Grassroots groups sue state of Texas over Prop 2 illegal ballot

Posted on November 8, 2023 by TTH admin

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Three grassroots groups file lawsuit to challenge Prop 2

Deceptive & illegal ballot language removed ‘ad valorem tax increases’ from ballot

(November 8, 2021 — Austin, Texas) Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF), Grassroots America – We the People, and True Texas Project (TTP) filed a lawsuit against the Texas Secretary of State, John B. Scott, challenging the constitutional amendment known as Proposition 2. The suit contends the ballot language presented to Texas voters on November 2, 2021, failed to comply with common law requirements and asserts the ballot language was substantially misleading due to the removal of the phrase ‘ad valorem tax increases.’ State law requires that a proposition be described “with such definiteness and certainty that the voters are not misled.” Blum v. Lanier, 997 S.W.2d 259 (Tex. 1999). The lawsuit seeks the remedy of Governor Greg Abbott declaring the election on Prop 2 void.

Prop 2 would authorize counties to create Transportation Reinvestment Zones (TRZs) that give them the authority to issue bonds and use property tax increases for repayment of those bonds. A virtually identical proposition was put before Texas voters in 2011 known as Proposition 4 and voters rejected it when the phrase ‘ad valorem tax increases’ was included.

TURF, Grassroots America, and TTP believe this was intentional since the legislation, HJR 99 authored by Rep. Terry Canales (D – Edinburg), and its stated purpose and intent includes the phrase, but the ballot language expressly does not. Senator Bob Hall tried to amend HJR 99 in the senate to restore the original ballot language for the identical legislation from 2011, but the amendment failed.

“The legislature intentionally chose to mislead voters in order to get it passed this time around. Former House Transportation Committee Chair Joe Pickett even stated as much when Prop 4 failed in 2011. He cited the phrase ‘ad valorem tax increases’ as the problem for voters. So instead of abiding by what the voters decided, they chose to deceive voters, keeping them in the dark as to the tax impact,” observed Terri Hall, Founder/Director of TURF.

“It’s this sort of deceptive ballot language that angers voters and makes them think twice about participating in these off-year elections out of fear they’re going to be tricked into voting for things they didn’t intend to had the plain meaning been obvious.”

The Republican Party of Texas and the House Freedom Caucus also opposed Prop 2. Additionally the Republican Party of Texas 2020 Platform includes several planks opposing virtually every aspect of TRZs. Planks #178 & 179 favor limiting and even abolishing property tax. Plank #176 opposes special taxing districts like TRZs. Three more planks (#s 50, 159 & 206) also address the issues of higher taxes and more bonds.

The suit points out that “Texas has some of the highest property tax burdens in the nation. Among the 10 most populous states, Texas’ local debt per capita ranks as the 2nd highest total, behind only New York. In light of these circumstances, Proposition 2’s omission of any mention of its relationship with local debt and property tax burdens misled voters about its chief features.”

Ballot language comparison:

Prop 4 in 2011 said: “The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to permit a county to issue bonds or notes to finance the development or redevelopment of an unproductive, underdeveloped, or blighted area and to pledge for repayment of the bonds or notes increases in ad valorem taxes (emphasis ours) imposed by the county on property in the area. The amendment does not provide authority for increasing ad valorem tax rates.”

Prop 2 in 2021 said: “The constitutional amendment authorizing a county to finance the development or redevelopment of transportation or infrastructure in unproductive, underdeveloped, or blighted areas in the county.”

Further information:
TURF, Grassroots America – We the People, and True Texas Project sent this letter to the Secretary of State prior to the election requesting a change in the ballot language… and stating they’d file a lawsuit to contest the election otherwise.

‘No’ on Prop 2 campaign flyer
Article on lawsuit in The Texan

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Toll authority lobbies to end citizen legal challenges to unwanted toll roads

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Terri Hall

This excerpt from the story pretty well sums up our thoughts on this obvious attempt to railroad UNWANTED toll projects upon taxpayers by removing genuine legal challenges, the only method they listen to and the only method that has worked so far:

“There’s a reason why they have public comment and review periods,” Hall said. “It is important to give the public a chance to review these things and scrutinize it.”

Some environmental documents are hundreds or thousands of pages long, Hall said, and can’t be digested in 60 days.

“The best way to not have to worry about litigation is not about keeping things out of court — it’s to do the documents right, do right by the public and get community consensus so that there isn’t any opposition.”

Web Posted: 01/14/2010 6:25 CST

Proposal would sideline road-blocking lawsuits

By Josh Baugh – Express-News

Alamo Regional Mobility Authority board member Robert Thompson on Thursday called for a change in federal law that would effectively stop lawsuits that block road projects.

In San Antonio, it would mean swift action in suits filed against toll projects.

