I still am confused as to why the longhorns are in that field if the AI contract was cancelled months back.

EliteElectric said:

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Jsimonds58 said:

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Which as a private citizen makes complete sense, the rub that we all have here is he is also the mayor. The mayor needs to clear some very murky looking things up to his constituents

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But this is private business between Rafter D, La Pistola and the airplane owner and it's surety. You can want all you want to but you will probably be left wanting.


There is good reason the youtube click seller is taking down and editing the videos, he's probably going to be a defendant in suit. This will all play out in the courts and I am guessing all parties will be forced to keep quiet during that time.


***eta****

By forced I mean urged by counsel

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What editing or removal of content have you seen? I just rewatched the Gryder video, and he's still making harsh acusations.

Jsimonds58 said:

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I still am confused as to why the longhorns are in that field if the AI contract was cancelled months back.

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Because this is all about maintaining the Ag exemption for the land! The Mayor and the genetics guy are such good stewards of our community in offering up this lease and grazing agreement to the BBC. In reality we should be thanking them every day for their selfless actions by helping the BBC reduce their tax burden on otherwise very valuable land.

Another Doug said:

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If cows can be spooked by planes, seems odd to be doing AI so close to an airport.

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I'm curious what bovine mental and reproductive trauma occurs when a C130 is doing touch and go's overhead.

MiMi said:

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Another Doug said:

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If cows can be spooked by planes, seems odd to be doing AI so close to an airport.

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I'm curious what bovine mental and reproductive trauma occurs when a C130 is doing touch and go's overhead.

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Or a C17.

Re the article in today's Eagle:
Now a mysterious bull is involved, all due to the longhorns being penned. There is only ONE possible, remote chance of a neighbor's bull being involved...because there is only one small pasture adjacent to the BBC property...and a preposterous claim that IF the cattle had been "out in the pasture", there would have been no issue??

Surely these days there would be plenty of pics of the "neighbor's bull", to be used in a claim for compensation?
AND the lesses's have claimed their wandering cattle are okay, as this is a "fence-out" county, your burden to keep cattle out...but they didn't plan so well with the mysterious bull, from the neighbor? Any credible claim would have involved improving any fencing, to keep out a bull that would have "messed up our program"....

And only in the Eagle has there been a report of a lawsuit filed by the plane owner, on February 23rd, seeking access to his plane, and monetary compensation. So the claim by any or all of the parties that "we were never contacted" about retrieval of the plane is more smoke and mirrors...

MiMi said:

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Another Doug said:

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If cows can be spooked by planes, seems odd to be doing AI so close to an airport.

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I'm curious what bovine mental and reproductive trauma occurs when a C130 is doing touch and go's overhead.

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From someone who lives where this occurs regularly, I'm gonna say little to none. Those ****ers will disturb a nap when they fly right over your house at 300' though

Jbob04 said:

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Dude is a straight up politician with that statement. Funny how this statement talks about the financial loss and stress of the cows but the owner of rafter d stated earlier in this thread that wasn't true and it was just click bait. Hmm, another lie exposed.

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It was also stated that some cowboys were working the cattle that day and when the plane landed...the interruption caused the loss of income. Nowhere in this story is the specialist, Dr. Dorn of Rafter D stated to be there. I do not know much about AI or embryo collection; however, I would think that with as much money as is stated to be at stake, Dr. Dorn might have been onsite? If he were, that would possible help give credence to some of the claims.

And don't forget by cowboys, you mean the cow thief using a fake identity

rdavies said:

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doubledog said:

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Snoodish said:

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With Gutierrez lawyering up now, I wouldn't think it would be much trouble for a subpoena to be issued to TexAgs to find out the identities of some of you running your mouths about Gutierrez.

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Remember this...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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Assuming no wrongdoing occurred, I have to question why this issue has been treated the following way.

1) This forum deleting multiple threads related to the alleged incident.
2) A cease and desist from the Mayor's legal counsel against the YouTuber with its own set of facts alleging who leased the land and damages owed.
3) An impassioned response from the actual Lessee with a different set of facts stated regarding leaseholder and lease term info.
4) A statement from the city with their side of the story
5) Public records releases showing actual lease terms and leaseholder info.
6) A statement from the Mayor's legal representative which now calls into question the decision-making abilities of the pilot and almost feels like a preemptive smear against the pilot.

Am I missing anything?

