Is there an email address for this person?

All of the TPWD emails follow the same format.

rodney.franklin@tpwd.texas.gov

david.yoskowitz@tpwd.texas.gov

What happened here is an absolute disgrace that falls solely on the state of Texas and TPWD. They had ample opportunity to purchase this property at a fair price but, I believe, thought the power company would gift it to them, allow them to only buy the portion they were occupying (for free for 50 years), or they'd simply cut another sweetheart deal with the new owner. As soon as this hit the news and the public started crying foul, they were suddenly willing to pay more than the original asking price. When that didn't work, they pulled out all the stops and went the imminent domain route.

I, and others I know, emplored TPWD and the state legislature to purchase the property before it sold. Yhe response I got was that it wasn't in the budget. What about that $5 fee we were all slapped with on fishing licenses over 10 years ago to upgrade the fisheries department? Anyone remember that? Wasn't that only supposed to last 5 years and go away? Well, it's still there. So, why not use that money to purchase the property? That was my solution to the budget issue. Hell, tack on another $5 if you have to. It would pay off in 3 years or less. Just don't tell us that once it does, that fee will ever go away.

But I digress. This was a major failure on the part of the state. Texas is growing, people. We have less public land than any state in the country. It's time Texas started buying up what they can while there's still lands to be had that future generations can enjoy. How are the youth of today going to become the outdoorsman of tomorrow if it's something only the wealthiest of us can do? Soon enough, there won't be a need for Texas Parks and Wildlife unless their only goal is to manage city parks.

unfortunatly money taken in by the states sometimes end up in the general fund an from that point it is spent on many things other than what it was collected for. our state an country has a spending problem on a lot of wasted projects not a collection problem.

The state should have bought the whole property and kept the current state park while using the rest of the property for public hunting.

In a few years the kids will have no interests in hunting. The fishing industry has the fishing teams in high schools now so there will still be interest in fishing.

I agree, I see it in generation Z right now, no interest in hunting because it costs too much and their aren't affordable places to go. Bleak future for hunting in texas unless you own big chunks of land or are rich, its a shame the state didn't buy the thousands of acres from luminant and make it public hunting. Youth fishing on the other hand seems to be flourishing.

It's too painful for the little darlings to be off the grid for more than a few hours and miss out on Snap Chatting stupid pictures to their group. Maybe a deer stand with unlimited WIFI and a smartphone shaped rifle will be invented to capture their interest..... I have seen the "panic face" many times on multiple teenagers faces out in the middle of the lake, when the signal starts to roam. And yes I have a teenager, so I am speaking from experience.