Thompson, a lawyer, said he planned to e-mail Bexar County’s congressional delegation after Thursday’s meeting of the agency to seek support for adding such language to federal transportation legislation that Congress is considering. Thompson called lawsuits filed to block highway construction “the bane of so many projects.”

Currently, federal law offers a 180-day window for lawsuits to be filed once an environmental study is approved by the Federal Highway Administration. Thompson’s proposal would cut that to 60 days and require plaintiffs to accept binding arbitration. Resolution would be required within 180 days, Thompson said.

Read the rest of the article here.

Divide & Conquer: the 281 nightmare continues

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Terri Hall

First decode the jargon:

ARMA = Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA), a misleading name for tolling authority, whenever you hear “mobility” it’s code for tolling

MPO = Metropolitan Planning Organization is the local transportation planning board

NEPA = National Environmental Policy Act, federal law that guides environmental review for highway projects

__________________________________________________

The RMA can’t seem to tell the truth. At yesterday’s MPO meeting, Executive Director,Terry Brechtel, couldn’t even tell the Board how many toll lanes the agency is planning to build on 281. She’s either incompetent or intentionally hiding the truth. I believe it’s the later.

The point of the discussion was to get to the bottom of what happened to the $100 million in gas taxes dedicated to fix 281 (some became available in since 2003, the rest by 2006, documents showed it was still there through 2007) and how to move forward with an immediate solution. For the scoop on how a non-toll plan for overpasses and expansion on 281 was promised in public hearings in 2001 and funded with gas taxes since 2003, go to: www.281OverpassesNow.com.

Every project needs environmental clearance and funding. Sufficient funding, despite TxDOT’s best attempts at hiding and spending every cent available to fix 281, is still available. But yesterday, Clay Smith of TxDOT NEVER answered Rep. David Leibowitz’ direct question asking where the $100 million in gas taxes went. Brechtel also tried to claim the cost difference between the 20-lane toll road and 10-lane freeway plan was a mere $20 million.

TxDOT nor the RMA ever has to answer for its defiance, not as long as we have Rick Perry as governor and a sheepish legislature that’s too afraid to fix the big bad wolf. Guys like Commissioner Tommy Adkisson (new Chair of the MPO) and Rep. Leibowitz are in short supply in Austin. However, Bexar County Commissioners appoint the RMA Board and have floated the idea of dissolving it. Let’s insist they do.

The other hurdle in getting 281 fixed becomes the environmental clearance. The clearance for the toll road was pulled October 1, 2008. TxDOT royally botched the 281 toll road environmental study that was found to be rigged and fraudulent for which one employee was fired, two others “re-assigned,” and caused TxDOT to be banned from doing the new study (totally unprecedented).

The clearance was pulled for the toll road only. Federal law, NEPA, provides for a different course of action to advance in place of the toll road, particularly one that’s different in size, scope, and impacts. The original non-toll plan for 281 fits the bill, and yesterday we laid out how to get environmental clearance expedited for 281. It was abundantly obvious that TxDOT and the RMA continue to dismiss ANY other solution other than converting our existing FREEway into a tollway. Every non-toll scenario is shot down.

Brechtel and sidekick Leroy Alloway blatantly misled the public in Sunday’s Express-News article stating that the footprint for the freeway plan and the toll road are identical when the RMA’s own web site (see inset photos) and even past Express-News reports show otherwise. The original freeway fix is 10 lanes and the toll road is up to 20 lanes wide. We don’t need a mega toll road to fix 281, we need overpasses and access roads.

The toll road has detrimental impacts that the non-toll plan does not. There are significant negative economic impacts such as $2,000-$3,000 a year in new toll taxes and a higher cost of goods, indirect effects such as traffic diverting to neighborhood streets, environmental impacts due to continuous frontage roads that induce overdevelopment of the aquifer and a larger footprint creating greater impervious cover.

In addition, the criteria to determine what level of study is needed states controversy as a reason to do a full environmental impact statement. The toll roads are extremely controversial. The FHWA already required the RMA to do a full impact statement for the Bandera toll road for that reason.

Public meetings this week:
“Open House” means silence opposition
The RMA is hosting two public hearings this week, one tonight on the 281/1604 interchange at Harvest Fellowship off 1604 (just west of 281) at 5:30 PM, and a 281 “Scoping Meeting” Thursday at St. Mark’s Church off Thousand Oaks at 5:30 PM. The Open House techniques being utilized by the RMA for its public hearings do not comport with federal law, NEPA.

An open house format does not allow the public a chance to hear a formal presentation all at one time, with identical project information. The public has to read handouts, look at posters and project drawings spread around the room, and ask one-on-one questions of people from ARMA and the consulting firms in order to gain any understanding of the project. There is no official record of the questions and answers from the comments/concerns expressed in such one-on-ones. For a public hearing, there is a comment and response report where you can read the agency’s official response, but not with an open house.

