Houston19514

ROFLMAO What thread have you been reading man? I am complaining about Houston????? I am the one who is supporting what is being done in Houston. YOU are the one complaining.

Slowly, but surely... In the last ten and coming two years, we've chipped away at a TON of surface lots, but lord, there are still a lot of 'em out there.

I know the second link was the hctra website, you knucklehead ;-) . The description ("charter") you posted was NOT from the HCTRA website, as you said it was. It was instead from the Harris County website. And as I said above, it was in no sense a "charter." ??? What an odd post. Are you going to exclude people from caring about Houston if they don't live there? FWIW, I've probably paid more towards the Harris County Sports Authority than most of you who live there, because of all those car rental and hotel taxes.

Of course, it was in fact not on 'their' website, meaning the Harris County Toll Road Authority's website, but was on the Harris County website. And, as anyone can see, it is no sense a "charter", and the site does not refer to it as such. It is nothing more than a simple, brief description appearing in a list of descriptions of the various Harris County departments and agencies. Nice try, but one can ruin one's credibility with stunts like that. As you surely know, a "charter" is quite different from a "description." And you have still avoided the issue that according to you and your interpretation of what you call the HCTRA's charter, the HCTRA apparently is not allowed to invest any idle cash.

Then presumably you'll be able to provide us with a link. Good grief, not another one. . . Again, this a loan, a fully-secured loan. BTW, the government has for many decades been using Social Security funds to pay for all sorts of things in the general budget of the United States; the difference there is that the "loan" was not secured by any asset or dedicated revenue stream. THAT is a shell game.

Exciting news. I'm especially happy to see the news on exterior upgrades and fountains.

Give it a rest, man. Now you're trying to pass some words off as the "Toll Road Charter" when it is clearly nothing more than a statement of their goals and objectives for 2004. (You could have at least come up with something more current for your little scam attempt.) According to you and your "charter" they apparently are not allowed to invest idle cash at all...

The cities linked by high-speed rail in Europe and elsewhere are also relatively close to each other.

On the contrary, the appearance of impropriety is very important to me. I don't think it appears improper. I don't see anything wrong with it AT ALL. We are not talking about a shell game here. A shell game is where there is something (of value) under one shell and NOTHING under the other shells. Here, they are trading something of value for something of value. (Cash now in exchange for cash plus interest later, with a security interest in revenue flows and/or real estate to ensure the cash is repaid.) A simple, straight-forward, logical transaction. No subterfuge, no empty shells. On another note, Mr. Barnes, I am still waiting for your explanation of your rant about bonds, and to see your evidence or explanation of the Sports Authority's "selling hogs they don't own."

I tend to agree with you with regard to the D-FW and Houston CMSA's. I think the Census Bureau has made a hash of things with their latest definitions. In my view, the MSA category does not give an accurate comparison of metro areas nationwide (because it gives an inaccurate portrayal of the Bay Area and Boston and to a lesser extent DC, and probably some others). I agree that for an accurate portrayal of the urban and suburban fabric of the D-FW and Houston areas, it is probably best to look at the MSA's. But for a fair and accurate comparison to the other large metro areas, I think you have to go to the CMSA listings.

Citgo is not a stockholder-owned company. (It is owned by the country of Venezuela.)

If you think the temporary loan looks so bad, what would you propose as an alternative? Just default on the current loan and destroy the Sports Authority's (and possibly the County's credit rating)? Pay off the current loan with general tax funds? This may be a good deal for both the Sports Authority AND the HCTRA. Because of cutting out the middle men, so to speak, it is entirely possible that HCTRA may earn higher interest than it otherwise could earn and the Sports Authority might pay lower interest than it would otherwise have to pay.

Monday.

Gotcha. In other words, your "mixing money" reference had nothing to do with Enron Field, the baseball stadium.

I just saw that Sherman/Denison has been added to the D-FW Combined Metropolitan Area. So by that standard the D-FW metro area (MetroPlex, if you must) does indeed reach the Oklahoma border.

So I'm guessing your were opposed to the stadium deal and are still bitter about it. I'm not here to argue whether the stadium deal was good, wise, idiotic or whatever. It is what it is and it was based on certain revenue projections that did NOT, oddly enough, forsesee the events of 2000-2001 that collectively caused a drop in revenue. You blithely ignore the salient fact of the unforeseen drop in travel, causing an unforeseen drop in revenue for the Sports Authority. Are we getting this yet? ;-) You have just posted that they based the financing on a more conservative revenue projection that was projected by Deloitte & Touche at the time. Sounds eminently reasonable and responsible to me. Where is the evidence they were "selling hogs they did not own?" And by the way, the proposed Olympics were not until 2012. It is a little hard to see how that would have had any impact on the current status on the bonds one way or the other, even if we had been awarded the 2012 games. In any event, I don't recall any reliance on supposed Olympics revenue to cover bond payments when they were selling the deal to the public. (Honestly, anybody foolish enough to cast a vote relying on Olympic games to pay the bill deserves what they get.)

