Gov. Perry: Real Estate Genius

rimrocker · Jul 30, 2010

Or, maybe just crooked...

Murky land deals mark Gov. Rick Perry's past

By JAMES DREW, STEVE McGONIGLE and RYAN McNEILL / The Dallas Morning News

Three years after Gov. Rick Perry's biggest real estate score, questions persist about whether the governor benefited from favoritism, backroom dealing and influence-buying.

The Dallas Morning News found evidence that Perry's investment was enhanced by a series of professional courtesies and personal favors from friends, campaign donors and the head of a Texas family with a rich history of political power-brokering.

Together they may have enriched Perry by almost $500,000, according to an independent real estate appraisal commissioned by The News.

The governor's staff insists these were routine, legal deals that were properly handled. They point to a bank's appraisal, done when Perry sold his land in 2007, that said the buyer was paying Perry slightly less than market value.

Experts hired by The News dismissed that appraisal as "unsupported" and said it did not meet professional standards. County tax appraisals at the time also indicated that the governor was able to buy the land below market value and sell far above it.

Perry, in a brief interview last week, said every land transaction he has made while in office "has been open and honest, and at arm's length," and disclosed in public records.

"So I would just have folks take a look at the record, and I think the record pretty much speaks for itself," Perry said. "Being open and being honest and being at arm's length is what people expect every day."

At the center of the dispute is a gently sloping, half-acre grassy lot on the shore of Lake Lyndon B. Johnson in the Texas Hill Country resort of Horseshoe Bay. The resort is owned by Doug Jaffe, whose family has long, deep and sometimes controversial ties to Texas politics.

Jaffe's company had sold the parcel to state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, a friend and political ally of Perry's. Fraser sold the lot to Perry for just above $300,000.

An appraiser hired by The News determined that the land actually was worth $450,000 when Perry bought it.

Perry sold the property in 2007 to Alan Moffatt, a British national who is a business partner and close associate of Jaffe's.

Moffatt, as the owner of an aviation firm, was questioned, but never prosecuted, for his company's international arms shipments to Africa in the 1990s.

He paid Perry $1.15 million for the parcel. The News' appraiser, who has decades of experience in Horseshoe Bay real estate, found that price to be $350,000 above market value.

Moffatt denied that anything improper occurred in the transaction. "It just happened that the governor of Texas owned that lot," he said. "It was a good deal for me."

If Perry was deemed to have received any gifts, he would, as a state officeholder, have been required to disclose them. He did not do so.

Perry has portrayed himself as one of the most financially transparent governors in Texas history, and has attacked Democratic nominee Bill White for not releasing all tax returns.

Republican Perry, running for re-election to a record third four-year term, has been criticized by political opponents, including GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, for enriching himself via land deals while in office.

The head of a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes transparency in government said Perry's Horseshoe Bay transactions look questionable.

"The man on the street on this would think that this is a series of deals that smell of special favors being created for elected officials to curry their favor," said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation in Washington, D.C.

The Perry deal was hardly the first time the Jaffe family has operated among shadowy businessmen and influential officeholders.

For the Jaffes, it has been a way of life.

'Wheeling and dealing'

Doug Jaffe and his late father, Morris, have built widely chronicled reputations as big-money backers of Democratic politicians going back to Lyndon Johnson's days as a U.S. senator. Johnson and Gov. John Connally were occasional dinner guests at the Jaffe mansion in a San Antonio suburb.

Morris Jaffe, who died in 2001, rose from poverty on San Antonio's west side to create an empire that included oil and gas exploration, real estate, a department store chain and an insurance firm. Among his business partners was Houston oilman Oscar Wyatt, who went to prison in 2007 for paying kickbacks to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The Jaffes were implicated in a federal investigation of billionaire rancher Clinton Manges, a protégé of legendary South Texas political boss George Parr. Manges was convicted of using the mail to file false claims with a state land official to retain an oil lease for the Jaffes.

"Anything they do is wheeling and dealing," said Bob Wallace, a former business associate of the Jaffes whose venture with them fell apart. "Anything they do is complicated."