I'm not alleging that anything illegal occurred. I am stating that these actions and statements lead to more questions. Taken at face value, they do not represent an open and honest dialogue. If everything is kosher, why start an attack on the pilot now? This whole saga just doesn't feel right.

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And with the mayor stating this business deal was as a private citizen and not as mayor does not come across well. Once someone is elected into public office, I would think that person should always be cognizant of the possible implications of wrongdoing or potential ethical violations of their personal or business dealings and how it may come across to the public which is being "served". Mr. Gutierrez knew who ultimately owned this land and that alone, for him, should have been enough to not place his own cattle on it.

Yep, public officials should know better. Should always avoid the appearance of impropriety

EliteElectric said:

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Jsimonds58 said:

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Which if that is the case would be perfectly fine, I think at least for me that's the kind of info we would like to hear from the mayor.

It's the silence and inconsistencies that keep arising unaddressed that have folks upset.

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I don't know if this is the case with what's currently going on, but, the few times in my life I have had to retain counsel in matters of business (usually when someone won't pay me, or their is a dispute about the amount owed), I have ALWAYS been instructed by my counsel to let my counsel do the talking.


I do know this, 100% of the time the truth comes out, not always when we want it, but it eventually comes out,

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Unless the information gets pulled from the web or someone goes to the media and threatens lawsuits against anyone that talks about it.

Except for that.

Nosmo said:

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What editing or removal of content have you seen? I just rewatched the Gryder video, and he's still making harsh acusations.

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There was an earlier YT where the pilot was admitting to very poor judgement and decision making and Gryder was chastising him for it. The video with those confessions has been removed, I believe that's why he stated in later videos "this one stays up forever", I think that's what he's referencing although I could be wrong

I don't know the specific one you are referring too but that section of the pilot getting dressed down is still in the latest one

The YouTuber has a weird business model where he takes his videos down after a few days. He had some good analysis about the Dallas airshow accident last year, but it's gone as well. It appears that his business model is FOMO based.

Original video from the locked thread was the interview. It's gone, but he made a new video with the original interview and more follow up

FishrCoAg said:

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BiochemAg97 said:

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FishrCoAg said:

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BiochemAg97 said:

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cslifer said:

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I read it. They said "the annual tax savings are significant"….except the annual taxes are zero…they mention nothing about taxes for a future owner. I would hope that an organization looking to sell land for business development wouldn't be selling it to someone that has an ag exemption, it doesnt do much so far as the tax base goes.

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Takes 5 years to get an ag status. BBC maintains the ag status through the lease. When they find a developer, the developer has the option to maintain the ag status until they develop the property. You wouldn't expect that to be multiple years, but it might be valuable to the developer during the planning and permitting of the project, although they would need someone to continue to have cows there during that time.

You could also find a developer interested in developing the a portion of the land in the short term while maintaining the ag status on the rest and then develop the second portion after development of the first. Not uncommon for a residential neighborhood to be developed in stages.

The ag use has value beyond current year tax roles.

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And that is a blatant example of abuse of the intent of ag evaluations. Not illegal, ag exemptions are frequently abused, but the intent is not to lower the taxes of a developer who has plans to take the land out of ag production.

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Really? Doesn't seem like BBC sought out the ag valuation, but rather purchased the land with a preexisting ag valuation. Highly unlikely that there was a couple hundred acres of undeveloped grazing land that didn't have ag status. This is just maintaining the ag status until the use changes to something else. Exactly like every other piece of ag land that gets developed.

Given the law anticipates ag land being developed by requiring a 3 year rollback when it stops being ag, that seems entirely in line with both the intent and letter of the law. Pretty unlikely BBC is selling to a "developer" that is going to sit on it for years. Far more likely to sell to a developer with actual plans so at most it would be delaying rollback for a year maybe two, depending on how long it takes to get construction approval.

Wouldn't it be better to delay that rollback until it is in the hands of the developer rather than a nonprofit entity that is exempt from property tax? Oh look, maintaining the Ag valuation while BBC owns it is actually better for the taxpayer.

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If the developer will have to pay taxes on market value going back up to 3 years from date of taking out of ag production what benefit is there to maintaining ag exemption, unless they plan to not develop for greater than 3 years? BBC isn't paying taxes on it.

