Imagine it is the early 80’s and your family is about to embark on their summer vacation.  The day before you leave your dad is packing up the sports wagon, aka Wagon Queen Family Truckster, trying to figure out how each suitcase needed to be positioned on the roof, so nothing got lost along Route 66. You see your parents sitting at the kitchen table looking at the map one last time planning the ultimate route with amazing pit stops and fun things to do.  Morning comes and it is time to hit the road.  As you pull out of the drive all you can think about it is your destination…Walley World.  Okay yes I am talking about Clark Griswold and the hit movie National Lampoon’s Vacation.  It is a classic, timeless, and hilarious comedy and in my opinion one of the best movies of all time.  Well soon families with small kids across the nation will pack up for that summer trip right here to Frisco, Texas.  If you are wondering why then you have been living under a rock or in a cave for way too long.  Universal Studios will be the Walley World of Frisco!

In January 2023 when residents learned Universal would be coming to town, they did not receive the Griswold welcome by locals.  Instead, residents had a lot of questions and concerns about the project and its impact on the city.  The biggest question still to this day is when did the city first hear about Universals interest in Frisco for this project?  The answer is not as easy as one may think, and it varies depending on who you ask. In a council meeting Mayor Cheney said they first learned about the project at the end of August or September 2022.  Then in an interview with local reporter Brett Shipp back in late January, Mayor Cheney said council had been thoroughly vetting the project the last 4 to 5 months.   When announced in January several council members and P&Z board members admitted to not having the so-called traffic study, economic impact study, or crime study.  In fact, several admit to having very few details on the project other than the colorful rendering seen by the world. 

That is where we thought the story would end until one day I checked our email and there was a letter with a copy of two PIR’s by two different residents and I will admit I was a little verklempt and excited.  The requests were for all communications regarding P117 / Universal, travel plans and expenses and more.  Buried in one of the requests we found a picture of a timeline titled “Genesis of Universal Project” and after reading it we were very confused and perplexed.

Hold up!  If the timeline provided by the city is correct then we have a lot of questions.  It does not match the verbal statements/timelines given by the mayor and some council members and it does not match the emails received in the PIR.  Who wrote the timeline?  Who put the timeline in the PIR?  Why are there no emails supporting this time frame?  Are we to believe not one email went back and forth from May to the end of August regarding this big project that was in discussion?  

According to this timeline the city officials supposedly had 3 meetings in June.  The first was June 7, the second June 14, and the third June 21, 2022.   However, when you get to July 13 it notes the June board meeting was canceled so the EDC board did not get a briefing until July.  Let’s pretend we have a multiple-choice test question:  Which June meeting was canceled?  A) June 7, B) June 14, C) June 21, D) All of them or E) None of them.  May, June and July?   That is very different than September or October, which were the city officials statements given at city council meetings and meet and greets.  I find it hard to believe my wife and I are the only ones asking why the timeline keeps changing.  Why do I feel like we are being lied to and if they are lying, why?  If the city council was briefed on a regular monthly basis since July 2022 then why is it when confronted after the big grand announcement most of the city officials and members of P&Z had little to no information about the project?  When asked most looked like “deer in the headlights” and could not try to exit the conversation fast enough.  What they did have were the same talking points that we later learned were lies and part of a bait-and-switch to what was really in the development agreement.

Confused we decided to go through the emails sent to us and we found the first email dated 8/22/2022 at 1:57 PM from Laura Cuzman (Sr. Admin Asst at the Frisco EDC) to Holly McCall and Sharon Perry (City Mgr. Admin Asst) is regarding a “High Priority Meeting.”  It goes on to say Jason Ford (President of the Frisco EDC) would like to coordinate an “important meeting” with a “prospect” at the Frisco EDC office to be held 8/31/2022.  It notes that city staff should include Wes Pierson, Ben Brezina and John Lettellier.  Laura asks Holly to confirm if Mayor Cheney and/or Angelia Pelham from the council could attend and what 2-hour window would work so they could coordinate a meeting.   Immediately Sharon Perry responds and asks, “Is this for Project US?”  If it is Wes can be available all day.  Laura responds that she believes so but will confirm with Jason Ford.  Then an email is sent from Jason Ford to Ben Brazina (Asst. City Manager) and he states Cheney can be available, Angelia is on vacation and then he asks if Ben and Wes have suggestions of other council member(s) they should include.  He specifically says, “ Mayor Pro Tem perhaps as part of protocol?”  Then Jason asks Ben to make a call to Richard the next day to discuss any potential issues with the other member we discussed with related experience. 

In my best Beyoncé I want to scream, ring the alarm, ring the alarm!  Why would you not invite all the council members?  Why exclude any of them from important conversations regarding such a big project?   Is this typically how the city conducts business?  What member could be a potential issue due to their related experience? 

