Wilmer: A blast from the past! Albeit miswritten

Very interesting longform piece at the Dallas Observer about the town's history of abuse of involuntary annexations and related issues.

I remember when UP started developing its Dallas Railport. I remember when Our Man Downtown, John Wiley Price, being paid Perot campaign money to protect its railport on the Santa Fe next to Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, did everything he could to gut it, and if not, to try to force local communities to hire Friends of JWP as subcontractors for local development tied to that. (I heard more about that in Hutchins than Wilmer.) I remember JWP trying to gut Richard Allen's Dallas Inland Port, too, also at Perot bidding.

Part of the blast from the past? Mention of the "Wilmer Citizen."

I was unaware of this Joe Aldrich starting this website "Wilmer Citizen." I WAS pretty sure that there was an old blog by that name, and there it still is, and pretty sure that it had, in its early days, some sort of backdoor semi-connection with the convicted felon Joey Dauben, who is nowhere mentioned by the Observer. Most commenters on early posts from the site, back in 2008, are either Joey or groupies of his, from what I can tell, starting with how many have deleted or hidden blogger profiles. Also, and related? The old racist (or it at least used to be, as detailed in my Dauben link) Ellis County Press, an early landing site of Dauben's before firing him, is in links in the right hand rail. In any case, it's NOT a website, contra the Observer's author. It's a blog that's updated 1-2x a month.

So, even if Joey Dauben is not directly connected? I'd take half of what's on there with big grains of salt.

There's further reason I worry about the Observer puffing up some blogger who doesn't have a journalism background and doesn't write regularly. Even with Dauben, who did have a quasi-background in journalism, and who wrote profusely, you  still have someone who makes insinuations that get to the edge of libel (and often, probably went over that edge, but he had no money to be sued over). And, you had the Observer giving him a fawning profile in 2011. That's why I look askance at Christian McPhate even doing this level of puffery of Aldrich.

As for the issue at hand? Rather, per its backstory?

Anybody who lived in either Wilmer or Hutchins 15 years ago knew that its growth potential was in logistics. Ditto for Lancaster, between UP and Richard Allen. As long as the tax money is being put to good use (including wide, strong-based streets to and from these logistics warehouses), isn't that a good bottom line? And, if some elected officials sold their land to commercial developers, as long as the real estate version of insider trading didn't happen, isn't this America? And, if you ran for mayor and lost? (Aldrich did in 20-12, and you won't find that in the story. He also was (is? can't tell from Wilmer's website and I don't know if Bizpedia's listing is current) on the board for the Wilmer Community Development Corporation. That means, depending on when he served, he might have been in a position of authority when this forcible annexation was being abused. I think that would be relevant.

As for the details of tax abatements for UP and the returns on that? $1.5 million in net revenue, if rounded up, is $2 million, which is "millions," plural. The 30K jobs? UP didn't promise all the employees would live in Wilmer and there's no way it could do that. I don't know if it's delivered on that; the promise appears to be vague enough it's hard to measure. And, people working in Wilmer could be living in Hutchins, Lancaster, Dallas, Ferris, Combine, Seagoville or unincorporated Dallas County. After all, there's still lots of that, per map below.

Beyond that? There's other reasons people might work in Wilmer but not live there.

One is the now-absorbed Wilmer-Hutchins ISD. I don't know how much better the schools there have gotten since Dallas ISD took it over. I don't know how much newer any schools facilities have gotten. But, per what I mentioned above? If I had kids, there are other places I'd live first.

Second, Wilmer, like Hutchins to its north, is prone to flooding on its east side in the Trinity bottoms. (So is much of unincorporated Dallas County.) Speaking of, even if it's not delivered on all its vague promises, do you want the inland port of Union Pacific, along with the logistics sites, or do you want Hutchins State Jail, as your driver of growth?

 

And, maybe if JWP hadn't knifed it in the back along with the Inland Port, it would have delivered more. And, weirdly, McPhate links to Schutze stories about said knifing. I can't tell if he totally supports their angle, more supports than objects, more objects than supports, or what.

If I had to put a bottom line on the story? I'd say Wilmer civic leaders of the past 15 years before 2022 were about 40 percent civic-minded, 40 percent personally grifting and 20 percent semi-clueless about legal restrictions. And, I'd say Aldrich is about 50 percent concerned citizen, 35 percent butt-hurt failed grifter and 15 percent quasi-Daubenite winger.

Sidebar: Did not know former Hutchins Mayor Artis Johnson (from whom I heard the same stuff about JWP's shakedown attempts as did Jim Schutze) was stupidly indicted. Fortunately, Craig Watkins dismissed charges shortly before leaving office.