In 1999, a Texas farmer named Mr. Bland looked out at his land and noticed something. The kids in his neighborhood didn't have anywhere to play. So he gave them somewhere. He signed over 87.97 acres to a public trust for $10, with one condition written into the deed: the land had to be used as a park.

That deed still exists. Pamela Griffin and her neighbors found it. It says the land must be "held in trust for future use as parkland." It could not be clearer.

Here is what happened instead. The land passed from the public trust to two nonprofits, then to the City of Taylor. In 2008, the city sold it to the Taylor Economic Development Corporation for $15,000. In 2025, the TEDC sold it to a data center developer called Blueprint for $10 million. The city now projects $30 million in tax revenue from the project over the next decade.

Mr. Bland's $10 gift became a $10 million payday for a government entity. The park he promised his neighbors was never built.

Griffin and her family hired a lawyer and fought back. They lost in the lower courts. They are now appealing to the Third Court of Appeals in Austin, and they need support. Central to her case is exactly what she told reporters: "I'm not fighting just because of a data center. I'm fighting because this land was deeded for parkland."

She is right. A deed is a legal promise. The chain of transfers from trust to nonprofit to city to economic development corporation does not erase the condition Bland attached to his gift. If it can be erased here, no charitable land donation in Texas is safe. Any city that wants to convert donated green space into taxable development can simply route it through an economic development corporation first, collect the profit, and claim its hands are tied.

We are calling on two things. First: the Third Court of Appeals should uphold the 1999 deed restriction and return this land to its intended purpose. Second: the Texas legislature should close the loophole that allows cities to transfer donated community land through economic development corporations to strip it of deed conditions.

Mr. Bland gave his neighbors a park. Sign to demand they get it.