ute a government-protected monopoly.)
Necessary or not, Bush’s ownership interest in the Rangers may yet prove an embarrassing entanglement. The Rangers are currently arguing with the City of Arlington and the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority (ASFDA) over who will pay a $4.98 million jury award to the Mathes family, which owned thirteen acres of land condemned in 1991 by the ASFDA and now covered primarily by parking lots used by stadium visitors. The jury’s award, made in May of last year, now stands at $7.2 million and is growing, with ac ulated interest, at $1,800 per day. A related lawsuit, known as Ramshire N.V. vs. B/R Rangers Associates Ltd., filed in 1994 in Tarrant County against Bush and the other owners of the Rangers, could force the Governor to testify under oath about the events that led up to the stadium project.
The Windup
During his campaign against Governor Ann Richards, Bush took every opportunity to remind voters of his participation in the Ballpark project. "When all those people in Austin say ‘He ain’t never done anything,’ well, this is it," Bush told R. G. Ratcliffe of the Houston Chronicle in late 1993, as he walked around the stadium.
Bush got into the Rangers deal in March 1989, when he helped arrange a syndicate that purchased the team for $89 million from Fort Worth oil man Eddie Chiles. Bush invested $600,000, which bought him a position as one of the two managing general partners of the Rangers organization, a job that paid him $200,000 per year. In addition to the money, of course, Bush brought other major assets to the table: his presidential name and Texas political influence.
But Bush also had a huge incentive to raise the value and profitability of the Rangers franchise. According to a May 8, 1994 article published in the Houston Chronicle, under the terms of his agreement with the Rangers, once his partners recoup their investment, Bush’s share of the club will jump from less than 2 percent to more than 11 percent. The Rangers organization declined to confirm Bush’s current ownership percentage.
Over the past few years, the value of the Rangers franchise has surged, in large part because of the lucrative arrangement the team made for the Ballpark at Arlington. After the stadium was completed in September of 1993, the value of the Rangers jumped from $106 million to $132 million, according to the annual assessment of major league sports franchises done by Financial World magazine. The magazine’s most recent valuation, in May of last year, put the franchise’s value at $138 million. If Bush’s ownership is now 11 percent, his share of the club is currently worth $15.18 million, a 25-fold return on his original investment in just eight years. The Rangers say they have not yet paid any dividends to the team’s twenty-nine owners. Thus, Bush’s stake in the club is likely still 1.8 percent, currently worth $2.48 million—a four-fold return on his original investment.
The stadium deal came about because the Rangers were determined to get out of Arlington Stadium, a former minor league ballpark—which had once been sufficient to lure them away from their old home of Washington, D.C., where they played as the Washington Senators. The Rangers owners began talking to other cities about the possibility of relocating the team in exchange for a new stadium. Eager to keep the team in Arlington, Mayor Richard Greene agreed in October of 1990 to a deal that included increasing the local sales tax by a half-cent. In January of 1991, Arlington voters approved the sales tax increase—which will raise $135 million of the stadium’s $191 million price tag—by a margin of almost 2 to 1.
But local approval wasn’t the only hurdle the Rangers had to clear. They needed legislative approval to create a financing authority that could issue bonds. In April of 1991, the Rangers shepherded through the Legislature a bill written by Arlington State Representative Kent Grusendorf, which would create the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority, a quasi-governmental en y endowed with the power of eminent domain. Shortly after the bill was signed into law by former Governor Ann Richards, three parcels of land located near the stadium, nearly thirteen acres in all, were condemned by the ASFDA. The land was owned by two companies, Ramshire and Clairwood, created for the benefit of a series of trusts. Those trusts, in turn, benefit the heirs of television magnate Curtis Mathes.
Among court do ents is an unsigned Rangers memo by a team representative, discussing the history of the Mathes tracts. The representative notes that in his first contact with the Mathes family concerning the land, on November 6, 1990, "I was not well received." The memo goes on to say that the ASFDA’s appraiser assigned the land a value of $3.16 per square foot, for a total value of $1.515 million. "An offer was made by the Authority at this price. This offer was rejected & the Sellers countered with $2,835,000.00 for all three tracts, i.e.: $5.31 p.s.f." In mid-December, the ASFDA offered the Mathes heirs just $817,220 for the three tracts, far below even what the ASFDA’s first appraiser had suggested. The Mathes family refused to sell, and the ASFDA seized the land through eminent domain.
Glenn Sodd, a Corsicana attorney who represents the Mathes family, says he has found little evidence that Bush was directly involved in the decisions to condemn the property for the stadium. But he adds, "What happened to my folks was pretty audacious. It was the first time in Texas history that the power of eminent domain has been used to assist a private organization like a baseball team."
