Letter to Rep. Ashby Regarding Fairfield Lake State Park Issue

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The NavCo Chronicle has obtained a letter received by State Rep. Trent Ashby’s office on Thursday. The letter was received in Rep. Ashby’s office from the Beckham Portela Trial Law Firm, regarding Legislative Appropriations submitted to the Governor’s Office of Budget, Planning, and Policy and the Legislative Budget Board in September 2022.

We will publish the letter in it’s entirety below, however, here is a small excerpt of the letter –

I want to point you to page 107 of Section 3.A. of the attached Request and the funding requests for Strategy 2: Land Acquisition. The Request specifically states that the requested land acquisition funding would be used to acquire land from willing sellers. That is the opposite of condemning land from private owners who are neither sellers nor willing to sell. Why is Chairman Aplin misrepresenting very significant facts to the press? Furthermore, the Request does not authorize use of such funds for acquiring anything other than land, such as resource rights, whether through willing sale or condemnation.

Accordingly, the 88th Legislature’s recent approval of $125,000,000 in supplemental appropriations to TPWD was only for Land Acquisition from willing sellers. Moreover, the same 88th Legislature twice rejected specifically targeted bills to acquire Fairfield Lake State Park through eminent domain.
Nevertheless, TPWD appears unconcerned (or uninformed) that its appropriations, garnered through approval of a contrary stated purpose, are now funding the seizure of Fairfield Lake State Park using eminent domain.