TxDOT in recent years has begun to use the open house so that those opposed to a project don’t get to express their opposition during an open comment period at the end of a meeting where the audience hears these concerns and sometimes applauds and may cause some people to change their minds about a project. The open house format is a divide and conquer technique designed to silence those who may oppose the agency’s preferred alternative, which is always toll roads.

At the RMA’s open house for the 281 superstreet, attendees were not even made aware that in order to have their comments appear on the official record, they had to go submit them to the stenographer. We had many folks tell us they didn’t even know a stenographer was present.

The open house format is not a proper format for public hearings and it must be stopped or it can and will be challenged.

Here’s what you can do…

1. Head straight to the stenographer to get your comments on the official record.
2. Express your concerns with the Open House format where dissemination of info is not uniform and citizens cannot benefit from hearing other attendees thoughts about potential impacts.
3. Specifically for the interchange meeting, ask to see the document you’re supposed to be commenting on. (they’re holding a public meeting for comments on a document we believe is not even completed yet, which is cart before the horse and another violation)

Divide & Conquer: the 281 nightmare continues

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Terri Hall

First decode the jargon:

ARMA = Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA), a misleading name for tolling authority, whenever you hear “mobility” it’s code for tolling

MPO = Metropolitan Planning Organization is the local transportation planning board

NEPA = National Environmental Policy Act, federal law that guides environmental review for highway projects

__________________________________________________

The open house format is not a proper format for public hearings and it must be stopped or it can and will be challenged.

Here’s what you can do…

RMA lies about size of 281 toll road

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

The RMA purposely misleads the public in this article. Read what happened when we shined the light on these falsehoods here. See the proof that shows the 281 toll road is twice the footprint of the FREEway plan at www.281OverpassesNow.com.

Web Posted: 08/23/2009

Agency ‘aggressive’ on U.S. 281 environmental review

By Josh Baugh – Express-News

By 2012, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority is hoping to have wrapped up the most extensive environmental review ever conducted on U.S. 281, the prerequisite to any long-term relief on the region’s most gridlocked stretch of highway.

The results of the federal “environmental impact statement,” or EIS, will dictate if and possibly how the U.S. 281 corridor from Loop 1604 to the Comal County line will be improved. No capacity can be added to U.S. 281 without first completing the EIS. It’s typically a five-year process, but the RMA hopes to complete it in three years.

“That is the bestthe best-case scenario in any circumstance,” said Terry Brechtel, executive director of the RMA. “We have decided to be aggressive and do some things to try to get this through. A lot of people and a lot of resources are trying to get it done.”

Improving U.S. 281 has been a controversial issue here for years because of the potential for toll roads, and it likely will continue to be as the RMA moves forward on its EIS.

Toll critic Terri Hall, the agency’s most outspoken opponent, has suggested that the cumbersome environmental review isn’t necessary — at least not anymore. Hall was part of a 2008 lawsuit that demanded that an EIS be conducted before any improvements were made to U.S. 281.

Her aim is to take toll roads out of the mix.

The EIS will evaluate, among other things, potential environmental, social and economic impacts that the highway’s expansion could have on the corridor. The study is supposed to take in a lot of public input.

It’s the type of study that toll opponents and environmental activists sought in a 2008 lawsuit they filed against the Federal Highway Administration, the RMA and the Texas Department of Transportation. Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom sought an injunction blocking tolled highway expansion until an EIS was prepared in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

The groups wanted an EIS conducted jointly on U.S. 281 and Loop 1604. But the RMA is conducting an EIS separately for each highway. AGUA President Enrique Valdivia said that in itself taints the EIS process because it signifies the RMA putting its mark on the process before any outcome is reached.

Clearance yanked

In 2007, the Federal Highway Administration had given environmental clearance to the project based on a lower-level study — an environmental assessment — but the federal agency pulled the OK in 2008 after TxDOT announced that it had discovered irregularities in how its San Antonio district had procured scientific services.

The highway administration then sent a letter to the RMA requiring that an EIS be prepared for any future federal transportation project in the U.S. 281 corridor.

Environmentalists and toll opponents point to their lawsuit as a victory in stopping the project.

But Hall — TURF’s founder and director, and a plaintiff in the 2008 lawsuit — says the cumbersome EIS process could be avoided if plans to toll the highway were jettisoned.

RMA officials say it’s clear that there’s no way around conducting an EIS before adding capacity to U.S. 281. The Federal Highway Administration has said as much in a letter requiring that the study be done before any federal money is spent on U.S. 281. But Hall contends that the yanked environmental clearance only applies to the plan to build toll roads. Based on Hall’s reading of the National Environmental Policy Act, a non-tolled plan could undergo an “environmental assessment,” or EA, which is a lower-level study.

“We would argue that if you look at NEPA, you could actually do an expedited EA, meaning even faster than a normal EA, which is pretty quick compared to an EIS. And one of the things it says there in NEPA is that you don’t have to have public hearings, even. That’s a very long process.”

