Frisco City Officials Blow $160,000 on Cowboys Suite

FRISCO TX – The next time you tune in to a Dallas Cowboys home game, you should know that there is a group of bureaucrats from Frisco sipping on fine wine in a taxpayer funded suite at AT&T Stadium.

In late September, the Frisco Economic Development Corporation (FEDC), a subsidiary of the Frisco City Council, unanimously approved a $160,000 expenditure to purchase eight single game licenses for the use of a stadium suite in Arlington, Texas. The deal included 18 admission tickets, 5 parking passes, and a $1,500 food and drink allowance per game. According to meeting minutes, FEDC leadership was very pleased to have inked such a colossal waste of money.

“Director Porter said excellent job on the part of the FEDC staff and Director Prince said it was a job well done. Director Porter made the motion to approve the ratification of eight single event AT&T Stadium Suite License Agreements with Cowboys Stadium, L.P. Director prince seconded the motion and it was approved by unanimous vote”

The FEDC recieves .05% of all sales tax collected by the city for their mission of expanding the city’s property tax base by “creating” quality job opportunities for Frisco residents. We all know government doesn’t actually create anything, but by their logic, distorting market conditions by providing tax incentives and grants to private businesses to lure them within city limits is “creating” jobs. Nonetheless, the suite purchase is being spun as a necessary tool for recruiting business to Frisco. The suite will allow government bureaucrats a place to talk off the record with private business owners and CEOs about all the “incentives,” aka corporate welfare, that Frisco has to offer, all while watching a dismal Cowboys squad lose game after game this season.

Documents obtained from the FEDC claim the purpose of the suite is to “promote business attraction for the City of Frisco.”

The AT&T Stadium Suite will be used to promote business attraction from the City of Frisco. Decisions pertaining to use of the AT&T Stadium Suite and distribution of tickets for the 8 games, requires the authorization of the FEDC President and/or Vice President. The FEDC President and/or Vice President will determine who will be issued invitations to be guests in the AT&T Stadium Suite based on priority business attraction/projects.

Assuming the underlying purpose of the suite is to provide a social setting conducive to talking with prospective tenants, I thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to find out if the game attendees actually included prospective tenants. A public records request revealed that the majority of the attendee list included FEDC staff and their spouses, Frisco City Council members and their spouses, County Commissioners and their spouses and business leaders that have already moved their business to Frisco. Even one lucky UNT professor and her husband received an invite for being associated with a recent deal inked by the University of North Texas to open a satellite campus in Frisco. Attendees labeled “prospect” were certainly in the minority.

Frisco EDC Cowboys Suite Attendance Roster

The very fact that governments need their own “economic development” organizations to attract business within their city is an admission that the institution of government does nothing but stand up barriers to trade in the first place. So to counteract their own economic drag, the central planners decide which businesses are best for their own market and remove government barriers for the businesses of their choosing. Sadly, this model is in conflict with basic economics and free market principals. If the inhabitants of a particular geographic region have a demand for a particular product or service, then entrepreneurs will fill the voids in the market and move their businesses to where the demand is greatest. The idea that we need a panel of bureaucrats to grease the palms of business leaders in order for business to happen is a recipe for waste, fraud, and abuse at the expense of the taxpayer.

The Forest Park Medical Center at Frisco is one of latest black eyes for the FEDC as the high end hospital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection just 3 years after opening their doors.

Court papers describe the hospital as “a luxury medical care facility” with features “such as a lobby water feature, soothing scents in the HVAC system, meals cooked to order by an on-site chef, green views from every room, calming colors and low lighting to increase relaxation, and softened textures. “It is currently minimally staffed for an average daily census of 1-3 inpatients per day and up to 200 outpatients per month, but has a fully staffed maximum capacity of 54 inpatients per day and 1,000 outpatients per month.”

With the federal government’s intervention into the healthcare market and their massive take over of the insurance industry, it’s not surprising to see a hospital instantly fail. But the question remains, why are the taxpayers subsidizing such risk? Why are governments involved in private enterprise at all?

Whatever the motivation, Frisco City officials are not scared of shoveling hoards of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones. This past August, the Frisco City Council voted to approve the final price tag for the new Cowboys headquarters and practice facility currently under construction in Frisco. The council approved the maximum price tag of $252.5 million for the “publicly owned” facility, an entanglement of public and private funds, $90 million of which is being funded by the City and Frisco Independent School District. The Frisco ISD maintains that Frisco schools will benefit from using the stadium for football games and band competitions. Which is ironic since Frisco High Schools all have their own football fields and occasionally use the Major League soccer stadium just down the street for showcase games. But Frisco ISD superintendent, Jeremy Lyon has been working overtime to spin the “investment” as one big opportunity for the students of Frisco.

“There’s been an increased interest in continuing to explore … opportunities for students,” he said. New ideas continue to come up as the project evolves and businesses join in. “Every single one of those conversations continues to have a pretty solid component of talking about student opportunities for internships and for ways to get students involved in the programming that goes along with [it], whether it’s the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders operation or the broadcast media side of things,” Lyon said.

A school district, who’s job is to educate kids, spends millions dollars on a football field for the Dallas Cowboys and the selling point is internships in the Cowboy Cheerleader operation. If citizens aren’t outraged over such a venture, then it’s no surprise the city continues down its path of reckless abandonment.

While spending $160,000 on a Cowboys suite is egregious, wasteful, and offensive to the average, hard-working citizen of Frisco, it’s truly just a drop in the bucket for one of the fastest growing cities in America. Frisco is enjoying one of the most prosperous times it will ever see. Tax receipts are growing every year as the Dallas-Fort Worth area accepts an organic migration of business and people who are fleeing states with impossible business climates. However, being bound by their own geographic borders, Frisco will eventually run out of land for which to build new houses and office buildings and their tax base will eventually plateau.

Hopefully citizens of Frisco and beyond will realize that politicians tinkering with the economy is a disastrous proposition before it’s too late, if it isn’t already.

*Note: no evidence suggests that the FEDC bureaucrats drink wine while using their suite

