Category: General

Foreign-owned toll roads not dead yet…lawmakers vow to resurrect

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Link to article here.

Mr. “Pro-Toll Tax” and lobbyist-in-chief, Bill Noble, needs to do a simple glance at our web site to see we’re all about non-toll solutions and have offered them for years. They don’t like our solutions, so they dismiss them. However, the taxpayers deserve the most affordable transportation solutions, not the most expensive one that he and Rep. Larry Phillips are advocating: foreign-owned toll roads.

CDAs ‘not dead yet’ opponents, supporters say
by Andy Hogue
Sun, Jul 12, 2009
Dallas Morning News blog

Two billion dollars and another two years of life isn’t a bad deal for the Texas Department of Transportation, is it?

It depends on with whom you speak.

Besides losing the ability to continue transportation comprehensive development agreements (CDAs), the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the Perry administration also lost a great deal of political capital and bargaining power after the special legislative session.

The Legislature renewed TxDOT without much in terms of reforms, but did not approve a bill continuing a list of 13 CDAs — effectively calling a time-out on a six-year expansion of toll roads.

This raises a few questions as to where things are going next with transportation.

Surely, $2 billion in recently released Proposition 12 funds won’t last forever in building freeways. So the next two-to-four years are still anyone’s game, and both sides in the toll road debate agree that CDAs aren’t dead — nor is TxDOT giving in.

What projects were stopped?

At least two CDA toll projects will be preserved through 2011 under SB 792 from the 80th session — Highway 161 in Dallas and the Grand Parkway loop around Houston. While forging a deal on those projects may continue, most other CDAs will expire Sept. 1.

A lifeline was cast to 13 projects during the special session as part of SB 3, which would have extended their CDAs on a project-by-project basis. There was not enough legislative will to see the whole list through (LSR, July 3), but members attempted to compromise with a short list — only those projects already agreed to by the North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA), namely managed lanes on I-35 East, Highway 183 and I-30 in the DFW area.

Bill Noble, executive director of the pro-CDA Texans for Safe and Reliable Transportation, said CDAs made Highway 130 bypass around Austin possible, for example. Projects like I-69 were casualties.

There were 87 toll road projects implemented in Texas, per discussion during the 80th legislative session in 2007. According to committee testimony during the 80th interim, about 400 toll projects were being considered. So is it possible that, by the Legislature’s not continuing CDAs, that nearly 300 would-be toll roads were prevented? Terri Hall of Texans United for Reform and Freedom (TURF), a TxDOT watchdog, thinks so (at least for now).

“I do think that they [toll road lobbyists] are going to keep trying to bring CDAs back up, as there’s so much money behind them. So it’s up to the taxpayers to remain vigilant,” she said. “CDAs are the more expensive tool in the toolbox. But that’s the one they keep reaching for.”

Does TxDOT have any clout left?

Hall claims the support of a large movement of taxpayers who oppose the expansion of toll roads and accumulation of debt from CDA agreements. Noble said he’s certain toll roads remain a popular transportation option among voters as a “tool” in the aforementioned toolbox.

“We want all the tools — and that includes gas tax and indexing,” Noble said. “But we don’t believe that a massive gas tax would be politically viable, and that’s what would be required if you didn’t have the option of toll roads.”

Hall said allowing international conglomerates (such as Cintra of Spain) to own and manage toll roads in private, behind-closed-doors contracts is less politically viable than proposing upping the gas tax.

TxDOT declined to comment.

Rep. Larry Phillips (R-Sherman) thinks there’s plenty of room left for TxDOT to negotiate its future — as well as an extra session in which to debate meaty issues.

“We will need to build roads in the future, and I think that will be the debate over the next two sessions on how we build those roads,” Phillips said.

One option to continue CDAs in the future is to give the Legislature oversight over each individual project — a method Phillips said might prove burdensome.

Phillips called for a greater role of toll authorities, such as NTTA and the Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA), in the approval process, as a check on TxDOT.

“Conventional wisdom is that projects may be approved on a case-by-case basis rather than a blanket authority through TxDOT,” Noble said. “But that’s a cumbersome process … at the end of the day, Texans are going to realize that roads are not going to get better unless all options are on the table, including toll roads.”

Noble said TxDOT’s overall standing has been lowered since mid-decade, but there has been some rebound under the leadership of TTC Chair Deirdre Delisi.

“We did some polling when I first got involved, and back then TxDOT was a highly credible entity. And Texans really had a high opinion — far greater than lawmakers,’” Noble said. “And some of that has come down, especially with leadership. But under the leadership of Delisi and Amadeo Saenz, we’ve seen a sea change — that being, they appreciate the openness, the responsiveness, and the efforts to work with Legislature to find solutions. And you look at it in what the Legislature could have done as far as radical changes in Sunset, all that really didn’t happen.”

At least until 2011, TxDOT continues to have a friend in the Governor—most recently exemplified by a veto of HB 2142, which would have prevented TxDOT from advertising the use of toll roads.