Hall advocates for TxDOT’s “original plan,” which called for two additional main lanes, bringing the total on U.S. 281 to six, along with four lanes of frontage roads. All the lanes were to be built as non-tolled.

But Leroy Alloway, the RMA’s director of community relations, says the footprint has never changed from the “original plan.”

“If you look at the plan she’s talking about, which is overpasses and frontage roads, and you look at the 2005 plan, they’re identical,” he said. “You look at the 2007 plan, it’s still the same footprint. You’re still building the exact same thing. The only difference was the expressway lanes would have been tolled. The frontage roads would have stayed as frontage roads. … That footprint didn’t change.”

That’s why the EIS should move forward, he said.

Solution sought

Now nobody knows what will be built. That’s where the public comes in.

On Thursday, the RMA will hold the first of several public meetings to gather input on how to deal with gridlock in the U.S. 281 corridor. In technical terms, the RMA will determine “need and purpose” that will help guide the outcome of the study — what the “preferred alternative” could be.

Maybe it’s the “original plan,” or the six tolled lanes that currently appear in the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s fiscally restrained Transportation Improvement Plan. Maybe it’s passenger rail, bus rapid transit or high-occupancy-vehicle lanes.

Throughout the process, a residents advisory group — which includes seats for AGUA and both of Hall’s groups, TURF and the San Antonio Toll Party — will meet and offer input for the EIS.

For Hall, though, it’s all for naught.

“At the end of the day, we want to get the overpass and original expansion plan for U.S. 281 funded and fixed and move forward with an expedited EA, and this whole EIS thing will be moot,” she said. That is, without toll roads on the drawing board.

But RMA officials say the U.S. 281 corridor is now a “blank slate” and that the EIS will determine the best way to address congestion there. There are a couple caveats: The preferred plan doesn’t have to be the most environmentally friendly, and funding sources have to be identified.

The RMA’s Brechtel says tolls are on the table and will remain so until another funding source becomes available. There’s not enough money from the state or federal governments to build the estimated $450 million project.

Hall said TURF would push in the 2011 Legislature for an indexed gas tax increase that would cover the cost of constructing freeways.

There are other options, Brechtel says, adding that San Antonio and Bexar County could decide to create a public improvement district or use property taxes to fund the project. More stimulus money could become available. Or a local-option sales tax — shot down in the Legislature this year — could take the place of tolls.

“Federal law says to keep a project going through an environmental study process, you have to have a reasonable revenue source, and today that reasonable revenue source is tolls,” Brechtel said. “I’ve been explaining that to folks on the MPO so they understand how this works.”

Brechtel wouldn’t speculate on the possibility of shifting trends at the MPO, the local agency that oversees more than $200 million of federal transportation dollars. Its new chairman, County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson, is a toll opponent and ally of Terri Hall.

Hall said she thinks the MPO could vote to rescind its approval of tolls, effectively deflating the RMA. If Brechtel’s concerned about that, she wouldn’t say.

A toll-road vote isn’t on Monday’s MPO agenda, she said, so she’s not worried about it “this month.”

Find this article at:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/traffic/Agency_aggressive_on_environmental_review_for_US_281.html

Overpass to nowhere, a stimulus bill fiasco

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Terri Hall

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AGUA/TURF question status of 281/1604 interchange, stimulus funds

San Antonio, TX, February 23, 2009 – AGUA and TURF have concerns about the status of the 281/1604 interchange in light of the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s (MPO) vote today to submit it as a “shovel ready” project for stimulus funds.

“While we welcome ANY non-toll funding to FINALLY complete these projects, we have to ask…what will this interchange connect with? Toll lanes or non-toll lanes? Will it only connect with what’s there now or what? How can they build an interchange without knowing what sort of lanes it’ll connect with?” Terri Hall, Founder of TURF, asks.

Enrique Valdivia, President of the Board of Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas (AGUA) wondered, ”We’re concerned that stimulus money is being used to fund projects within the scope of the issues we’ve raised in our lawsuit.”

Hall says the non-toll fix to 281 and1604 and the interchange should all be on the table. While the toll road clearance has been pulled, there are provisions in the law that would allow all these improvements to move forward as scaled down non-toll projects if the politicians would demand that TxDOT work with community groups to agree on a less invasive, more affordable plan.

“Until now, TxDOT and the RMA have REFUSED to negotiate. They want a massive toll road that steals our freeway and raids our wallets,” Hall said.

Citizens have been clamoring to get the original, non-toll freeway plan built on 281 for 4 years, and they have recently launched a campaign to pressure politicians in the area to get the job done. View it here. The freeway fix was promised in public hearings in 2001, had environmental clearance, no opposition, and it was funded with gas taxes in 2003. Then the Texas Legislature, including State Rep. Frank Corte and Sen. Jeff Wentworth, voted for Governor Rick Perry’s toll road plans. That’s when 281 FREEway improvements were turned into a toll plan instead.

