The Drama Continues to Unfold with FLSP

Texas Parks and Wildlife moves forward with eminent domain for Fairfield Lake State Park.

Hello! A few posts will be coming in the next week as I work on some writing here, including an animal spotlight as well as an introduction piece about myself, something I’ve never actually done. You might be interested to know who is writing these essays! I’m back on Fairfield Lake State Park today after a lot of developments in the last two weeks. If you are new to this newsletter, I’ve been writing heavily about the loss of a state park from our park system the last few months, as it had been leased for 50 years on property owned by a utility company that sold the property. There’s a lot involved, including the state underfunding TPWD for decades. Have a look at my archives for more information!

Thanks for reading!

On Saturday June 10, 2023, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commissioners met to discuss moving forward with using eminent domain to secure Fairfield Lake State Park, Fairfield Lake, and the additional acreage that had been listed for sale by the previous owner, Vistra Corp./Luminant, for the public. It’s was the culmination of months of legal back and forth between Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the buyer under contract with Vistra, Todd Interests. It’s been a show playing out in the media, with local DFW papers and news organizations functioning as the mouthpiece for Todd Interests, though they actually have Austin based Giant Noise as their PR firm for hire.

During that meeting, every person who showed up to testify that day was in support of the use of eminent domain to save the park. All of the commissioners voted in support of the use of eminent domain by TPWD to save the state park, too. There were several voices in that crowd we’d not heard from before at previous Texas House and Senate hearings. Some were lawyers or landowners who’d been around eminent domain cases before and generally had a distaste for the practice but testified in support of eminent domain in this case. You can listen to it all in full here as I am not going to re-cap it all in this write-up. It’s definitely worth the listen if you’ve got time while doing chores or working. The Commission passed their resolution and TPWD went on about the business of securing the property via the proper legal channels.

Let’s re-wind just a bit to the week before the meeting. Todd Interests officially closed on June 1st or 2nd—I’ve seen two different dates so I’m not sure which is accurate. This was after some late information that I and others had heard that they were having trouble finding an investor to finalize the deal—and they did, at the last minute. A public record search conducted by another person who has been working very hard to save the park found the Deed of Trust for the sale and found that the loan was for $92 million, well under the $110 million asking price Vistra had on the 5,000 acres. Their investor is CMB Infrastructure Investment Group 85, LLC, which is a company that provides EB-5 visas for foreign investors. It’s a pathway to citizenship via investment.

The state park officially closed on June 4th.

On June 6th, Todd Interests sent a threatening letter to the Commissioners outlining the same plight they’ve repeated over the last several months, even invoking "the esteemed Ken Paxton’s office” in the screed. I cackled and kept reading because wow, what a way to show your true face! Truly, almost as bad as the Davy Crockett quip at the Senate hearing in April…but I digress. I’m including photos of the letter at the end of this essay.

In the letter it is also mentioned that their construction equipment was already on the ground as of the June 5th, which to me signaled there was a significant chance they would act in spite to destroy the park before and after the commission meeting. To be clear, they have been working to clear brush and yaupon along the lake shoreline in the state park since last fall. We had seen evidence of this on a camping trip last November, unaware of the drama going on behind the scenes at that point. We had assumed the state park was possibly clearing some yaupon in lieu of a proper burn which is definitely needed in some areas to create better habitat. But no, it was Todd Interests via Vistra/Luminant doing the clearing well before the closing date and well within the lease TPWD had on the land. That habitat destruction continued through the spring based on reports from visitors and there was never any clear answer from anyone on what was going on regarding that project. Knowing this could escalate to large-scale habitat destruction of which there is no return and rehabilitation, I emailed TPWD expressing my concern about this, hoping they would discuss it at their meeting or perhaps put some kind of injunction on the situation. They did bring it up but only mentioning it as hoping Mr. Todd would be a gentlemen and hold off on construction and razing of habitat until the legal proceedings were completed. They have much more faith than I do. I have none.

Of course, towards the end of the letter he invokes the word “activist” for Chairman Aplin and the others on the Commission and well…I don’t think I need to explain that dog whistle. I mean, sure, the businessman owner of Buc-ee’s, worth $500 million, is an activist. Whatever story you need to tell yourself, I suppose.

So, TPWD passed their resolution on the 10th and then it was quiet until the 15th when Todd Interests held a press conference. It was really just their lawyer giving a 5 minute soundbite reiterating the same spiel they’ve been saying these last few months with the intention to fight the state the whole way. Oh, and a new dog whistle, “un-elected commissioners”, was bandied about, too. Lest anyone forget these folks are appointed by the elected governor of Texas. By virtue of electing the governor you also have to deal with appointees to commissions such as this. To be clear, you don’t have to be an elected official or go through legislation channels to use eminent domain. I’ll explain more on that later.

They had their press conference which didn’t allow the press to ask any questions but the following day, June 11th, Shawn Todd went live on KNES 99.1 FM in Fairfield to have what I would call a “good ol’ boy chat” with the host that morning. The radio station posted it to their Facebook account the night before and asked for questions from listeners and the public, stating full well that they weren’t likely to get to the questions. Oh, and call-ins were not allowed. I really should go find a meme gif to post for this…hold on…

To recap this so it sinks in: The company made a big deal out of their press conference and then didn’t open themselves up for questioning by the media. Then Shawn Todd went on a local radio station in the city they want to build this gated community for the extremely wealthy on state park land as well as sell water from a lake that was formerly open to the public as of June 4th, and had uninterrupted radio time to air his grievances without being questioned by anyone other than the host.

