Toll road boondoggle scheme still dogs Rick Perry

Texas gov's opponent uses toll road plan as ammo

View Trans-Texas Corridor TIME LINE: [HERE]

9/7/09

By KELLEY SHANNON
The Associated Press
Copyright 2009

Gov. Rick Perry ditched his plan to build a $175 billion network of toll roads that would crisscross the state after it ran into strong opposition, but he hasn't been able to shake the issue altogether.

Perry cast his Trans-Texas Corridor project as a way to relieve Texas' traffic congestion by building highways in a state growing by 1,000 people per day.

But he had to scale down the project considerably after it ran into opposition from farmers and ranchers, who said it threatened their land, and open government advocates, who derided its secret contract with a Spanish company.

Now a fellow Republican, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, has seized on the road project as she seeks to take his job, saying the project and Perry's transportation policies smack of arrogance.

"It's part of the overall argument — he's been there too long and look at the things he's failed at," Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said in describing Hutchison's strategy.

Toll roads and transportation alone may not be enough to turn an election, but Hutchison seems to be using them as a way to raise questions about Perry's competence, Henson said.

Perry, the state's longest-serving leader who is seeking a third full term, faces Hutchison and party activist Debra Medina in the GOP primary in March. Though recent polls have shown Perry with a lead over Hutchison, they also show large numbers of undecided voters, indicating the public isn't fully paying attention yet. The Republican primary winner is expected to be the favorite heading into the fall 2010 general election.

Perry proposed the sweeping toll road and high-speed rail corridor in 2002. The name "Trans-Texas Corridor" is now gone, but two key roads in the project — one parallel to Interstate 35 and another that is to be Interstate 69 running from northeast Texas to the Rio Grande Valley — remain in the planning stages.

"We have to continue to move people and the products of companies that call Texas home," said Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner.

Hutchinson has yet to present her own plan but she says she wants to reform and expand a state transportation commission. Her campaign says she opposes toll roads unless local officials and voters agree to them, and they say she worked in the Senate to halt federally funded toll roads.

"It is time to return to our tradition of free, quality highways and roads," Hutchison said in kicking off her campaign last month. She calls the Trans-Texas Corridor "the biggest land grab in the history of Texas."

An interest group that opposes toll roads, Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, is looking closely at candidates from both parties, said its founder and direct, Terri Hall.

"Most of our supporters are well aware that we're in the anybody-but-Perry mode," Hall said. The group has not endorsed anyone in the governor's race, but a Democratic candidate, Hank Gilbert, is active in the group.

In arguing against state-orchestrated toll roads and for private property rights, Hutchison plays up her close ties to the Texas Farm Bureau, which opposes the toll road corridor. She sides with its stance on eminent domain, and pointed that out following Perry's veto of a property rights bill the bureau backed in 2007.

Perry, too, is trying to show he cares deeply about property rights, and earlier this year voiced support for a state constitutional amendment banning the government from taking private property and giving it to a developer to boost the local tax base.

This isn't the first time Perry has defended himself on toll roads in an election. Independent candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn unsuccessfully ran against Perry in 2006 by attacking his toll road project.

Strayhorn's campaign privately acknowledged at the time the strategy might help win over rural voters, but not the urban voters who are key to victory. And those are voters Hutchison will need in March.

Perry's spokesman equates Hutchison's toll roads complaints with Strayhorn's.

"It's almost identical," Miner said, "and it shows that criticism is not a solution."

© 2009 The Associated Press: www.ap.org

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Annual commute on North Texas toll roads jumps to $1400

Toll Road Revolt

Allen Man Protests Recent NTTA Rate Hike

9/6/09

Shana Franklin
KDAF-TV
Copyright 2009

Fred Hall of Allen drives almost 150 miles a day to and from work in Hurst. Much of his commute is on toll roads, but the single father of two is boycotting those toll roads for one work week starting tomorrow. He's asking others to do the same in protest of the NTTA's rate hike that started September first. Fred Hall says, "Too many people are hurting financially because of the economy. I do not believe it is right for them to go ahead and do this."

