Link to article here. Seems like an appropriate nicname for Texas Governor Rick Perry, too. If the shoe fits…
Former Bush Aide Fights Nickname: Gov. Privatize
By Monica Davey
New York Times
June 16, 2007

INDIANAPOLIS — At this rate, critics of Gov. Mitch Daniels grouse, all of Indiana will be run by private corporations.

What will be next, anti-Daniels bloggers demand. Will the governor hand over the keys to Indiana University and Purdue to some private consortium? Will he lease to a company the thousands of public toilets that dot the state?

In his two and a half years in office, Mr. Daniels, who previously served in the Bush White House as budget director, has already placed in the hands of private companies plenty of public business: some welfare-applicant screening, running a prison and, most notably, operating the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road, which slices across the northern edge of the state.

And, backed by fellow Republicans who until last fall controlled both houses of the legislature, he has tried not to let it end there. Mr. Daniels has also called for new privately operated roads and for the leasing of the state’s lottery. All this, he says, is in the interest of efficient delivery of state services.

“We’re just trying to solve our problems,” he said on a recent afternoon, seated at his desk, which could have been a tiny boat floating in the gaping sea of his enormous Statehouse office. “We don’t want to be anybody’s poster child for anything.”

Yet that is precisely how his critics now view him — as Governor Privatize.

“We knew this would be part of his grand scheme,” said David Warrick, a union leader who represents 25,000 public workers in Indiana and Kentucky. “He’s bent on privatizing everything he can get his hands on.”

Mr. Daniels, who in 2004 defeated a Democratic incumbent, Joseph E. Kernan, to become the first Republican governor of Indiana since 1989, is widely expected to announce that he will run next year for a second term. [His office has scheduled an “important announcement” here on Saturday morning.]

Already at least three Democrats are lining up to oppose him, proclaiming his privatizing ways a point of vulnerability. When a riot broke out this spring at the recently privatized prison, critics were quick to portray it as an outcome of the governor’s program run amok.

To be sure, the Democrats have already seen signs of Republican weakness. Three of seven Indiana Republicans lost their Congressional seats last fall, a reflection, perhaps, of the sharp decline in the popularity of President Bush (which spells a lot of trouble, the Democrats hope, for his former budget director.)

Democrats also wrested away control of the Indiana House last fall — though narrowly, 51 to 49 — and as a result were recently able to get Mr. Daniels to withdraw his plans for leasing the lottery. The governor says that private companies are willing to offer the state $2 billion, plus annual payments of $200 million, for the lottery and that he will revive the idea, partly as a way to finance more higher-education programs.

As with the other deals, proposed or done, Indiana is by no means alone in thinking about its lottery this way. But B. Patrick Bauer, the Democratic speaker of the House, says it is time to put the brakes on so much dealing. “Why don’t we just do some of this ourselves?” Mr. Bauer said. “This is a greedy generation of governors. They’re selling everything off and not thinking about the future. This all comes back to greed. Did I mention Enron to you?”

Mr. Daniels’s supporters say the deals are too good to pass up.

“Hoosiers really don’t like change,” said one Republican legislator, Jerry Torr. “When your mother gave you cough medicine when you were 5, you didn’t like the taste of it, but you knew deep down that it was good for you. The people of Indiana are going to come to the realization that that’s what Governor Daniels is doing here.”

Mr. Daniels stirred the biggest controversy last year when he leased the Indiana Toll Road, where tolls had not increased in more than two decades, to Macquarie-Cintra, an Australian-Spanish consortium, for 75 years. The state got $3.8 billion in return, which will pay, the governor said, for scores of highway projects.

Critics were outraged. How expensive might driving the road become? Who could predict the changes to come over 75 years?

The growing trend of leasing such roads to private entities has also landed Mr. Daniels in the middle of a debate in Washington. In May, Democratic leaders of a House committee sent a letter to governors and state legislators around the country, warning them against rushing into public-private partnerships involving national highways. Many such deals, the letter said, may not constitute a good public investment.

Mr. Daniels says he views privatization not as an ideological or partisan matter but as a strictly practical one. He has looked at every case individually, he said, and sought the most efficient solution for state services. From his printer, he pulled out a sheet of paper bearing a one-sentence quotation attributed to a Democrat, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York: “It is not government’s obligation to provide services, but to see they’re provided.”

