
Someone told me about a video that Stickland (who you may know as the Texas Republican party troll that was chastised for hosting a white supremacist aka Nazi Nick Fuentes at his PAC headquarters) did, along with a guy named Brady Gray called “Walk through of the Texas Amphitheater” I was highly entertained by this video but have zip idea why in the world they would want to show what a broken down state the amphitheater is in, all while dissing the Somervell County Commissioners Court which was leasing this to them for… drum roll please, ONE DOLLAR A MONTH or $12 bucks a year. Stickland, who was only made the board president last year, is grumpy and whiny about the fact that there are so many repairs to make and an undercurrent is how dare anyone else put a bid on this. hah. Throughout this video is the wind whistling and a detailed rundown on how expensive it is to run and how much it will cost to repair, if should they get it. The ONLY reason I can see for recording this is to get ready if they win the bid for a good ole “Go Fund Me” with please that it’s god’s will for people to contribute millions to fix it. I mean, if they had bags of money to spend on the amphitheatre, why are both their bids so far so cheap? Frankly, the way they present this makes the amphitheatre look like a broken down piece of crap. Seems pretty dumb to be advertising how great it is to attend the Promise AND then show people how bad the facilities are.
What’s ridiculous is the part where Stickland talks about how much his presumed bid opponents would have to spend to demolish the amphitheater. Well, okay, and HOW IS THAT HIS BUSINESS? If a high bidder wants to put in a pretty good offer that the commissioners determine is valid and brings in money and possibly future property tax , presumably they know how to demolish something. But wanting to KEEP the amphitheater and wanting to demolish the amphitheater are two different things you can’t compare. And if we’re talking about money, the Promise would have to come up with a whole heck of lot of money, millions, to repair or replace stuff, and you can’t tell me they wouldn’t be on the beg for it.
Only convinces me watching that it is good news that Somervell County is selling it and if they can get close to the asking price of over 2 million bucks, that’s what they should do and not go with the cheapo $140k.
Here is a snap of Gray showing the broken down seats. And do listen for the part where Gray says that only 40 percent of the sound system works. I question what they say about the dumped materials in a gully but frankly, if I’m LEASING a facility and there is a bunch of junk on it NOW that I am not responsible for because, again, I am LEASING for a buck a year, I’m going to be down at the Commissioners office every day telling them to clean that up; why haven’t they?

Besides the fact that I believe it’s entirely stupid on the part of the Promise to put in somebody like Stickland as a board president and shows a lack of judgement (unless maybe the other board members are also christian nationalists who have no problem with white supremacy and murdering Jews), what is to stop this entity from changing back from a for-profit to a non-profit and then avoiding taxes. I went in and told my viewpoint to the judge and one commissioner today that I want to see them make a decision based on the bid amounts, assuming the bids are valid, and not on religion that is on the cheap. And not based on how many people the Promise begs to spam the commissioners (which apparently includes people from other states, not just people from Somervell County).
I actually don’t understand the agenda item for 5/24/2024 Somervell County Commissioners Court
The commissioners already got 3 bids and said they were going to consider them. For a property advertised at $2.5 million, the bids are $140,000 (Promise), and the other 2 are over 1 million. Are they getting MORE bids? Did they allow the Promise to up their bid to where they will now be offering MORE than the other 2 entities that bid? I don’t remember them saying in any previous meeting recently that they were going out for more bids, no idea if this is legal, but it certainly doesn’t seem fair. After this, there will be an executive session in which they will consider the bids and then probably come out and vote with a decision on who to accept.