Last May, a Tarrant County jury found that the sports authority’s offer of $817,220 for the Mathes property was too low, and it awarded the Mathes heirs $4.98 million, plus ac ulated interest. For the past year, the city of Arlington and the Rangers have been arguing over who will pay the tab.
Arlington Deputy City Manager Bill Studer, who also serves as executive director of the ASFDA, told Metroplex reporters in March that the city expects the Rangers to pay the jury award. But Tom Schieffer, the president and current general partner of the club, thinks differently. "Our position is, that is a judgment that’s against the sports authority, not the city or the Rangers," he told the Observer. "The sports authority has to pay that." Yet Studer appears to be in no hurry to talk to the Rangers about the dispute. On April 3, nearly a year after the Tarrant County jury decided the Mathes heirs were owed $4.2 million more than the ASFDA offered, Studer told the Observer, "We haven’t discussed it at all with the Rangers at this point."
While the two stadium allies contemplate liability, both sides in the lawsuit have appealed the verdict. Sodd’s clients are claiming the land should never have been taken in the first place. If the appeals court agrees with them, they could seek millions of dollars from the ASFDA and the city for the loss of the use of their property. In addition, since their land was part of the collateral upon which the bonds were issued, the whole deal underlying the stadium could fall apart.
Meanwhile, the city of Arlington is appealing the verdict. Jeanene McIntyre, assistant city attorney, said "The appeal is based on our belief that the judgment given to the Mathes family was excessive."
Property Rights Foul Ball
Of all the issues surrounding the stadium construction, the issue of governmental power and eminent domain is the most troublesome. The Republican Party has long advocated less government intrusion into the property rights of citizens. Bush actively campaigned for governor on a property rights agenda. In October 1994, he told members of the Texas Association of Business, "I understand full well the value of private property, and its importance not only in our state but in capitalism in general, and I will do everything I can to defend the power of private property and private property rights when I am the governor of this state."
But evidence in the Mathes case suggests that the Rangers owners were planning to condemn the Mathes’ land and other tracts as least six months before the ASFDA was created. In an October 26, 1990, memo to Tom Schieffer, Mike Reilly, an Arlington real estate broker and part owner of the Rangers, said of the Mathes property, "In this particular situation our first offer should be our final offer. . . If this fails, we will probably have to initiate condemnation proceedings after the bond election passes."
Reilly’s memo was written nearly three weeks before the Arlington city council called for a referendum on the sales tax proposal for the stadium, and a full three months before the referendum went before voters, yet it assumes the proposal will pass and condemnation will be a legal option. In his memo, Reilly also suggests that Schieffer should inform Arlington city officials that the team owners will expect also effective control—by city ordinance—of any neighboring land they won’t own outright. Reilly wrote, "The Rangers want the City to establish development standards. . . that you can have input on. By doing this, no one within a certain radius of the ballpark development could get a plat or building permit approval without the City’s approval. The ‘development standards’ established by ordinance would give you a tremendous amount of ‘quiet’ control over the land parcels you do not own in the area" [emphases in original].
On November 7, Reilly wrote another memo to Schieffer regarding the Mathes property, saying he had spoken to Jane Mathes Kelton, and since she was not being cooperative, in Reilly’s judgment, he believed "the City will have to condemn her land," and therefore Schieffer should "get the City" to hire condemnation attorneys. Apparently wary of any compe ion for the land parcels, Reilly also advised Schieffer to tell Bob Bennett, the president of Six Flags Over Texas, that the Rangers "plan to condemn this land so he will not waste his time" talking with the Mathes family about buying the property. (The Mathes’ land sits next to land owned by Six Flags, and family members had spoken to Six Flags officials about acquiring their property for use in the amusement park.)
In his memos, Reilly appears confident that the Rangers were used to calling city hall to "get the City" to do the team’s bidding—and expecting the local media to cooperate. In the November 7 memo, he reminds Schieffer "to get Greene [Arlington Mayor Richard Greene] to get some clean up crews out on the property under my supervision. . . so people can see how beautiful it really will be. It could help us pass the election and I’m sure some newspaper person could tour the site with you and a nice story would result."
Asked about the Reilly memos, Schieffer said, "Mike Reilly is not the Rangers. Reilly was a person we were using to try to option up land. Whatever Mike Reilly’s thoughts or opinions were, were not necessarily the opinions of the Rangers."