“Marketing toll roads as a user-fee-based alternative to congested highways is important to relieving congestion on other state roads and keeping Texas moving,” Gov. Rick Perry said in his veto proclamation, echoing TxDOT’s ad campaign slogan “Keep Texas Moving.”

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, likely Perry’s biggest major challenger in the GOP primary for Texas Governor, called for federal legislation to ban tolls on federally owned roadways — a sign that transportation will be a key issue in the 2010 gubernatorial campaign.

Will anti-toll road movements keep on?

Noble said anti-toll-road activists, now that they have their way for at least another two years, are going to have to provide solutions — solutions that may not prove popular with their own volunteers. “The only other way to relieve congestion is a massive gas tax increase,” he said. “Opponents of toll roads are slowly beginning to trickle out when faced with the question of ‘what’s your answer?’”

Many conservative opponents of toll roads were leery of Sen. John Carona’s (R-Dallas) solution in the form of the Local Option Transportation Plan – most vocal were concerns that the gas tax would be raised in large communities.

True, a motor fuels tax increase (or index to inflation) won’t be popular with some conservatives, Hall said. But there are more issues at stake in her organization than just the CDAs vs. the gas tax debate, such as transparency in contracts.

“Our legislators often don’t have a clue what’s in these contracts — they have no idea what they’re selling off,” Hall said, noting that a Cintra contract for the North Tarrant Express near Fort Worth had a charge of 75 cents per mile at peak hours.

“We’re all in favor of a motor fuels tax increase,” she said. “But you have to end [Fund 6] diversions before we give you more money. Also, we’ve got to reform TxDOT — getting into the books, looking into the finances, and basically gutting the agency … Until they change the culture at TxDOT, they will continue to have problems and blowback from the public.”

What message was sent by the 81st?

A simple message was sent by the refusal of the Legislature to approve CDAs in the 81st regular and special sessions: CDAs are still highly suspect. Whether or not the Legislature’s inaction on CDAs was a referendum on their viability as a transportation solution is debatable.

“I don’t think the special session was specifically that,” Phillips said. “I think that referendum occurred during the regular session on the Sunset bill. And it’s pretty clear that the Legislature wants us to have a transparent process, and that it becomes understandable to the public on how roads are being built … and how MPOs interact with the state, environmental studies are conducted, etc. … It’s fairly difficult in such a short time frame to hash these things out and discuss them [CDAs]. The question was in 2007 can we slow down and take some time in the interim to look at it. So tapping on the brake is not such a bad thing for now.”

Noble, who said there has been a “thoroughly inadequate hearing on CDAs” in recent sessions, agreed there is room to haggle. “I think it’s a clean slate for us — we know where we stand now, and for a few years,” Noble said.

“I don’t see that CDAs are dead,” Phillips said, “as long as we make sure they’re approved by a local community.”

Nichols deliberately misleads about ties to TTC lobbyist to protect private toll operators

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Link to story and to view the two-part news video, go here.

This CBS News expose of Senator Robert Nichols’ efforts to protect private toll road investors instead of taxpayers is spot-on. However, Senator Kevin Eltife says he’s against foreign-owned toll roads on camera, but he voted FOR every bill and amendment that would hand our public roads to private toll operators on the floor of the Texas Senate. Why won’t politicians tell the truth and defend the taxpayers over the special interests? We MUST hold them accountable! To read more specifics about how Nichols brokered this deal with a lobbyist, go here.

Senator Robert Nichols and Toll Roads
By Roger Gray

In the last legislative session, the future of toll roads was on the line.

But one area state senator was more involved than most. In fact some critics say the fix was in.

“You can’t do toll roads in rural Texas. It won’t work,” says State Senator Kevin Eltife.

Yes, the original Trans Texas Corridors were huge, and controversial.

Whitehouse rancher and toll road critic Hank Gilbert called it, “the largest land grab in the history of the U.S.”

Senator Eltife agreed. “It’s a total property right’s mess.”

Gilbert added, “I don’t think the people of Texas, rural and urban, are going to allow that to happen.”

And Austin seemed to get the message.

“I think there’s no question, the Trans Texas corridor is dead,” Eltife concluded.

But some advocates clung to the idea of foreign companies building and running toll roads as private enterprises.

Eltife is an opponent. “They should never be owned by a private company, ever. That’s a gold mine for the state.”

As is Gilbert, of Texans United for Reform and Freedom. “Comprehensive Development Agreements that would allow private investors to come in, plan, build, operate, maintain, the whole nine yards.”

Eltife agreed, “The state ought to own them. They ought to be a small piece of the puzzle.”

State Senator Robert Nichols “seemed” to agree when we spoke to him by phone during the session.

“The people of East Texas are clear,” he said. “They do not want the East Texas Corridor. But they do want to develop Interstate 69.”

But did Sen. Nichols want to insure that private toll road contracts were a part of that I-69 development? He added an amendment to his transportation bill that seems to guarantee a contractor couldn’t lose money.

