Patterson Under Pressure
December 8th, 2007 at 8:49 am
The Christmas Mountains are still on what Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston) calls “the auction block.”
Whitmire decided late last week to wade into the ongoing debate over the Texas General Land Office’s plans to sell the publicly owned mountain range near Big Bend to the highest bidder (but only bidders that will allow guns to be fired on the property).
Whitmire says he spoke with Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson Thursday about the pending sale.
Whitmire’s release had something of an elegant statement in it that argued for not selling the property at all:
“…we should be protecting our public lands for generations of Texans to enjoy, not selling it to the highest bidder… We can continue to build more malls, office buildings, and condos; but we will never be able to produce more precious, undeveloped land.”
The senator and the land commissioner argued over the meaning of “access” to the mountains. Patterson says there are no public roads into and out of the pristine mountain wilderness and suggested that’s a problem for making it a park.
Whitmire argued that the state has the power to condemn parts of the private property surrounding the mountains in order to create roads — if that’s what it will take to get Patterson to keep the land in Texan hands.
Patterson says the condemnation process “is not an option that this commissioner will use.”
Whitmire says he doesn’t understand Patterson’s sense of urgency.
“(Patterson) talks about not getting access,” Whitmire told me. “I don’t know why Jerry’s so hell-bent on selling. I am just asking him to give us a legislative session to look at it.”
Whitmire added: “He’s not getting much money for it… I ‘m saying hey, don’t pull the trigger here. I just think the public is of the opinion that you don’t sell valuable parkland… It won’t fund much public education.”
Land Office communications man Jim Suydam says the previous high bids offered around $60 per acre (the land has already been through one round of bidding). That would mean Patterson’s office could get roughly $600,000 for the 9,269-acre mountain range (or more).
Suydam said the property was purchased 16 years ago by a private entity for $30 an acre and then donated to Texas. That’s a 100 percent appreciation in less than a generation — not bad.
Suydam says currently there are two active bids “that were basically put on hold for 90 days” on Nov. 6. Suydam noted that the National Park Service has rejected the property twice, but he said the rejections were not based on Patterson’s insistence that any successful bidder allow hunting on the property. He said the restrictions and the price tag were the issues for the feds.
The Houston Chronicle’s Clay Robison details the ‘encumbrances’ on the land dictated by those that donated it to the state:
“The mountainous property is hard to manage because of restrictions placed on it when the Conservation Fund gave it to the state. No utilities or new roads are allowed on the property, and a caretaker’s cabin is the only building permitted.”
It’s clear that Patterson wants to make a point about guns with the sale. The commissioner reportedly carries a pistol in his boot and allows Web site visitors to send greeting cards to friends featuring Patterson — in one case holding a semi-automatic pistol. I sent one to myself.
The Land Office says its real estate deals on behalf of the Permanent School Fund are worth $500 million annually. So, Suydam argues, the revenue from the Christmas Mountains sale would not make a difference one way or the other.
“This is totally not about money,” Suydam said. “It’s about getting the land into the hands of somebody that’s going to take care of it.” He said the new owner is going to have to build fences, chop cedar, and replace what meager infrastructure (windmills, etc…) exists.
The School Land Board will decide what happens after the 90-day period elapses. The board is chaired by Patterson and consists of two other members appointed by the governor and attorney general.
In the meanwhile, Speaker Tom Craddick has also chimed in, sort of. Craddick charged the House Committee on Land and Resource Management to review the Land Office’s authority to make real estate deals along with “the appropriateness of this authority.”
With both Whitmire and apparently Craddick questioning this move, is it likely Patterson will reconsider? Suydam says he doesn’t want to presume to say what the board will do in February, but given Patterson’s disposition, I wouldn’t bet on a change of course.
January 31st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
[…] may be close to knowing the fate of the Christmas Mountains, a near-10,000-acre tract of sensitive wilderness in that fearsome, beautiful part of Texas just […]