“It’s all about the money. Our politicians want to tap the vein and charge 281 commuters an extra tax to get to work in order to fund their pet projects elsewhere. It’s highway robbery and citizens, rightly, went nuclear to stop it,” Hall declared.

Though the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) and TxDOT stubbornly claim there is no money or environmental clearance to fix 281, [the money is still there in Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) documents], $425 million total, which is more than enough for the less invasive original plan AND the interchange at 281/1604 and the most congested areas of 1604.

“The stalemate over 281 isn’t about lack of money or lack of clearance, it’s about a lack of political will. It’s about rogue bureaucrats and unresponsive politicians who can magically produce $20 million for an overpass for wealthy campaign donors in the Dominion, yet they’d have us believe the same ‘can’t’ be done on 281. The pathway to a solution the taxpayers and environmental groups are happy with is ripe for the picking, but our politicians refuse to choose it. They want our money, and they don’t care about the environment or whose lives’ they’re wrecking to do it,” Hall noted.

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Blatant taxpayer-funded lobbying by local govt for transportation tax hikes

Posted on February 19, 2009 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

As if TxDOT’s lobbying for toll roads on the taxpayer’s dime isn’t bad enough (read about our lawsuit to stop it), local government gets off scott-free since their thievery has been deemed legal by default. We MUST DEMAND and end to taxpayer funded lobbying on ALL levels of government!

Sun, Feb. 15, 2009
North Texas officials want more money for transportation lobbying

By DAVE MONTGOMERY

AUSTIN — After committing more than a quarter of a million dollars in lobbying fees for a major transportation bill, North Texas officials are asking suburban cities to step up with more money to push the legislation “over the goal line.”HillCo Partners, one of Austin’s blue-ribbon lobbying firms, has been hired to lead the charge in behalf of the bill, designed to fund road and rail improvements in the traffic-clogged Metroplex.

But HillCo’s 13 registered lobbyists don’t come cheap. And the total price tag apparently remains a work in progress as the Austin firm tries to persuade lawmakers to approve a rewritten version of legislation they rejected two years ago.

Fort Worth, Arlington and the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition have agreed to pay HillCo $275,000 for its transportation lobbying efforts. The coalition and Fort Worth approved separate contracts of $100,000 each, while Arlington authorized $75,000.

The transportation coalition, composed of 38 cities and four counties, is also asking for additional payments from smaller suburban cities in what it predicts will be a hefty and costly undertaking. The bill, which will be outlined at a news conference Monday, is considered one of North Texas’ top legislative priorities.

Solicitation letters sent to member cities propose payments of $5,000 each for cities with more than 25,000 residents and $2,500 for cities with fewer. The payments can be made separately to HillCo or sent to the coalition as an “addendum” to its $100,000 contract with the firm, said Vic Suhm, the coalition’s executive director.

Appeals to the suburbs

“We need the participation of our region’s suburban cities to muster the resources we need to achieve success,” said the letter from Mayors Ken Shetter of Burleson and Oscar Trevino of North Richland Hills. Shetter is coalition chairman and Trevino, a former chairman, is on the executive committee.

In the letter, the mayors proclaimed a “good start” on behalf of the funding bill but said “it is going to take a monumental effort to get us over the goal line. … While smaller cities can’t match the large commitments Fort Worth and Arlington have made, we can and should do our part.”

Most towns and cities in Tarrant County are coalition members, as are businesses and chambers of commerce.

In the solicitation mailings, Shetter and Trevino noted that the coalition, “in partnership with the region’s largest cities and counties, has engaged HillCo as our legislative advocate to help get this critical legislation passed this session.”

What’s next

Sponsors of the legislation, called the Texas Local Option Transportation Act, will outline their plans at a news conference today at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, plans to file a bill in the House, and Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, will introduce a companion measure in the Senate.

Approval by the Legislature would allow voters in North Texas counties, including Tarrant, to decide from a menu of taxes and fees that would fund road improvements and a multi-county regional rail network.

The plan, earlier called Rail North Texas, is a reworked version of a bill that died in the 2007 Legislature. It never made it out of committee because of objections to using sales tax as a method of financing. The sales tax is not part of the new measure.

HillCo, formed in 1998 by consultant Bill Miller and former state Rep. Neal “Buddy” Jones, has well-established ties in North Texas. In addition to its work on the transportation issue, the firm also promotes the legislative agendas of a dozen towns and cities, including Fort Worth, Arlington, Dallas, North Richland Hills, Burleson, Southlake, Irving and Denton.

The state government is prohibited from using public money for lobbying services, but the prohibition does not extend to cities, said Tim Sorrells, a spokesman for the Texas Ethics Commission. City officials say professional on-the-ground lobbyists are vital to help cities with their legislative needs, although some taxpayer advocates criticize the expenditure of tax money to private lobbying firms.

