Link to article here.
Perez’s stint as toll-road front man
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
October 10, 2007

Richard Perez, selected as the new president of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, is one of the most effective toll-road advocates around.

Richard Perez

• Tuesday’s story
• Chamber statement

As chairman of the Metropolitan Planning Organization for the past two years, Perez was a tenacious fighter for some 70 miles of planned toll roads. Yet, I never saw him try to bully anyone. He was dogged but always a gentleman.

Those are powerful qualities.

Perez skidded into the toll controversy in August 2005, just two months after starting his second term on City Council and taking over as MPO chairman, when he helped beat back demands for an independent study of local toll plans.

• Rockin’ the toll roads
• Split views on toll review
• Toll road review idea rejected

Toll critics soon made Perez a top target for his “deplorable behavior AGAINST the PEOPLE.”

• San Antonio Toll Party

Over the next year, Perez found himself looking for a new MPO director, admonishing a state transportation official in a public meeting, contemplating potential impacts of high gas prices on future toll roads and digging in against cries to revert a U.S. 281 toll plan back to a gas-tax only plan.

• Transportation director resigns
• Toll debate turns ugly
• Gas-price impact on toll roads feared
• High gas prices and toll roads
• Making a toll stand
• Blazing guns
• U.S. 281 toll idea gets more detractors

Perez left the MPO last May with as much clamor as ever. An effort led by Mayor Phil Hardberger to keep him on the board, which included a sudden policy change, drew shrieks from critics and the mayor soon dropped the idea.

• Perez not going away
• Richard Perez passed over

But now Perez is back in the spotlight, and he’ll likely be a strong spokesman for toll roads.

Link to article here.

He’s BAAAACCCKK…Former Councilman and MPO Dictator #1 (Sheila McNeil, his successor, is Dictator #2, see why on YouTube), and pro-toll lap dog Richard Perez has been tapped to be the new San Antonio Greater Chamber of Commerce President. Tolling authority Chair and ex-Mayor Bill Thornton is growing a Pinnochio nose for calling Perez “honest and straightforward.” For anyone who witnessed Perez’ lawless behavior as Chair of the MPO, they know what a tall tale Thornton is telling!

We agree with Thornton’s wish that Perez stay in this position a long time….because Perez has no political future in this town. His contempt for the people on the toll road issue will not soon be forgotten! What’s also telling is that two politicians served on the search committee. Why not businessmen? Because the Greater Chamber is the arm of government and vice versa. Whenever government needs to slip a tax hike or bond package past the voters, the Chamber delivers. Whenever the Chamber needs state-run monopolies like toll roads, government delivers (to Zachry, of course). To them, it’s a beautiful thing. Yep, this is the PERFECT job for Perez…..he loves to kiss the ring.

From the Express-News….
The Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce’s board announced this afternoon it has chosen Richard Perez as its new president and CEO.

Perez brings a new dimension to the chamber, said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, who served on the search committee.

Perez topped the list of a stellar pool of candidates for the chamber job, said Bill Thornton, former mayor of San Antonio and a member of the selection task force.

“That tells you that Richard Perez was just a catch to serve in this new capacity for San Antonio,” Thornton said.

Perez is the perfect guy for the job because he has always been honest and straightforward, he said.

“He’s steadfast in doing what’s right for our community,” Thornton said.

Perez is young, bright and capable, he said.

“I hope he stays in this position for a long time,” Thornton said.

___________________________________________
Oh pleeeez….
To see Perez’ history of heavy-handed tactics as MPO Chair where he had a history of blocking agenda items, cutting off any anti-toll debate, and putting citizens’ to be heard dead last, read below:

• Perez railroaded a change to MPO bylaws to allow himself to be re-appointed to the MPO Board after term in office was up.
• Perez voted AGAINST reverting 281 back to FREEway instead of tollway.
• Perez abuses his power at MPO to get sidewalks just for his neighborhood.
• Perez delays citizens’ request for gas price study, makes Adkisson jump through special hoops.
• Perez stonewalls citizens request for independent review of toll plans.

See Councilman Jeff Mills of Sunset Valley on YouTube here telling the Board these toll roads are about raising revenue, not solving congestion.

Last night in Austin, the Capitol Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) Board voted to convert 4 more FREEways into tollways (and build one new toll road) using $910 million in YOUR gas taxes. The public was against it 4 to 1! We no longer have representative government and Councilman Mills’ speech on this above YouTube link proves this is about taxation, not congestion relief.

Article in Austin American Statesman here.

Link to YouTube video of the knock em out drag em out between David Leibowitz, Carlos Uresti, Tommy Adkisson and pro-toll, pro-TxDOT McNeil. Uresti finishes her off in this YouTube edition.

