the Controversial Committee Report
“We don’t raise sacred cows...we just butcher them.”
“Billy Bob 2.0”
Here we go again…but with some new players!
There always seems to be a ‘stick in the mud’ when it comes to Irving’s Entertainment Center. Without repeating the history of ex-mayor BVD’s total disdain — by parroting her Sugar Daddy’s instructions to work against the original project and later ARK, or the sordid $1M+ campaign contributions, by Billy Bob Barnett, to BVD’s mayoral opponent — is the Entertainment Center project heading toward another legal limbo swamp?
Even after demonstrating the Entertainment Center has successfully drawn crowds, enter those — Irving Taxpayers Matter — who chart a creditable course to wipe away all the good PR and venue attendance received since the grand opening.
However, with Billy Bob closing all his restaurants, and a law suit filed by, wait for it, Irving Taxpayers Matter, the entire Entertainment Center becomes embroiled in another legal charade involving Billy Bob…which could stain and backslide the good that has already been accomplished by the city, ICVB and ARK.
Well, dear readers, staff of the CCR doesn’t want to bore you, so this report will challenge your innate skills of scanning a few facts to see if you can ‘read between the lines’ to determine what is actually happening with Billy Bob and Irving Taxpayers Matter. We’ll call this pop quiz: Really?
The Dallas Morning News article, noted below, will be your guide through this exam. Good luck and see if you can read between the lines! And when you do, let us know. You’ll probably register more chuckles than what this report might create.
DMN: June 6, 2018
Are you one of the Irving tax payers who matter? Really?
The tax bucks, detailed in the law suit filed by Irving Taxpayers Matter, are related to the $44M in TIF (Tax Increment Funding) taxes collected from all the businesses within the established TIF district. TIF funding was granted, by the city council, to the developer of the Entertainment Center (ARK), to bring the project to fruition. As a consideration of ARKs total investment of $165M+ in the project, the TIF bucks will assist in offsetting their initial development cost. The city, you see, actually owns the property!
With this in mind, isn’t it extremely doubtful that ordinary taxpayers in Irving — residential, or even business property owners outside the TIF zone — have a stake in this cute “tax” law suit initiated by Irving Taxpayers Matter?
Shouldn’t the group, suing ARK and the city, have named their organization Irving (Elite) Taxpayers Matter? Wouldn’t this seem more fitting and to the point?
Is Billy Bob’s closing of his restaurants on May 29th and the Irving Taxpayers Matter law suit — actually being filed by Billy Bob’s attorney on the same day — purely coincidental? Really?
Could one think that even without Russian hacking, special counsel Robert Mueller might discover collusion with this “coincidence?” If there should be collusion between Billy Bob and Irving Taxpayers Matter, would Irving Taxpayers Matter merely be the front for the deep state testing of waters for a later Billy Bob lawsuit, or settlement to be relieved from his role in the Entertainment Center project?
Does Irving Taxpayers Matter actually have standing in this issue if some directors do not live in Irving, or maybe even own businesses in the TIF district? Really?
If the law suit does go forward, has anyone calculated the overall damage done to the city and ICVBs tireless efforts to make the Entertainment Center a success? Has poor planning, budgeting, cash flow, and operations dictated a law suit might be the only way Billy Bob could dig out of his legal swamp-mire that he alone possibly created?
When a law suit is filled, shouldn’t the attorney ensure his spell check is turned on and not depend on an Aggie dictionary? Really?
Following is a section of the law suit document filed by Billy Bob’s attorney for Irving Taxpayers Matter. As reported in the DMN:
"The corporation is organized for social welfare purposes which may include education, legislative influencew [sic] and political capaign [sic] intervention including special empahsis [sic] inbehlaf [sic] of the citizens aof [sic] Irving Texas involving taxes collected by all taxing authority over teh [sic] citizens and businesses of Irving, Texas."
Could this have been written, in exceptional haste, at the time Billy Bob’s bars were closing for the last time? Maybe the bars should have had “last call” for good spelling instead of alcohol. Perhaps, a judge will give Irving Taxpayers Matter a D- when reading the official document. Or, one might wonder if legal ambulance chasers really need to know how to spell.
Do friends file law suits for friends? And if not, when is it proper to file a law suit for someone who might not be a “friend?” Really?
A director of Irving Taxpayers Matter made the following statement: “…he knows Barnett but would not call them friends.” If Billy Bob is not a “friend,” and the greater majority of Irving tax payers don’t have a horse in this legal trifecta, then what is really going on here? Isn’t Billy Bob actually the only beneficiary for what this action might bring? Certainly, isn’t inferring Irving’s common taxpayer base -- as having a stake in Billy Bob’s problem -- ludicrous when the law suit relates only to TIF tax collections in the TIF district?
There are many additional kinks wrapped in this Irving Taxpayers Matter law suit. And if one reads between the lines, doesn’t the bottom line appear to be an initial life raft for Billy Bob to board — as he did with his first pass at the Entertainment Center project — and collect his investment to hit the road for another over-hyped venture? Could this better define the role Irving Taxpayers Matter is actually playing in this matter — life-line tossing to Billy Bob?
Hopefully, the City of Irving will not be the whipping boy for this clownish legal action. Irving needs ARK to continue and finalize all of the tremendous work plowed into the Entertainment Center. Shouldn’t Irving finally realized Billy Bob ventures in the city seldom, if ever, turn out to match all the rhetoric and hype spewed over ‘beautiful downtown Irving?’ Do Irving leaders really want to see a Billy Bob 3.0 in the future?
The one fact staff of the CCR wonders, as an element in this whole “taxpayers” farce, is: Does Irving Taxpayers Matter have any form of pecuniary interest, in the Billy Bob matter, which hasn’t floated to the top of the legal swamp they have created?
And more importantly, how many businesses in the TIF district have actually registered their support for the legal entanglement Irving Taxpayers Matter has initiated by filing a law suit against the city and ARK?
……………………………………Mark Holbrook
