Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Promises, promises
In August, just before the ‘Great Fire’, all four Commissioners were contacted individually for in-depth conversations about the proposed Central Texas Airport. One thing really came into focus as a result of those meetings.
When Jim Carpenter was selling the airport to the County, it seems the Commissioners were assured that there would be no large aircraft like 737s and that there would be no cargo traffic. Yeah, right . . .
Then came the bait-and-switch in the 381 Agreement. That troublesome document contains no limitation or exclusion of aircraft size and the word ‘cargo’ is nowhere to be found.
Anybody who’s ever watched Court TV knows enough to ‘get it in writing’. But the Commissioners and their attorneys, who were paid handsomely to broker and vet the deal, didn’t.
Here’s what they did get:
(a) All Agreements. All oral and written agreements between the Parties to this Agreement relating to the subject matter of this Agreement that were made prior to the execution of this Agreement have been reduced to writing and are contained in this Agreement.
So all those reassuring promises amount to absolutely nothing, nada, zip, zilch.
It’s impossible to point a finger in any one direction as the Commissioners voted in lock-step to approve the 381 Agreement on June 14, 2010. Perhaps it’s just lack of experience. The county only has one other 381 Agreement on the books - for Burleson Crossing - that was approved on October 5, 2007.