For those who believed the City Councilmembers when they claimed who was the next Chair of the MPO didn’t have anything to do with tolls, today’s MPO meeting blows a gaping hole through that notion. MPO Chair and City Councilwoman Sheila McNeil stripped an item from today’s agenda AFTER the 72 hour open meetings minimum requirement! Representative David Leibowitz requested a vote to repudiate TxDOT’s ad campaign and lobbying of Congress, and she wrote him a letter denying a vote but said she’d place it on the agenda and the Board oculd vote on whether or not to vote on it at the October meeting. Then she pulled a fast one at the last minute and pulled the item altogether!

State Senator Carlos Uresti came to Leibowitz’ defense and caught McNeil in her contradictions as to the reason she stripped the item. Commissioner Tommy Adkisson also defended Leibowitz’ right to place an item on the agenda. McNeil claimed unilateral authority to set the meeting agenda. She did her usual, “we can get together to talk about it” for anyone who disagrees with her or TxDOT in an attempt to silence all dissension.
Link to Express-News story on it here.

Link to article here.

In another deceptive, underhanded way, the San Antonio Metropolitan Planning Organization (SAMPO)is seeking public participation on its 25 year plan without allowing citizens a say in how future roads get financed. The toll roads got placed in prior MPO short and long-range plans under the radar, and now that federal law requires public participation in MPO planning, they’re holding meetings but refusing to discuss the elephant in the room…toll roads! It’s imperative the public shows up and makes this an issue. If they sneak in toll roads in the long range plan, they can toll them at ANY time over the next 25 years and the public will have little to say in the matter! Go the events page to see dates, times, locations.

Toll roads absent from transportation talks
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
09/16/2007

Metropolitan Planning Organization officials will hold public meetings to get input on how city growth and transportation should be shaped through 2035, but they aren’t prepared to say how toll roads could impact various scenarios.

At four MPO workshops scheduled over the next two weeks, people will be shown three options for living, working and traveling:

Same ol’, same ol’, which means a lot more sprawl that shackles people to cars.

Compact development along key corridors to make transit and walking more viable.

Higher densities in the city’s core so there’s more places to go that are closer together.

But the issue of the day — toll roads — won’t be included as a factor.

Tolling speeds up financing of road construction by years and even decades. Could a spurt of toll lanes quicken development of sprawling subdivisions?

Also, toll roads don’t eliminate congestion, which is needed to make them financially successful, but rather pushes growing traffic to frontage roads and other streets. Could toll fees, coupled with an option to stay stuck in worsening gridlock, change development patterns and encourage more transit riding and carpooling?

People who go to the workshops won’t find out.

“It’s not an answerable question at this stage,” said Jim Harvey of Alliance Transportation Group, a consultant helping the MPO update its 25-year plan.

Nevertheless, toll critics will likely attend the meetings to object to toll plans.

“Folks need to turn out to these meetings to be sure toll roads aren’t part of our future,” said Terri Hall of San Antonio Toll Party, which has members in Bexar and Comal counties. “Let’s say no to tolls.”

The long-range plan, updated every five years in a year-long process, is a framework for how more than $200 million a year in federal and state gas taxes, along with local matching funds, get spent in San Antonio.

New this time around is a MySpace page — www.myspace.com/mtp2035 — to reach a larger and younger crowd. Another site — www.mtp2035.org — has been set up as a one-stop place for information. Also, people can call (210) 785-0888.

The current plan, Mobility 2030, programmed a total of $8 billion. A fourth was earmarked to help build more than 70 miles of toll roads, while a tenth was flagged for non-toll lanes.

Link to articles here and here. Note one of the best lines at yesterday’s MPO was from Commissioner Lyle Larson who said dealing with TxDOT and their constantly changing “now you see it now you don’t” tactics on funding vital projects, along with a long string of lies, half truths, and broken promises, is like “dealing with a snake oil salesman.” Here, here! Be sure you catch this outstanding editorial that summarizes how we got here very well. Catch the Toll Party comments that take on the San Antonio Mobility Coalition’s (SAMCo) presentation here.

Planning board members miffed at stalled road projects
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
08/27/2007

City Councilwoman Diane Cibrian got testy when she heard about the latest highway projects getting axed.County Commissioner Lyle Larson carped about vital projects falling by the wayside.

And Texas Department of Transportation officials spread the blame on why $57 million worth of work to widen three local highways must be scuttled in fiscal year 2008. It’s two-thirds of what was planned.

