There was once a Sec of the Treasury from Texas who moved all the state’s accounts to a new bank. Later that banked loaned the Sec and some friends money to buy some land in South Austin. That land was later sold to the state for a new expressway. Isn’t that special?
The favored site was in the sleepy burg of Manor, quite some distance from the center of town.
Various officials and their sycophants loaded up on private real estate around the proposed site before it was announced. (What better might one expect from an incorrigible city administration?)
Well, the Air Force came to the rescue, in a way. Despite the efforts of long-time Congressman J. J. ("Jake") Pickle, the base closing commission put Bergstrom AFB on the list. (I always call it Burpelson AFB, being convinced that it was the prototype for the base in Dr. Strangelove.)
The Burpelson site was leased from the City for $1 upon the establishment of the base in 1941. The lease stipulated that the site and all of its improvements would revert to the City if ever decommissioned as an AFB.
So the City finally then gave up on the Manor site, dispossessing all the crooks who tried to make a killing on it. They then spent a carload of money converting the AFB into a pretty nice airport: Austin Burpelson--oops, I mean Bergstrom--International Airport.
That land was later sold to the state for a new expressway. Isn’t that special?”
Isn’t that the land whose majority owner(s) was from Spain? It may well well have been the Trans Texas highway deal. I know that project was supposed to have been scuttled but there are eight new lanes of concrete beginning south of Houston and headed right down 59 for the border. Or was that deal in your post for something else? So many questionable things going down during the past several years that it’s hard to keep them all separate.