[lbo-talk] Eminent domain

[jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net]

All this talk of eminent domain has me thinking again about Bush's dealings with the Rangers. During 
Bush's reign with the Rangers, the team "acquired" the ballpark at Arlington. The Rangers were alleged to 
be looking to relocate out of town prior to the Bush group's acquisition. After Bush and friends came to 
power, the State of Texas and the City of Arlington funded the construction of the new ballpark at 
Arlington., This was accomplished largely with a local sales tax I believe. The City of Arlington using 
eminent domain forced private owners to sell land to be used ostensibly for the ballpark. It has been 
claimed that in many instances it was at a price believed to be below fair-market value. This also including 
hundreds of acres around the new ballpark that have since been developed for non-baseball enterprises. 
The truly unique part of the deal was the fact that the ballpark and surrounding acreage was given to the 
club in exchange for a total of $60 million in rent payments. This was an odd use of eminent domain wasn't 
it?

John Thornton