Gilbert explained, “You have one of our own East Texas Republican senators is offering an amendment to his own bill which would guarantee a profit. To me that kind of goes against capitalism.”

Nichols, though, disagreed. “There is language related to buy backs, but there is absolutely no guarantee whatever that anybody will ever get any of their debt back.”

But, we have a copy of an e-mail sent out by toll road lobbyist Gary Bushell, and it says,

“…we have reached an agreement with Senator Nichols on a buyout provision…that provides protection of their position in the event they find themselves upside down on their debt to fair market value…I want to thank Senator Robert Nichols and his chief of staff Steven Albright for making this outcome possible.”

Nichols doesn’t think that’s what he did. “Well, it’s incorrect, because that’s not true.”

Gilbert concluded, “That’s not very free market.”

So, according to one lobbyist, Senator Robert Nichols went to bat for private toll road contractors.

“That’s crazy,” he protested. “No. I don’t know who told you that, but that’s nuts.”

I responded, “Well, I’ve got an email from a lobbyist who says that’s exactly what you did.”

Nichols again disagreed, “Well, it’s incorrect, because that’s not true.”

“So this lobbyist is wrong,” I replied.

“If that’s your interpretation of what he says,” Nichols responded. “I’m not looking at whatever it is you’re reading.”

“I read you exactly what he said, ” I said. “that provides protection of their position in the event they find themselves upside down on their debt to fair market value.'”

“Ok, I did not write that.” He concluded.

Toll road critic Hank Gilbert is skeptical.

“At any point in time, this developer comes to the realization that they’re not getting the return on investment they anticipated from this road, they can sell it back to the state at that time and with this amendment, they’re guaranteed not to lose money.”

Nichols again protested, “If you’re saying the State of Texas or any entity is going to guarantee an investor his money back, no. Not correct.”

But we have a copy of the amendment and it says.

“.the fair market value of the private entity’s interest…is not less than the (entity’s) outstanding debt at that time plus other reasonable costs.”

In short, they get out at least what they’ve put in.

So why would Nichols continue beating the toll road drum? The explanation may lie in his contributor list.

His top donor by far, James Pitcock of Williams Brothers Construction of Houston, the second largest TxDOT contractor for toll roads.

But Nichols still insists toll roads aren’t a certainty.

“So, it’s your contention that even though these CDA’s, comprehensive development agreements are in HB300,” I asked, “we’re not talking toll roads for East Texas.”

“Well, now, that’s a different question.” He replied. “You have toll roads in Tyler.”

And Robert Nichol’s tried to push these CDA’s again in the special session last week. He didn’t succeed.

Apparently, as long as the political money is there, toll road advocates will keep pitching.

Road privatization dies for now, Carona promises to resurrect

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Link to blog here.

Senate leaders: Private toll-road bill DOA
By Mike Ward | Thursday, July 2, 2009, 02:43 PM
Austin American Statesman
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Senate leaders just announced publicly what senators had confirmed an hour ago: A bill to continue to allow more privately built toll roads to be constructed is dead in the special legislative session.

And lawmakers plan to finish their other business — approving the issuance of $2 billion in road-building bonds and continuing the operations of five state agencies — and then go home later today.

Dewhurst said attempts for a compromise on the toll-road bills — Senate Bill 3 and House Bill 3 — failed amid growing questions about whether any action on the matter was needed before the Legislature convenes in regular session again in January 2011.

State Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, said the urgency of the matter waned after local and state transportation assured legislative leaders that no projects would be killed or delayed by the lack of a vote.

“If it was a critical issue, we’re here to deal with it,” Corona said. “But we have been assured … that no major project is going to be left behind … We will take this (issue) up in 2011.”

Gov. Rick Perry had called lawmakers back into special session to address three issues: The bonds, to continue the operations of the five agencies that otherwise would have shut down, and to give the authority of the Texas Department of Transportation continued authority to contract for the privately built toll roads — through deals called “comprehensive development agreements.”

Dewhurst said Perry’s reaction to let the third issue on the agenda die without action was: “roads need to get built.”

“They will,” Corona said. “It would be a mistake to do away with CDAs. But we need to take some time to look at this issue, and we can do that in 2011 without any impact on projects.”

So with the controversial issue off the table, here’s what the schedule for the rest of the special session looks like:

At 3:30 p.m., the Senate Finance Committee is expected to approve House Bill 1 (bonds). It will then go to the full Senate for a vote, probably about 5 p.m.

The House earlier today approved Senate Bill 2 (continuation of the agencies, also called the safety-net bill).

Adjournment of both the Senate and the House is expected by early this evening.

Plane lands on EMPTY toll road

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Link to article here.