Cash doesn’t flow like it used to, not with inflation for construction materials and workers skyrocketing 73 percent over the past five years, TxDOT officials on Monday told the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which allocates federal gas tax funds in San Antonio.

“Inflation is just eating our lunch,” said David Casteel of TxDOT, who along with Cibrian and Larson is a member of the 19-member planning board.

TxDOT officials are paranoid about letting existing roads and bridges deteriorate further, and to keep up they will have to slash $965 million from congestion relief projects statewide and pour it into maintenance work.

San Antonio’s share of cuts will delay three projects:

$38 million to add lanes on Interstate 10 from Huebner Road to Loop 1604.

$10 million to widen Loop 1604 to four lanes from FM 78 to Lower Seguin Road.

$9 million to widen FM 3009 to four lanes from Interstate 35 to Nacogdoches Road.

“I’m deeply concerned,” Cibrian said. “Development is coming from absolutely everywhere. We cannot sustain this kind of traffic.”

She demanded to know why work on I-10 hadn’t already started and why the project was targeted in the cutbacks.

TxDOT engineer Clay Smith said a 2005 lawsuit to stop construction of toll lanes on U.S. 281 had inadvertently forced the state to redo environmental studies for several area roadways. The new I-10 lanes would link to both tolled and free ramps at Loop 1604.

Now the $38 million price tag tops the $29 million that TxDOT will have next year for widening local highways, he said.

Larson, still miffed about TxDOT killing a plan several years ago for three miles of freeway and a non-toll overpass on U.S. 281 and replacing it with a proposed tollway, warned the board not to let the newest cuts slip into oblivion. “These have to roll over and be pushed prior to any other project,” he said.

When the board heard from the public, toll critic Terri Hall of San Antonio Toll Party blasted Smith for blaming the lawsuit on delaying projects.

She said TxDOT stalled U.S. 281 work years before the lawsuit so the freeway plan could be converted to a tollway. “It is simply because TxDOT wants to tax-toll us for the rest of our lives out there.”

________________________________

This next story below doesn’t tell the whole exchange between Councilwoman Sheila McNeil and Representative David Leibowitz. Rep. Leibowitz did more than ask why, he said if someone has a beef with a member of the Board, they should be able to address them directly. Ever heard of free speech, Ms. McNeil? When TxDOT operates in secrecy, doesn’t tell the truth, and wants to enact oppressive toll taxation on roads already built and paid for, the citizens have few opportunities to share their grievances face to face, and even then, are usually confined to 3 minutes during Citizens to be Heard.

Nothing in our comments were personal attacks. Rather, we were using TxDOT’s own documents to publicly shame them for defrauding the public and to call them out on their lies. Frankly, they need more than just a few minutes of flack, they need to be prosecuted for illegally using taxpayer money!

More road cuts, more heat
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
August 28, 2007
The Texas Department of Transportation, tasked with delivering another round of bad news to the local Metropolitan Planning Organization, took a beating Monday.

County Commissioner Lyle Larson, a critic of the state shifting roadway costs to local governments, got in a couple of swift jabs at a meeting of the MPO board on which he sits.

Talking about what he said was an understanding that TxDOT would reimburse the county in full to widen roads such as Culebra and Blanco, but which later turned into a promise to repay some of the costs, he said:

It’s like we’re negotiating with snake-oil salesman.

Ouch.

TxDOT officials didn’t reply.

After a short video was shown of a recent meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees TxDOT, he said:

Was that Satan’s den we were looking at?

That actually got some chuckles from other board members.

But when Terri Hall of San Antonio Toll Party addressed the board and laid into a TxDOT engineer over who stalled what on U.S. 281 plans, City Councilwoman Sheila McNeil, chairing her second MPO board meeting, came to the rescue.

“Ms. Hall, Ms. Hall,” McNeil interjected to get her attention. “Can you address the chair please?”

State Rep. David Leibowitz, who joined the board last month after nudging by Hall to steer him to a vacancy, asked why.

McNeil said it was to avoid personal attacks.

“I prefer that they address the chair,” she said.

Meanwhile, facing construction inflation that has galloped 73 percent over the last five years and almost a billion dollars in federal takebacks from Texas that last spring delayed $132 million worth of highway work over the next decade in San Antonio, TxDOT officials on Monday unveiled the latest cutbacks.

In an effort to keep roads and bridges from deteriorating further, money for congestion-relief projects in fiscal 2008 will be shifted to maintenance, officials said. San Antonio’s share of the cuts will delay three projects worth $57 million, two-thirds of what was planned, which is less than losses in Houston, Dallas and Austin.

