Government By Developer.


Check the slide show, check the documents, the maps, check the story.... it's FYI.

... too busy with local battles lately.

Below, follow up letter from Dell on gifts.


Main Page-->> http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/spe/2001/0610denton/

Snip ......

'Designer districts' benefit developers

Broad powers flow from Legislature

07/03/2001

By BROOKS EGERTON and REESE DUNKLIN / The Dallas Morning News

Just beyond San Antonio's city limits, a taxing authority has been set up for the exclusive benefit of a proposed golf-course resort.

Another such special district covers nearly 600 acres in the Hill Country outside Austin, where another developer envisions a hotel complex.

A third lets a builder near Tyler and his employees serve on a nominally public board that will make financial decisions affecting his planned truck stop.

Texas lawmakers made it all possible in the last legislative session - with no dissenting votes. They passed at least nine bills whose sole purpose was to give individual developers government powers: selling low-interest bonds and levying taxes to build roads, water lines and sewer systems.

Some of the bills, all of which have been signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry, confer more power than state law ordinarily allows or grant exemptions from regulations. "They're basically creating designer districts," said Bill Bunch, who heads a group battling several developers in Austin's sprawling suburbs....

... I think a lot of Texans ... believe we write the bills," Mr. Wentworth said. "We don't. It's natural. There should be nothing suspicious about the fact that a developer hires a law firm to write a proposal for consideration."


Snip...

Full article --->> http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/spe/2001/0610denton/23.html

Posted: Mon - December 6, 2004 at 07:23 PM            

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