I have known since January that the Horseshoe has been running a significant deficit. I was told by a reputable source in the County that operational losses have been in the neighborhood of several million dollars a year since the facility opened.

The Site Admin and I have been waiting on the release of the 2007 County Audit to try and determine the magnitude of these prior losses, but the Audit has not been completed yet.

I was unaware that the County had started putting their monthly financial statement on the web.

As for the new pages on the Horseshoe, I would suspect that it is in response to the recent stories about the Sports Complex Operating Losses and an effort by the Commissioners, and other County Elected Officials, to "get in front" of the bad news.

Of note, the losses would be worse if the Horseshoe income wasn't propped up by 100% of the County's share of the Hotel-Motel Taxes.

I'm pretty sure room nights from Horesshoe events aren't contributing much more than a fraction of a fraction of the $74,000/mo. the facility receives.

Socialism always fails. Let this be a lesson to other communities who may have the rare fortune of not being led by retards.

As for the Capital Outlays, without details it is a guessing game. The County Commissioners Court Minutes include several items which may fall in that category, but it is hard to tell what month they would be booked in. Also, there is no apparent accounting for depreciation (a real big line item loss at the Sports Complex).

From the minutes, this could include horse stall panels (~35,000), a new office/storage building (~$10,000), a new tractor (~$12,000), electrical service upgrades for concert hosting (~$60,000), and a new Marquee along the Interstate (?).

The minutes do say the horse stall panels would be replaced by insurance, since the original ones were stolen.

Going back to the archives, one should note that the "Bed Tax" that is funding part of the Horseshoe deficit was passed by the Texas Legislature in May of 2007, and it would have taken a couple of months to get that enacted after approval.

So prior to the enactment of the "Bed Tax" the losses at the Horseshoe would have been more exaggerated, save that infusion of OPM.

BTW, the "Word of the Day" today: fiduciary

How many people do they have working out there?

That was my question too , Bob . It looks like their salary expenditures run about $60,000 per month .

Surely the excess revenues from the visitor's center are being utilized to offset the losses at the Horseshoe and Sports Complex???

Working in the media I have dealt with the Horseshoe indirectly in their scheduling of concerts and events and it seems the person in charge of event scheduling has no clue that a rock group and a country group are two different groups which prevents him from allowing these concerts to be scheduled within a two week period of each other. This ignorance has cancelled several concerts which could have generated more income for the facility. I am not saying these events would have kept the Horseshoe from going in the red but it might have prevented it from going so DEEP in the red and would have made the concert promoter I work with schedule more concerts to the Horseshoe. Maybe the county should do a review of the people they have in charge of the revenue generation of the Horseshoe and make sure they are not the problem.

I am curious....why is so large a period needed between the two types (rock v. country) of concerts?

Country music I hear these days IS rock music .What's the problem ?

Which kind of concert requires the dirt floor?

I've seen whole Broadway shows pack up and move in a night's time. How can it be that a small-time rock band can't be scheduled within 14 days of a small-time country band?

I was told that Craig Anderson devoted basically his entire show this morning to this post, but refused to say "Jessica's Well" at any point in time. My source said he would only say "a local website".

I was also told that one of the county commissioners was a guest, refuting this post.

Sure, it's a given that only about 10 people listen to Craig Anderson's show, but did anyone here catch any of it? I'm curious.

The Commissioners have a point to say they haven't lost $721,000 (yet), but that was corrected after the auditors statements were correctly interpreted as "year-to-date" figures.

Not much else can be refuted. I mean the cash flow statements on the County's Website speak for themselves.

I'm not surprised Anderson doesn't use anything but the phrase "a local blog." Kind of like the paper calls us "a local blog" in headlined news stories because of the "anonymous nature" of our contributors.

I guess it is akin to "an un-named source in the administration" or "a source that asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak on the subject."

Yeah, but we've also been pretty critical of poor old out-of-touch Craig over the years. Maybe that has something to do with it, as well.

Newsroomstew owns up to JW ,just don't expect "Headlines" to cry out "Jessicas Well Says.." because , rule one of old-time journalism is the requirement of three (3) three news sources before publication.

Or so it was in my day.

Patterson ,Doreen , et al have their names right out front and suffer the slings and arrows for any opinions they may opine . Same as Anderson .

While the "Nom de Plume" is an old and respected form of political protest you still have to give credit to the three named above for coming out and telling you..especially Anderson..where they stand and using their own names.

I've never understood why some of you carp so much against this guy . He's Christian , Conservative...and yes , there are some things I strongly disagree with him about ..but there are things I may disagree with YOU about .

What is it with Anderson that sets you off so much ? Tell me . If I can condense your odium for the man into a spray we may have the world's first 100% effective shark repellent.

Sure wish SA would re-introduce the tip jar .

Well, I have solved the problem of only being referred to as "a local blog" and/or "a local website".

Try going to www.alocalblog.com or to www.alocalwebsite.com now!

Patterson, Doreen, et al have their names right out front and suffer the slings and arrows for any opinions they may opine. Same as Anderson.

They also suffer actual paychecks for what they are doing whereas in some cases here the cessation of paychecks from the offended might come in to play.

Touche' ,Walser, touche'.

Why do you care so much that you were referred to as a local blog? Did fame slip through your fingers? What of it?

It's just good journalism to reference your source. That may not be that important to you, but it is pretty standard.