Doug Jaffe found success in the vending machine business and made a fortune selling "hush kits" that allowed older commercial jets to meet government noise restrictions. His worldwide client list included the government of Nicolae Ceausescu, communist dictator of Romania, and Samuel Doe, a notoriously repressive president of Liberia.

In 1989, numerous press accounts reported that a congressional ethics committee investigating House Speaker Jim Wright subpoenaed both Jaffes to testify about an East Texas oil exploration venture that, despite producing nothing, earned Wright about $150,000.

The Jaffes disputed allegations that they helped enrich Wright so that he would support a bid by one of their companies to win a $3 billion military aircraft contract.

The federal Office of Independent Counsel also investigated the Jaffes as part of a probe of former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, then the U.S. housing secretary, according to the counsel's report. The Jaffes acknowledged they had made thousands of dollars in loans to Linda Medlar Jones, a former Cisneros girlfriend.

While best known for backing Democrats, the Jaffe family also has contributed to Republicans when the GOP was in power. After giving $25,000 to Perry's Democratic rival in 1998, Doug Jaffe gave $5,000 to Perry's campaign fund for governor in 2004, campaign records show.

Doug Jaffe said he appreciated Perry's stewardship of the Texas economy. "I feel blessed that we've had him there," he said recently.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, a longtime Democratic ally of the Jaffe family, chuckled when asked if he thought Doug Jaffe was a Perry supporter.

"Money," he said, "generally follows the candidate they think is going to win."

Texas' Pebble Beach

Horseshoe Bay was started in the 1970s by two cousins, Norman and Wayne Hurd. The former goat ranch 50 miles northwest of Austin has become a glitzy getaway complete with luxury homes, the largest private airport in the state, a yacht club and three championship golf courses.

Its list of celebrity residents has featured former astronaut Jim Lovell, oil well firefighter Red Adair and Dallas Cowboys legend Roger Staubach. It also boasts a cadre of retired chief executives of major corporations.

Doug Jaffe bought out the Hurds in 1996. He then proceeded to pour millions of dollars into expanding the resort, which some consider the Texas equivalent of California's Pebble Beach. Horseshoe Bay is a popular place for second homes built by the wealthy of West Texas. One of those who chose to settle there permanently is Fraser, the state senator.

In 2000, Fraser decided to bring perhaps his closest friend into the exclusive group of Horseshoe Bay property owners – Rick Perry. Fraser and Perry had known each other since they met as teenagers at a Future Farmers of America convention.

Fraser once told a reporter of Perry: "Once he committed to you as his friend, he was your best friend. That's been our relationship for 37 years."

He ran for the Legislature in 1986 at Perry's urging, Fraser said. After Fraser moved from the House to the Senate, colleagues surmised that his growing power stemmed from his close ties to Perry.

Now, Fraser said, they were making plans to live near each other in retirement.

Fraser, a wealthy investor, said he had been eyeing a 10-acre estate with panoramic views of Lake LBJ for development as a luxury subdivision.

For more than two decades, there was only one house on the property – an unorthodox mansion at the tip, owned by Norman Hurd.

Hurd installed sensors along the road leading to his house and an elaborate series of speakers in the woods so that visitors would hear rain forest sounds. Some of the inside walls of the house were lined with fake fur.

"It was a 1960s hippie pad," said Clarence McDaniel, chief appraiser in Llano County. "There is no telling how many millions or billions of dollars of business went on in that house."

By 2000, Hurd had sold his estate to Jaffe's company, which divided the land into 11 waterfront lots. Fraser was one of the first buyers in the development dubbed "The Peninsula."

Fraser said he had known Jaffe for years, and that the family supported him but did not donate to his campaign. "I consider them nice, good people, and because I'm the senator there, they are appreciative that I represent the area," Fraser said.

In September 2000, the senator said, he offered Jaffe $700,000 for a lot adjacent to the former Hurd mansion. After Jaffe accepted, Fraser said he contacted him again a day or two later and offered $300,000 for a smaller lot with scant waterfront footage near the entrance to The Peninsula.

"It was the least distinctive of the lots on the property," Fraser said.

He said he told Jaffe the second lot was for Perry. Jaffe denied that in a recent interview.

Fraser said he made the offers without an appraisal because he knew property values in Horseshoe Bay. "It was a willing buyer, willing seller," Fraser said, and the offers were made at pre-development rates.