“People who make that charge really haven’t worked in the trenches down here,” said Miller, the HillCo executive. “If you’re down here part-time, then you won’t be successful.”

‘Biggest, baddest partner’

Shetter said coalition officials considered other firms but agreed that HillCo, with its track record for success, had the best chance of reversing North Texas’ fortunes from the previous legislative session. “You want sort of the biggest, baddest partner you can get,” the Burleson mayor said.

The coalition has paid HillCo a portion of its $100,000 contract for transportation lobbying and is paying the remainder on a monthly basis, said Suhm, the executive director. Fort Worth is finalizing its $100,000 transportation contract to HillCo after it was approved by the City Council on Tuesday, said Reid Rector, the city’s director of governmental relations.

The fee for transportation lobbying, he said, is separate from Fort Worth’s $93,000 contract with HillCo to represent the city’s other legislative issues in Austin, Rector said.

The Arlington City Council expanded its professional services contract with HillCo on Dec. 2 to pay the company an additional $75,000 to “promote a regional transportation system,” according the council’s minutes.

Under a contract approved by the Arlington council Sept. 2, the city is paying HillCo $8,000 per month for the five months of the legislative session and $6,667 per month when the Legislature is not in session. The council also authorized $36,500 for a legislative consultant in another contract modification with HillCo on Feb. 3, according to council minutes.

Amassing resources for victory

Shetter and Trevino said the ultimate cost of the lobbying effort on the transportation bill has not been determined. The coalition, they said, felt that it is necessary to ask its suburban members to contribute to the effort, both to raise additional money and to give them a stronger stake in the outcome.

“We’re talking about millions of dollars of economic development,” Shetter said. “When you’re trying to get something like that for a region, you don’t want to do things on the cheap. I want to make sure we have all the resources we need to see this thing through to the end.”

Miller, HillCo’s co-founder, said that he was unaware of the request for the additional payments from coalition members.

“I’m happy that people see the value of hiring us and want to see us paid,” he said. “That’s encouraging.”

Miller said HillCo met with North Texas officials throughout the summer before getting the green light to take the lead on the transportation bill. The company’s lobbyists are working en masse to pass the legislation, he said, adding that HillCo is engaged in the most comprehensive deployment of “manpower and womanpower” since he co-founded the firm more than a decade ago.

“I’ve seen more HillCo people at these meetings than any other deal I’ve done,” Miller said. “We have a big pool of talent, and we’re deploying it as fast and furiously as we can.”

Although elected officials also participate in the effort and make contact with lawmakers, Miller said, HillCo is “quarterbacking the play” and directing strategy.

“We have to persuade people to support it, to find ways to make it attractive to them,” he said. “Or to persuade them that their opposition is unwarranted. It’s a classic lobby deal.”

A fundamental challenge, Miller said, is to convince lawmakers that the 2009 bill is not the same one the Legislature considered in 2007.

“The principal thing we’re fighting is the history of the bill,” he said. “It’s a totally new bill, and we have to re-educate people.”

Judge keeps 281 lawsuit alive

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Terri Hall

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FEDERAL JUDGE RETAINS OVERSIGHT OF US 281 AND LOOP 1604 PROJECTS

San Antonio, TX – February 6, 2009 – Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery turned to common sense, “old lessons,” the wisdom of Aristotle, and even a bit of poetry in a ruling on the lawsuit filed by Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas (AGUA) and Texans United for Reform and Freedom (TURF) against the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), and the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) over the proposed US 281 and Loop 1604 toll roads.

Specifically, Judge Biery denied motions by FHWA, TxDOT and ARMA to dismiss the case as moot. Instead, the Judge took an interim step that left the case closed but pending on the court’s docket and subject to further requests for relief by the parties. At the same time, Biery denied motions by the Plaintiffs to order the Defendants to release study documents on the proposed toll roads that were previously withheld.

While stopping short of ordering the Defendants to study the proposed, intersecting US 281 and Loop 1604 projects together in one comprehensive environmental study, Judge Biery wrote that while “the Court has no highway engineering expertise, it seems commonsensical that two intersecting parts costing billions would be connected to create an Aristotelian whole.”

In response to the lawsuit, FHWA had previously reversed course on US 281, revoking its approval and ordering TxDOT to prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed seven mile long toll road. The project would extend from Loop 1604 north to the Comal County line. TxDOT had also recommended that the proposed 36-mile long Loop 1604 toll road, which similarly traverses the recharge zone for the Edwards Aquifer, be approved without an EIS. But in recent months ARMA has stepped forward to begin the process of preparing preparing EISs on both projects. All of the Defendants, however, have resisted Plaintiffs demands that the two projects be studied together, in a single study on what ARMA has called its “starter toll system.”

