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.