“Government is the last monopoly,” Mr. Daniels said. “So competition is the key. That’s why I’m indifferent — public or private, as long as the benefits of competition are brought to bear.”

Mr. Daniels said he had not heard much talk making him the butt of jokes about his choices. Plenty of voters thank him, he said.

His prospective opponents for governor see it differently. The race, they say, may well become a referendum on privatization. “He has created incredible unrest in our state,” said one announced Democratic candidate, Jim Schellinger, an Indianapolis architect. “It should be about governing, not selling things.”

Link to article here.

In an obvious alarmist effort to mitigate the chilling effect on companies salivating over the emerging infrastructure market caused by the private toll moratorium, SB 792, TxDOT attempted to appear as though it’s business as usual in the toll nirvana of Texas by announcing over 80 toll projects at their first meeting since the legislative session ended. However, most all projects were already in the official plans with toll lanes on EXISTING I-10 in San Antonio being the only truly new announced project for the area (though we’ve warned people for a year they had their sight set on tolling the wealthy I-10 corridor north of La Cantera in San Antonio up to Boerne after we obtained the documents to prove it).

Texas 80 plus toll projects OK’d
By Jim Vertuno
Associated Press
June 14, 2007

AUSTIN — Transportation officials on Thursday approved more than 80 toll road projects across the state, many of which probably would use some private financing.State lawmakers recently passed a two-year moratorium on some private toll road contracts. The law still allows local and state planners to move on the new toll projects _ with a price range of more than $50 billion _ although the rules have changed.

Under these projects, local officials would get the first crack at development before the state steps in. And even if privately financed, the government would own and operate the roads and collect the tolls.

But with that comes the added risk to taxpayers that if the tolls don’t produce the revenue they were expected, they get stuck with the loss.

“The message we got was toll roads are OK, but we don’t want privately owned roads,” said Ric Williamson, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, which approved the projects.

The projects touch most of the state’s largest cities. Williamson said they need to be built as toll roads because traditional state funding won’t cover the cost.

“They will be almost 100 percent private sector financing,” Williamson predicted.

According to state officials, the agency’s $16.6 billion budget the next two years is only a 2 percent increase that won’t cover the double-digit inflation in recent years of road costs. Gas tax collections will not even cover road maintenance, let alone support building new roads.

“These are projects local officials have said are needed to reduce congestion but are waiting in line for funding,” Williamson said.

Toll roads and the state’s aggressive policies regarding the controversial Trans Texas Corridor were among the major issues of the recently completed legislative session.

Legislators from rural areas were concerned about private property rights. Those from urban districts complained of toll roads financed and owned by foreign companies.

“We were moving faster than most government agencies move and it spooked some people,” Williamson said.

Lawmakers originally considered a two-year ban on private toll road contracts. Gov. Rick Perry said it would kill jobs, shut down road construction and prevent access to federal highway money.

The compromise bill signed into law by Perry last week freezes some of the kinds of private funding contracts the state had been using, but also carved out about a dozen exemptions for those projects that were far into the planning stages.

It also created new rules for projects like those approved Thursday, giving local governments more authority to build toll roads.

The compromise bill also imposes limits on comprehensive development agreements, used in contracts for private-public road building. It also set up a process to determine a road’s market value.

Comprehensive development agreements, or CDAs, are a relatively new tool meant to let the Texas Department of Transportation complete road-building projects more quickly and cheaply by using a single contract for design and construction.

Those agreements have attracted the attention of multinational consortiums willing to pay large sums up front for the right to operate roads and pocket the tolls for decades to come.

That startled some residents and lawmakers who said drivers will become hostages to the private companies, forced to pay increasingly hefty tolls.

Link to article here.

BEST QUOTES:
“In sum, it cannot be reasonably argued, as the governor’s office attempted to do, that the CDA moratorium in SB 792 is without effect.”

“It is hard to see SB 792 as anything other than a setback for the concession model.”

Unspinning SB 792
Texas Monthly
Paul Burka’s blog
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
[The conclusion to this post has been updated]

What follows is the result of a discussion I had with a knowledgeable person who was involved in the debate over transportation and toll roads and who prefers not to be further identified at the present time. After the discussion, I received two written communications on the subject. I’m going to present the entire discussion as an interview. Hopefully, it will shed light on these two questions: (1) What is to be made of SB 792, the transportation bill that Governor Perry has signed into law? (2) Who were the winners and losers?

