Patterson Promises News on Sale of Christmas Mountains

If we go by the hints he's been dropping, today is the day Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson unveils his plans to sell the Christmas Mountains.

Patterson wants us to believe that the land board will be approving a bid so superior to the option of placing the land with the National Park Service, as was originally intended, that it will make the public forget that Patterson is selling our public land to a private developer.

“[T]he outcome I have in mind WILL result in better stewardship, and better access than a simple transfer to the NPS. All of this will become apparent after the bids are recd [sic] and the winner is selected (assuming we have a winner).”

Last week's profile of Jerry Patterson in the Dallas Morning News was a fawning piece with a title that tells it all: "Texas Land Commissioner Patterson keeps cool, packs heat." The gist of this article is that Patterson is an ideologue who is just standing by his principles.

He has already taken quite a bit for telling National Park Service officials that if they wouldn't let people carry firearms on the property, he wouldn't sell it to them. No guns, he told them, no deal.

That's as close as the article gets to explaining the real reason Patterson has drawn the ire of environmentalists. By buying into Patterson's argument that he comes in for so much criticism because of his stand on guns, the author completely misses the point - Patterson is selling public land, donated and designated by the donor for preservation and the enjoyment of the public, to private developers in defiance of common sense, contractual obligation and ethical responsibility.

Patterson is moving forward with this sale despite that fact that the sale doesn't comply with a key provision in the original contract and breaks a promise made by the state's previous land commissioner to the donors. Whether it's pure cronyism, or some misguided libertarian impulse, it's a flagrant misuse of public office.

Patterson, who said the state won't comply with a provision in the contract giving the original donors a say before anyone else acquires the property, is pushing forward with the sale. The land office reported two bids before a 10 a.m. deadline on Wednesday. The School Land Board, over which Patterson presides, is expected to select a winner next week.

Conservation Fund President Larry Selzer said Wednesday that it was at the request of state officials that his organization donated the property to the General Land Office in the first place. He said the state wanted to preserve the property and so specifically committed to the donors that the mountains would remain in public hands.

Glenn Smith at BOR sums it up when he asks:

How is it Jerry Patterson believes this land that's our is his land?

He was greatly offended last year when I raised objections to the sale of the most pristine part of the Black Gap Wildlife Refuge. He went so far as to alter a map he gave to reporters to try and show he land he wanted to sell was not part of the Refuge, which everyone knows it was.

Thin-skinned and mule-headed, Patterson plays Chupacabra to Texas natural treasures. Like the legendary Mexican monster does to chicken blood, Patterson sneaks around at night sucking the land right out from under our feet.

Now it's the Christmas mountains he wants to sell, and Patterson is more full of stuffing than a Christmas turkey. Today's NYT piece on this tragedy by Ralph Blumenthal is solid. Read it.

According to the FWST, the announcement may come this afternoon.

In a tantalizing news release issued Friday, Patterson vowed to make a "surprise announcement regarding the sale of Christmas Mountains." He called a news conference for 2:30 p.m. Monday.

We'll keep you posted.

General Land Office Selling Land Donated by Conservation Group

The General Land Office is at it again. After the controversy over its proposed sale of land at Eagle Mountain Lake, the office agreed to the development of a park only after it became a political football in the last election. Now the office is proposing another controversial sale. It has taken bids for 9,269 acres of land in the Christmas Mountains adjacent to Big Bend National Park.

According to the Conservation Fund, who gifted the land to the state, the state was bound by deed restrictions and could not sell the land without the approval of the fund.

"It was the hope...that this land would be made available to the general public for hunting and other recreational uses," Richard Erdman, executive vice president of the Virginia-based Conservation Fund, wrote in [an] Aug. 8 letter.

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson stated that the deed restrictions were probably unenforceable.

One of the bidders is Houston businessman John Poindexter, of J.B. Poindexter & Co. Inc. and owner of nearby Cibolo Creek Ranch Resort. Poindexter has been trying to buy land in and around the area for some time now. He previously made news when he initiated the sale of 45,000 acres in Big Bend State Park. After a public outcry, that deal fell through.

Poindexter's statements imply he is only interested in conservation of the Christmas Mountains land.

"The restrictions are so significant, that fundamentally, all you can do is look at the land."

Apparently, that's an argument we've heard before. Of the Big Bend sale, Poindexter had this to say.

The 46,000 acres that the state considered selling him wasn't being sought to expand his resort facilities, as some critics asserted, he added.

"The development potential — as was so frequently cited in the hearing — for this property is as close to zero as anything could reasonably be in the state," he said.

What he failed to mention was that an easement on the 46,000 acre sale allowed development of 4600 acres.

Regarding the Christmas Mountains land, the original donor, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, was disturbed enough about the pending sale of its land to issue this warning.

If the land sale goes through "the state of Texas (should) not look to the R.K. Mellon Foundation for any future help."

That sentiment was echoed by Carolyn Vogel of the Texas Land Trust Council.

"If the foundation intended for conservation to be the major outcome and it got developed instead, it could have an effect" on future donations to the state.

Hat tip South Texas Chisme and B & B.