Fred Hall says the cost of his annual commute will jump from about $1100 to $1400. It's a price he says is too high, despite the NTTA's claim the hike is needed to maintain a financially viable system of roadways. Fred Hall says, "We're hoping if we can get the attention of the NTTA board members that they will back down and not do this increase."

An NTTA spokesperson issued a statement today in response to our inquiries about the boycott. It says, "The NTTA understands people have a choice when they drive, and we hope they select NTTA roads for their value in time savings, and for the high-quality, well-maintained and safe driving experience they receive."

We talked to a handful of drivers who use toll roads today. Driver Kohshean Kuda says, "Would I boycott it? No. But I think somebody should at least." Fred Hall's idea was a popular one, but according to many, not perfect. Driver Asia Williams says, "I don't know if it's plausible because there are so many people who need to take it and not to mention it's gonna make it worse for all the other roads to go on, so I think it's just kinda gonna make a big mess out of it."


© 2009 TKDAF-TV: www.the33tv.com

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"The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority has NOTHING to show for itself, not one road open to traffic after five years in existence..."

Tolling Exec pulls $10,000 bonus in down economy

Related link: Toll road authority members (with no toll roads) grab top salaries from taxpayers



9/3/09

by Terri Hall
Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom
Copyright 2009

San Antonio, TX - While the average Texan is thankful to have a paycheck, even if it's a shrinking one, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) has been living large getting across the board 10% pay increases (FY 2008-2009, with another 5% budgeted for merit increases that were never paid out), and the Executive Director, Terry Brechtel, raking in an additional $10,000 performance bonus, paid to her in June.
Performance bonus? Perhaps they mean her performance as a master in obfuscating and misleading the public on its toll plans? (Watch it on You Tube here).

Considering the Bexar County Commissioners were grilling county agencies at Commissioners Court Tuesday over 2% pay hikes in this down economy, it begs the question why a county-appointed tolling authority, the ARMA, is getting off scot-free without a whisper of scrutiny or without challenge to such lavish luxuries when so many in the community are economically hurting.

Considering the ARMA has NOTHING to show for itself, not one road open to traffic after five years in existence, their proposed 5% "merit" increases (budgeted in FY 2008-2009, but were never actually paid out) certainly wouldn't square with actual performance. Even its 5% cost of living pay increase (FY 2008-2009) is more than most Texans will see in their paychecks this year or next.

In fact, a dozen citizens asked the county commissioner to dissolve the ARMA altogether Tuesday. Three commissioners have already floated the idea of closing the ARMA earlier this year. Yet at today's ARMA Board meeting, the Board approved the $1.2 million in salaries for the small staff. Though next year's salaries will not increase, out of eight employees, only two make less than $100,000 a year. Considering the median household income in San Antonio is only $41,593 (city-data.com), it shows just how out of step this agency is with the plight of the ordinary citizens it's anxious to tax to get to work.
Greed and the proverbial "gravy train" motivate the ARMA to continue its gratuitous spending, dishonesty, and intransigence in pushing toll roads on an angry public that rejects tolling existing freeways.

In yesterday's Washington Times article about executive pay being out of step with main street America, Nell Minow of the Corporate Library, said "the continued big earnings and pay at bailed-out banks is feeding a sense of injustice and outrage among ordinary citizens who are feeling the brunt of the financial crisis. Pay that is out of whack with performance ... is a symptom of bad corporate governance, bad economic judgment, but it's also the disease."

The same can be said of this government agency. They've adopted the worst of corporate America's bail-out indulgences with government inefficiency and exploitation of the taxpayers who pay the bills.

Enough is enough! It's high time the County Commissioners put a stop to such abuse and extravagance. Dissolve the ARMA, now!

For more info go to: www.281OverpassesNow.com and www.TexasTURF.org.