Laughing out loud…the SH 130 toll road is SO EMPTY during rush hour traffic that a plane can land on it, sit there all day while it gets repaired and take off later that evening! Something is seriously wrong when we’re building billions of dollars of toll roads scarcely a soul can afford to drive. SH 130 was supposed to take the trucks off I-35. I still sit bumper to bumper with nothing but trucks the whole way from San Antonio to Austin on I-35. What a flop! Enough of the multi-billion-dollar grand experiments…toll roads don’t solve congestion!

Plane takes off after emergency landing on toll road near Hutto
CBS 42 Reporter: Stephanie Serna
June 30, 2009

A small plane landed successfully on SH 130. (Josh Beebe)

A small plane landed successfully on SH 130. (Josh Beebe)

Late Tuesday afternoon a plane took off from the SH 130 toll road near Hutto where it had to make an emergency landing in the morning.

It landed just south of Highway 79 around 8:30 a.m.

The pilot, 24-year-old Lindsey Moreland, told investigators she took off from an airstrip at Austin-Bergstrom Airport and was headed to Georgetown when she had engine trouble.

The toll road was closed while crews moved the single engine Cessna to the shoulder of the southbound lane.

At 4:30 p.m. the highway was shut down again so the plane’s owner could take off and fly to Temple.

The landing damaged a couple of road signs that will cost about $1,000 to repair. But TxDOT says her insurance will pay for it.

McCombs takes swipe at citizen voice on Express-News blog

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Pro-toll Terrell McCombs, who is paid to lobby for toll roads by those who will profit off of them, opines that the Express-News asked concerned citizen and San Antonio Toll Party and Texas TURF Founder, Terri Hall, to do a blog for their paper. The BIG MONEY can’t handle losing its monopoly on the discussion. McCombs is also clearly in the dark on the facts, fails to mention how we’ve “misrepresented the facts” (while he’s made a profession out of misrepresenting the facts and stooping to what seems like endless personal attacks) and our policy positions. Check out the blog here.

06/25/2009
Why not substance on new lanes?
Editorial by Terrell McCombs
Express-News
The San Antonio Express-News’ ability to engage people at the citizen level is remarkable, and I applaud your encouragement of ordinary Texans to make their voices heard. A new perspective on local issues and public policy is always refreshing to hear, so long as it is an informed one.

For this reason I must question your recent decision to allow a citizen activist from outside of San Antonio to publish a regular blog on the Express-News’ Web site.

Terri Hall has misrepresented facts to support her arguments in the past. I hope she will use this new-found prominence to make her arguments based on substance and fact rather than one-sided opinions.

You and your readers must hold her accountable for the accuracy of what she says.

Hall does not represent the voice of all Texans. She represents a small group of followers who are apparently pro-gridlock, given their lawsuits to block additional lanes, which would relieve congestion on U.S. 281 North. Their voices may be loud, but they are misguided and use misinformation and scare tactics to block possibilities for new or innovative transportation finance options.

Instead, Hall clings to an old, indirect, and increasingly ineffective model for building new transportation infrastructure: the gas tax.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the gas tax can work. However, we would be looking at an increase of more than $1.25 per gallon to begin to seriously address our huge transportation infrastructure deficit. An increase of that magnitude is politically unacceptable to state policymakers.

Frankly, many Texans and Texas businesses oppose dramatically raising the gas tax in challenging economic times and welcome the idea of private funding and user fees as ways to lower traffic congestion and improve our quality of life.

I hope Hall’s Express-News blog will cause other readers who are frustrated with traffic congestion to speak up rather than allow her to tell the story for all of us.

Terrell McCombs is chairman of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition.

Perry calls special session, wants to sell TX roads to foreign toll operators

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It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Rick Perry wants to try and force the Legislature to continue to give his highway department the authority to sell-off Texas roads to private, foreign toll operators which will charge Texans 75 cents a mile to access PUBLIC roads. This from a so-called conservative who sent out his minions to quash a 10 cent gas tax hike that pales in comparison to $3,000 a YEAR per commuter in NEW toll taxes. What hypocrisy!

When the Texas Attorney General refuses to sign the contracts (called CDAs) that would privatize public freeways I-820 and I-635 (LBJ) because they’re so egregiously costly and fiscally irresponsible, what politician in his/her right mind (especially House members who all face re-election next year) would re-authorize these taxpayer rip-offs that will en debt generations with oppressively high, unsustainable toll taxes to benefit Perry’s cronies? Sadly, we’re about to find out. Killing CDAs = killing the Trans Texas Corridor & the vast majority of the toll roads! Call your STATE legislators today and tell them to vote NO on CDAs!

Link to Governor’s call here.