Fraser said he wrote one check for $1 million. He said he paid for Perry's lot with the understanding that his friend would pay him back with interest.

The governor's office provided The News with a real estate closing statement that showed Perry paid Fraser $310,762 for the Horseshoe Bay lot on Feb. 28, 2001. Perry used cash from the proceeds of his Austin home sale, said spokeswoman Allison Castle.

Donna Lollar Green, owner of Highland Lakes Appraisers in Marble Falls, Texas, concluded in a report done in July for The News that Perry paid well below market price. Using four comparable lot sales, she placed the actual value at $450,000 at the time of sale.

Both Fraser and Perry's spokeswoman said an ethics lawyer was consulted at the time of sale, and the attorney deemed the transaction proper. Fraser said the governor selected the lawyer. Later, the governor's office said Fraser spoke with the attorney.

Finally, Castle said that there may not have been an ethics attorney involved. "There was no requirement to talk to an ethics lawyer or to get an opinion," she wrote in an e-mail.

Tax protest

One of Perry's first acts as a new property owner was to appeal his appraisal. The lot had been valued for tax purposes at $414,700.

Although the land is in Burnet County, the assessment was done by the neighboring Llano Central Appraisal District. The Peninsula was located within a municipal utility district for which the Llano CAD did appraisals.

McDaniel, the chief appraiser for Llano, said he calculated the appraisal by comparing the governor's lot to some in another high-end development at Horseshoe Bay. He still has questions about the Fraser-Perry deal being an arm's length transaction.

"Obviously, everybody would have concerns in regards to it coming from one political person to another political person that are of the same party affiliation," McDaniel said. "It is a brand-new subdivision. Did the senator get a bargain on them when he bought into it? Maybe, because he bought two."

McDaniel declined to elaborate, citing liability reasons.

Appraisal districts are required to value property at market rates, which the state tax code defines as the sales price if "both the seller and purchaser seek to maximize their gains and neither is in a position to take advantage of the exigencies of the other."

Perry asked attorney Colleen McHugh to handle his tax appeal. A corporate labor lawyer from Corpus Christi, McHugh had just been appointed by Perry as chairman of the Texas Public Safety Commission.

She challenged Perry's appraisal in a letter to the Burnet Central Appraisal District that listed the purchase price. Two weeks later, McHugh and Stan Hemphill, chief appraiser for the Burnet CAD, reached an agreement to lower the appraisal to $310,762. The appraisal district said it had no closing statement to confirm the price.

The appeal saved Perry about $14,000 over the six years that the appraisal district kept the value at purchase-price level.

Castle, the governor's spokeswoman, said McHugh was not compensated for the appeal because Perry had paid her $2,850 for earlier work on the property purchase.

Craig McDonald, executive director of Texans for Public Justice, a liberal Austin watchdog group, said McHugh's legal services had the appearance of a gift.

"It seems to be something that she did that certainly saved him a bundle of money. You would think most attorneys would bill their client for that," McDonald said. "If she didn't, he should have reported that as a gift."

McHugh – a former State Bar of Texas president appointed by Perry in 2005 to the University of Texas System Board of Regents – said it would be improper for her to comment.

The Texas Observer first reported McHugh's appraisal protest in May 2009.

Hemphill told The News he felt no undue pressure when dealing with the governor's attorney. "I didn't have any information that this was out of line," he said.

But he took a harder line with an appeal by another Peninsula property owner.

Austin businessman Jess King bought a lot similar in size to Perry's, but with more lakefront footage, about nine months after Perry's purchase. Its taxable value tripled to $622,037 after the sale. King hired a property tax consultant who concluded the appraisal was inconsistent. Hemphill rejected the appeal, as did the county's appraisal review board. King then filed a lawsuit, which took three years to resolve.

The value of King's parcel was lowered to $550,000 – still more than double the appraisal in 2001, and far above Perry's. The difference, Hemphill said, was that Perry provided a sales price.

King said he was unaware of the difference in values placed on his land and Perry's until being told by The News. "It does seem a little out of whack," he said.