© 2009 Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom: www.texasturf.org

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The Guvernator's Risky Business

Arnold Schwarzenegger tries to oust transportation commission appointee



The governor withdrew his reappointment after the businessman objected to the administration's plan for a public-private partnership for freeway construction. But state senators saved his post.

9/2/09

By Patrick McGreevy and Evan Halper
The Los Angeles Times
Copyright 2009

Reporting from Sacramento - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week tried to yank one of his appointees from a state board after the man balked at an administration-backed proposal he considered too risky for taxpayers. But lawmakers, in an end run, kept the San Francisco businessman on the panel.

The appointee to the California Transportation Commission, James Ghielmetti, objected to an administration plan to accelerate the expansion of private companies' role in freeway construction. He advocated giving regulators more time to assess the potential effects of such a move.

Schwarzenegger, who has aggressively pushed public-private partnerships, then withdrew Ghielmetti's reappointment to the commission.

But Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) agreed with Ghielmetti. Within hours, he and other senators voted Ghielmetti back onto the panel as their own appointee. In an interview, Ghielmetti said the governor's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, was behind the withdrawal.

"She saw this as a chance to get rid of me," Ghielmetti said.

Ghielmetti said Kennedy accused him of conspiring with Democrats in the Legislature to change the administration's plan, something he denies.

Administration officials declined to discuss Ghielmetti's interactions with Kennedy. "The governor is looking for strong advocates for public-private partnerships to get jobs online as quickly as possible," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear.

He said the administration looks forward to appointing "individuals who share the governor's commitment to rebuilding the state's infrastructure and creating jobs."

The owner and chief executive officer of Signature Properties, a Northern California land development and home-building firm, Ghielmetti said the guidelines for public-private partnerships should include detailed provisions for every possibility, including terms for repayment of money from private firms in the event of default, lease terms and other protections.

He complained that Kennedy and Dale Bonner, secretary of the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, pressured him to adopt a more "loosey-goosey" approach even though the commission is independent from the administration.

"I felt we were being told what the guidelines should be," he said. "It's inappropriate."

Ghielmetti is the latest Schwarzenegger appointee to be jettisoned after straying from the administration's agenda. Last year, the governor dropped his brother-in-law, Bobby Shriver, and fellow action hero Clint Eastwood from the state parks panel after their opposition helped derail plans for a toll road through San Onofre State Beach in San Diego County. Schwarzenegger supported the project.

In 2007, the chairman of the state Air Resources Board, Robert F. Sawyer, said he was fired by Schwarzenegger for pushing for anti-pollution measures beyond what the governor's office wanted. Also in 2007, R. Judd Hanna quit the Fish and Game Commission at the administration's request after Republican lawmakers urged his ouster because he had sought to ban lead bullets in condor territory.

Los Angeles Times: www.latimes.com

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TxDOT's 'Most Congested Roadways Report' gets an 'F' for ignoring San Antonio's most congested areas

TxDOT Releases List Of State's Most Congested Roadways

9/2/09

By Christian Bove
KTSA Newsradio 550 (San Antonio, TX)
Copyright 2009

The Texas Department of Transportation has released a list of the most congested roadway segments in the state, and you may be surprised by which local segment didn't make the list.

TxDOT used methodology developed by the Texas Transportation Institute to identify the 100 most congested roadway segments on the state highway system.

"Total in Bexar County there are eight roadway segments that were identified as being among the top one-hundred most congested in the state," said TxDOT Spokesperson Karen Amacker.

A segment of I-35 from Highway 281 to Highway 90 topped the list for Bexar County as the tenth most congested segment in the state.

One local segment which didn't appear anywhere on the top 100 list is Highway 281 outside Loop 1604.

"I understand when you're frustrated and sitting in your car, you think that is the most congested road anywhere. I've been there, but sometimes other places seem to have it worse." said Amacker.

You can find the entire list on TxDOT's website.

© 2009 KTSA Newsradio 550 : www.ktsa.com

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"The Alamo RMA is trying to hide something here...Tolling has just been put on hold."