Gov. Perry Calls A Special Session for July 1, 2009
June 25, 2009

TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME:
WHEREAS, the legislature adjourned the 81st Regular Legislative Session without enacting sunset legislation for several state agencies that were subject to sunset review by the 81st Legislature; and

WHEREAS, without legislative action, the state’s Sunset Act, Chapter 325, Government Code, in conjunction with statutory law applicable to those agencies, abolishes the agencies on September 1, 2009, and requires each of the agencies to begin on that date a wind-down process that will culminate in the termination and cessation of all activities of each agency on September 1, 2010; and

WHEREAS, the Sunset Advisory Commission, in its report presented to the legislature and the governor at the 81st Regular Legislative Session, recommended that the agencies be continued in existence; and

WHEREAS, the continuation of the existence of the agencies is crucial for the operation of state governmental activities; and

WHEREAS, passage of enabling legislation to implement the authority granted in Article III, Section 49-p, of the Texas Constitution to issue general obligation bonds for highway improvement projects is necessary to assist in providing adequate financing for future transportation infrastructure; and

WHEREAS, the general statutory authority to enter into comprehensive development agreements expires in August 2009, and, with limited means of funding transportation projects, comprehensive development agreements are a necessary tool for providing financing for future transportation infrastructure; and

WHEREAS, the people have placed the constitutional power to call and convene the legislature into special session in the hands of the Chief Executive Officer of the State;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICK PERRY, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF TEXAS, by the authority vested in me by Article IV, Section 8, of the Texas Constitution, do hereby call an extraordinary session of the 81st Legislature, to be convened in the City of Austin, commencing at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, the 1st day of July 2009, for the following purposes:

To consider legislation that provides for extending the existence of several state agencies that were subject to sunset review by the 81st Legislature and will be abolished without legislative action under the state’s Sunset Act, that changes the review schedule for certain state agencies to balance the workload of the Sunset Advisory Commission.

To consider legislation relating to the issuance by the Texas Transportation Commission, pursuant to Article III, Section 49-p, of the Texas Constitution, of general obligation bonds for highway improvement projects, and to the creation, administration, financing and use of a Texas Transportation Revolving Fund to provide financial assistance for transportation projects.

To consider legislation relating to the date on which the authority of the Texas Department of Transportation and a regional mobility authority to enter into a comprehensive development agreement expires.

The Secretary of State will take notice of this action and will notify the members of the legislature of my action.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have signed my name officially and caused the Seal of the State to be affixed hereto at Austin, this the 19th day of June, 2009.

RICK PERRY
Governor of Texas

ATTESTED BY:
COBY SHORTER, III
Deputy Secretary of State

Perry vetoes bill to prevent TxDOT's ad campaigns for toll roads

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IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Perry vetoes bill to prohibit TxDOT’s ad campaigns to sway public opinion in favor of tolls
Citizen lawsuit to stop TxDOT’s taxpayer-funded lobbying to continue

(Austin, TX – June 23, 2009) Governor Rick Perry vetoed HB 2142 (authored by Rep. Ruth McClendon), which could have settled the issue of the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) misuse of taxpayer money to attempt to sway public opinion in favor of toll roads, particularly privatized toll roads, and the Trans Texas Corridor.

“Governor Perry prefers to pour salt in the wound instead of allow meaningful reform of his highway department that’s run amok and lost the trust of many Texans. The wholesale outrage over TxDOT’s propaganda campaign from taxpayers and lawmakers alike prompted the Legislature to act, and, as is his usual course of action, Perry instead chooses to stick his thumb in Texans’ eyes rather than protect citizens from the abuses of taxpayer-funded lobbying,” concluded Texas TURF Founder Terri Hall.

“Losers” still get paid
To further demonstrate the Governor’s (and Legislature’s) total disregard for fiscal responsibility when it comes to toll roads, he also signed SB 882 (authored by Sen. John Carona) that EXPANDS payments to LOSING bidders by Regional Mobility Authorities (RMAs) to design-build contracts and allows those payments to exceed $250,000 (which was the cap placed on losing bidders on Comprehensive Developments Agreements)!

“The mantra in Austin is ‘the sky is falling, we have no money for roads,’ yet we have money to pay LOSING BIDDERS who won’t even build any roads? Wouldn’t every other industry that bids on government contracts love this goodie? They didn’t pass a bill to continue TxDOT or the Department of Insurance, but they were sure to pass this one,” Hall noted.

SB 882 also repeals the prohibitions on Board members and RMA Directors from receiving gifts and contributions, which clearly takes a step backwards and allows conflicts of interest to abound.
Keep Texas Moving dubbed propaganda campaign
Lawmakers studied TxDOT’s ad campaign in-depth in the interim between the 2007 and 2009 legislative sessions where even the Director of the Government and Public Affairs Division (GPA), Coby Chase admitted in testimony before the State Affairs Committee that “maybe we did overdo it.” Both chambers overwhelmingly passed this bill to send a clear message that TxDOT can only provide public information not crossover into public persuasion on the taxpayers’ dime. As a result of its overreach, the TxDOT sunset bill, HB 300, had the GPA division report directly to the Legislature.