While Hemphill said he considered sales prices to be definitive proof of value, his view was not shared by Dallas County's chief appraiser. Ken Nolan said he would be guided more by sales of comparable properties, as McDaniel said he was.

"I'm not just going to take it at face value," Nolan said of a parcel's sales price. "Price and value are not synonymous in all cases."

Listed for $1.2 million

By 2005, Perry had grown tired of the tax burden and maintenance cost of his Horseshoe Bay lot. He approached Ron Mitchell, the vice chairman of the resort, to help him unload the property.

Mitchell had been assigned by Jaffe to develop The Peninsula, and he became friends with Perry after the governor bought the lot. When Perry ran for a full term as governor in 2002, Mitchell made an in-kind contribution of $9,725 to help put on a fundraiser for him at Horseshoe Bay.

Steered by Mitchell, Perry signed an agreement with Horseshoe Bay Resort Realty listing his lot with a sales price of about $1.2 million, said Michael Gordon, director of real estate operations. The agreement included a standard provision that Perry would pay a commission if the property was sold, Gordon said.

Perry's office did not respond to a request by The News for a copy of the listing agreement.

When the listing produced no takers, Perry pulled the property off the market after about four or five months, Gordon said. The property sat dormant for more than a year, he said.

Then along came Moffatt, a part-time Texas resident with a globe-trotting lifestyle and a colorful past.

In the 1990s, Moffatt owned Peak Aviation, a now-defunct company that the British government investigated in connection with arms shipments to Africa for use in the Rwandan genocide. The tribal conflict may have claimed about 800,000 lives.

Moffatt said in an interview that he met twice with British customs investigators but was never charged with a crime. He said the arms shipments that his company made to Africa were legitimate government-to-government deliveries.

He also acknowledged that Doug Jaffe is a friend and business associate. "I do an airplane business with him, and I have known him for almost 30 years now," Moffatt said.

State incorporation records show Moffatt was listed as a partner with Jaffe in the Horseshoe Bay Resort Air and Business Park. He also bought three Horseshoe Bay condominium units, another parcel on The Peninsula where he built and sold a house, and eight vacant lots in the resort.

Moffatt was known to Jaffe employees at Horseshoe Bay as the boss's partner.

Changes and conflicts

Retellings of how Moffatt came to purchase Perry's property in Horseshoe Bay involved changing and sometimes conflicting accounts.

Gordon, the resort's real estate director, said that Moffatt approached him and that an executive in his office who knew the governor made contact, after which a deal was struck. He would not identify the executive and called his own involvement minimal.

"As a favor, I wrote the contract for him [Moffatt], handed it to him, he took it to the title company and then off they went," Gordon said.

Castle said the sales price was negotiated by the title company, whose owner also worked as an attorney for the Jaffe family.

Mitchell, the resort vice chairman, said he called Perry on Moffatt's behalf about buying the lot. "I either provided the contact information for the governor to Alan or of Alan to the governor's office," Mitchell said. "I got them connected."

In a subsequent interview, Mitchell described a more active role. He said he conveyed Perry's proposed price of $1.2 million to Moffatt and relayed Moffatt's counteroffer of $1.15 million to Perry, who accepted.

Moffatt purchased the land in the name of Wallace Holdings LLC, which identifies him as its sole manager. He and Perry never met, the governor's staff said.

When Perry sold it, the land was appraised for tax purposes at $600,000.

Appraiser Green concluded in her report to The News that Perry's lot was worth $800,000 when sold. Her findings were based on recorded sales of five other properties in Horseshoe Bay in the year before Perry's sale.

Her appraisal also took into account that Perry's lot had only 35 feet of lake footage, by far the smallest of any lot on The Peninsula.

By buying below market value, and selling above, according to Green's appraisals, Perry was able to add $489,238 to his profit.

Doug Jaffe, who said he discussed a possible purchase with Moffatt, said his friend had landed a bargain. "I think the governor sold too cheap," he said.

Moffatt financed the purchase with a loan from The Bank of Texas in San Antonio.

An appraisal done for the bank in March 2007 said the land was worth $100,000 more than the $1.15 million that Moffatt paid.

The News hired a Dallas firm to review Green's work and that of Robert J. Thompson of San Antonio, who did the appraisal for The Bank of Texas.

