Richard Allen saw what others could not in the acres of southern Dallas County farmland that had lain desolate for years.

The California developer envisioned an international trade corridor – one large enough to reshape the area and reap him a financial profit in the process.

Yet for all his vision, Allen, who is white, appeared blind to the county's complicated racial politics.

When three respected black businessmen responded to Allen's search for help in navigating the county's complicated political landscape, Allen viewed their consulting proposal as an attempted "shakedown," according to a Dallas City Council member.

And when the area's two most powerful black politicians pressured him to commit to include minority firms in the expected business boom his proposed 6,000-acre development would create, he saw that as fallout for not hiring the consultants.

Some black leaders saw Allen as an outsider determined to cash in on cheap and plentiful land in the county's most impoverished area – and obtain public subsidies – without allowing the community to share in the wealth. To them, the developer was resistant to their attempts to direct a specific amount of business to minority firms.

Lagging development in southern Dallas has bedeviled civic leaders for decades, helping create a divided city of haves in the north and have-nots in the south.

The conflict between these men – what one side considered a business proposal, the other saw as a shakedown – occurred against the backdrop of that neglected region. And it helped create the type of quagmire that has long stunted growth in the last expanse of Dallas County that's still ripe for development.

Whether there was an attempted shakedown may never be known, but after a two-month review by The Dallas Morning News, this much is clear: The dispute vividly illustrates the complex nature of racial politics in Dallas County and how it affected the early stages of a development that backers promise will pump billions of dollars into the county's tax base.

"Everybody got a lesson," said Michael Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College and an analyst who has worked on southern Dallas political campaigns. "What ultimately happened is people began to appreciate why it's so difficult to develop in southern Dallas."

Today, Allen's Dallas Logistics Hub – a proposed industrial park that spans portions of Dallas, Lancaster, Hutchins and Wilmer – is on track. And Allen says his company voluntarily meets or exceeds local minority participation goals.

But hard feelings remain.

"They agreed to do certain things and never followed through," said Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, referring to Allen's company, The Allen Group. "The record speaks for itself."

Said Allen: "We believe we have been forced to jump through multiple hurdles that are not put in front of other developers. And if they were, they would have left the region a long time ago."

Although his trade hub is still in the early stages of development, Allen expects the project – sometimes referred to as an inland port – to generate 60,000 jobs and attract millions of dollars worth of warehouses, factories and distribution centers, as well as office buildings and retail space.

When the commercial developer arrived in Dallas in 2005 to close on the land for his project south of Interstate 20, he wasn't prepared for the demands that would be made on him to create business for minority firms.

In previous projects, Allen says, he has won local support with the promise of jobs and by engaging in community involvement and philanthropy.

But from the beginning, Allen understood the advantage of hiring a local team when diving into new political waters. He had done so on projects in California, Las Vegas and Kansas.

So Allen launched a search for a high-profile minority employee from southern Dallas County to help him win support and incentives for his project.

He met with numerous political, business and community leaders, including state Sen. Royce West and U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, to get the word out. Among the big names he considered offering the job to were former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk.

Pettis Norman, who owns a transportation company, said his involvement began when he got a call from West in late 2005.

A former Dallas Cowboys star, Norman said West explained that The Allen Group was looking to hire someone to help with the inland port project. West had recommended Norman to Allen.

Norman, 70, had a sterling reputation. He had served as co-chairman of the Dallas Together Forum, a multiracial group of business leaders who met beginning in the early 1990s to find ways to defuse the city's racial tensions and improve minority economic opportunities. The forum urged local companies to hire and promote more minorities and to increase minority contracting.

When they eventually met, through the help of a real estate firm playing intermediary, Norman told Allen he was too busy running his company to take a staff job. He believed more than one person would be required to accomplish what Allen wanted. So Norman suggested to Allen that Norman put together a consulting team to handle the work.

Allen says he was wary of consulting contracts at the time. He said local politicians – whom he declined to name – had warned him that you had to hire "the right consultants" to do business in southern Dallas County.

"I was told to expect a knock on the door from consultants in order to be successful with my project," he said.

However, Norman said Allen acted receptive to the idea of a consulting team and asked for a written proposal.

So Norman tapped local developer Jon Edmonds and Willis Johnson, a radio talk show host who owns a local telecommunications business, to form the Service and Leadership Team, or SALT, and to draw up a proposal for Allen.

When West asked to join SALT, Norman said he wanted to avoid any appearance of a conflict and convinced the senator that it wouldn't be a good idea.

At his meeting with Allen, Norman said, he also pitched another idea, one that would have unintended consequences and sour relations between Allen and black leaders.

Norman said he suggested that he could find a prominent group of southern Dallas County investors to put up money and share in ownership of the inland port project, referring to the idea as equity participation.