In 2007, TxDOT raised eyebrows when it waged an ad campaign called Keep Texas Moving that clearly tried to change public opinion in favor of Perry’s toll road policies, including hiring registered lobbyists (in excess of $100,000 a month) to get buy-in from local elected officials for the Trans Texas Corridor and persuade members of Congress to allow TxDOT to buy-back existing interstates for the purpose of tolling them. (Read more here)

TURF vs. TxDOT before the Appeals Court
TURF appeared before the Third District Court of Appeals April 24, 2009, in its lawsuit (TURF vs. Texas Department of Transportation or TxDOT) to halt the misuse of taxpayer money for attempting to sell the public on toll roads. Justices demonstrated they were monitoring the actions of the lawmakers in regards to legislation pertaining to the case and noted that the Legislature had acted. TURF attorney, Charles Riley, pointed out that the public cannot be assured TxDOT has been restrained by proposed legislation since the Governor could still veto it. Unfortunately, Riley was proven right by Perry’s veto Friday. Perry’s veto all but ensures the case will continue.

The lawsuit was brought in September 2007 pursuant to § 37, Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. TURF believes the law clearly prohibits TxDOT’s expenditure of public funds for the Keep Texas Moving pro-toll, pro-Trans Texas Corridor propaganda campaign.
TxDOT has violated § 556.004 of the Texas Government Code by directing the expenditure of public funds for political advocacy in support of toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor, and have directly lobbied the United States Congress in favor of additional toll road programs as evidenced in its report, Forward Momentum.

Not a license to lobby the public and elected officials
TxDOT claims it has the authority to advertise and promote toll roads citing Chapter 228.004 of the Transportation Code. However, lawmakers have stated they never intended that law to give license to TxDOT to lobby the public in favor of toll road policy, but rather advertising more akin to “get your Toll Tag here.” Rep. Lois Kolkhorst said in an Express-News article in September 2007, “The Legislature did not tell TxDOT to go on a media campaign explaining the pros of the Trans-Texas Corridor and private equity investment (in toll roads).”

“TxDOT is still waging a one-sided political campaign designed to sway public opinion in favor of the policy that puts money in TxDOT’s own coffers. TxDOT may have ceased hiring outside consultants, but by its own admission, it has instead hired an in-house lobbyist, and its Keep Texas Moving web site and use of Department resources continue to attempt to get buy-in for toll roads from lawmakers and the public alike,” says an incredulous Hall.

On August 22, 2007, TURF filed a formal complaint with Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to investigate TxDOT’s illegal lobbying and asked him to prosecute TxDOT for criminal wrongdoing. See the formal complaint here. TURF’s petition seeks to stop TxDOT’s misuse of taxpayer money in a civil proceeding.

Terri Hall is the Founder of Texas TURF. TURF is a non-partisan grassroots group of  citizens concerned about toll road policy and the Trans Texas Corridor. TURF promotes non-toll transportation solutions. For more information, please visit their web site at: www.texasturf.org

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Hutchison: Forget Instituting Double Toll Taxes, Create Fair Highway-Funding

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Link to article here.

Hutchison: Forget Instituting Double Toll Taxes, Create Fair Highway-Funding
Texas Insider
June 17, 2009
U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison

“Taxpayers Shouldn’t Be Charged Time and Time Again to Drive on Roads They Already Paid For”

Maintaining and improving our nation’s vast surface transportation network has become nearly as daunting as negotiating the gridlocked roads of many American cities at rush hour. Continue Reading →

North Texas agency eyes raising toll rates 32%

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Link to article here.

The North Texas Tollway Authority is drowning in a sea of debt. Toll road ridership is down, so they’re at risk of not being able to make bond payments, so they’re looking to raise toll rates, which will in turn make ever fewer people able to afford to take the tollways. It’s a cat and mouse boondoggle that will come back and haunt us all once their debt service payments balloon to half a billion PER YEAR in 2020. We need to abandon this reliance on toll taxes, fix the gas tax (end diversions, do a top to bottom review of TxDOT’s books and eliminate the waste, fraud and abuse, and then if we need more funding for roads, modestly raise the gas tax), and return to affordable transportation policies.

Dallas-area toll agency delays vote on plan to raise rates
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News
The North Texas Tollway Authority finance committee heard – but did not approve – a staff recommendation Tuesday to increase toll rates throughout its growing network of toll roads.

After lengthy discussion, the committee decided against voting on the proposal to raise rates on toll roads by 32 percent, from 11 cents per mile to 14.5 cents, effective Sept. 1.

The committee will meet twice more to discuss the proposal, including at a meeting next week. The full nine-member board will vote on the hike in July.

But an increase appears certain. NTTA staff and its financial advisers said failure to raise the rates significantly could make it difficult, or even impossible, to issue new debt to complete work on already promised toll roads.

Still, board member Bob Day, a former Garland mayor, wants his colleagues to phase in the increases, waiting till 2010 to impose the full increase.

He also proposed making tolls twice as expensive for those who do not get a TollTag, though some steps would be made to help low-income drivers who do not have credit or debit cards avoid the surcharge. Drivers have been slower to get the tags than NTTA expected, making it more expensive to collect tolls.