Thompson based his appraisal on two property sales near Perry's lot whose values were not reported to the Multiple Listing Service, and a third parcel that was listed but had not been sold.

The report to The News by Stephen Crosson, chairman of Crosson Dannis Inc., faulted Thompson's work. "The value expressed in that thing is just essentially unsupported," Crosson said of the bank's appraisal.

He added in a written report: "In my judgment, the Report does not comply with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice."

Thompson said Saturday he could not discuss his work for privacy reasons.

Crosson questioned whether Green's market value was too high because she had not properly adjusted some data. In response to Crosson's report, Green lowered her appraisal by $50,000 to reflect a market value for Perry's property of $800,000 at the time of its sale. After Green's changes, Crosson said her appraisal for The News met professional standards.

Texas law generally prohibits elected state officials from accepting gifts, which are described as anything of monetary value. Exceptions include gifts under $250 or gifts from family members or close friends.

The Sunlight Foundation's Miller, a 30-year veteran of studying the influence of money in national politics, contended the variances from market values amounted to gifts that Perry should have disclosed on his personal financial reports.

"It sounds to me like something they should have avoided, should not have done and depending on the state law, should have been reported," she said.

Perry did not pay a real estate commission on his sale to Moffatt. Mitchell said the waiver of the fee was a favor to Moffatt. The fee, typically 6 percent of the sales price, could have amounted to as much as $69,000.

Real estate commissions usually are paid from the seller's proceeds; buyers are normally not charged.

"Alan may have done something that made him [Jaffe] a lot more money than that in the aviation business," Mitchell said.

Asked if the company would have charged a commission if the sale involved anyone else, Mitchell laughed and said, "We're here to make money."

Castle, Perry's spokeswoman, said there was no need for the governor to declare the waived commission as a gift.

"Commission for what? There was no Realtor," Castle said. When asked about Mitchell's involvement, Castle replied: "He's not a Realtor. He's a developer."

Miller of the Sunlight Foundation ridiculed the notion that Mitchell had not performed a service.

"He finds a ready buyer at twice the price of what the governor paid for it [the lot] and doesn't charge any kind of fees?" she said. "It's ridiculous. It doesn't have to be a real estate commission, but there has to be a fee for arranging that."

'I was sick'

It is not clear if Jaffe benefited from the sale of Perry's property. He maintained that Perry had been good for Horseshoe Bay and he did not want him to leave. "I was sick that he sold the lot," he said.

Perry's aides denied that he did any favors for the Jaffe interests. They also denied that Mitchell's appointment to the Texas State University System Board of Regents in 2009 had any relation to the help he gave Perry on the land sale.

They also insisted that Perry did not know, as The News found, that Jaffe was an investor in a struggling San Antonio aircraft business that the governor approved to receive $2.5 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund.

The company, Sino Swearingen Aircraft Corp., claimed the grant would help create 850 new jobs in Texas. Perry announced the grant in 2006, about a year before the sale of his property in Horseshoe Bay.

Jaffe said he played no role in seeking the funding.

Sino Swearingen announced layoffs soon after the grant announcement. It later rescinded its request for the grant, and no money was paid.

Moffatt's purchase of Perry's land has yet to show a profit. He has had the lot on the market for most of the last three years and recently dropped his asking price to $1.65 million.

Perry spokeswoman Castle she didn't understand why anyone would question the ways in which the governor bought and sold the land. Perry has reported on his federal tax returns that his profit on the sale was $823,000, the largest he has disclosed from a real estate transaction during his term as governor.

"He purchased it," Castle said. "It was a fair price. He was later interested in selling it. He had an interested buyer. He sold it. ... It was pretty straightforward."

Back in Horseshoe Bay, curiosity lingers.

"He sold it for a pretty good profit," said local real estate broker Vic Shackelford. "Those deals are made on the high level like that. People like you and I can't do that."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/072510dnproperryland.4474e5d.html
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rimrocker · Jul 30, 2010

I'm not sure why this happens, but occasionally I'll post something and can't see it. Here's the link to the story, which basically says Perry and a bunch of friends made him a boatload of money through some shady real estate transactions:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/072510dnproperryland.4474e5d.html

Deckard · Jul 30, 2010

This is a very long article in that liberal rag, The Dallas Morning News, about a story that has actually been out a long time. The problem has been that Texans simply haven't been paying attention. Here's hoping that they do this time around. Past time to boot Perry out on his rear. What I've shown here is only a part of the exposé.

