Fun With Audio, Part 2: EBJ and JWP Talk About the Inland Port, Kathy Nealy, Ross Jr. (and Me)

This weekend I have been sitting around ruminating on the last three years of reporting I have done on the Inland Port story, which now seems to an element in the FBI corruption probe of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price.

By the way, I happen to know the FBI has been hearing about this stuff for three years from lots more people than just me. Southern Dallas is home to many honest citizens, land-owners and business people who have gotten the short end of the stick from the commissioner over the years, and I think a lot of them have been visiting with the feds.

I thought it might help to share with the Friends of Unfair Park a few excerpts from I-don't-know-how-many hours of conversations I have had with people in the last three years to discuss the Inland Port project, a massive rail, truck and warehouse development in Southern Dallas.

This one, called "We're the Toughest Three People in This County" is taken from a chat two years ago with Dallas Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, in which she describes a meeting between herself, John Wiley Price and State Senator Royce West to discuss the infamous SALT proposal - an attempt by a group of Price allies to get the main Inland Port developer to cut them in for $1.5 million and a 15 percent share of his company in exchange for political peace.

This one is significant for a few reasons. For one, Price's lawyer, John Carney, is now trying to say that Price was never involved in the SALT group and only found out about it "of late." How late would that be? In this chat, Johnson talks about a meeting in 2007 when Price and State Senator Royce West came to her to get her to them help pressure Allen.

Now we come to "That's What Equity Means," which gives Congresswoman Johnson's view of the SALT Group's suggestion that it be given a 15-percent equity share in Allen's company.

The excerpt called "The Interlocal Proposal" offers Johnson's view of a proposal by Price that a new interlocal entity be created to control Allen's Inland Port development.




In "JWP and Ross Perot Jr.," EBJ talks about Price's history of shaking people down and about his relationship with the Perot family and how Kathy Nealy figures into this.




In "JWP Over the Years," Johnson talks about Price's style and history.




In "Slavery and Carpetbaggers," Price and I argue about his public statements to the effect that the 60,000 jobs promised by the Inland Port development are without value to black people.




In "Royce West and JWP on KKDA," you will hear Price and a certain state senator reiterate the same views during an appearance on radio.




Just for grins, I have thrown in a longer conversation, the last semi-civil one he and I had, about two years ago, called "Price and I Dscuss Gertrude Stein." In it, he reads for me a letter he is sending to the editor of the Observer calling me a carpetbagger, and I offer him some erudite literary criticism. It's like Hemingway and Fitzgerald in Paris.