In defense of their actions, Rangers officials and city officials insist that the stadium is a "public use"—akin to a roadway, school, or city hall—and thus, condemnation was an appropriate use of governmental power. The Fifth Amendment to the Cons ution provides that citizens may not be deprived of their property "without due process of law; nor shall property be taken for public use, without just compensation." The Texas Cons ution, Article 1, Sec. 17, follows the federal statute, saying "no person’s property shall be taken, damaged or destroyed for or applied to public use without adequate compensation." So at least two questions should be answered by defenders of the stadium project, including Governor Bush: (1) Is the stadium truly a "public use" of sufficient public benefit to justify condemnation of private property for stadium construction? (2) Were the property owners, whose lands were seized by eminent domain, granted due process and just compensation?
For the Ballpark at Arlington project, the city and the ASFDA condemned the land, yet the Rangers ball club, a private corporation, receive all future revenues to be generated from that same land. The Rangers now own development rights over the entire 270-acre complex including an amphitheater, office buildings, shops and restaurants. In addition, the master agreement between the City of Arlington and the Rangers gives the team control over almost everything that occurs on the property. "The Rangers shall collect and retain as their income all concessions, parking signage, sublease revenues, naming allowances, and any and all other revenue produced within the Facilities," says the agreement.
Asked if the stadium was a public use, Mayor Greene replied "There was a public benefit to building the ballpark project. The land needed to support the project had to be acquired for the project. . . It’s not different from any other condemnation project. The project is for the direct benefit of the Rangers and the community. There’s a mutual benefit in this project, and it’s well accepted and well established in law that this project was eligible for that public purpose."
During an interview with the Observer, Schieffer compared the stadium several times to the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. "If we didn’t have that airport, we wouldn’t have an airport that employs 68,000 people," he said, adding that stadiums should be looked at as "infrastructure and as engines that pull other development."
Whether or not the stadium project is a public use may be debated; moreover, several recent studies of the economic impact of sports facilities—including the Arlington stadium—fail to support Schaeffer’s claim that the stadium generates broader local prosperity. But court records and press reports show that the Rangers owners clearly understood the profit-making potential of developing the land around the stadium. Court records show that Craig Stapleton (a cousin of Governor Bush) sent a letter to Schieffer shortly after the stadium deal was announced, saying he was willing to "advise" the team on the "residual real estate" around the stadium. Stapleton went on to say "I think we have quite a play."
On October 27, 1990, Bush was quoted in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the Rangers’ real estate plans, acknowledging "the idea of making a land play, absolutely, to plunk the field down in the middle of a big piece of land. That’s kind of always been the strategy." While Bush insisted on April 11 that he was "not aware of the details" in 1990 regarding plans to condemn the Mathes’ property, he clearly did know of the plans to exploit that land—"making a land play"—for commercial purposes that would benefit himself and the owners of the Rangers.
In recent years, the use of eminent domain in Texas has grown more common. It was used to acquire land near the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, and for a controversial shopping center built in Hurst. The trend has caught the attention of Republican Senator David Sibley of Waco, one of Bush’s closest allies in the Legislature. While the Senator would not comment directly on the deal that allowed Bush and his partners to obtain the land around the Ballpark, Sibley said he is worried about potential abuses of eminent domain. "I will tell you as a butt-kicking conservative Republican, I am very concerned about it, I really am," he said. "It causes me problems."
Tom Schieffer remains unapologetic about the condemnation of the Mathes property, and he’s angry that the family was able to get such a high jury award. "The thing that is quite disturbing about this whole process is that the Mathes family and Glenn Sodd were able to get $11 per square foot for their property," he said. "The highest priced land for the [rest of the] project was $2.67 per foot. It is amazing to me that the legal system could work so poorly." It may sound ironic coming from a representative of the Rangers, but in Schieffer’s opinion, the Mathes family had "managed to manipulate the system."
Hey, how about that.• Use the government’s powers of eminent domain to condemn land the Rangers couldn’t or didn’t want to buy on the open market;
Actually residential use only accounts for 25% of all the water usage in the US.
The rest goes to agriculture.
Source: What I remember from studying water issues in my geography class a few years ago. Gotta love a liberal arts education.
We don't really need to amend the cons ution.
This is one thing that I think the states are good for, and one issue that gets people from both sides of the political spectrum hot under the collar.
I think that laws to shield home owners from this sort of thing are being proposed in just about every state legislature and city council in the US at the moment.
What about industrial use?Actually residential use only accounts for 25% of all the water usage in the US.
The rest goes to agriculture.
Source: What I remember from studying water issues in my geography class a few years ago. Gotta love a liberal arts education.
Just wait, before RG is through he'll account for 168.75% of all water usage...from memory, of course.
Ignoring Scott's point from above are we?
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