Citizens Should Track Streams of Influence in City Politics, Part 2

To recap from part 1, Tupps opened its doors in 2015. A local PAC in McKinney called McKinney Team also started in 2015. Three members of the McKinney Team PAC are also on the board of Tupps. Tupps has gotten over $15 million in city dollars through the MEDC, MCDC, and the TIRZ#1 fund since 2015.

Who is the McKinney Team? From their website:

"McKinneyTEAM was formed by a group of business and civic leaders who acknowledge the previous success of our city, but have a vision to raise the bar for the future. As a coalition of seasoned executives we will attempt to establish an honest forum for issues to be discussed and strong leadership to advocate for our community’s future. McKinneyTEAM is a nonpartisan, nonprofit political action committee organized and operating under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, reporting to the Texas Ethics Commission as a General Committee.” 

McKinney Team started out in 2015 with five members: Bill Darling, co-founder of Darling Homes and Tupps board member; David Brooks, former city council member, CEO of Independent Bank and Tupps board member; Pete Huff, former city council member and chairman of WattMaster Controls; Ernest Lynch, Medical Center of McKinney CEO; and Jack Radke, Ag Power owner and CEO. Two others were later added: Roger Harris, former city council member and business owner; Bruce Mead, a retired executive and Tupps board member.

In 2017, David Brooks, McKinney Team member, Tupps board member, and CEO of Independent Bank, helped get Independent Bank a relocation (from one part of town to another) and incentive package worth over $6 million from the MEDC and city. In 2019, Independent Bank got its low-income health clinic over $2.5 million in city and MCDC funding even though there were already several needy low-income health clinics in the area. This is all in addition to the over $11 million Tupps deal. This year, the McKinney Team is monetarily backing a city council candidate for District 1 who is an employee of Independent Bank. If this person wins his race, will he be required to recuse himself from any and all Independent Bank dealings that come before city council?

PACs can make direct monetary donations to specific candidates that are easier to track. PACs can also make in-kind donations to candidates in non-monetary forms: campaign strategic services, design services, website services, mailing lists, stickers, email blasts, endorsement brochures, voter lists, press releases, videos, professional pictures, meet & greet organization, catering, venue rentals, billboards, and more. 

The McKinney Team is really the only local PAC in McKinney that provides campaign-changing monetary support, organization help, and the goods necessary to have a hefty advantage over any opponents. PAC filings for McKinney Team can be found here. 

When the McKinney Team first started, it was not successful with its initial candidate picks for local office in the 2015-2016 period. It has been successful, however, with its support of nearly all city and MISD bond elections. 

Starting in 2017, the McKinney Team helped elect 3 out of their 4 picks: George Fuller for Mayor (won), Charlie Philips for At-Large (won), Dusttin Pearson for District 1 (lost), and Scott Elliot for District 3 (won).

2017 McKinney Team Candidate Direct and Indirect Contributions*:
$,2000 to Fuller in direct contributions & about $6,500 in-kind type support
$1,000 to Philips in direct contributions & about $10,000 in-kind type support
$1,000 to Elliot in direct money & about $9,000 in-kind type support
$1,000 to Pearson in direct money & about $5,000 in-kind type support

In 2019, the McKinney Team backed Rainey Rogers for District 2 (won), Frederick Frazier for At-Large (won), and Richard Franklin for District 4 (won).

2017 McKinney Team Candidate Direct and Indirect Contributions*: 
Rogers -- $500 in direct contributions & about $1,500 in-kind type support (he ran unopposed)
Franklin--$2,500 in direct contributions & about $1,000 in-kind type support
Frazier--$2,500 in direct contributions & about $1,500 in-kind type support

Here are the candidates the McKinney Team is supporting this year: George Fuller for Mayor, Charlie Philips for At-Large, Gere Feltus for District 3, and Jason Beller for District 1. Beller is also an employee of Independent Bank.