Q. What constituencies drove the fashioning of SB 792 and how effective were they?
A. One was a loose collection of grassroots, anti-Trans Texas Corridor, anti-toll advocates who have criticized the Corridor since it was first proposed. Some of these individuals, however, often border on a ?black helicopter? message and have little legislative impact other than to keep the issue stirred up. To the extent that their message is anti-toll rather than anti-concession, it flies in the face of general legislative acceptance that toll strategies will have to be part of solving the mobility crisis in Texas. The second important group of players were legislators, led by senators John Carona and Robert Nichols and representative Lois Kolkhorst. They questioned the long-term policy implications of concessions, especially those that impinged on long-term public control, such as covenants-not-to-compete (or ?developer rights? as these provisions came to be called), buyback provisions, control of toll rates, and similar issues. A third factor, which became more and more important as the legislative session went on, was strong criticism from independent business leaders and groups in Houston and Dallas who criticized the financial terms of concession agreements, which Carona referred to as ?like buying a TV on a rent-to-own basis.? A final factor was the set of interests united behind the local toll road authorities, especially the Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA), who were working to preserve the ability of these entities to develop toll projects independent of TxDOT?s push for concessions. Advocates for the local entities see them as best positioned to build political support for toll strategies in the metropolitan areas. HCTRA enjoys strong political support from business leaders and from engineering and construction interests in Harris County.

Q. How did all this get started?
A. It was triggered primarily by the TxDOT?s insistence during 2006 that HCTRA pay the TxDOT $1.3 billion upfront and some unspecified share of future revenues before it could proceed with three pending toll projects. HCTRA and its backers chose to take this issue to the Legislature instead, championed by in the Senate by Tommy Williams and in the House by Wayne Smith. Originally, the primary intent of both HB 1892 (Smith’s bill that was vetoed by the governor) and Williams’ SB 792 was to provide local toll authorities ?primacy? in the development of toll projects within their jurisdiction. Through parliamentary maneuvering, these bills became the vehicles for a thorough review of state transportation policy.

Q. Governor Perry’s office has said that the effort to limit concessions failed–that the main initiative, to impose a two-year moratorium on concession agreements, does not achieve its goal, and that TxDOT’s concessions policy “dodged a bullet.? Do you agree?
A. This argument is mostly political spin. While some projects under development will go forward as concessions, it is almost certain that, in the absence of a moratorium, TxDOT would have solicited proposals for additional concessions or would have received unsolicited proposals for new projects. Most observers saw the demands TxDOT made of HCTRA in 2006 as a prelude to a solicitation for concession agreements in Harris County. The moratorium in SB 792 stops this possibility, as well as other potential solicitations in other parts of the state. Also, some of the potential projects that are technically exempted from the moratorium almost certainly have no chance of proceeding as a concession agreement, even though they are exempt from the moratorium–for example, the proposed TTC-69 south of Corpus Christi. In Bexar County, the moratorium derails a pending concession agreement on US 281 and Loop 1604. And finally, the legislation takes two projects that would have been developed as concessions under previous law–SH 121 and SH 161 in the DFW area–and grants the North Texas Tollway Authority a right of first refusal on the projects. In sum, it cannot be reasonably argued, as the governor’s office attempted to do, that the CDA moratorium in SB 792 is without effect.

Q. How was the issue of primacy between the state and the local toll authorities resolved?
A. The locals won. They have the right of first refusal for any project in their region. Although this might appear to be a state versus local issue, it is more accurately seen as an issue that pits the concession model for toll roads against a more traditional public toll road authority model. The leadership of TxDOT has been totally committed to the concession model. While SB 792 gives the local toll authorities the ability to do concession agreements, they have, to date, shown little interest (especially in Harris County) in considering concessions.

Q. What did the governor’s office get from the compromises in SB 792?
A. Two things. (1) The bill limits the primacy of local toll authorities initially to a specified list of projects. (2) Future projects must go through a ?market valuation? process. The notion of a market valuation of a toll project is that an effort will be made to estimate the amount of surplus revenues that can be extracted from a toll project at the front end. Under the pilot project set out in SB 792, the toll authority and TxDOT would agree on a third party to conduct a market valuation. After the valuation, the authority, if it chose to exercise its right to develop the project, would be required to commit to construct additional projects equal to the surplus revenue or to deposit an equal amount into an account to be used by TxDOT to construct additional projects in the region. TxDOT believes that the market valuation study will show that more revenue will be available from the concession model than from the traditional model of collecting tolls over the life of the project.

