"The timing is suspicious because it came 40 days before the Nov. 7 election."
Release of Trans-Texas Corridor details can't escape suspicion
10/01/2006
Jaime Castillo
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2006
We Americans are a suspicious lot.
Gas prices go down and a good many of us assume there's a conspiracy that starts and ends in the White House.
Take the results of a recent Gallup poll. Forty-two percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that the Bush administration "deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections."
It's a good yarn, but I can't ignore the fact that nearly two-thirds of those who said they suspected President Bush of pulling a fast one heading into the Nov. 7 elections are registered Democrats.
Plus, I can't help but like the colorful explanation of White House spokesman Tony Snow, who said rigging gas prices would give President Bush "the kind of magisterial clout unknown to any other human being."
"If we're dropping gas prices now," Snow said, "why on earth did we raise them to $3.50 before?"
I wish I could similarly shelve my skepticism about the recent decision by the Texas Department of Transportation to finally release details about how private developers want to do us a favor by building and running a network of toll lanes and rail lines, called the Trans-Texas Corridor.
After fighting the release of many of the deal's particulars for a year and a half, TxDOT lifted the curtain on about 1,600 pages of public information Thursday.
The timing is suspicious because it came 40 days before the Nov. 7 election. The same election where Gov. Rick Perry, the unabashed booster of the super corridor from Oklahoma to Mexico, is trying to survive a hotly contested five-way race where the toll road question has become a hot-button issue.
To throw another log on the conspiracy fire, TxDOT's governing body, the Texas Transportation Commission, is appointed by guess who? The governor.
Sorry to say, but asking whether politics had something to do with the release of this information is like asking Carole Keeton Strayhorn if she's a grandma.
Still, it was only fair that I consulted San Antonio's representative on the Transportation Commission, Hope Andrade. Andrade is a Perry appointee, but she also has a rock-solid reputation among both Democrats and Republicans in this town.
Saying she wished the commission "could de-politicize the process," Andrade said it simply took 18 months for the agency to pore through the 1,600-page proposal. The plan calls for developers to invest $8.8 billion to build 370 miles of toll roads and pay the state $2 billion for the right to collect tolls for 50 years.
"The timing makes it tough," Andrade said, "but I submit to you it was just the process."
Given the raging controversy that has spilled into the governor's race, I asked Andrade if it was a good idea in retrospect for TxDOT to join the plan's authors, Spain-based Cintra and San Antonio-based Zachry Construction Corp., in a lawsuit fighting the release of those details.
Andrade stood by the decision because she said the release of the plan before it was signed by TxDOT Director Michael Behrens would have had a chilling effect on other companies looking to bid on pieces of the corridor project.
"We want to encourage competition," Andrade said, stressing that Cintra-Zachry will still have to bid on the projects.
I hope Hope is right. But I still feel better about falling gas prices.
To contact Jaime Castillo, call (210) 250-3174 or e-mail jscastillo@express-news.net. His column appears on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
© 2006 San Antonio Express-News: www.mysanantonio.com
10/01/2006
Jaime Castillo
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2006
We Americans are a suspicious lot.
Gas prices go down and a good many of us assume there's a conspiracy that starts and ends in the White House.
Take the results of a recent Gallup poll. Forty-two percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that the Bush administration "deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections."
It's a good yarn, but I can't ignore the fact that nearly two-thirds of those who said they suspected President Bush of pulling a fast one heading into the Nov. 7 elections are registered Democrats.
Plus, I can't help but like the colorful explanation of White House spokesman Tony Snow, who said rigging gas prices would give President Bush "the kind of magisterial clout unknown to any other human being."
"If we're dropping gas prices now," Snow said, "why on earth did we raise them to $3.50 before?"
I wish I could similarly shelve my skepticism about the recent decision by the Texas Department of Transportation to finally release details about how private developers want to do us a favor by building and running a network of toll lanes and rail lines, called the Trans-Texas Corridor.
After fighting the release of many of the deal's particulars for a year and a half, TxDOT lifted the curtain on about 1,600 pages of public information Thursday.
The timing is suspicious because it came 40 days before the Nov. 7 election. The same election where Gov. Rick Perry, the unabashed booster of the super corridor from Oklahoma to Mexico, is trying to survive a hotly contested five-way race where the toll road question has become a hot-button issue.
To throw another log on the conspiracy fire, TxDOT's governing body, the Texas Transportation Commission, is appointed by guess who? The governor.
Sorry to say, but asking whether politics had something to do with the release of this information is like asking Carole Keeton Strayhorn if she's a grandma.
Still, it was only fair that I consulted San Antonio's representative on the Transportation Commission, Hope Andrade. Andrade is a Perry appointee, but she also has a rock-solid reputation among both Democrats and Republicans in this town.
Saying she wished the commission "could de-politicize the process," Andrade said it simply took 18 months for the agency to pore through the 1,600-page proposal. The plan calls for developers to invest $8.8 billion to build 370 miles of toll roads and pay the state $2 billion for the right to collect tolls for 50 years.
"The timing makes it tough," Andrade said, "but I submit to you it was just the process."
Given the raging controversy that has spilled into the governor's race, I asked Andrade if it was a good idea in retrospect for TxDOT to join the plan's authors, Spain-based Cintra and San Antonio-based Zachry Construction Corp., in a lawsuit fighting the release of those details.
Andrade stood by the decision because she said the release of the plan before it was signed by TxDOT Director Michael Behrens would have had a chilling effect on other companies looking to bid on pieces of the corridor project.
"We want to encourage competition," Andrade said, stressing that Cintra-Zachry will still have to bid on the projects.
I hope Hope is right. But I still feel better about falling gas prices.
To contact Jaime Castillo, call (210) 250-3174 or e-mail jscastillo@express-news.net. His column appears on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
© 2006 San Antonio Express-News:
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Sunday, October 01, 2006
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