“Let’s face it, this is kind of a tax on transportation,” Day said.

A delay might not be possible, however.

Talk of higher tolls comes as NTTA seeks to reassure bondholders, who hold $6.1 billion in NTTA debt, that a steep decline in traffic on NTTA’s toll roads does not threaten the authority’s solvency. Its trust agreement with major lenders requires that NTTA take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that enough revenue comes in to cover debt payments.

Those annual debt payments are already far more than the authority’s approximately $92 million annual operating budget, and are projected to get steeper every year. Debt payments will equal nearly $140 million in 2009, and will be $300 million by 2012. By 2020, the figure will likely be a half-billion dollars, advisers said Tuesday.

Those big debt payments are a legacy of the big bet NTTA, and by extension the region, made on the State Highway 121 toll contract, which was awarded to NTTA after fierce political skirmishing in 2007. NTTA won the 52-year contract after promising to build the road and pay $3.2 billion upfront with money it borrowed against future tolls.

A private company had offered to pay nearly as much, and take the risk that traffic – and therefore revenue – would meet projections.

But regional officials decided to bet on the record-breaking population growth in North Texas, and chose NTTA, which unlike a private company will reinvest any profits on future transportation projects.

But the recession has slowed the Dallas-Fort Worth area’s population growth, though it is still fast by national standards. Traffic also has decreased as drivers seek to minimize transportation costs, including spending money on tolls.

“My wife and I … both drive 121 every day, now spending $160 a month in tolls,” said Walter Lowe of McKinney. “If you raise the tolls, we will be forced to abandon the tollway completely. We just can’t afford it anymore.”

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Link to article here.

Big upfront deal for Highway 121 toll road weighs on NTTA officials
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News
Was $3.2 billion too much to pay for the State Highway 121 toll road?

That’s a question top officials of the North Texas Tollway Authority are asking themselves as they consider a staff proposal to send tolls soaring on all of its highways by Sept. 1.

It’s a question that was asked two years ago, too, when state and local officials awarded NTTA the rights to the richest new toll road contract in American history. But it wasn’t one that officials in North Texas asked for long.

With every dollar of the massive payment, made in cash by NTTA and reserved for roads, rail and bike trails in North Texas, officials were eager to spend the badly needed money. Scrambling to a get a piece of the Highway 121 pie, local governments submitted hundreds of transportation project proposals worth more than $8 billion.

“This is about the future,” Richardson City Council member John Murphy said just after casting his vote on the Regional Transportation Council in favor of awarding the project to NTTA. “Not long ago, we were at a point where we were saying, ‘Oh my gosh, where are we going to get the money to build roads?’ Now, we’re saying instead, ‘Show us the money.’ ”

With resources tight everywhere, the deal was more than just a way to advance a needed highway. It was seen as a harbinger of a new way to pay for roads in Texas, where raising taxes to build them the old-fashioned way had long since run out of favor.

But just two years later, that future has turned out different from what anyone foresaw. Traffic is slowing across the NTTA toll system, where revenue is down, too. On Highway 121 itself, now known as the Sam Rayburn Tollway, traffic is nearly 20 percent below levels projected two years ago.

As a result, drivers will soon be paying more, much more, to drive on NTTA toll roads. The money from higher rates is badly needed to satisfy creditors, who are owed more than $6.1 billion.

Did NTTA simply pay too much for the toll contract? Did the Regional Transportation Council demand too steep a price?

“Yes, it did,” said NTTA vice chairman Victor Vandergriff. “Both in what it paid and in the way it was paid.”

Paul Wageman, the hard-fighting NTTA chairman who had led the authority in its campaign to wrest the project away from its private-sector competitor in 2007, said it’s too early to tell whether NTTA made a good deal with the 52-year contract. Time (and a better economy) may ease many worries, he said.

Still, hindsight makes the decision to pay so much money upfront, leveraged against future tolls, look shortsighted on the part of the agency and the Regional Transportation Council, which insisted on the payments if NTTA was to win the contract over Spanish toll road firm Cintra, he and Vandergriff said.

But if the RTC was pushing too hard, it was doing so out of well-earned frustration, even desperation.

For years, North Texas leaders had looked at the area’s worsening traffic and increasing air pollution and seen a ticking time bomb capable of blowing apart the region’s powerhouse economic growth.

State and federal gas taxes had been frozen since the early 1990s. Area roads got older, more expensive to maintain, and increasingly crowded. Meanwhile, every six or so years, the region said hello to a million new faces.

So it was hardly Murphy alone who looked at the 26-mile toll road running through some of America’s fastest-growing communities and had a Jerry Maguire moment.

Wageman still sees the Highway 121 project as a good investment. The economy will rebound, and not even higher rates will persuade Dallas drivers en masse to trust their commutes to the region’s jammed free roads. But he worries that too much is being expected from toll roads, and from tolling in general.