Skepticism abounds on 281/1604 plans

9/2/09

By Christine Stanley
San antonio Express-News
Copyright 2009

Alamo Regional Mobility Authority spokesman Leroy Alloway had one word to sum up what he's been hearing from residents on the latest attempt to fix U.S. 281 north of the Loop 1604.

“Anger,” Alloway said Aug. 27. “They're angry that we're doing another study, that something can't be built. People want relief.”

ARMA hosted two public meetings on the U.S. 281 corridor last week. The first, held Aug. 25, briefed residents on ARMA's $140 million direct connector project for 1604 and 281.

The second, held Aug. 27, marked the first of a series of public meetings on ARMA's environmental impact statement for 281 from 1604 to the Comal County line.

If the Federal Highway Administration were to approve it in 2012, this sweeping environmental study will open the door for gridlock relief on 281, but Alloway said it's impossible to determine at this point which traffic solution would work best.

The EIS will evaluate U.S. 281's expansion and its potential to impact the environment, noise levels and historic structures, among other things.

“Everything's back on the table,” Alloway said Aug. 27. “The EIS is a clean slate for this community.”

Residents have until Tuesday to let ARMA know what kind of improvements they'd like to see on 281 north of 1604. ARMA will compile those comments as part of the 281 EIS to find a consensus on what would work best for the community.

ARMA could do nothing, work to get more public transportation in the area, build overpasses or construct a full-fledged highway with reconfigured feeder roads, Alloway said.

And a toll road is still on the table, Alloway said -- something that doesn't sit well with many.

“The people up here are suffering a lot, we know that” Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom member Pat Dossey said Aug. 27. “But this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

TURF, a vocal anti-toll group, continues to criticize ARMA's plans for 281 north of 1604 and the interchange direct connector project.

For 281 north of the loop, TURF members feel that ARMA should stick with the Texas Department of Transportation's 8-year-old freeway improvement plan, which calls for two additional expressway lanes and four frontage lanes.

The EIS, they say, is a ruse to make way for a toll road, regardless of what residents want. They feel that a lesser environmental study could be conducted to speed up improvements to 281 north of the loop if toll roads were taken off the table.

But ARMA has been mandated to conduct an EIS on that section of 281 for any type of construction improvements, regardless of whether they're tolled or not, Alloway said last week.

FHA officials said the study is a must after TxDOT asked them to pull environmental clearance for a U.S. 281 tollway extension last fall.

While preparing for a federal lawsuit that was filed to stop the toll plan, TxDOT officials discovered a conflict of interest between one of its biologists and her husband, a contractor who worked on various aspects of the toll road's environmental assessment, a lower level of environmental review.

“This (EIS) is a blank slate,” Alloway said Aug. 27.

TURF also feels that ARMA is moving forward with the interchange direct connector project on an inadequate level of environmental review.

Four elevated ramps — sitting 44 feet above 281 frontage roads at their highest — would connect travelers on 281 north to the east and west sides of 1604, and from both sides of the loop to 281 south.

FHA has allowed ARMA to proceed with the direct connector project under what's known as a categorical exclusion. It's the lowest level of environmental review that a construction project can go through, as opposed to the EIS for 281 north of the loop, the most sweeping environmental study required under federal law.

FHA classifies the direct connector project as an “operational and safety improvement” because no continuous lanes are being added to either highway, ARMA officials have said. That's why the direct connector project is allowed to proceed under a lesser environmental review, Alloway said Aug. 27.

TURF members say that the EIS for 281 north of 1604 should cover the direct connector project. Skepticism remains as to whether or not the four connectors will eventually be tolled.

ARMA originally planned to build a total of eight flyovers to connect 281 and 1604 at a cost of $214 million, Alloway said last week.

The agency was able to drum up $140 million to complete half of the project, Alloway added.