The court makes clear that it will watch the next moves from FHWA and TxDOT and that it expects “transparency and public participation” in the decision-making process.

Judge Biery’s six page order writes of “Uncle Fred and Aunt Della Grantham . . . [who] knew nothing about computers or air conditioning or environmental impact statements, but they were wise enough not to build the privy close to their water supply.”

In leaving the case pending, Judge Biery wrote that while the projects remain “at a red light, the issues of water quality and quantity and traffic gridlock will not disappear into the legal smog. . . . What is known is that we, like the dinosaurs and the cockroaches, will either adapt, move or die.” He concluded with this adaptation of John Donne’s meditation of 1624 (which, in turn, inspired Hemingway’s novel, “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

“No San Antonian is an island, entire of itself;
Each is a piece of South Texas, a part of the Edwards escarpment.
If our refuse washes into the aquifer,
all are the less.

And species’ death diminishes the whole,
Because we are all involved in life,
and therefore never send to ask for whom the road tolls;
it tolls for thee.”

Representatives for the Plaintiffs deferred comment for another day, preferring that the people of San Antonio consider the words of the court.

To read the Court’s opinion, go here.

-30-

TxDOT public relations, lobbying arm questioned

Posted on December 2, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. Read the damaging evidence TURF’s lawsuit to stop TxDOT’s illegal lobbying and ad campaign to promote toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor uncovered here.

TxDOT spends $10.5 million to inform public
Key legislator takes issue with how agency’s money is spent
By PEGGY FIKAC
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
Nov. 30, 2008

AUSTIN — When state lawmakers expressed surprise at the size of the Texas Department of Transportation’s government relations and public affairs operation, they didn’t know the half of it.

The heft of TxDOT’s Government and Public Affairs division, which is budgeted for 63 people and nearly $6.5 million a year, raised eyebrows earlier this year after concerns the agency had promoted issues such as toll roads and the ambitious Trans-Texas Corridor network despite opposition from the public and a number of lawmakers.

It turns out the GPA division is only part of the agency’s public-information picture. Sixty-seven more people do public information or media relations for TxDOT, including those working at the agency’s district office.

TxDOT said it couldn’t tally how much is budgeted for such duties outside of GPA, saying most, if not all, the staffers also perform other tasks. Their salaries alone amount to $4 million a year, according to figures released in response to a public information request from the Houston Chronicle.

That means $10.5 million is spent annually on government and public affairs by TxDOT, largely excluding staffers who promote tourism and travel.

“So, $10.5 million to communicate as poorly as we have communicated is probably not acceptable,” said Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, a member of the Sunset Advisory Commission, which is considering possible changes at TxDOT and had a hearing earlier this year that included a look at GPA’s size.

Kolkhorst, who pushed a moratorium on privately operated toll roads in 2007, has taken issue with TxDOT’s approach. TxDOT’s commission is appointed by Gov. Rick Perry, who has championed toll roads and the Trans-Texas Corridor, and the agency has been accused of too actively following suit.

TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott said agency efforts have been within the parameters of the law.

A huge response to town hall meetings and to a solicitation of comments on the Trans-Texas Corridor shows the effectiveness of its efforts, Lippincott said.

He said issues such as toll roads make up only part of TxDOT’s public information operation, which also works to inform people on such things as routes to take when hurricanes are imminent.

“We touch just about everybody in this state that gets in a car or gets on a bus or a train,” he said, “and that requires a lot of interaction.”

Outgoing House Transportation Committee Chairman Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, said

TxDOT handles complex issues that require communication and public hearings.

Lippincott noted that the amount spent on the GPA division and other public information efforts amounts to a tiny fraction — 0.125 percent, or just over one-tenth of 1 percent of TxDOT’s nearly $8.4 billion annual budget.

He noted TxDOT is in a hiring “chill” affecting the GPA division, which currently has 54 positions filled.

The total is, however, larger than what the other five largest state agencies in Texas calculate they spend under the label of government and public affairs.

The one that comes closest is the Department of State Health Services, with 30 people in its consumer, external affairs and Web office, with a combined budget of $2.54 million. That’s 0.09 percent of the agency’s total annual budget of nearly $2.8 billion.

Among others:

•The Texas Education Agency has 17 people in communications, governmental relations, media services and Web services, budgeted at $1.3 million. The total is nearly 0.005 percent of the $26.3 billion in funds that flow through the agency.
•The Health and Human Services Commission has 21 people in communications and external relations offices, budgeted at nearly $1.6 million — 0.0099 percent of its $16 billion annual budget. That total doesn’t include $2.35 million for advertising work related to two public information campaigns.
•The Department of Aging and Disability Services has 21 people in communications and government relations, with a $1.15 million tab for overhead and salaries nearly 0.019 percent of its total budget of nearly $6.2 billion annually.
•The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has 18 people in government and public affairs, budgeted at $769,717. That’s nearly 0.027 percent of its total budget of nearly $2.9 billion.
But Krusee said that comparing TxDOT to another agency is “not apples-to-apples.”