“There is a high level of receptivity to tolling in North Texas, especially on the eastern side of the region,” Wageman said. “But TxDOT has run out of money, and now we look at a regional transportation plan that is replete with tollways. Add to that a new wave of managed lanes, a concept that is completely untested in Dallas, which will have toll rates that are incredibly high.

“My concern is that the elected officials really need to be talking to the citizens about what’s coming down the pike. Sure, we’re all glad there is going to be added mobility, but there is a cost associated with that.”

Drivers could one day soon realize they are being tolled every which way, and decide they don’t like it. “That receptivity will be gone,” he said.

But if too much is being asked of toll roads, it’s not because local leaders haven’t tried to find other answers.

A Dallas senator led efforts to raise the gas tax in Austin this year, but failed. Local efforts to get permission to ask voters to pay more taxes and fees for roads and rail also died in Austin.

Even private toll roads, the model NTTA managed to beat out in 2007, is under a cloud in Austin, where a legal tussle over the constitutionality of long-term contracts with private toll operators has stalled two major North Texas projects.

By 2012, the Texas Department of Transportation will be out of money for new construction, officials there have said. And in Washington, the highway trust fund is running out of money, too.

“I am an NTTA board member, and I hate tolls,” Vandergriff said. But for now, he and others say, it’s the only option on the table.

But as tolls soar later this year, it won’t just be the drivers who are paying more. If they are angry enough, or simply too strapped, they may decide to avoid them altogether, traffic jams or no.

That’s when North Texas will find itself right back where it started, before Highway 121: bad air, more traffic, and fast running out of options.

Rick Perry exploits the sacred Alamo for political grandstanding

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Link to article here.

There’s scarcely more sacred ground in Texas than the Alamo, and Rick Perry trampled on it Monday when he faked signing a bill that was really a constitutional amendment that didn’t need his signature. Even worse, the amendment that was already headed to the voters was personally watered down by Perry’s goons that police the Legislature, reducing the measure to nothing more than window dressing for his election year politicking. This after Perry VETOED real eminent domain reform, HB 2006, last session. Anyone with a pulse ought to see this flip flopping grandstanding for what it is. Perry is no more for meaningful eminent domain reform than he is for affordable transportation.
Genuine protection from the Supreme Court’s eminent domain Kelo case would torpedo Perry’s plans to sell Texas highways to private corporations in a scheme to forcibly take Texans land, pay them next to nothing for it, and hand it foreign toll operators for private profits. He’s made it his mission to prevent Texans from gaining private property protections that more than half the states have secured for their citizens since the Kelo decision. His motto: name your price and I’ll sell you Texas.

Insiders at the Legislature said Perry was holding the eminent domain bill hostage until lawmakers capitulated to re-authorizing the private toll contracts (called public private partnerships or CDAs in Texas) that essentially sell Texas highways to Spain. Due to the infighting over the local option gas tax at the end of the session, Perry didn’t get his private toll contracts, and the citizens of Texas didn’t get genuine eminent domain reform.
The fact that the Express-News took Perry’s bait and made him appear the hero to Texas landowners rubs salt in the wound. We give the paper kudos for acknowledging its mistake and attempting to correct it.

Setting It Straight: ‘Eminent domain fight’

San Antonio Express-News
06/16/2009

Gov. Rick Perry signed something in front of the Alamo Monday, but, it turns out, it wasn’t a bill to allow Texas voters to decide a constitutional amendment restricting eminent domain because the governor doesn’t figure in that process and doesn’t sign anything approving it.

The Express-News’ coverage resulted in an inaccurate story Tuesday that editors learned of late Tuesday.

The event, on a sunny Monday morning, with the Shrine of Texas Liberty in the background, did, however, garner news attention. The Express-News report was printed on the front of the Business section beneath a headline, “Eminent domain fight,” and a sub-headline: “Perry signs bill allowing vote on constitutional amendment limiting its use.”

Staff writer Jennifer Hiller described the event as Perry signing a bill “that would send the property rights decision to voters …”

A June 12 media advisory from Perry’s office promised he “will sign legislation to allow Texans to vote on a constitutional amendment to increase property owners’ rights.” And a story on the governor’s Web site Monday was headlined: “Gov. Perry signs legislation protecting Texas property owners.”

Unfortunately, with that kind of help from the governor’s office, the Express-News got the story wrong. While it requires two-thirds approval by both houses of the Legislature, a constitutional amendment does not require the governor’s approval to be put on the ballot.

A Perry spokeswoman, Allison Castle, told the Express-News via e-mail: “It was a ceremonial signing as the governor has done numerous times before to highlight priority issues,” citing events in 2007, 2005, 2003 and 2001.

However, the ceremony was unnecessary to the amendment process or to whether it goes to voters, and for erroneously explaining that process, the Express-News apologizes to its readers.

Story as it was published: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/Gov_Perry_takes_a_swing_at_eminent_domain.html

Bob Richter is the Express-News public editor. Contact him at brichter@express-news.net or (210) 250-3264.