Here's a reasonable perspective on Eldorado from Rick Casey of the Chronicle. One that is based in reality and law.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/casey/5741251.html

Here's a teaser from the column:
Meanwhile, it appears underage girls were assaulted, teenage boys were cast out onto the streets, and, according to several lawsuits, boys were sexually assaulted as well.

Now we have what one Oregon Child Protection Services official called "the Katrina of child welfare."

"In Oregon, 12 kids picked up and sheltered after a drug raid is a horrific night," he said.

Here we have hundreds of children scattered all over the state in foster facilities. Some, including one as young as 13, are pregnant. The first of these gave birth in state custody yesterday.

There are more important things to worry about at a time like this than expense, but consider this.

The compound the sect built might well be eligible for seizure by the state if it was used in a criminal enterprise � the habitual sexual assault of underage girls � by older men.

Authorities use the law to seize drug houses.

Why not do the same with the $21 million compound at Eldorado?

Some voice in my head just suggested that to me. I don't know whose.

Take it and convert it to a summer camp / dude ranch / for troubled teens?

How about a new TDCAA headquarters?

Home for unwed mothers. Oh, wait...

New TYC facility. Never mind....

Hotel California of Texas

The Good Lord will just have to get in line behind other debtors like everyone else:

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/32593

Sect leader suspected of draining $100 million trust
Wed, 04/23/2008
By TRISH CHOATE, Scripps Howard News Service national

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- While many have wondered how a Mormon splinter sect financed its multimillion-dollar West Texas spread, one man thinks he knows the answer.

Bruce Wisan, a court-appointed officer for the polygamist sect's $100 million real-estate trust, said he believes sect spiritual leader Warren Jeffs drained the trust to buy the land for the Yearning For Zion Ranch, then build the sprawling compound in Eldorado, Texas, and keep the operation going for years.

"Warren was converting trust assets into cash at fire-sale prices to get the cash to build up the community in Eldorado," Wisan said in a telephone interview.

* * *

Wisan said he hasn't really considered whether he wants to take possession of the ranch itself to help satisfy the judgment.

"Who would want to buy a temple in the middle of West Texas?" he said.

Taking possession of the compound would "cause me a lot of grief politically in the community," Wisan said. "And I'd just as soon obtain the judgment another way."

quote:

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Originally posted by A.P. Merillat:
Hotel California of Texas

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The School of Rock.

[This message was edited by Greg Gilleland on 04-30-08 at .]

Xanadu

David, are you talking about the song by Olivia Newton John or the one by a band out of Canada?

While I'd love to say that I was actually thinking of the poem by Coleridge (yes, I know it's only a line in the poem and not the title of it), I was actually thinking of the large rollerskating rink that Michael Beck and Gene Kelly opened in the movie of the same name.

I was suggesting converting the compound into a rollerskating rink because rollerskating rinks are so profitable these days (thanks to the success of movies like Roller Boogie and Skatetown U.S.A. and the aforementioned Olivia Newton John vehicle).

[This message was edited by David Newell on 05-01-08 at .]

Boogie Nights had a positive effect on the roller skating image.