Trump: Bush family used eminent domain to build a baseball park

The Hill ^ | 2/7/16 | Bradford Richardson

[jimbo123]

Following attacks from primary rival Jeb Bush about his past use of eminent domain, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump on Sunday accused the Bush family of using the practice to build a baseball stadium in Texas.

"Eminent domain is a very important thing," Trump said on ABC's "This Week." "Jeb Bush doesn't understand what it means, and if you look into the Bush family - I found this five minutes ago - they used eminent domain for the stadium in Texas, where they own, I guess, a piece of the Texas Rangers."

When host George Stephanopoulos said that was Jeb's brother, former President George W. Bush, Trump said his point still stands.

"That doesn't matter," he said. "It was the Bush family. They used private eminent domain. He didn't tell anybody this. So, I mean, he should have told people."

"Maybe - he probably doesn't know because I don't think he even knows what eminent domain is," he added.

[demshateGod]

Ok. Thanks Trump. Now we know the Bushes sucks AND you suck.

[Hoodat]

Trump has no clue what he is talking about here. The land in question was owned by the City of Arlington.

[woofie]

I thought the way it works is if anyone was ever within 3 miles of GW Bush they are guilty.....

[Hoodat]

So [Jeb] used eminent domain for a baseball park?

Nope. Not even close.

[sharkhawk]

It’s a good reply except the Texas Rangers don’t own the stadium, it’s owned by the city of Arlington Texas. We can debate whether the government should be building the stadiums, and I don’t think they should, but it’s a clearer case of public interest than a limo parking lot for a private casino.

[Hoodat]

Bush complained and got the taxpayers to pay for the nrw ball park.

Arlington voters passed the referendum by a 2:1 margin. Eminent domain authority was granted by the Texas legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ann Richards. At the time, Bush only had a $600,000 stake in the team. Jeb Bush had zero involvement.

[Liz]

Jeb (as did Cruz) deliberately lied about Trump using eminent domain to bulldoze a widow/s house.

The house was not bulldozed or taken from the widow. Or made into a casino parking lot. There is no truth whatsoever to this story.

Jeb/Cruz are desperate ..... contriving a scenario of a "poor put-upon woman victimized by Trump."

The widow/s conniving was so apparent. Trump offered her more and more money as he built his casino around her pigsty of a home. In the end the widow's scheme to blackmail Donald flopped.

Mrs Coking stubbornly refused the million dollar offer for her
pre-WW11 abode. Holding out allowed the casino to be built around
her property She figured she could extract even more money for the
postage-stamp size property.

Jeb/Cruz should have mentioned that.

Trump/s offer was a whopping $1.9 mill----another Jeb/Cruz stumble. She turned it down. Her son got her to come and live with him and they put it on the market for $5 mil. No buyers. It finally was auctioned off for back taxes and sold for half a million. That was the gross...not net.

The son's agenda was apparent, as well. The son thought he would make a killing since everything would eventually go to him. Tough luck, bud.

The irony of the widow/s position is that she could have beat Donald at his own game....ask for points in his casino and had more money rolling in that she could have ever dreamed of.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

I don’t think this makes it OK to use government coercion to force an old lady to sell her house to make way for a casino parking lot.

Trump is pretty good at distractions, though. I’ll give him that.

[map]

Arlington voters passed the referendum by a 2:1 margin. Eminent domain authority was granted by the Texas legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ann Richards. At the time, Bush only had a $600,000 stake in the team. Jeb Bush had zero involvement.

You have to hand it to GWB. He's a helluva businessman.

Bush and his team got the City of Arlington to do his dirty work (eminent domain) on private properties and then walked away with a tidy profit.

[Ben Ficklin]

"If the team had waited for the taxpayers........"

They did. Arlington built the stadium and the voters approved a $135 million bond package to build it, which was retired 10 years ahead of time, in 2001.

As always, Trump is full of shit.

History of Baseball in Arlington

[VRWCmember]

So, you consider Daily Kos to be a reliable journalistic source?

[VRWCmember]

Interesting details. Bottom line is that Trump TRIED, but failed, to use eminent domain to have a widow’s home seized for a limo parking garage.

[Dante3]

Interesting. Strange that Jeb would bring up eminent domain considering his own family’s record.

[Dante3]

Interesting. Strange that Jeb would bring up eminent domain considering his own family’s record.

[Ladysforest]

The history of the Coking widow.

In the late 1970s, Penthouse tycoon Bob Guccione, eager to get in on the Atlantic City casino action, offered Coking $1 million for her lot. She refused. Exasperated, Guccione tried to build his facility around the house, but his project went broke before he could finish, leaving a steel frame looming over Coking’s place for more than a decade.

So, there was a massive steel framework virtually encasing the house. She had run the house as a boarding home, but did not take any borders from the time the first casino was built in 1978.

Trump comes along in the early 90’s and acquires the unfinished Guccione project, and the CRDA (the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority) offered her low market value - condition considered, and she refused. She wanted one million (even though she had refused that same amount when offered to her in 1980), (then later on down the road when Trump came up to her asking she refused her own price).

She blamed Trump personally for some damage done to her roof by the construction company that had the job of disassembling that steel structure that Guccione had built OVER her house.

The construction company took ownership of the damage, and offered to pay her $90,000 to have repairs. She refused. She wanted more and she wanted to sue Trump in the bargain. The judge wouldn’t go for that. Eventually she took the $90,000 because she was so far in arrears on her property taxes that she was in immediate danger of having the house foreclosed for unpaid taxes.