Murky land deals mark Gov. Rick Perry's past

09:15 PM CDT on Sunday, July 25, 2010
By JAMES DREW, STEVE McGONIGLE and RYAN McNEILL / The Dallas Morning News

Three years after Gov. Rick Perry's biggest real estate score, questions persist about whether the governor benefited from favoritism, backroom dealing and influence-buying.

The Dallas Morning News found evidence that Perry's investment was enhanced by a series of professional courtesies and personal favors from friends, campaign donors and the head of a Texas family with a rich history of political power-brokering.
Together they may have enriched Perry by almost $500,000, according to an independent real estate appraisal commissioned by The News.

The governor's staff insists these were routine, legal deals that were properly handled. They point to a bank's appraisal, done when Perry sold his land in 2007, that said the buyer was paying Perry slightly less than market value.

Experts hired by The News dismissed that appraisal as "unsupported" and said it did not meet professional standards. County tax appraisals at the time also indicated that the governor was able to buy the land below market value and sell far above it.

Perry, in a brief interview last week, said every land transaction he has made while in office "has been open and honest, and at arm's length," and disclosed in public records.

"So I would just have folks take a look at the record, and I think the record pretty much speaks for itself," Perry said. "Being open and being honest and being at arm's length is what people expect every day."

At the center of the dispute is a gently sloping, half-acre grassy lot on the shore of Lake Lyndon B. Johnson in the Texas Hill Country resort of Horseshoe Bay. The resort is owned by Doug Jaffe, whose family has long, deep and sometimes controversial ties to Texas politics.

Jaffe's company had sold the parcel to state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, a friend and political ally of Perry's. Fraser sold the lot to Perry for just above $300,000.

An appraiser hired by The News determined that the land actually was worth $450,000 when Perry bought it.

Perry sold the property in 2007 to Alan Moffatt, a British national who is a business partner and close associate of Jaffe's.

Moffatt, as the owner of an aviation firm, was questioned, but never prosecuted, for his company's international arms shipments to Africa in the 1990s.

He paid Perry $1.15 million for the parcel. The News' appraiser, who has decades of experience in Horseshoe Bay real estate, found that price to be $350,000 above market value.

Moffatt denied that anything improper occurred in the transaction. "It just happened that the governor of Texas owned that lot," he said. "It was a good deal for me."

If Perry was deemed to have received any gifts, he would, as a state officeholder, have been required to disclose them. He did not do so.

Perry has portrayed himself as one of the most financially transparent governors in Texas history, and has attacked Democratic nominee Bill White for not releasing all tax returns.

Republican Perry, running for re-election to a record third four-year term, has been criticized by political opponents, including GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, for enriching himself via land deals while in office.

The head of a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes transparency in government said Perry's Horseshoe Bay transactions look questionable.

"The man on the street on this would think that this is a series of deals that smell of special favors being created for elected officials to curry their favor," said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation in Washington, D.C.

The Perry deal was hardly the first time the Jaffe family has operated among shadowy businessmen and influential officeholders.

For the Jaffes, it has been a way of life.

TIMELINE

June 12, 2000: Norman Hurd sells his 10-acre family estate on Lake LBJ, renamed The Peninsula, to Horseshoe Bay Resort Inc., owned by Doug Jaffe.

Sept. 19, 2000: Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, buys two newly subdivided Peninsula lots from Horseshoe Bay Resort for $1 million.

Feb. 28, 2001: Gov. Rick Perry purchases a half-acre Peninsula lot from Fraser, a longtime friend, for $300,000 plus $10,762 in interest.

Nov. 30, 2001: Perry, through attorney Colleen McHugh, chairwoman of the Texas Public Safety Commission, appeals the tax appraisal on his Peninsula lot.

Dec. 14, 2001: Stan Hemphill, chief appraiser for the Burnet CAD, agrees to lower the assessment on Perry's Peninsula lot from $414,700 to $310,762.