Q. Isn’t this the central issue in the transportation debate?
A. Let’s restate it this way: Is it better to extract surplus revenue over the life of a project or to estimate this and (if feasible) extract it at the front end?
TxDOT’s policy has assumed that it is better to extract the revenue at the front end: Identify the 20-25 most gold-plated toll projects in the state; be as aggressive as possible in maximizing the toll rates; lock up the revenue stream from these projects for as long a period as possible; leverage this revenue stream to the maximum extent practical; and use that super-long term borrowing to fund current transportation needs in the absence of a fuel tax increase. Those who disagree with this approach have argued that it surrenders public control over toll rates and ties the state’s hands by providing disincentives to building free roads that might reduce revenue on toll projects. Opponents also argued that the transactional costs associated with this approach divert an excessive amount of the long-term revenue stream associated with a toll project, money that could otherwise be spent on transportation improvements. Advocates of traditional public approaches characterized the concession approach as the ?high cost? way of building projects, as opposed to the traditional ?low cost? way.

Q. So, who were the winners and losers?
A. It is hard to see SB 792 as anything other than a setback for the concession model.

A couple of closing comments: (1) The interviewee asked me to add that SB 792 should be viewed not as permanent state policy but rather as a two-year solution. Between now and the 2009 session, Carona will have a study committee, TxDOT will go through the Sunset process, the market valuation study will take place (it sunsets in four years) and the moratorium will approach its sunset date of September 09. TxDOT and the governor’s office will not get blindsided again, as it did by the local toll authorities and business coalitions this time. The 81st Legislature, perhaps the 82nd, will write the state’s transportation policy. (2) The assumption underlying TxDOT’s policy is that the Legislature will not raise the gasoline tax. So far, the agency has been proven right. Mike Krusee offered an amendment this session to index the tax to inflation, and it was soundly voted down by the House. Lawmakers, craven as ever, want to complain about concession agreements, but they lack the political will to take actions that would make them unnecessary. A popular governor could provide the leadership for indexing the gasoline tax and issuing bonds based on the increased revenue stream, selling it to the public as a way to avoid unpopular toll roads. Dream on.

As we warned from the time the Governor’s bill came into play, SB 792 has more trap doors and loopholes than teeth. The PEOPLE’S BILL, HB 1892, was left vetoed while our politicians passed a pro-toll, pro-TxDOT bill so they could get on with their summer vacations, which will come back to haunt them. This way they could pretend to throw a bone (HB 1892) to the grassroots knowing full well the Governor would veto it and it would NEVER become law, while passing a toll industry bill crafted by the most detested Governor in recent history! Read about our reaction to the bill and our attempts to educate legislators on what was in it here. Perry’s claiming victory and his chief toll architect Transportation Commission Chair Ric Williamson is invoking the same Winston Churchill quote we are, “Never ever give up,” what does that tell you? Note that Senator Jeff Wentworth tried to make the legislative intent of this bill such that his buddy Zachry can still have access to your wallets using a 50 year monopoly & private toll CDA contract on Loop 1604! It’s time for him to go!

Here’s just two of the articles outlining the troubles with SB 792:

Link to article here.

Perry’s office sees no toll moratorium at all

06/03/2007
Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Now that legislators have gone home and trumpeted how they passed a bill to freeze private financing of toll roads, the governor’s office has some bubble-busting news.There isn’t much of a moratorium in Senate Bill 792.”Of any kind, that we can tell,” said Robert Black, spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry. “Unless there was something screwy that happened.”

Actually, there were plenty of screwy machinations in the Legislature as lawmakers hammered out bills to rein in tolling powers of the Texas Department of Transportation.

Slapping a two-year moratorium on privatization contracts started out simple. But skittish lawmakers carved out exceptions in their backyards, and Perry fought to keep a loophole for his cherished multibillion-dollar cross-state network called the Trans-Texas Corridor.

By the time the plotting and jawboning ended a week ago, nearly every toll road project in line for a concession contract with a private developer had been exempted from the ban.

“The governor didn’t appreciate the hypocrisy of it,” Black said. “These guys were going to run around and say we did a two-year moratorium, when in fact they didn’t.”

And that’s just what legislators did say as Perry’s staff began combing the bill line by line to make sure there were no surprises. The bill was still pending late last week.