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Developer: cash flow. Delay the big tax bill until closer to the time they start generating revenue. I suspect the rollback tax is due along with the property tax for the year the use changed. So I could buy from BBC in mid year 0, start construction in year 1 (after Jan 1, so still Ag valuation on Jan 1) and not have the tax bill due until near the end of year 2, at which time I could be leasing space in the new buildings. The amount of the rollback tax is probably taken into account in the purchase price, i.e. I have to account in the rollback when determining the financials of the project.

Taxpayer: someone actually pays the rollback tax rather than it disappearing into a nonprofit exemption.

BBC: working for the taxpayer… probably should minimize the loss of property tax to the community.


Also, there is flexibility for the purchaser. If it were a corporation setting up a manufacturing facility, for example, they could continue to run cattle on a portion of the land to lower their tax bill while holding the land for future expansion. That is certainly closer to the line on the intent.

lol at using Reddit for a source. That is the most toxic forum on the web.

Jsimonds58 said:

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Which as a private citizen makes complete sense, the rub that we all have here is he is also the mayor. The mayor needs to clear some very murky looking things up to his constituents

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Does he though?
1) modern society gets an opinion from an initial story and generally miss the follow up correcting the initial errors. We see this all the time with the major media outlets sensationalizing a story and then quietly going back and correcting the errors or at best burying a retraction on the back page of a paper.

2) we are a few months since he was elected, so it will be ~3 years before campaigning again. We also see modern society with a short attention span and most will forget/ignore something that happened years before.

3) society is very polarized with people picking a side based on the original story and digging in. And many will view any additional information through the lens of confirmation bias. They may view new information, which may or may not be more factual, as false when it disagrees with their position or true when it agrees with their position.

So, speaking is potentially a negative to his business interests (receiving compensation for the loss) and may have very little benefit to his political interests.

And the plot thickens. Now we learn that the pilot filed a suit demanding… wait for it …. $250,000 in damages.

Quote:

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According to court documents obtained by The Eagle, a lawsuit was filed by Borrel in a Brazos County district court on Feb. 23 against Gutierrez and Colin Sergio Cardenas as Borrel sought immediate return of his plane and monetary relief of $250,000 or less. The lawsuit states Cardenas is the owner of property in the 8600 block of Jones Road. However, the Brazos County Appraisal District map doesn't show the exact location of the property, and notes the land Borrel's plane landed on is owned by the Bryan Business Council.

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https://theeagle.com/news/local/remember-the-plane-that-landed-in-a-bryan-pasture-after-christmas-its-still-there/article_4c097876-c458-11ed-865a-1fd66388e1f6.html

He's not quite pure as the driven snow with altruistic intentions apparently. This maybe explains some of the accusations that have been bandied about, and why the narratives diverge so much.

Feb 23 is nearly 2 months after the crash, man still doesn't have his plane. Seems like this supports his claim.

Jbob04 said:

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lol at using Reddit for a source. That is the most toxic forum on the web.

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Reddit can be a very good resource and I'll add "reddit" to the end of some of my google searches to get relevant discussion about something I'm looking for. You can certainly find some toxic subreddits on there, but most are well-moderated and helpful.

What does a crash the youtube guy was involved in have to do with shady stuff our local folks are involved in?

In the Eagle article his attorney admits that the mayor did in fact "express his desire to recover his losses" to the pilot. Sure sounds like the pilot is telling the truth to me.

Nom de Plume said:

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I think all parties are guilty of something.

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This is always true

Nom de Plume said:

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I think all parties are guilty of something.

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both sides are generating more bull**** than all those cows combined

cslifer said:

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In the Eagle article his attorney admits that the mayor did in fact "express his desire to recover his losses" to the pilot. Sure sounds like the pilot is telling the truth to me.

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I'm sure they discussed it. But the claim still has to go through the insurance company. The pilot used words like "ransom" which is disingenuous at best.

Also very interesting that the amount he is suing for is close to the same amount the mayor says he suffered as loss.

TexasAggie_02 said:

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Feb 23 is nearly 2 months after the crash, man still doesn't have his plane. Seems like this supports his claim.

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It's unclear the pilot made a good faith effort to retrieve the plane. The BBC, Dorn and the mayor have all said he either did not contact them about it or retrieval efforts fell short.

A cynical person might suspect the pilot held back in retrieving the plane so he could file a lawsuit for the same amount of damages the mayor is seeking from his insurance company.

I would guess that if the mayor had never called the pilot on January 3rd, that the plane would be gone by now.