The leader of a company that has purchased the former site of Fairfield Lake State Park offered more details of his dealings with state officials on Thursday, highlighting what he described as a lack of serious offers by the state to buy the land that is now the focus of eminent domain proceedings by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
The state had leased the land for decades for use as a park, but did not buy the property from Vistra Energy when the lease ended. Vistra sold the land to Todd Interests for more than $100 million dollars. Todd Interests plans to develop the site, but the TPWD wants to keep it for use as a state park. Officials there have voted to use the power of eminent domain to retake the land.
Shawn Todd of Todd Interests held a news conference on the steps of the Freestone County Courthouse on Thursday to show residents documents he had received from the state. He said their initial offer of $25 million dollars for the property was not serious and was worded in such a way that it was not guaranteed.
"Many of you own property, many of you own businesses," he said. "You understand what a real offer is. You understand what 'all hat and no cattle' means."
He urged people at the news conference to show their support for private property rights and to oppose "the open and brazen abuse of power by politically appointed individuals and their weaponization of a state agency to wrongfully take something that is not theirs."
Freestone County Commissioners have publicly sent a letter to state officials expressing their opposition to the plan to use eminent domain to re-acquire the site.
Todd indicated he would fight that plan and said he had hired a law firm with expertise in eminent domain cases.
"We represent nothing but land owners in this state and several others," said attorney Edward Vassallo of Vassallo and Salazar. "Until this came up, I had never seen a situation where a landowner was trying to buy a piece of property in an open market...and he is threatened that if he buys the property, legal action will be taken against him by the state. I've never seen it happen - not in Texas, not in several other states that we have been in."
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