Battle Over Perot Jr.’s Land Splits Town

WESTLAKE, Texas — Ross Perot Jr.’s ranch near Dallas has rolling pastures, ponds, an old-fashioned house and bison--a picture of peace that’s now the center of a vicious development battle.

The mayor who opposed development has been ousted from office. The town just north of Fort Worth is the biggest casualty--on maps, it now looks like a doughnut, with 70% of its original land controlled by others.

“I don’t even recognize it,” said Steve Thornton, whose father was born in the affluent ranch community in 1917.

Perot, son of the presidential candidate, wants to build a mall, hundreds of homes, more than 10,000 apartments and perhaps a basketball arena for his Dallas Mavericks on his Circle T Ranch.

Critics want him to build less on the last big tract of raw land in the rapidly suburbanizing area, and for Perot to use his own money for utilities and roads instead of millions of local tax dollars.

The opponents include Scott Bradley, who was mayor until April 29, three days before town elections. He says he was unfairly booted out of office in an invalid scheme cooked up by four Perot backers on the board of five aldermen.

“It’s only explainable in terms of the Perot ego and need to control things,” says Bradley, who was elected mayor of the 250-person, seven-square-mile suburb in 1994. He’s challenging his ouster in court.

Perot spokesman Pete Geren, a former congressman, said the mayor’s ouster had nothing to do with the ranch.

“You’ve got four aldermen, I guess, representing the old-timers that hate what Mayor Bradley has done to the town and want him out,” Geren said. “I challenge anyone to find a connection between what those aldermen have done and Mr. Perot.”

Still, thanks to those aldermen--one of whom, Carroll Huntress, is a tenant on Perot’s property--Perot should face fewer problems doing what he wants to with his land.

A week ago, the same four aldermen who dismissed Bradley released about 3,000 acres, including the Circle T, from Westlake’s control.

The next day, Perot’s 2,660 acres were absorbed by Fort Worth, a city that has been friendly to his requests for zoning and tax breaks at his Alliance Airport development west of the Circle T.

Perot bought the ranch--once owned by Dallas oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt--out of bankruptcy court in 1993 for about $20 million. About the same time, Westlake annexed a neighboring subdivision called Stagecoach Hills, and things went downhill from there.

Huntress accused the mayor of illegally sneaking the annexation through to get another anti-development person on the board. Bradley denies the charge.

The subdivision has about 80 residents, enough to gain control of the town’s board in at-large elections. Perot’s supporters on the board immediately began trying to untangle Stagecoach Hills and the ranch from Westlake, claiming that the town is too restrictive and in political chaos.

But last weekend, as expected, the Perot bloc of aldermen dissolved. One member was defeated in elections; another’s term expired.

They were replaced by pro-Bradley forces: salesman Abe Bush Jr. and attorney Charla Bradshaw, whose husband is retired Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw.

“I’m going to try to salvage the town of Westlake somehow--that’s our goal,” Bush said. “New map, old map, whatever. I’d rather have the Circle T back and work with Ross Perot Jr. With this new board, we’re all committed to do that.”