Nah, them rich folks will have their groceries delivered or have the hired help do the shopping . They won't set foot into any of the local businesses around there .

Allison—-That is a common practice to attract business. Fairfield and the state benefitted from Vistra for 50 years

Exactly, 50 or more years ago, Freestone County was a thousand times more desperate for revenue than they are today. Back then, county commissioners hoped for a prison or a mine or anything to generate jobs and tax dollars. In some cases they made deals with the devil just for tax money…..Similar to the charade on display here.

Vistra and its legacy companies received millions over the years from the county and the State. Unfortunately the government lacked the foresight to secure the park. I can’t imagine back then, anyone would have predicted as the population grew, we would ever be closing generating plants. Who could have predicted we would have a Kenyan born anti American communist installed as the President.

Say it was a lease, not free

It was a free lease, no rent due.

It’s free just like Vistra was tax free…. In reality it was a mutual agreement that Vistra conveniently forgot about when it came time to save the State Park area.

There was nothing forgot about. Vistra informed Parks and Wildlife in writting, in 2020, that the lease would not be renewed when it expired in 2023 because they were going to sell the land and lake. They had three years to make an offer. Instead, they waited until it was sold.

Fairfield was by far the easiest lake to catch fish within 150 miles of Dallas.


A lot of people's catch rates will now be reduced.

Both sides benefit from it.
Same can be said for most of the sports arena's around this area. The GM plant in Arlington. Most every large company makes deals with communities that use tax abatements as a lure.

I am sorry it is gone but not sorry that Todd got to keep it. He did nothing at all wrong.

According to the old inter web Garner State Park was established in the 1930’s so your facts of Vistra owning it are false.
Also it is not listed on the 15 State Parks on leased land

Pretty girl.
I like to back free enterprise when they are threatened by the government in instances like this.

At every step until Todd closed on the property, both him and Vistra offered to let the state buy the property.
At every step.
Why get mad since once he secured funding he had a responsibility to the people who loaned him money?

The only reason why he was able to buy it was the state did not try to buy it at a price both sides agreed on.
Up to the last minute, the last week and the last couple days both Todd and Vistra (Burke) had offered to let the state buy the property. I'm sure if the state had even tried to make a deal based on Todd owning part of the property for his own use they could have made that deal. The problem there as WAWI said, if it was not a private lake and for the exclusive use of the development owners, the land value for the park was close to the price of the whole parcel.

He's not from here? He's been here in Texas since the early 80's, going to college at Baylor.

Why so condescending Allison with the Pretty girl comment. You guys disagree but you have to put your stamp on it with a comment like that. Maybe that is why many on this board tire of your viewpoints and your high and mighty BS. I know I certainly do.

Nathan has been active in the process and expresses many valid points. If you disagree fine but comments like that make it hard to take anything you say seriously.

That was obviously satire---indicated by the (LOL) at the beginning of the sentence (lol …maybe that helps put it into perspective.)

The point being, that Garner is probably one of the States most loved parks. Most people that grew up in Texas spent time there as a child with family or Boy scouts etc....People like myself, consider Garner and a few other places in Texas as sacred ground. I'm not talking about in an environmental wacko tree huger sense....I'm talking about being a proud (native) Texan. It appears to me, that because Fairfield was lessor known, or because of the [censored] lease situation, many want to discount it's worth as a place to escape. My point was thank god Garner was set aside long ago by a generation of people that were way smarter than we obviously are now.......By the way the State also pays no property tax on Garner, so maybe the local commissioners can get together and figure out how to kick them out of that County as well......FYI that last sentence was another example of my sarcasm.

You are comparing private land and a park that the state failed to even bid on to a park that whose land was bought for the park.


As important as the park was to you, maybe to everyone in the state, the problem wasn't that Todd bought it.
The residents of the state knew for years that it was going up for sale and the park could close because of it and we did nothing to remedy it. I still don't know why you blame Todd for our inaction.
I know that. You know that and still somehow you hate Todd because of our inaction.

Allison--[/quote]-At every step until Todd closed on the property, both him and Vistra offered to let the state buy the property.
At every step.
Why get mad since once he secured funding he had a responsibility to the people who loaned him money?

The only reason why he was able to buy it was the state did not try to buy it at a price both sides agreed on.
Up to the last minute, the last week and the last couple days both Todd and Vistra (Burke) had offered to let the state buy the property. I'm sure if the state had even tried to make a deal based on Todd owning part of the property for his own use they could have made that deal. The problem there as WAWI said, if it was not a private lake and for the exclusive use of the development owners, the land value for the park was close to the price of the whole parcel.

He's not from here? He's been here in Texas since the early 80's, going to college at Baylor.


Man Allison, you and Todd need to get a room....You have a tremendous "Fanboy" crush on him. If you don't work directly for him, or you are not one of his sons....you need to be.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe Todd is a Saint. I also suspect that Todd, Burke and others were in cahoots, to take the park from the nincompoops at TPWD. I also believe that when the property was listed at 110 million, the State thought no one would bite and they never expected the influx of Chinese money, or that anyone would ever receive legitimate funding without an actual licensed appraisal. The TPWD is restricted by so much red tape and processes to protect the taxpayers money, that Todd was basically playing chess against a mentally deficient opponent. Not to mention the extra help he was receiving from the corrupt politicians he was secretly in communication with. It would not have been too difficult for Vistra, Todd and TPWD to have sat down together and worked out a deal honoring the State park and the citizens of Texas. There are so many wild cards in this story that no one with any sense could possibly take what transpired at face value.

Fortunately this deal is over for the time being, I say when we get to a 150 pages of arguments, we all agree to move on to another topic.