“The moratorium is the wind in the sails of this session’s transportation reforms,” crowed Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, a rookie senator who served on the Texas Transportation Commission and filed the original moratorium bill.

In or out?

Black didn’t realize it, but at least one toll-road project is covered by the moratorium — U.S. 281 in San Antonio.Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, added language to make sure the 7-mile project was in the moratorium because he, like other lawmakers, was deluged with calls and e-mails from angry constituents who live near the highway.

“The overwhelming majority of my folks say they don’t want this right now,” he said. “We need to pause, take a deep breath, look at all our options, all of us get better informed about our options, and then proceed two years from now.”

But Wentworth was willing to go only so far.

After Rep. Joe Farias, D-San Antonio, tacked on an amendment to stick Loop 1604 into the moratorium, an aide said a lobbyist dropped by to say the “powers that be” wouldn’t let that stand. At Perry’s insistence, a House-Senate committee later stripped out the amendment.

So Rep. David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, got a clarification read into the House record that says Loop 1604 would effectively be in the moratorium, even without the specific language.

The next day, Wentworth got his own clarification on the Senate floor, saying Loop 1604 would not be in the moratorium.

Either way, there’s a question on whether a proposed private concession for 40 miles of Loop 1604 could proceed without U.S. 281, since both are part of a bid process already under way and restarting would be out of the question under SB 792.

TxDOT won’t comment.

But Bill Thornton, chairman of the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, which is helping negotiate the concession, said it’s time to take another look at financing toll roads without seeking private dollars. The bill wouldn’t stop that.

“Why should we look for a concessionaire if we can do it ourselves?” he said. “The attraction of immediate money requires a return on investment to the concessionaire, whereas in government we’re not looking to make a profit.”

TxDOT’s pursuit of a concession for U.S. 281 and Loop 1604 rang alarms for Thornton and some other San Antonio leaders two years ago, and the scuffle ended with state officials giving their word that local officials would have the final say-so.

SB 792 would chisel that gentlemen’s agreement into law, giving local governments and agencies first dibs on developing toll projects and the ability to use state rights of way.

However, with Perry and TxDOT helping craft the bill in the waning days of the session, a provision was slipped in that gives the state a way to control how high toll rates can be set and how fast they can be raised for locally owned toll roads.

The provision would require market valuations to gauge how much money a toll road could bring in, including what motorists are willing to pay, and earmarking the profits to other area projects. State and local officials must agree on the terms or forfeit the toll plan.

“I’m uncomfortable with it,” Thornton said of the mandate. “Government is not here to make a profit, government is here to provide a service.”

Toll critics are in rare agreement with Thornton, at least to some extent, on the issue.

“SB 792 means the highest possible tolls,” said Terri Hall of San Antonio Toll Party. “This policy has never had a public debate before it was adopted.”

Corridor loophole
Another cloud hanging over SB 792 has to do with whether the moratorium includes the Trans-Texas Corridor leg that will parallel Interstate 35.A concession was signed in 2005 with Cintra of Spain and Zachry Construction Co. of San Antonio to draw up a development plan. Separate contracts would spin off of the plan to construct individual segments.

TxDOT officials recently said the agency might be ready to move forward with a rail project within two years.

Worried that the construction contracts might slip through the moratorium on new concessions, Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, added an amendment to plug the potential loophole. But Perry balked, threatening to veto the bill.

The House-Senate compromise committee agreed to take the amendment out.

After talking to lawyers and Perry’s office, Kolkhorst said she believes in her heart that there is a moratorium on the corridor contracts, according to reports. If TxDOT wants to play with words, she said, the matter could be settled in court.

“It’s a strong bill with or without the amendment,” she said.

Black said Kolkhorst was told that work couldn’t start on corridor projects within two years anyway because environmental studies won’t be finished.

But Kolkhorst may not have known that SB 792 would still allow construction contracts to be signed, though work wouldn’t begin until after the studies are completed, he said.

She kind of got her hat handed to her,” Black said.

—————————-

Link to article here.

BEN WEAR: GETTING THERE
Perry stared down legislative blitz

Monday, June 04, 2007
Austin American Statesman
You may have heard that the Legislature this session approved a moratorium on toll roads.

If so, you heard wrong. No legislators that I ran into this session wanted to snuff out tollways.