“I don't want to say that (ARMA) is trying to hide something here, but I think they're trying to hide something here,” resident Jack Finger said during ARMA's second public meeting last week. “Tolling has just been put on hold.”

ARMA has stressed in previous public meetings and on its Web site that the direct connector project will not be tolled.

On Aug. 25, ARMA lawyer Lisa Alderman said she hasn't heard of any immediate plans for a lawsuit to challenge ARMA's categorical exclusion for the direct connector project.

If such a lawsuit were filed, and if it were successful in forcing ARMA to get the next level of environmental review — an environmental assessment — the direct connector project would probably still be OK, Alderman said.

ARMA must have its $120 in federal stimulus money obligated for the direct connector project by next March, but it wouldn't take that long to bump the categorical exclusion study up to the level of an environmental assessment, she said.

If any potential lawsuit is successful in forcing ARMA to conduct an EIS for U.S. 281/Loop 1604 interchange improvements, the agency can kiss its direct connectors goodbye.

EIS documents typically take five years to complete, Alderman said, which would push the project way behind its 2010 deadline.

“We hear rumblings, but so far there's been no lawsuit filed,” she said.

© 2009 San Antonio Express-News: www.mysanantonio.com

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“I think I can inspire people in this state that are disgusted with politics, that are disgusted with politicians..."

Rancher aims to be governor

9/1/09

By LISA FALKENBERG
Houston Chronicle
Copyright 2009

One of the last times I saw Hank Gilbert, he was staring out the window of a campaign bus that had another candidate's name on it, bemoaning the fact that he'd missed his wife's birthday and remarking how the cows dotting the dusk-lit landscape made him lonesome for home.

A few days later, after the burly Tyler-area rancher had lost that 2006 Democratic bid for Texas agriculture commissioner, I'd have bet he was done with politics. I was wrong.

It had somehow seeped into his blood, like Grizzly chewing tobacco and barnyard metaphors. (Gilbert recently summed up his pleasure with progress in his anti-toll road efforts like this: “I am as happy as a hog taking a bath in a pond of slop.”)

Dull speech did it

Last week, Gilbert announced plans to embark on yet another Quixotic political adventure, this one even more ambitious: He's running for governor.

He had every intention of running for agriculture commissioner again, he said, probably sharing a ticket with Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Tom Schieffer, but thought the better of it after hearing the Fort Worth businessman speak.

There was no spark, Gilbert said. And that's precisely what the 49-year-old cowboy campaigner does best.

Gilbert, who calls himself a “true Southern fiscal conservative Democrat,” or “what everybody in this state used to be,” isn't your typical ill-funded, long-shot candidate. His speaking style is an eloquent mesh of populist conviction and folksy irreverence. No canned, sterile speeches here. The man knows how to whip up a crowd and he knows it.

“I think I can inspire people in this state that are disgusted with politics, that are disgusted with politicians, that are maybe feeling a little downtrodden and left out in society,” Gilbert told me.

“So, what do you think you are? The cowboy Obama?” I asked him during the phone interview last week.

“No, no,” he responded, laughing, and then went on to list a few “great differences of opinion” he has with the president, from bank bailouts to the specifics of health care reform.

Not that Gilbert doesn't strongly support reform in general. In fact, health care is one of the issues on which Gilbert may identify more closely with average voters than other candidates.

Like nearly 6 million other Texans, Gilbert and his family, including his wife and two teenaged sons, don't have health insurance. He said pre-existing conditions that he, his wife and one of his sons have caused their insurance company to drop them long ago.

“When we finally did get insurance, when both of our children were small, the insurance premium was over $1,800 a month, with a $5,000 deductible and only 60 percent coverage,” he said. “It's not worth it. It's easier to roll the dice and hope to God and pray every night that nothing terrible happens. And if it does, you pay cash for it.”

He said he'd address the problem on the state level by appointing insurance commissioners based on qualifications instead of political connections, who would demand fairness in the industry.