Allen, he said, wasn't keen on that idea.

In a November 2005 e-mail to Norman, Allen confirmed that he was willing to consider a consulting contract. He spelled out the scope of work so SALT could develop a proposal. It included arranging meetings with political and community leaders to get their support; serving as a public ambassador for the company; and helping it obtain zoning, foreign trade zone designations, government bonds and other public incentive packages.

But the job outlined by Allen in his e-mail to Norman would not entail increasing minority business opportunities.

Norman said his group had to scramble to meet Allen's deadline. The team's hastily written proposal called for a three-year, $1.5 million contract.

"I thought it was a lot of money for what [work] was described," Allen said. Norman said it was only a starting point for negotiations.

The SALT proposal included the idea that Norman said he had previously suggested to Allen – that his group be given the opportunity to purchase 15 percent ownership of the development. At no time, Norman said, was the idea for Allen to grant the ownership share for free.

"I don't take handouts," Norman said.

Details of the so-called equity participation provision weren't included in the five-page proposal, and Allen insists he didn't understand what it meant then and still doesn't to this day.

"We recommend that SALT participate in 15 percent of the development opportunity. The special deal structure and equity participation to be negotiated," the proposal said.

SALT's consulting proposal said Allen would need a "proper introduction" by the "right people." It said Allen must be viewed by the minority community as a developer who's interested in partnerships and not someone who "only wants to take opportunities and resources out of the community."

The Allen Group, according to the proposal, should create wealth for southern Dallas County and its residents.

At a subsequent meeting between Allen Group officials and the three businessmen, Norman said the proposal was never brought up. Instead, Allen told the men he had decided to proceed with his original plan of hiring a single employee to handle the work. The businessmen were taken aback by Allen's unwillingness to discuss their proposal.

"I was shocked. I felt we were going in there to negotiate," Edmonds said.

The room fell silent. Then tension slowly began to build as the SALT members let their feelings be known.

Edmonds said he told Allen that hiring one black employee would not be considered sufficient minority participation by the minority community.

Edmonds said he then offered Allen what he says was meant to be a bit of wisdom: "I fear for this project," he said. He said he meant that Allen would have difficulty accomplishing all he had outlined with just one person.

Allen now declines to comment on what was said at that meeting, saying he fears legal action from the SALT members. But he and his vice president interpreted Edmonds' remark as a threat, according to local officials.

Edmonds says he doesn't regret that choice of words but acknowledges that Allen could have misinterpreted it as a threat.

Ultimately, Allen hired Leslie Jutzi, project manager of the city of Dallas' NAFTA Trade Corridor, to become his southern Dallas point person, largely because of her trade experience. But unlike members of SALT, Jutzi had limited connections and little clout in the southern Dallas political scene.

But Allen's concern about his dealings with SALT continued. He showed Dallas City Council member Bill Blaydes a copy of the SALT proposal and told him he believed it was an attempted shakedown, according to Blaydes. Blaydes said he came to the same conclusion after reading the proposal.

Blaydes told other Dallas council members about the encounter and the proposal, and the shakedown allegation soon got back to Norman.

Norman said he and his partners were stunned by the accusation and felt wronged. Norman said he was also infuriated by Allen's contention that Allen didn't understand what the 15 percent equity proposal meant.

Norman says the whole episode is an example of an outsider getting rich with the help of local taxpayer money, while demonizing his team and the entire southern Dallas County community.

In Dallas, encounters between consultants and developers are common, said Robert Baldwin, a Dallas land-use consultant. He says most of his work comes from word of mouth, usually from lawyers he's worked with before. A meeting will be scheduled with the developer, during which he'll explain the process and discuss the fee.

Norman says his group's sole purpose in meeting with Allen was to do business. And he says Allen executives wouldn't have impugned the motives of white consultants in pitching their services.

"They would not do this in North Dallas," Norman said. "He would not have thought Roger Staubach was shaking him down."

Concerned that the inland port project might fall victim to an apparent misunderstanding, Eddie Bernice Johnson and Blaydes called a meeting at the congresswoman's Dallas office to soothe ruffled feelings.

"She realized that things had gotten way out of hand and needed to be brought under control for things to proceed," Blaydes said.

According to accounts from several people who attended the meeting, it got off to a rocky start.

Norman started yelling at Allen.

"Pettis exploded," Blaydes said. "There were fingers in people's faces."

The meeting got so intense, the congresswoman left the room out of frustration over the lack of progress.

But before the meeting ended, Blaydes typed up a one-page letter on behalf of The Allen Group that apologized for the use of the word shakedown.

"After the changes were made, we all walked out the door," Blaydes said. "Nobody was happy, but we thought that it was an agreement to disagree but move forward for the betterment of the city."