2021 McKinney Team Candidate Direct and Indirect Contributions* (indirect contributions will not be reported until at least the end of April):
$2,000 in direct contributions to Fuller (a small part of Fuller's roughly $58,000 in donations so far)
$2,000 in direct contributions to Philips
$2,000 in direct contributions to Feltus
$2,000 in direct contributions to Beller

*Note: If anything, I under-reported the in-kind type donations to each candidate. I did round down often. I did not include anything I suspected as duplicates. I also did not include anything that was vague as to what candidate was getting a specific donation (see example below).

  

Citizens Should Track Streams of Influence in City Politics, Part 1

Note: Using influence within the law is not wrong. Using money to affect politics within the law is not wrong. Using our taxpayer dollars to help certain people and businesses without transparent or fair processes is a murky mess that should be avoided at all costs. 

Useful websites, like OpenSecrets.org, track federal-level campaign contributions to federal candidates. Political action committee (PAC) donations, lobbying group donations, and dark money donations meant to influence politicians should be out in the open. Most people want to know who is donating to whom and whether those donations could be leading to any paybacks that include beneficial legislation, government contracts, public/private partnerships, or other tangible rewards. We want to know—and we should want to know—if our federal dollars are benefiting certain people over others. 

Why do we suddenly stop wanting to track streams of influence in our own cities? Or worse, why do some get offended if questions are even asked about who is influencing whom and to what end? Is it less polite to want transparency closer to home because people we know might start to get uncomfortable or offended? 

Below is an illustration of how campaign contributions and connections among various people, politicians, and groups could lead to, at the very least, problematic optics. 

Tupps is a small brewery that has been open for business for five years in McKinney, Texas. At the time of their most recent application to the local community development corporation in July of 2020, Tupps had about 18 full-time employees and 20 part-time employees that were self-reported on their application. So far in our illustration, Tupps looks like any struggling five-year-old small business. 

 

What makes Tupps a perfect case study right now is because of all the questions about the deal and all the defensiveness as to why there would even be questions. It could also be because it is city council election time. These sorts of disagreements generally bubble up at these moments. 

In the span of five short years, Tupps has benefited from multiple city funding opportunities that other small businesses most probably have not gotten: 

• $27,000 loan and forgiveness if they hire 11 full time workers. This deal was from the McKinney Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) using sales tax dollars. Contract was signed in November of 2014. See here for info 
  
  
• $20,000 loan and forgiveness if they hire 6-8 full time workers. Again, this deal was from the MEDC. Contract was signed July of 2015. See here for info
  
  
• $600,000 loan and forgiveness from the MEDC for equipment in 2020 paired with a larger incentive listed below 
  
  
• $11.3 million lease with option to buy deal with the McKinney Community Development Corporation (MCDC), funded with our sales tax dollars, to relocate and build a very expensive brewery center with no parking lot (see next incentive below) on land the city bought in 2019 (so they could most likely sell it to the MCDC for this deal). Tupps is not required to put any of its own money into this deal. Tupps is only required to create around 5 full time jobs by the end of the forty year lease. Since the land is owned by the MCDC, there will be no property tax revenue. See here for info
  
  
• ~$3.5 million from the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone #1 (TIRZ#1) so the city could use its eminent domain powers to take away affordable housing and pay for the relocation of the low-income occupants. This was done so Tupps could have a parking lot. Look in the plans for Tupps, there is no parking lot on the site plan. See here, here, and here  

How many other incubating businesses have gotten this kind of long-term monetary hand-holding from the city of McKinney? If not, why not? 

Tupps, it turns out, is well-connected. Three of the board members of Tupps are prominent business owners and residents of McKinney. We do not know how long they have been board members or how much of a stake they have in Tupps because the MCDC does not require those sorts of relevant details in their application packets. 

If any city is giving a business large amounts of citizen money and is going into a long-term lease agreement with them, the board members of the business, how long they have been on the board, and what their stake and/or investment is in the business should be a mandatory part of the application process. 

Those three board members are also members of municipal PAC that has been in operation for as long as Tupps has had its doors open—since 2015. Their PAC, the McKinney Team, is focused on endorsing city council candidates and school board elections. 

To be continued in part 2