Hey Aussie, how close are you to DISH, TX?

[Fezmid]

http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/5732306.html

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

You know that you're in trouble when the local trailer park wants nothing to do with you.

 

 

DISH basks in media spotlight

 

By Jay Parsons / The Dallas Morning News

08:23 AM CST on Thursday, November 17, 2005

 

DISH — Just after 5 a.m. Wednesday, Bill Merritt counts to 10 for a satellite feed test leading up to a live interview with KTVT-TV (Channel 11).

 

A crowd of 15 relatives and friends, in a town known as Clark only 10 hours earlier, watch as in the next hours, Merritt tells TV and radio morning shows from Big D to the Big Apple that his two-person Town Council agreed to change the town of Clark’s name to DISH — all caps.

 

In return, Dish Network is giving all residents present and future free satellite TV for 10 years. For Dish Network, it was a publicity stunt.

 

So when Merritt proclaimed to a CBS affiliate in New York, “I don’t look at this as a publicity stunt at all,” viewers there probably scoffed. Who’d turn down free satellite TV?

 

But DISH residents watching Merritt in his office Wednesday morning nodded.

 

“It gives the town a fresh start,” said resident Stephanie Paul, who first suggested Merritt enter Clark in the company’s contest back in August.

 

In interviews with three TV stations, two radio show hosts and on a conference call with print reporters, the 31-year-old mayor dodged the dirty job of explaining why he — and so many other residents — were so eager to ditch the name Clark.

 

Clark has suffered more than its share of growing pains for a town that’s actually shrunken since its incorporation five years ago:

 

The municipal government has been subject to three grand jury inquiries. All went nowhere.

 

The town shrank by two-thirds last year after a mobile home community de-annexed.

 

After Merritt ousted L.E. Clark — the town’s 71-year-old founder and namesake — by a single vote in May, L.E. Clark sued on voter fraud charges. The suit was later thrown out.

 

And then there was the flagpole caper. L.E. Clark hacksawed the flagpole in front of City Hall after his re-election loss. “It was my flagpole,” he said later.

 

No one pressed Merritt when he joked on Wednesday that the only person unhappy with the name change was L.E. Clark.

 

And because the interviews were via satellite, no one knew Dish — the network, not the town — hired an off-duty cop to guard the new welcome sign on FM156, the only road into town.

 

“Just in case,” Dish PR man Mark Cicero said.

 

And, of course, L.E. Clark isn’t happy about the name change.

 

“You got no right to change the name of the town unless the majority of the people want to change it,” he said in an interview. “That’s the way to do it democratically, but Bill Merritt sure as hell isn’t in favor of democracy.”

 

L.E. Clark didn’t show up for the council vote and festivities Tuesday night or for the media bonanza Wednesday morning. Only proponents spoke out at both events.

 

Still, even L.E. Clark knew a name change was coming after losing a bitter election protest. A victorious Merritt all but promised a new town name at the time.

 

“We wanted a tool that would attract people and make them want to be part of our town,” the mayor told Susan McGinnis of CBS News at 6:55 a.m. “We didn’t have much to offer before, and frankly most people didn’t know where we were.”

 

He told a Denver radio station he wanted to “put this town on the map.”

 

It’s a trite request of any town, especially one that doesn’t even have a stoplight — the barometer tiny towns measure themselves against. But Clark has had trouble getting recognized by even the most modern maps.

 

Type “Clark, Texas,” into Mapquest.com, and you’ll get directions to the town near Houston. Open up the Denton County Mapsco, and you’ll find a close-up on only the town’s eastern edge. Drive north on FM156 from Fort Worth, and you’ll see signs pointing you toward Drop — a long-disbanded town near Justin, but no evidence of Clark.

 

And even if you find your way by hanging a left onto Eakin Cemetery Road, you won’t find a main drag, a store or more than two stop signs within the town’s 1.5 square miles.

 

Six months since taking office, Merritt has cut taxes 31 percent, hired a new town secretary and replaced a controversial one-man police force with patrols by the Denton County Sheriff’s Office.

 

No one has publicly raised the issue, but it is possible Merritt’s DISH-based real estate company could benefit from the satellite deal. The family business, Longhorn Co., is selling 1-acre plots within DISH’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.

 

Merritt said he would not annex unsold plots to avoid a conflict. He would, however, market the DISH offer to prospective buyers who could request annexation — a deal Merritt said he’d make for any nearby landowner in unincorporated territory.

 

Dish Network began installing the satellites Wednesday for the town’s 55 households. After the 10-year deal — a $4,000 value per household — the town could change its name again. But Merritt said he’d like to see DISH stick.

 

As for L.E. Clark, he said he’s not sure if he’ll take the offer for free satellite service. He’s got other things on his mind.

 

“I tell you, what I’m thinking about is changing my name to Dish,” L.E. Clark said. “That’d get him, wouldn’t it?”

[OnTheRocks]

Hey Aussie, how close are you to DISH, TX?, aka: Clark, TX

 

Aussie is the "Dish" of Texas!

[aussiew]

Aussie is the "Dish" of Texas!

 

Well thank you OTR, but hardly. Have you ever seen Dallas women? It's a man's dream down here - so many hot babes.

 

But only a few of them are Bills fans.

[OnTheRocks]

Well thank you OTR, but hardly.  Have you ever seen Dallas women?  It's a man's dream down here - so many hot babes.

 

But only a few of them are Bills fans. 

506048[/snapback]

 

as a matter of fact, the lovely Mrs. OTR is from Dallas.