Allen's perception of his encounters with black business and political leaders may have been shaped in part by the political climate at the time.

A Dallas City Hall kickback and bribery scandal involving black council members and consulting deals was only months old – a scandal Allen says he was aware of at the time. In the summer of 2005, five months before the SALT/Allen Group meeting, federal agents swept into City Hall to serve search warrants.

A federal grand jury has since indicted council member Don Hill, who is black, in a case alleging he recommended to a developer a consultant whose office was used to route kickbacks and bribes to Hill.

Much later, after Hill left the council in 2007, Hill approached Allen about doing work for him through the law firm he worked for, Allen said. Blaydes, who is white, acknowledges he also asked Allen for a job after leaving office. Neither was hired.

Hill did not respond to calls seeking comment.

J. McDonald "Don" Williams, chairman and founder of the Foundation for Community Empowerment, said the men involved in the SALT group were not the type of people that would be involved in a shakedown – and that business deals between developers and consultants are negotiated all the time.

"I find those kinds of charges outlandish based on the character of the people involved and my long experience knowing and working with them," said Williams, a member of the board of directors of A.H. Belo Corporation, owner of The Dallas Morning News.

Williams recruited Edmonds and brought him to Dallas to work with the foundation, which promotes revitalization projects in southern Dallas. After a stint with his own business, Edmonds returned to work for Williams as president of Frazier Revitalization Inc.

One of the things the SALT members stressed in their proposal to Allen was the need to ensure that minority businesses were given opportunities to get work in building Allen's development. SALT recommended a goal of 35 percent.

The men knew that failing to commit to using minority firms in a southern Dallas County development could lead to trouble.

In early 2006, Allen learned how right they were.

Local leaders were planning the first major infrastructure project involving The Allen Group – a key bridge in Hutchins that improved access to the Allen property over Union Pacific's rail line via Wintergreen Road.

Hutchins, a small city with few resources, would need help. With Eddie Bernice Johnson's coordination, the North Central Texas Council of Governments agreed to use regional transportation money on the Wintergreen Road bridge construction while Allen agreed to pay for the design.

Price, the county commissioner whose district includes the inland port, agreed that the county would manage the Wintergreen project.

An agreement was drawn up, spelling out everyone's obligations.

Mike Sims, a Terrell assistant city manager who at the time worked for the council of governments, said developers make promises all the time and don't deliver. Allen, a developer new to the area with an unknown track record, was proposing a massive development that would reshape southern Dallas County, he said.

Because of that, Price felt it was important to get some commitment from Allen to use minority firms on the bridge design, Sims said. That's because public money was being used on the project and the bridge would benefit Allen's logistics hub.

But Allen didn't want to commit to anything he wasn't legally required to do, Sims said.

Michael Morris, the council of governments' director of transportation, said he got the impression Allen had no experience hiring certified minority firms.

"I said, 'Be sensitive to minority contracting.' They seemed very naive about it, to my surprise," Morris said. "I think they had no sensitivity to this subject."

Price, who has ceaselessly championed minority contracting throughout his more than two decades in office, took offense at Allen's reluctance.

"It's not about a handout. I'm looking to try to include people who have been historically locked out," Price said.

Allen appeared to feel there was some underlying suggestion that he was a racist, Sims said.

Allen eventually agreed to handle the project like a local government would, soliciting bids and strongly considering minority firms. Allen agreed to Price's suggestion to split the design work into four separate, smaller contracts, which would make it easier for minority subcontractors to bid on the work, Sims said.

The process took seven months, but Allen said he ended up with minority participation of more than 50 percent.

Allen said he had planned all along to use minority firms on the bridge design. But Morris and Price said there was no commitment until they pressed the issue.

"I don't think to this day he [Allen] understands why minority firms should be used," Morris said.

Dallas County requires the involvement of minority firms in all county contracts without stipulating a minimum percentage. Price said that while he is vigilant about enforcing compliance in his district, the same is not necessarily true of other commissioner districts.

The bridge delay angered elected officials in Hutchins, including its black mayor, who just wanted to see dirt moving in his cash-strapped city. Price's maneuvering also frustrated Eddie Bernice Johnson, the area's most powerful black politician, who also wanted to see the development move forward.

From then on, Price and West, who was upset at The Allen Group's treatment of Norman, viewed the company with suspicion – as outsiders who couldn't be trusted.

The feeling was mutual.

"I have never, ever experienced the problems I have experienced in south Dallas County," Allen said. "I was warned that I would have problems. And I did."

In 2007, The Allen Group hired a minority contractor, 3i Construction, to build one of two warehouses required under a development agreement with the city of Dallas. They were the first buildings to go up in Allen's logistics hub.