For more, see these reports:

• Cuts announced Monday
• Cuts made in March and map
• Federal funding deficit

MPO COMMENTS
August 27, 2007

In response to SAMCO Statements –

While the picture SAMCO paints is quite grim, I believe many seem to be suffering from short term memory loss…the A&M Study released not even a year ago, flat out, unequivocally states WE DO NOT NEED A SINGLE TOLL ROAD IN TX to meet our future transportation needs! Let’s remember how we got into this mess. Mr. Boyer rightly points to the Legislature who has perpetually raided gas tax revenues for more than 20 years…to the tune of more than $10 billion! On the federal level, a highway bill with 6,000 earmarks and the bridge to nowhere benefiting 55 people versus properly funding the building and maintenance of our Nation’s major arteries represents more egregious malfeasance. It’s not the taxpayers responsibility to bail out their leaky boat.

Let’s talk about why the Legislature hasn’t addressed transportation funding issues. First, there are many who wish to keep starving the gas tax to push a toll agenda. Second, TxDOT has put out at least 6 different figures of how much of a gas tax increase is needed. The Legislature, nor anyone else, can get straight, honest answers from TxDOT. They change their numbers more often than they change their underwear. Given this total breech in trust, Legislators were not about to put their toe in the water to raise gas taxes when the target kept moving. Third, TxDOT is up for sunset review in 2009. Once the Legislature gets a top to bottom look at TxDOT’s books, they’ll have a much better idea of what the true shortfall is, what the true gas tax figure is and will be able to have a true transportation debate since Mike Krusee will no longer Chair the House Transportation Committee. Trust me, Mike Krusee will not be returning to the Legislature! Then, let’s not forget the second State Audit Report that confirmed what the A&M Study also found, that TxDOT’s supposed funding gap is nearly half what they claim it is.

All that to say, we’re NOT going to keep pumping money into your coffers only to watch it get diverted time and again feeding this perpetual cycle of failing to fund the necessities so government can use it as an excuse to keep raising taxes.

Now, SAMCo’s comments were misleading and in some cases completely false. Let’s take them one by one.

• The MPOs funding gap figure is based on a wish list and would amount to $10,500 per person in San Antonio (based on population figure of 1.8 million people). Considering most of those people are children and that children don’t drive, that dollar amount is even greater per motorist. So what you’re proposing is outlandish and unsustainable. Let’s not forget that by the Governor’s own admission, those figures are based on sky’s the limit, money is no object wish lists, not “needs.” So let’s inject some sanity back into the process by using realistic figures and determine the true needs before we continue this sky is falling if we don’t increase every tax to fund roads mantra.

• SAMCo on one hand says we’re getting so maxed out on bonding that our category 2 funds will be diminished by more than $100 million a year using the vast majority of money for congestion relief to retire the debt we’re already in. Then on the other hand, SAMCo supports even more bonds. Pay as you go is looking better every day!

• The state gas tax has outpaced population growth and inflation by 178% (from 1984-2004). There has been a steady increase in gas tax revenues…it has not remained flat as SAMCO states.

• Who’s to blame for delays on 281? It was the FHWA not the lawsuit that required TxDOT to redo its environmental study for 281. Why was a lawsuit filed? Because TXDOT refused to install and refused to consider the gas tax funded plan as a viable option. Were it not for TxDOT and this MPO converting that freeway into a toll road, there would not be this battle over 281. It is totally disingenuous to blame concerned citizens for some erroneous $230 million in delays on 281. That is not an apples to apples figure. The toll road footprint is twice the size, takes twice as long to build, and will now cost 4 times more than the original gas tax plan. If anyone is costing the taxpayer more money, it’s TxDOT. Tolling it will cost the taxpayers $400 million PLUS a lifetime in new toll taxes. It’s the toll plan and TxDOT that is responsible for cost increases, not citizens asking for the vastly cheaper, less invasive gas tax plan that not only takes half the time to build, but would have been done already. The citizens have said from DAY ONE, install the gas tax plan and stop defrauding the public about your intentions to toll an existing freeway. The blame for any delays on 281 rest squarely with TxDOT and the politicians who enable them.

• Population growth doesn’t necessarily necessitate the need for more highways if we grow up and not out. Let’s also remember that population increases mean gas tax revenues increase. Population growth alone versus actually looking at congestion is a false argument.

• SAMCo says the Legislature did not give any new funding for highways…well, what’s doubling TxDOT’s bonding capacity and returning $50 million per year (in HB 2093) to transportation that were previously diverted?