Or you might have heard or read that lawmakers passed a moratorium on long-term toll road leases with private companies. This is true, but only in the most qualified sense.

This prohibition — contained in Senate Bill 792, which Gov. Rick Perry hasn’t yet signed but almost certainly will when he makes it back from Turkey — is perforated with exceptions.

Under SB 792, private toll road contracts similar to the one already reached with Cintra-Zachry for Texas 130 could be done on seven projects in Dallas-Fort Worth, a proposed Interstate 69 from near Victoria to Brownsville, anything in Cameron County and all but one project in El Paso County, and on Loop 1604 in San Antonio.

And, oh yes, after Perry threatened to veto an earlier version of SB 792, the Legislature removed language that would have made it impossible to do private toll road contracts on the Trans-Texas Corridor tollway twin for Interstate 35.

Even taking the two counties and the corridor out of the discussion — lawmakers made it clear that no contracts should be signed on the corridor for the next two years, even if they didn’t outright ban them — we’re talking about $20 billion in contracts on those other nine roads. That’s 10 zeros short of a freeze.

The obvious question, given all the public pressure and the periodic displays of legislative umbrage this session at a Texas Department of Transportation “run amok”: How can this be? Everyone said they wanted to vote for a moratorium, but we didn’t really get one?

It’s all about commitment. In politics, all other things being equal, the side that wants it the most and is willing to do whatever it takes is going to win most of the time. In this case, that side was Perry and the Department of Transportation.

Legislators were conflicted. They wanted to please constituents, particularly rural ones, who don’t want a bunch of new tollways “owned” by foreign companies cutting through farms. They were nervous about 50-year toll road leases that might outlive their children, and about corporations toting away profits that might otherwise go to building other roads.

But lawmakers also wanted urban highways, as many as possible and as soon as possible, and the Houston and Dallas delegations in particular wanted to build and run most tollways in their areas. And legislators also didn’t intend to raise the gas tax, no matter how much the fiscal logic of the situation tells them they should. Those are, taken together, competing imperatives.

So the legislative commitment to stop private toll roads stretched from one end of the Capitol to the other, but it was about a centimeter deep. Perry, on the other hand, and his compadre Ric Williamson, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, have a passion for their agenda taller than the Capitol dome. Perry said he’d veto bills that materially curbed private toll roads and made it clear to legislators behind closed doors that he would call special sessions ad infinitum until he got what he wanted. Legislators believed him, and they blinked.

The Wednesday before lawmakers adjourned for good May 28, Williamson hosted his monthly briefing with reporters at Transportation Department World Headquarters, across 11th Street from the Capitol. By then it was looking like SB 792, which emerged as the toll road bill of choice after several pretenders had skidded into the ditch, would pass and would be acceptable to Perry.

Williamson, spotted several weeks earlier huddling with confederates at the Capitol after the Legislature passed a much tougher toll road bill, had looked grim. (Perry vetoed that earlier bill.) This day, though, Williamson sauntered into the room seeming pretty pleased with life. As he swung into his chair, he tossed some party favors onto the table, royal-blue plastic wristbands with white writing on them. The words succinctly captured why SB 792 turned out the way it did.

The Churchillian message: “Never ever give up.”

The City Council is scheduled to take-up appointing an “alternate” EX-city councilmember to replace ELECTED city councilmembers on the MPO Transportation Policy Board. Richard Perez staged a coup at the last MPO meeting to allow this brazen violation to appear as though it’s legitimately part of MPO policies. This item appears on the city council agenda as if appointing an UN-elected “alternate” is “in accordance with MPO policies.” That policy is a farce and it was done by Perez’ at his last meeting as Chair. He presided over the vote (rather than recuse himself) that will essentially allow him to be re-appointed to this vital board even though HE WILL NO LONGER BE IN OFFICE! It will be challenged in court because IT’S ILLEGAL! The federal law that sets up the MPO only allows for local ELECTED officials to sit on the MPO Board.

It’s widely known that Perez was the impetus behind a request sent in a May 18 letter) to MPO Board members from Mayor Phil Hardberger that asked the MPO to circumvent federal law by appointing “alternate board members” who can stand in for “missing” councilmembers. Only elected officials and representatives that administer or operate major modes of transportation (like TxDOT/Via) may serve on the Board (see 23 U.S.C.A. § 134, Title 23. Highways Chapter 1. Federal-Aid Highways

§ 134. Metropolitan transportation planning).