“They have a different mission, and it’s a far more complex process which requires communication with the public at a level of pervasiveness and complexity probably unmatched elsewhere in state government,” Krusee said.

Kolkhorst said, “The No. 1 thing that the Sunset report talked about was that this agency had lost the trust of the people.

“And how do you lose trust? You lose trust by actions and words, and I’m very disappointed that we’re spending $10.5 million, more than we’ve ever spent, and the trust could not be at a lower level than it is today.”

TxDOT employee FIRED over 281 fraudulent study

Posted on December 2, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. Read more detail about TxDOT’s illegal actions here.

Firing, reprimands follow tainted study for 281 tollway

By Patrick Driscoll – Express-News

11/26/2008
Two months after a lawsuit revealed a conflict of interest that spoiled yet another environmental study for the U.S. 281 tollway, the Texas Department of Transportation has responded by firing a biologist and disciplining other staffers.

A recent internal audit said TxDOT biologist Valerie Collins, based in San Antonio, was involved with several contract jobs being done for the U.S. 281 study by a consulting company her husband works for.

Her supervisor, Transportation Planning Director Judith Friesenhahn, and other TxDOT employees knew about the relationship, the audit says.

“District staff attempted to implement controls to mitigate a conflict,” TxDOT’s San Antonio manager, Mario Medina, said in a memo Friday to agency Director Amadeo Saenz. “But the controls were insufficient and in some instances were circumvented by” Collins.

TxDOT fired Collins on Nov. 13, more than seven weeks after the in-house probe started, Medina said. Other employees were put on probation or reassigned and will undergo extra training on the agency’s conflict of interest policy.

Also, TxDOT is reviewing other projects involving the firm Collins’ husband works for, SWCA Environmental Consultants, to see if there might be other conflicts. That report is due next month.

Collins, her husband and SWCA officials didn’t return phone calls.

Flubbing the environmental study put the 8-mile U.S. 281 tollway behind at least three more years, and doing another will cost an estimated $8 million. A bruised TxDOT, under pressure from lawsuits, has now let two federal clearances on the project slip away since 2006.

“Incidents like this one … are an affront to the thousands of TxDOT employees who strive conscientiously every day to be good stewards of the state’s resources,” Saenz said in a statement.

Toll critics, who suspect the agency’s problems are more widespread, have called for a housecleaning.

“It’s been obvious to us from day one that TxDOT was willing to do and say anything to get a toll road on U.S. 281,” said Terri Hall of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom. “I don’t think one biologist should take the fall. It should be management that pays the price.”

Hall lately has pointed to a copy of an alleged e-mail, received by mail from an anonymous source, as an example that shows TxDOT predetermined the outcome of the U.S. 281 study. Such a fix would violate federal regulations.

But a separate TxDOT audit cast doubt on the authenticity of the e-mail, which on its face implies Friesenhahn told Collins that a “finding of no significant impact,” known as a FONSI, is wanted to avoid a more detailed “environmental impact statement,” or EIS.

The alleged e-mail says:

“pls do whatever you need and make sure this handled .. based on the emails i have seen so far we have a problem. We have been directed to get a FONSI and get this project on its way .. nothing else will work per David . something like this could send us into an eis per (scratched out)”

TxDOT investigators couldn’t find proof that the e-mail ever existed, says the audit, which was released late last week along with the audit covering Collins’ conflict of interest. The e-mail also included a tag line that records show Friesenhahn hadn’t started using until several months later.

“The department is seeking to hire an independent forensic specialist in an attempt to validate the existence of the e-mail,” the audit concluded.

TxDOT discovered the conflict involving Collins and her husband while gathering documents in response to a lawsuit filed in February by TURF and Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas. The groups challenged the FONSI from the U.S. 281 environmental study.

After coming across e-mails that raised suspicions, TxDOT ordered the audit Sept. 22.

On Oct. 1, citing possible contract irregularities, the agency asked the Federal Highway Administration to pull the U.S. 281 environmental approval. Two days later, Collins and Friesenhahn were placed on administrative leave.

While with TxDOT, Collins wasn’t allowed to choose consultants, negotiate fees or approve payments, but that wasn’t enough to avoid conflicts, according to the audit. E-mails show she worked with SWCA and reviewed three jobs that her husband also worked on.

Collins corresponded often with SWCA, sometimes copying her husband or communicating directly with him, the report says.

She once asked that time and money be added to a work authorization, and another time offered to work with her husband to meet a deadline.

Friesenhahn said she knew about the wife and husband connection but had assumed Collins’ husband didn’t work on the U.S. 281 project, the audit says. However, it adds, an e-mail the husband sent to Friesenhahn indicates otherwise.