By Linebarger                                         H.B. No. 2125
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the lease or transfer of property owned by a political
    1-3  subdivision to certain private for-profit and nonprofit
    1-4  organizations.
    1-5        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-6        SECTION 1.  Section 272.001, Local Government Code, is
    1-7  amended by amending Subsection (a) and adding Subsection (h) to
    1-8  read as follows:
    1-9        (a)  Except for the types of land and interests covered by
   1-10  Subsection (b), <or> (g), or (h), before land owned by a political
   1-11  subdivision of the state may be sold or exchanged for other land,
   1-12  notice to the general public of the offer of the land for sale or
   1-13  exchange must be published in a newspaper of general circulation in
   1-14  either the county in which the land is located or, if there is no
   1-15  such newspaper, in an adjoining county.  The notice must include a
   1-16  description of the land, including its location, and the procedure
   1-17  by which sealed bids to purchase the land or offers to exchange the
   1-18  land may be submitted.  The notice must be published on two
   1-19  separate dates and the sale or exchange may not be made until after
   1-20  the 14th day after the date of the second publication.
   1-21        (h)  A political subdivision that acquires land or a real
   1-22  property interest with funds received for economic development
   1-23  purposes from the community development block grant nonentitlement
   1-24  program authorized by Title I of the Housing and Community
    2-1  Development Act of 1974 (42 U.S.C. Section 5301 et seq.) may lease
    2-2  or convey the land or interest, without the solicitation of bids,
    2-3  to a private, for-profit entity or a nonprofit entity that is a
    2-4  party to a contract with the political subdivision if the land or
    2-5  interest will be used by the private, for-profit entity or the
    2-6  nonprofit entity in carrying out the purpose of the entity's grant
    2-7  or contract.  The land or interest may be leased or conveyed
    2-8  without the solicitation of bids if the political subdivision
    2-9  adopts a resolution stating the conditions and circumstances for
   2-10  the lease or conveyance and the public purpose that will be
   2-11  achieved by the lease or conveyance.
   2-12        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-13  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-14  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-15  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-16  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-17  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-18  passage, and it is so enacted.