Superior Court Judge Richard Williams said the attempt by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority to take the property for a new parking lot and a public park at Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino was flawed because it did not guarantee that the company would not later use the land simply to expand the business. Yet, Trump never did do anything with that land he had the structure removed from except build a parking lot AND a landscaped public green-space.

[BAW]

Trump is going to be awesome against Hillary, and is going to be an amazing president! Take no flack. Take no prisoners.

[GeaugaRepublican]

Funny thing... I do not remember anyone here at Free Rebpublic complaining about GW Bush use of eminent domain...

did W use it? Yes he did... See below...

“In 1991, the team convinced local voters to approve a tax increase that helped build a new $191 million stadium. The city of Arlington used eminent domain to acquire the property from hundreds of private owners, claiming the stadium was a “public use” just like highways, schools, and government buildings.
Several property owners were lowballed, and court decisions increased their final take. The compensation for one 13-acre plot was increased from $877,000 to $5 million, for example. The city, not the team, was held responsible for making the larger payments.

The stadium clearly benefitted the Rangers’ owners more than anyone else. Bush turned his initial $600,000 investment into $15 million when the team was sold in 1999. But it has produced little of the promised economic benefit to Arlington, and there has never been a real “public use” factor aside from baseball fans’ paying their money to see games.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/26/125539/-

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol16/issue42/pols.bushstadium.html

For those questioning if it happened while GW owned the team here is the baseball ownership for George Bush...

A series of beneficial moves, By Tom Farrey

The sequence of events related to the purchase and sale of the Texas Rangers by George W. Bush and his partners:
1988
October: While helping manage his father’s presidential bid, George W. Bush learns that Bush family friend and Fort Worth oil man Eddie Chiles is putting the Texas Rangers up for sale. (His father is elected president in November.)
1989
January: Bush is first mentioned in news reports as a potential candidate to run for governor of Texas in 1990, despite never having held public office. Republican leaders express concern about his lack of credentials and experience.
April: Bush helps arrange a syndicate to purchase controlling interest in the Texas Rangers for $89 million. He borrows $500,000 to buy a small stake in the team and convinces the investor group to make him managing general partner. Bush becomes the public face of the team, while co-general partner Rusty Rose assumes control over the financial side. He receives a reported salary of $200,000 and begins lobbying for a new stadium for the club, which plays in a renovated minor-league facility, Arlington Stadium.
September: The Rangers fail to make the playoffs. But with new free agent pitcher Nolan Ryan, they post their first winning record in three years (83-79) and surpass 2 million in attendance for the first time in franchise history.
1990
April: Bush buys an additional $100,000 ownership stake in the Rangers.
October: Arlington Mayor Richard Greene crafts a deal that will go before voters and devote $135 million toward a new stadium for the Rangers by raising the sales tax by a half-cent. At the time, Greene is among a group of former executives being sued by federal regulators for his role in the widespread savings-and-loan scandal.
1991
January: Arlington citizens, by a 2-to-1 margin, approve public funds for the new $191 million ballpark. Two weeks before the vote, federal regulators dismiss their lawsuit against Greene after he pays a $40,000 penalty.
April: The Rangers shepherd through the Texas legislature a bill that creates the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority (ASFDA), a quasi-governmental entity that is given the power of eminent domain. Shortly after the bill is signed by new governor Ann Richards, 13 acres of private property are seized for the Rangers’ new ballpark, later prompting two lawsuits.
Juan Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez break in with the Rangers, giving the team two popular stars in Latino communities of North Texas. Both would later become American League MVP award winners.
July: Bush buys another $6,302 ownership interest in the Rangers, increasing his financial investment to $606,302.
1993
January: President George H.W. Bush leaves the White House, defeated by Bill Clinton.
September: George W. Bush announces his intention to run for governor of Texas in 1994, making the decision after expressing some interest in the baseball commissioner’s job that has been vacated by Fay Vincent.
October: Nolan Ryan, baseball’s all-time strikeout leader, retires after 27 years. Ryan, who had become a Bush friend, later campaigns for him for governor.
1994
April: The Ballpark in Arlington, with its retro touches reminiscent of Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards, opens to much fanfare. A league-leading average of 40,374 fans attend games in the coming months, best in franchise history.
August: The end of the season is canceled due to a labor dispute between owners and players, with the Rangers finishing in first place for the first time in franchise history. Among major-league owners, Bush is perceived as a moderate who worked hard to avoid a work stoppage.
November: Bush is elected governor with 53.8 percent of the vote, defeating popular incumbent Ann Richards despite her attacks on the stadium deal and Bush’s grasp of issues. (She had declared that it was “difficult to run a race against someone who doesn’t have a clue.”)
December: Before taking office, Bush resigns as managing general partner of the Rangers but keeps his ownership stake in the team. At the time, his share is 1.8 percent equity interest, plus another 10 percent bonus if the team is later sold and the investors get back their original investment plus interest (Rose, the other general partner, gets a 5 percent bonus for his role).

[HLPhat]

>>The story back then was George W. Bush owned part of the team

Hmm. Was that before or after the Park was named Ameriquest Field - Ameriquest being the predatory/fraudulent lender owned by the shrub's ambassador to the Netherlands (and the Godfather of Sub Prime) Roland Arnal?

"Oops!"

http://www.google.com/#q=Texas+Rangers+Ameriquest+field

 

[VerySadAmerican]

Here’s what I posted last night.

“And I’m sure eminent domain played a big part in W’s Texas Rangers baseball stadium.”

Surely some of Trump’s people read FR. LOL

[VerySadAmerican]

Back in the 80s a Super Collider was going to be built south of Dallas. I met a guy who sold his land and a few people sitting around said “This guy go rich.”