This prevents the NEWLY ELECTED COUNCILMEMBERS from deciding KEY future transportation policies and whether or not they think it’s appropriate to have an UN-elected alternate with FULL VOTING POWERS to sit in on these meetings.

Under item #65 –

Boards, Commissions and Committee Appointments

65. Consideration of board, commission and committee appointments: [Leticia M. Vacek, City Clerk]

M. An Ordinance appointing members of the City Council to the Metropolitan Planning Organization Transportation Policy Board and approving the appointment of an alternate for one member in accordance with the Policies of the MPO.

ACTION ALERT

CALL YOUR CITY COUNCILMEMBER AND TELL THEM TO VOTE NO!

(210) 207-7040

We’ve come full circle. We started the session fighting this Governor, and we’ve ended the session the same way. The only difference is that the Legislature could have given us a slam dunk (HB 1892), but caved and left more in doubt, including the fate of the Trans Texas Corridor, than it made explicit. However, what isn’t in doubt is that whatever projects move forward, we’ll be charged the highest tolls!

The TTC will not be stopped by SB 792….urban toll projects will not be stopped by this. AND it gives the PUBLIC tolling entities yet another “tool” in the toolbox to charge concession fees on PUBLIC toll roads like private equity deals, which to the end user still means the highest possible tolls at a time of record high gas prices. When this stuff hits the fan, those 19 who voted against SB 792 will be vindicated. It’s HB 3588 from 2003 all over again! (Read more here).

Though it was evident the Legislature WAS NOT going to override the veto of HB 1892 since the Senate caved to Perry Monday, May 14, the more information about provisions of the “compromise” bill hatched behind closed doors by Senators John Carona, Tommy Williams, and Kim Brimer, among others, came to light, the more the grassroots OPPOSED SB 792.

Despite a last minute attempt to avert disaster, the House voted to pass SB 792 Saturday, May 26, 2007. When the senators brokered a deal, it became abundantly clear that the odds of stopping the SB 792 Perry freight train were slim to nil. What I kept hearing from reps was they wouldn’t take on the Governor because of his threats to call a special session. The vast majority of them were more concerned about starting their summer break than passing the PEOPLE’S bill! Rather than work their colleagues in the Senate to keep the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto of HB 1892, they all threw their hands up and started the blame game, including caving on nearly every taxpayer protection.

Short of Representative Nathan Macias, it was hard to find ANYONE willing to face a MAJOR shift in transportation policy that was inserted by this Governor into SB 792 late in the session, called “market valuation.” This policy has never had a public debate before it was adopted. The more legislators I spoke with, the more I realized they didn’t understand the implications nor did they want to. They wanted to stick their heads in the sand hoping and wishing for things rather than face what was ACTUALLY IN THE BILL. Even grassroots heroes like Lois Kolkhorst, were left saying “I know in my heart this is a moratorium” Friday morning after the conference committee report emerged without amendment 13 and several others.

Well, “knowing in your heart” won’t be enough to restrain TxDOT in the off-season when the Legislature is out of session and they proceed with extracting the MOST MONEY possible from the traveling public through market based tolls (read more here). Nineteen members could see the writing on the wall and realized this bill is just like 2003 when an omnibus transportation bill shows up at the end of a session and gets rushed through with new language that will come back to haunt reps later.

THE GOOD GUYS:

Nathan Macias lead the charge along with David Leibowitz, Lon Burnam, Joaquin Castro, Garnet Coleman, Joe Farias, Jessica Farrar, Stephen Frost, Ana Hernandez, Jodie Laubenberg, Trey Martinez Fischer, Ruth McClendon, Sid Miller, Ken Paxton, Robert Puente, Joe Straus, Senfronia Thompson, Marc Veasey, and Mike Villarreal.

Notably absent from this list is San Antonio Representative Frank Corte whose district is under a FULL toll assault on both Hwy 281 and Loop 1604! The rest who voted FOR SB 792 can’t use the excuse that they didn’t know what they were voting on this time, because we educated them about what was in the bill. They also received multiple bulletins informing them about the implications of market valuation.

To thank each of the good guys use this email formula: firstname.lastname@house.state.tx.us (ie – nathan.macias@house.state.tx.us). They’re sure to get visits like this from the highway lobby’s goons.

Link to story here.

House sends toll road compromise to governor

Bill includes moratorium on certain new, privately developed roads.