Term limits, no TAKS

Education and term limits are other priorities. He wants to kill the TAKS test and limit statewide officeholders to two terms, saying he's willing to sign a pledge on his own service: “If I can't get it done in eight years, then you should have fired me in four.”

What Gilbert is lacking in legislative experience, he says he'll makeup in common sense. Plus, he says, he's learned a lot over the past couple of years, campaigning in Austin and across the state against the Trans-Texas Corridor and all other things toll road.

If he didn't learn anything else in '06, he said he learned that his worst fear was true: “a common man cannot run for state government” unless you have people willing to invest an “insane amount of money” in your race.

6 cents a vote

Still, he hopes to convince donors that he's a good investment. He was the second-highest Democratic vote-getter in 2006.

“Rick Perry spent almost $25 million in '06 to my $100,000. And when you look at the total vote count, I beat him by 43,000 votes statewide. His votes cost almost $14.50 a vote and mine cost 6 cents,” Gilbert said with a chuckle.

Gilbert says he plans on running a civil primary race, but can make no promises in the general, when he believes he'd face Gov. Rick Perry: “The first time he chunks that mud, eew-wee! I'm like a pig at the trough. It's going to be on.”


© 2009 Houston Chronicle: www.chron.com

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"CDAs equal government-sanctioned monopolies and reek of sweetheart deals and cronyism."

Sale of Texas roads to foreign entities dies



9/1/09

Terri Hall
Examiner.com
Copyright 2009

In one of the best developments Texas taxpayers have had all year, the authority to enter into contracts that sell-off Texas freeways to foreign corporations, called Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDAs or PPPs), expired August 31.

Spoiling the good news is the fact that about a dozen CDAs were removed from the moratorium placed on CDAs in 2007, so many are at risk of being signed despite the grassroots victory that KILLED CDAs during Rick Perry's special session of the Texas Legislature in July.

CDAs would charge Texans extremely high tolls to access public roads. The published figures for toll rates on two such deals in Dallas-Ft.Worth are 75 cents PER MILE, totaling $13 daily or over $3,000 a year in new taxes to get to work.

One of the most insidious provisions include non-compete clauses that forbid the state from expanding or building roads within a certain mile radius of the toll road as a means to guarantee congestion on the free routes. CDAs also guarantee the private toll operator profit (one proposed amendment by Senator Robert Nichols tried to guarantee they'd never lose money), and they authorize toll hikes for more than 50 years.

In other words, CDAs equal government-sanctioned monopolies and reek of sweetheart deals and cronyism. The Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, held up several contracts during the 81st legislative session, only to move them along since. Perry fondly refers to CDAs a "innovative financing," but they're more aptly called taxpayer rip-offs.

CDAs are also the mechanism through which the Trans Texas Corridor will be built. Two such contracts have been signed, and a third has been awarded but still not signed. In March of 2005, Perry inked a deal with Cintra for the development rights to the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35, a super-sized toll road projected to be 1,200 feet wide, taking 146 acres of private farm and ranch land per mile of corridor for auto and truck lanes, commuter rail and freight rail lanes, telecommunications, and more. It's been dubbed the biggest land grab and eminent domain project in U.S. history.

In March of 2008, Cintra snagged the CDA to build SH 130 segments 5 & 6, which is part of TTC-35. Cintra is a consistent player vying for many other Texas toll roads. ACS of Spain was awarded the development rights for TTC-69, but the CDA has yet to be signed. In fact last week, in spite of claims by Perry and lawmakers that the Trans Texas Corridor is "dead," Perry-appointed Transportation Commissioner Ned Holmes just asked TxDOT to accelerate the TTC-69 CDA through the Attorney General's office in order to ink the deal as quickly as possible.

Attorney General Abbott has a fiduciary duty to Texas taxpayers to hold-up these remaining CDA contracts indefinitely. Perry and pro-toll lawmakers have promised to re-authorize CDAs in the next legislative session. It's Texans' job to ensure that NEVER happens.

© 2009 Examiner.com: www.examiner.com

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