the Controversial Committee Report
“We don’t raise sacred cows...we just butcher them.”
"Drain the Swamp Moat"
The disturbing thing about keeping up with current news and events regarding ‘beautiful downtown Irving’ is that it is becoming more difficult to know what is reality, truth, spin, opinion, or unadulterated revisionist history by folks swimming in the social media ‘political swamp moat’ of QueenB VD!
As this perplexes Dylan Westie, Executive editor/Part-time wordsmith and Social Media Troll for the CCR, he decided to troll and possibly start draining one of the social media ‘political swamps moats’ to reflect how disinformation or "fake news" can be disseminated on the local level.
In the 01-01-17 CCR report, mention was made regarding QueenB VDs consistent votes against the ARK Entertainment Center. This notation was in reference to ARK planning a grand opening celebration in 2017. The report also noted how QueenB VD suddenly had a "scheduling conflict" (photo op, or Red Meat TEA-carnivore blathering session?) and could not attend the original ARK groundbreaking…even after she had responded she would be present. (Now, that’s royalty classlessness!)
Later, imagine Dylan’s surprise as he waded through the local social media ‘political swamp moat’ and read that the QueenB VD had never been against the ARK Entertainment Center! What?! Huh?!
If the above statement wasn’t bad enough, the feeble and paltry attempt to spin this fabricated ‘political swamp moat’ fact was even more disingenuous. The flimsy rationale — without mentioning the negative votes the queen did cast against the ARK Entertainment Center project — stated the queen didn’t want to give freebies to the ARK developer. What?! Huh?!
Accordingly, one would have to believe, reading the ‘political swamp moat’ rambling, QueenB VD also didn’t want to give away the farm in any contractual negotiations with developers bringing progress to the city. While this may sound majestic and what QueenB VD would offer as spin, does this really meet the ‘political swamp moat’ smell test?
Known Facts: Irving and ARK are partners in the Entertainment Center development. As the city owns both the land and the new buildings, this somewhat dismisses the ‘giving away the farm,’ or providing a plethora of ‘freebies’ to the developer. As with any partnership of this nature and magnitude, the developer, ARK, is totally responsible for providing their share of all the development cost for the project…and, dear readers, this is what has occurred. Ergo: the city owns the farm and any unknown ‘freebies’ automatically accrue back to the city. Even Old McDonald would have been proud of this agriculture deal!
What is not mentioned, in any of the ‘political swamp moat’ ramblings, by QueenB VDs Flying Harpies and sycophant followers, is where the queen actually might have given the farm, livestock and equipment away to one of her favorite developers, Hines Realty. If ever noted on the social media site, one might even expect to read a dyslexic rendering of her actions on this issue and the developer’s actions by the queen’s co-dependents.
Hines Realty: When the queen met with Hines Realty folks and OliverMcMillan personnel, behind closed doors, in Las Vegas, only the parties to the meeting know what was actually discussed, concluded, or established.
However, since arriving in ‘beautiful downtown Irving,’ the list of ‘freebies’ and other farm acreage provided to Hines Realty would cause Santa’s ‘freebie’ bag to explode all over the landscape QueenB VD supposedly doesn’t want to give away to other developers.
Case in Point: Weren’t city bonds, in the amount of $33M, provided for Hines to construct ‘infrastructure’ for three Hines single family home developments in north Irving? Of course, there also appears to be a convoluted "repayment" plan for Hines which hopefully would rely on homeowner fees and city taxes via a TIF construct designed especially for the developer.
(Please, don’t hold your breath waiting and expecting the full reimbursement of city funds to be repaid any time soon.)
While the queen was all gaga for ushering these farm-give-away issues forward for Hines, who is not a partner with the city similar to the ARK partnership, she adamantly opposed another nearby north Irving single family home developer who was not requesting any city funds, welfare considerations, or contributions to their development project. Why the negative vote there?
(Could her negative vote, in this instance, be due to the developer not paying fealty to her royal highness, or maybe desiring Hines could, in some way or another, weasel their way into this project?)
And the saga of farm-give-away enhancements are still accruing for Hines under the queen’s reign. Another city project Hines forged was one which QueenB VD might attempt to pontificate ad nauseam during her re-election efforts. This would be the queen’s "dedication" and "attention" to ‘beautiful downtown Irving’ in the older section of the city.
Backstory: Remember all the property the city paid high bucks for as a result of the Gonzalez/McDougal downtown renovation fiasco? Remember how the property the city acquired, in the settlement with McDougal, had a city-book value about eight times what the actual market/appraised value of the lots and property might be? In essence, to close the McDougal chapter, the city, under QueenB VDs reign, poured your water and sewer bond tax bucks into a significant chunk of highly overvalued property, to buy out McDougal, with little expectation of ever recouping the actual book value cost to the city.
Enter QueenB VDs favorite developer, Hines Realty, to save ‘beautiful downtown Irving’ and keep the farm glowing on the queen’s tarnished image.
Under the let’s ‘give-the-farm-away’ "deal" with the city, Hines will have a four phase purchase option wherein the city will sell, at $50,000 for each phase, property and lots to develop.
(The property has to be sold, since the city cannot give it away! And be assured, the price being paid by Hines will not represent the actual book value cost to the city.)
The first phase of the agreement, exercised by Hines, was for 25 lots (single family type), which have now been unrealistically rezoned, by bending major P&Z zoning regs, into 40 lots. Even though Hines has to pay for all infrastructure and improvements, the simple math might indicate this could be a genuine sweetheart deal when the company builds on, or sells the lots to other developers.
To make the ‘give-the-farm-away’ "deal" even sweeter, any future or possible profits from the agreement, with the city, will be split 50/50 after Hines has "recovered" all of their cost plus plus a new kitchen sink. Additionally, when recouping all their expenses, Hines will also be allowed to include, as a major deduction, the original $50,000 sales price cost of the property! Now, whom wouldn’t construe this not to be a sweetheart deal with QueenB VDs blessing?
So technically…the queen has kept the ‘beautiful downtown Irving’ farm intact and her sharecroppers are none the wiser. And the betting line on the city recovering even a third of the properties book value cost will probably never be realized.
Moral of Draining the Swamp Moat: Local social media readers should be leery when QueenB VDs shills post statements and items, which when analyzed and verified with city council transcripts or ICTN video tapes of meetings, prove to be nothing more than re-election campaign spin, blather, or co-dependency affirmations pleasing to the queen.
QueenB VDs swamp moat, surrounding her royal digs, has an abundance of politically toxic elements, most unknown to the apathetic majority, and that is one reason alligators even refuse to live there.
Isn’t it time to crank up the pumps and drain QueenB VDs moat?
……………………………..Mark Holbrook