What about Enron Field? What does Enron Field have to do with mixing money? And again, I reiterate, that there is nothing wrong with "mixing money" (if you insist on calling it that), if the loan, the security and the exchange are properly documented. I don't think there was anything in the ennabling legislation or other matters by which the Sports Authority was created that required that it be "resolved" (by which I am presuming you meant "dissolved").

What spreadsheets are you referring to? Nobody is "mixing" money here. Money is fungible. IF this transaction takes place, the HCTRA will loan the money to the Sports & Convention Corporation and will take a security interest in the revenue stream and/or the real property, just like a third-party, arms-length transaction. If the transaction is NOT done in that way, THEN we will have something to scream about. Not necessarily. There is an on-going discussion/controversy about whether it should be disbanded.

Calm down, man. You are getting irrational. One does not really have to look at spread sheets and financial statements to know that the confluence of events in 2000-2001 that I listed in my earlier post led to a precipitous drop in travel, therefore, ipso facto, to a precipitous drop in the revenue collected by the Sports Authority, compared to projections. Likewise, one does not really have to look at spread sheets and financial statements to surmise that, with both airports now reporting record traffic, and with the hotel market (a) having added more rooms and ( now running at a relatively healthy 70%+ occupancy rate, surely the Sports Authority's revenue is substantially healthier now, perhaps (hopefully) more in line with projections. (I would love to see the projections and statements of current revenues, but have not been able to find them on-line. You imply that you have seen (or are familiar with) the projections; would you be so kind as to share?.) Edit: I found a bit of information; second-hand, at best, but it's all I've found so far... "In 2002 and 2003, the revenues sagged by approximately 10 percent. To meet the annual payments , the authority had projected annual 3 percent increases in hotel and car rental tax revenues." A projected 3 percent annual increase seems almost conservative for a city such as Houston, and well within reason. You are somewhat less than prescient in your statement that it "was intended to begin with" that Harris County end up owning the land. Of course that was the intention, and in fact, that is already the case (I guess this is another instance of your truly "not getting it.") And the intention is to pay for it with Sports Authority revenue. I have no idea what the term of the new loan is going to be. Why does it matter? Just curious to where you got a look at the spread sheets and financial statements to substantiate you being so sure that this new loan will default. Come on educate us. Just curious to where you got a look at the spread sheets and financial statements to substantiate you being so sure that the opposition predicted this to the letter. Come on educate us. And while you're at it, I await your explanation of your rant about "bonds" in your earlier post. Come on educate us.

Cool your jets, man. I am quite aware that bonds are also loans. But what does that have to do with the question at hand? What we are discussing is a LOAN (not a bond) from RCM Financial Services to the Sports & Convention Corporation. What is proposed is a LOAN (not a bond) from HCTRA to the Sports & Convention Corporation. I think I am getting this. It is apparent that you are not. IF the toll payers were to end up owning the practice field (which will almost certainly never happen), they will then be the owners of a quite-valuable piece of property, which can be sold, I would presume. But in any case, I presume the first line of security for the loan will be the revenue stream of the Harris County Houston Sports Authority. According to the KTRH story, the Sports & Convention Corporation simply does not (or will not) have the cash on hand to pay off the principal when it comes due. So they are in effect proposing to refinance with another lender, that apparently has some cash on hand. You stretch out your payments for a few more years and no harm. Quite similar to a homeowner with a loan that has a bubble payment due at the end. If you don't have the cash when the bubble comes due, you refinance and stretch out the payments. There is not enough detail in the KTRH story to know, but I wonder if they ever anticipated having the cash available to pay off this loan or if they always planned to "refinance". The alternative might be that the Sports Authority revenue stream did not keep up with projections (that seems likely in the early years, with the 2000 downturn in the economy/stock market, 9/11, Enron, etc. I am sure the hotel/motel and rental car taxes did not keep up with projections in the early years of the Sports Authority, but I would imagine their revenue stream should be quite healthy now and quite able to handle the loan payments to HCTRA.

SCI is #879.

Again, it's a LOAN. The money will come back to the toll road system. This seems like a far better solution than defaulting on the original loan or using general tax funds to pay off the original loan.

Between 1990 and 2005 Houston only annexed about 50,000 people. That still leaves a growth of 336,000

Thank you. So, at least from the way KTRH tells the story, the postings on this thread left out the rather important detail that it will be a LOAN from HCTRA to Harris County-Houston Sports Authority.