AND THEN GET THIS—the next day at the Freestone County Fair the company bought the Grand Champion Steer for $34,000!

You cannot make this stuff up.

Honestly, I’m waiting for the Texas Monthly exposé in five years that goes into the insanity of this whole thing. From failures in the state to why a developer that typically focuses on restoring urban developments would even venture to dig their heels in this far into a razing and building “3rd and 4th homes” for the ultra rich in a rural community, over a beloved state park. It’s honestly bizarre at this point.

In all of this there’s a contingent of folks who just plainly don’t know how eminent domain works. Everyone and their dog will preface eminent domain with “I don’t like it to be used…blah blah blah.” And I do see where they are coming from. I’m not fond of TxDOT and other entities coming in and expanding highways and displacing people who have lived there for decades, or like what the Port of Freeport did to a historically black neighborhood. I guarantee that these people proclaiming their dissent in eminent domain use are not thinking nor care what happens to these folks. The specter of ED for Fairfield Lake State Park has been used as the bogeyman, with people positing that if TPWD uses ED for the park then “they” can come and take your ranch! I’m sorry, but TPWD doesn’t want your 150 acres of hayfield where you run cattle that hasn’t been in a natural state in 75 years.

To all of this, I wondered if I could find out how much eminent domain is used in Texas. Luckily the State Comptroller has a tally going back to 2015! There were 254 condemnation petitions filed in 2022 from entities such as cities, regional water authorities, energy companies, counties, and ports. Some of these are likely small projects for utilities such as water line expansions, others could be for schools or expanding the local port! Unfortunately you can’t see the details on why a petition was filed but you can write to the entity in question for information. And you can see the eminent domain authority that has been granted to each entity to get an idea of why they would use a petition as well as state statutes allowing this action to take place.

I think we can all agree that having your property condemned and taken by a private company or government agency would be frustrating and disastrous in many cases. Many of our National Parks were created via eminent domain and did displace a great many people, often poor, rural folks. We can also reach back and understand that living on this land for millennia and having your land forced from you without just compensation, and often death, is even worse. In this situation, however, this isn’t the family farm being taken to expand an airport or to create a parkland from scratch. There was 50 years of the state park and lake being use by the public. And if you factor in the public utilities aspect of Vistra/Luminant owning the other parts of the land and its ties to providing a public utility to the public in the region, well, there’s no real “private” here.

From some of the people more readily willing to flog the state for its real and perceived faults, there’s some kind of weird pleasure they seem to get from seeing the state lose the state park. A very c’est la vie attitude about the situation. No real depth of understanding on the loss of biodiversity, nor even the very fact the majority of the people in the community and county just lost access to nearby park space that they will be excluded from entirely in the future. Nevermind that usually small towns with state parks heavily rely on tourism to support their commerce.

Lest you think I’m letting the state off the hook for anything, I’m not. I have more to say on that side of things that I’ll address in coming essays I’m still working through, but I was angry at them when I initially began writing about the state park back in January, and I’m still angry. 30 years of one party rule, paired with this extreme value on private property in the state, has been a detriment to our park system. I’m starting to follow that back and see traces of that even 20+ years ago showing up in the reflections in TPWD documentation on the need for improved infrastructure and additional parks. It’s incredibly disheartening and must be even harder to watch for TPWD employees over the decades.

So, where does all of this lead?

There’s an active dog and pony show being launched by Todd Interests to garner favor within the local Fairfield community, this despite being absent publicly from any sort of events prior to recent weeks. I have no doubt they have been in contact privately with movers-and-shakers within the community well before this, as well as working with members of the community who are against the state, state park, and eminent domain. It’s pretty clear that has happened and I wouldn’t expect it any other way for a business to be doing this—it happens all the time. Money, or the prospect of money, talks.

If through the eminent domain process we end up at the point where there’s a commissioner’s hearing to determine fair property value, this is where the PR campaign comes into play. Shawn Todd is on record with the Fort Worth Star Telegram stating, “The state’s going to pay an infallible amount of damages to us. It’s going to be sad for the state, it’s going to be reckless stewardship, it’s going to be lack of accountability,” Todd said. “They’ve appropriated a billion dollars of the fund to buy up parks—they may pay just that for one park.”

Saving parks and important biological spaces is never without strife and this is all part of it. The environment doesn’t always win. We know that and I think that’s why it hits so hard for those of us who care so deeply about these spaces. The only way out of this is through, so we have to watch as the state goes through the eminent domain process and Todd Interests continues their PR campaign, and we will do what we can to champion the flora and fauna living on the property in the meantime.

Late Edit: This came across this morning from DMN Freestone County officials oppose Texas’ plan to use eminent domain on Fairfield Lake land - to continue on the thread of money talking. And then also this one Freestone County commissioners will ask Texas to halt eminent domain on Fairfield park - which highlights Judge Linda Grant doing an about face after being for the state park for months, including writing a letter in support of the commissioners in the June 10th meeting.

So.

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Misti writes regularly at Oceanic Wilderness and can be found on Instagram at @oceanicwilderness. She hosts two podcasts, Orange Blaze: A Florida Trail Podcast, and The Garden Path Podcast.