Anonymous means it didn’t happen. Nobody would donate that kind of money for some hillbillies to go fishing.

Exactly lolz hopefully it's a good golf course, maybe they will do a stay and play deal like pine dunes. 1500 for a couple nights, a couple rounds of golf and a day pass for lake..... that would be a good weekend

Chris....I second that appraisal, do we have a third vote????? 85 million is a fair price for the property without all the water rights BS. Fingers crossed my name pops up as one of the three Freestone residents picked to set the price or serve on the jury.

AUSTIN— The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission adopted a policy Thursday limiting its use of eminent domain.

The policy, adopted during the commission’s August meeting, limits the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) from taking private property for park sites except under exceptional and unusual circumstances, mainly property previously dedicated to public use as a park.

“Given its significant potential impact on private landowners, our commissioners chose to limit TPWD’s use of eminent domain to ensure it will be used exceedingly sparingly and only under specified circumstances,” said Commission Chairman Arch “Beaver” Aplin III. “The policy is clear — TPWD will not use eminent domain to condemn residences, farms or ranches.”

Parks and Wildlife Code (section 21.103) authorizes TPWD to acquire park sites through condemnation with payment of fair market value compensation to the landowner.

One way to read that might be, "We're not going to use eminent domain authority to take any ol' property we want, but we are going to take this property."

https://tpwd.texas.gov/newsmedia/releases/?req=20230824a



This is how inept our state parks and wildlife is.
They voted to accept this limit on when they can use eminent domain.
Notice how they used the word "mainly". That allows them to use it for everything in Texas except "residences, farms and ranches". Why in the world did they even bother?

I think Todd will use "Given its significant potential impact on private landowners," in his impending lawsuit.
He'll say "What! Am I not a private landowner?".

I wonder what they'll come up with today.