In the next series of emails that started on August 29, Emily Pollard (Marketing & Special Events – Frisco EDC) sends an email to Jason Ford and Leigh Lyons with a draft of the P117 Site Visit Presentation for August 31.  Then Jason Ford sends an email to Wes Pierson, Ben Brezina and a cc to Marla Row (Visit Frisco) where he shares the first working draft of pitch decks for Wednesday’s meeting.  That evening, Ben Brezina responded back they should highlight the month of May 2023 and talk about how many people are coming to Frisco with the PGA Frisco opening, Dallas Cowboys Training Camp Kick Off Party, ACM Music Awards and KitchenAid PGA Senior Championship.  His point “inertia is moving…time for Project US to join us as our Partner. The next morning Marla Row sent 2 emails, the first talked about what statistics they should use for economic impact and the second email adds they should reference the meeting they had with all the venues to discuss them activating events around the ACM which further shows partnership beyond developments.  Ben Brezina replies he likes that angle, it’s not just deal making, site development, construction, and grand opening but a partnership that extends far beyond the doors opening.  Later that day Jason Ford sends out a revised “pitch deck” and working draft agenda for the August 31, 2023 meeting, along with a note to Jeff Cheney, Brian Livingston, Tammy Meinershagen, Wes Pierson, Ben Brezina, Marlo Roe, and John Lettellier with the subject line: Please sign NDA ASAP for meeting tomorrow.  He goes on to say the meeting will be at the Frisco EDC office and the client has asked every participant  to sign an NDA, which was drafted by Richard Abernathy. 

Pictures of the P-117 Meeting Agenda show a list of participants and notes topics from prior meetings which may be revisited or carried over (site specific).  

Discussion on workforce (i.e., how far would employees need to travel in from):   A primary benefit mentioned over and over promoting this project was the jobs it will create for Frisco residents.  If this was about local jobs then why are we talking about how far employees will have to travel.

Would the community be receptive to this project / land use?  If not, why?  Let’s just do a quick look at the City of Frisco’s social media Facebook page.  On average daily posts can generate anywhere from 1 to 50 comments and maybe 3 to 4 shares.  When you see posts with 100, 500, 1000 comments you can bet it is something citizens are paying attention to. Just look at the City’s Facebook page when it comes to Universal posts.  On 1/11/23  the first post “The Announcement” had 1.9k comments and 4.8k shares and was one of the highest responded to posts on the city’s page in two years. It is important to note that most of the comments were against the project.  Then a second post on 1/11/23  had 161 comments and 42 shares, 1/13/23 third post had 50 comments and 73 shares and the fourth post on 1/16/23 had 30 comments and 60 shares.  February was not much different, on 2/10/23 the fifth post had 213 comments and 11 shares, and the final post announcing it had been approved on 3/7/23 had 349 comments and 76 shares (the majority saying it was a big mistake to approve it). 

What sort of upgrades would be needed to facilitate the park (infrastructure)?  I would be curious what the discussion was they had on this one.

What are the public approval hurdles we’d need to prepare for?  Under what circumstances?  They obviously were clueless to the opposition this project would face because they were not ready for the public hurdles that came after the announcement.

How might State/Local Economic Development help us (expedite permitting, political help, incentives, etc.)?   I bet they didn’t expect the citizen opposition to incentives.

How hard is it to get a definitive answer to one simple question…When did the city first learn about Universal?  Two months ago, at the council meeting, which was packed with residents, Fehmi Karahan spoke and said he was approached 10 months ago which means that would have been April 2022.

Depending on the timeline you believe, are we supposed to buy that for two months, Fehmi didn’t tell the city about the inquiry from Universal?  If the city first started discussing this in May or even August 2022, and the project was thoroughly vetted as Mayor Cheney said, then why were some citizens told in January 2023 by council members and P&Z staff members that they really didn’t know too many details about the project?  Why had the council or P&Z members not seen a crime study, traffic study, economic impact study from May/August 2022 to January 2023?  Mayor Cheney besides using resident tax dollars (in excess of $10,000+) for a trip to vet Universal Orlando in person, what else was vetted?   

At the climax of the Griswold’s Road Trip to Walley World in National Lampoons Vacation, everything had gone wrong that could go wrong and Clark’s wife and kids announce they vacation is not worth it and want to just go home.  At his wits end, sitting in the sports wagon you can see the whites of Clarks wide eyes and the grinding of his teeth, and his meltdown begins.  He launches into a foul-mouthed tirade: “I think you’re all f**ked in the head! […] This is no longer a vacation! It’s a quest! It’s a quest for fun! […] You’ll be whistling ‘Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah’ out of your a**holes!” 

We agree with Clark this is a quest but ours is for something so simple called “THE TRUTH.”  I was one of those residents in January sitting at home watching the announcement live stream on Facebook and thinking to myself what in the nuclear detonation, I mean tarnation is going on in Frisco.  All I could picture was the final scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation when the Griswold’s gleefully race to the entrance of Walley World, “America’s Favorite Family Fun Park,”  in slow motion only to find the park is closed for two weeks for repairs and cleaning.

After doing all this research we are left with more questions than answers and we can say the inaccuracies in the timeline are very questionable, glaringly obvious, and truthfully alarming.   A smart person once said, “Trust the timeline of yourself.”  And with that Walley says, until next time…