April-May 2005: After talking with Ron Mitchell, the resort vice chairman, Perry lists his Peninsula lot for sale with Horseshoe Bay Resort Realty for about $1.2 million. He pulls the listing after about five months without receiving any offers.

Jan. 1, 2007: The Burnet CAD raises the appraisal on Perry's Peninsula lot to $600,000.

March 30, 2007: Responding to an offer conveyed through Mitchell, Perry sells his lot to Alan Moffatt for $1.15 million. Horseshoe Bay Resort Realty does not charge a commission.

Nov. 28, 2007: Moffatt lists The Peninsula lot with Horseshoe Bay Resort Realty for $2.35 million.

Feb. 9, 2009: Perry appoints Mitchell to the Texas State University System Board of Regents.

May 29, 2009: Moffatt lowers his asking price on the Peninsula lot to $1.95 million.

July 2010: Moffatt reduces the listed price to $1.65 million.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/072510dnproperryland.4474e5d.html

MoonDogg · Jul 30, 2010

A_3PO · Jul 30, 2010

If Texans are stupid enough to re-elect Rick Perry in spite of a legit challenger, they deserve him. What a pathetic loser!

Bandwagoner · Jul 30, 2010

I'd love to see Bill White do it but frankly he just doesn't have the hair. We will have a female president and a president of every race before we have a bald president.

So I think democrats should just decide which of the republicans they hate the least then attack the other guy(gal)

rocketsjudoka · Jul 30, 2010

CaseyH said:

I'd love to see Bill White do it but frankly he just doesn't have the hair. We will have a female president and a president of every race before we have a bald president.
Click to expand...

Ike disagrees.

Bandwagoner · Jul 30, 2010

rocketsjudoka said:

Ike disagrees.

huge picture[/QUOTE]

Yeah he will be the last. None will ever come after the TV era president JFK. There were bald or fat presidents in the past but that era is over.
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Bandwagoner · Jul 30, 2010

Plus, Ike had a hat.

and his dollar clearly has hair

Invisible Fan · Jul 30, 2010

I'm not familiar with the details, but aren't these real estate schemes like the Rezco deal Obama got or Clintons with Whitewater?

Lil Pun · Jul 30, 2010

CaseyH said:

Yeah he will be the last. None will ever come after the TV era president JFK. There were bald or fat presidents in the past but that era is over.
Click to expand...

Don't forget about facial hair. We haven't had a president with facial hair since Taft I believe.

Rashmon · Jul 30, 2010

Lil Pun said:

Don't forget about facial hair. We haven't had a president with facial hair since Taft I believe.
Click to expand...

Does Barbara Bush count?

basso · Jul 30, 2010

Deckard said:

Murky land deals mark Gov. Rick Perry's past
Click to expand...

I'll see your Murky land deals, and raise you a Queen

and a Fresh Prince

Deckard said:

Past time to boot Perry out on his rear.
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A_3PO said:

What a pathetic loser!
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geeimsobored · Jul 30, 2010

WTF do Hillary Clinton and President Obama have anything to do with the Texas Governor's race?

Mulder · Jul 30, 2010

basso said:

I got nothin'
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FTFY.

Bandwagoner · Jul 30, 2010

geeimsobored said:

WTF do Hillary Clinton and President Obama have anything to do with the Texas Governor's race?
Click to expand...

Thread is about real estate scandal. Clintons were involved in whitewater controversy.

Cohete Rojo · Jul 30, 2010

CaseyH said:

Thread is about real estate scandal. Clintons were involved in whitewater controversy.
Click to expand...

What does paddling downstream in a dingy have to do with bald Texas presidents?

Bandwagoner · Jul 30, 2010

Cohete Rojo said:

What does paddling downstream in a dingy have to do with bald Texas presidents?
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I cannot argue with your logic.

Rashmon · Jul 30, 2010

I just have to say, the preceding exchange between CaseyH and Cohete Rojo is an inspiring example of how gentlemen debate.

rocketsjudoka · Jul 30, 2010

CaseyH said:

Yeah he will be the last. None will ever come after the TV era president JFK. There were bald or fat presidents in the past but that era is over.
Click to expand...

Gerry Ford?

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Gov. Perry: Real Estate Genius

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