West tried unsuccessfully to persuade the owner, Michael Williams, not to work for Allen.

"I told Michael that The Allen Group had a credibility problem," West said. "They can say all they want about shakedowns. It's far from the truth."

Williams said a second "person of leadership position in our community" asked him not to take the job. He declined to identify the person.

In addition, Johnson said West and Price met with her and asked her not to support The Allen Group.

"They said this man needed to leave some money in the community," she said. "I told them he was actively seeking minority investment."

Later in 2007, when Allen sought foreign trade zone status from the county for his trade hub, Price delayed a vote on the issue in order to grant the city of DeSoto's request to include property owned by Ross Perot Jr.'s Hillwood company.

Price indicated his decision was about including DeSoto, saying there was no reason to exclude the growing city from the benefits of the zone.

Each time Price put an obstacle in front of Allen, Allen said, his company viewed it as fallout for not hiring SALT. When Price got behind the development of an inland port master plan the city of Dallas was pushing last year, The Allen Group thought: Here we go again.

Price has said a regional master plan, an idea that has since been dropped, is needed to coordinate infrastructure needs throughout the inland port.

Allen calls the constant demands Price and West made on him to prove his record on minority hiring an "incredible waste of time and energy on both sides." He said other developers have not had to bear those burdens. And those who have, he said, left town. It's the reason southern Dallas County hasn't developed, Allen said.

Blaydes says he believes Price and West capitalized on the shakedown controversy to portray Allen as someone not to be trusted.

"They are using the other three men's situation to their advantage," he said. "They will deny it until the cows come home, but that's the truth."

Price and West's feelings about the Allen Group are not shared by all minorities in southern Dallas. The county's black contractors' association, for example, awarded the company "corporate newcomer of the year" in 2007.

And since 2005, The Allen Group says, it has given minority firms between 25 percent and 53 percent of the work on various projects.

Tensions were recently exacerbated by a series of articles in The Dallas Observer that dredged up the old shakedown accusations. The Observer articles, which began in December and continued into March, suggested Price was working in concert with SALT and began making trouble for the company after Allen declined to hire the men.

Adding fuel to the fire, The Observer quoted Eddie Bernice Johnson as saying Price has a history of shaking people down. Initially, Johnson denied she had ever used the term shakedown. When the magazine produced a recording of the interview that indicated she had, she declined to comment further.

Price and the SALT members denied any connection between them and said they aren't allies, associates or even friends. Allen, who received a threatening legal letter from a SALT attorney during the height of the controversy in 2006, received a second one after The Observer articles.

And Price has taken Johnson and County Judge Jim Foster to court in an attempt to question them under oath about statements they made to The Observer accusing him of shaking people down.

"They chose the wrong three guys to attack," Norman said. "Our history, our background does not lend any credence to [our] being shakedown artists."

Johnson says she's confident that Allen will produce a solid project that includes thousands of jobs and opportunities for minority contractors.

"I have great hopes for these jobs coming quickly," she said. "It won't be that pretty, but it could be a boon."

Work has slowed on the inland port project because of the country's financial woes, but it seems poised to rebound when the economy improves. And Johnson has a message for all those involved in the shakedown dust-up.

"They need to shut up and go on with the project," she said.

kkrause@dallasnews.com;

gjeffers@dallasnews.com

RICHARD ALLEN

JOHN WILEY PRICE

ROYCE WEST

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

PETTIS NORMAN

WILLIS JOHNSON

JON EDMONDS

The local businessman who joined SALT. He has given $250 to West's campaign since 2004 and no money to Price's campaigns during the same period.

BILL BLAYDES

What is an inland port?

How does it work?

What is a foreign trade zone?

Where is Dallas County's inland port?

Who operates the inland port?

How long will it take to be completed?

What are the inland port's biggest challenges?

The San Diego company recently moved its corporate headquarters to Dallas. The company, founded in 1991, is privately owned and develops commercial real estate properties. The company specializes in inland ports and has developed industrial, office and retail developments in California, Texas and Kansas. Its other major developments:

•Kansas City Logistics Hub, Gardner, Kan.: The 1,000-acre logistics park is a joint venture between The Allen Group and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which is planning a 350-acre rail facility. Allen announced plans for the hub, located 25 miles from Kansas City, in late 2006.

•MidState 99 Distribution Center, Visalia, Calif.: Construction of the first phase of this 480-acre industrial park began in 1999 in central California. The park, which has rail service, includes at least 11 buildings with more than 3 million square feet of space.

•International Trade & Transportation Center, Shafter, Calif.: The 700-acre industrial park broke ground in 1998 in California's southern central valley, two hours from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. It is close to BNSF's main line and has foreign trade zone status.

SOURCES: The Allen Group; Dallas Morning News research