• Mr. Boyer either didn’t read or doesn’t understand the implications of SB 792, though Jaime Castillo’s article on July 22, 2007 does. He seems to think the RMA is pursuing a traditional toll project like Houston and Dallas. That’s not true. Former Transportation Commissioner now Senator Robert Nichols has confirmed that all traditional turnpikes have been replaced by market-based tolling in SB 792. That means now even the public tolling entities will not simply base the toll rate on the actual cost of building the road, but on how much profit they think they can make for the road. The RMA will have to come up with that pre-determined profit and put it in an up front account just like the private equity concession model. It translates into the highest possible tolls and taxing one corridor to death to fund roads elsewhere in the region.

• SAMCO would use the taxpayers money that helps fund them far better if it would study the impacts of increasing the cost of transportation on the economy. Even Alan Greenspan acknowledged how high gas prices are hurting the economy and market-based tolls will only hasten that effect, not help it. Yes, there’s a cost to sitting in traffic, but the cost of tolling and the debt to finance the fix costs far more.

• SAMCO wants to define our congestion challenges and find additional ways to manage congestion. Here’s some that cost next to nothing. The Federal Highway Administration lists the top 3 reasons for congestion/road delay have nothing to do with road capacity. They’re accidents, weather, and road construction itself. TxDOT needs to immediately implement an incident management program to help clear accidents quickly like Houston and other metro cities. Also, as columnist Ken Allard recently suggested, much of our current congestion is TxDOT-induced due to tearing up every major artery all over the City all at once, bottling up traffic everywhere with no alternate routes. Smarter planning and basic consideration of motorists’ needs when considering construction schedules would go a long way to solving man-made congestion! TxDOT should also immediately better synchronize the stop lights on US 281 and use the right of way already acquired to add additional left and right turn lanes at those lights.

Excerpts from Lone Star Report–
Today’s Lone Star Report has an Op/Ed that nails what’s wrong with transportation in this country –

Maybe if TxDOT pursued rational transportation policies, the public support would follow, and it could spend that $9 million (being spent on an ad campaign pushing tolls) building and maintaining roads.

Instead, let’s put a spirit of public service back into TxDOT and enact transportation policies that provide accountability and frugality.

In response to attitudes survey going to a pro-toll contractor –
We object to the fact that no elected officials were on the oversight committee for the attitudes survey. Also, 4 of the 7 appointees consistently vote pro-toll. The RMA is not even a voting member and yet it’s on this committee. Who’s representing the opposite point of view on this committee? Once again, the make-up of this committee fails to give proper representation of the citizens’ repeated concerns and overtly leans pro-toll by its very make-up. How are to trust that the results will be fair and impartial?

The President of the ETC Research firm has a background working for the very people pushing toll roads like speaking to the transportation industry at two Transportation Management Summits sponsored by the TMA Council of the Association of Commuter Transportation (made-up of a host of both public and private highway interests, and actively advocates tolling) with the support of the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration, and U. S. Department of Energy. HOV/HOT Council Chair is with the Texas Transportation Institute. Using this and most of the companies under consideration will no doubt mean a skewed result.

TxDOT’s first choice was Thompson Marketing whose clients also include highway engineering firms. It seems this body pathologically goes to EVERY extent conceivable to push a pre-determined agenda, toll roads, versus find some market research firm that isn’t tied to the highway lobby and apply unbiased, scientific principles to truly gauge effects of high gas prices on people’s attitudes about toll roads and transportation. Frankly when you have appointees and no elected officials sit on this survey committee, stacked with those who are toll proponents, the agenda is obvious.

Will the questions inform citizens that TxDOT already has a gas tax funded plan for improvements to 281 that is half the footprint of the toll road, one-quarter the cost, and half the construction time? Will they be told that it should have been completed in 2004 but people languish in traffic today because they chose to convert an existing freeway already paid for into a toll road and DOUBLE TAX 281 users to fund other road projects elsewhere? Will they be told their ONLY non-toll option will be access roads? Will respondents be pooled from the northside where all the toll roads are currently planned? Will the citizens be told that the TX Transportation Institute study says we don’t need a single toll road to meet out future transportation needs? Will they be told that toll roads cost more to build and maintain than freeways and that a HEAP of gas taxes (like $363 million on 1604 alone) will go into building the toll roads but you can’t drive on them without paying a DOUBLE TAX, a toll tax? Will they be told these multi-billion dollar tax decisions are being made by unelected bureaucrats resulting in taxation without representation?

Will they be informed as to the cost escalations from $1.4 billion to $2.2 billion for just the first 47 miles on 2 highways (compared to the entire Phase II toll roads proposed in Austin being $2.2 billion for 7 or more projects)? Will they be told of the waste and misuse of gas taxes by the highway department like $7-9 million dollar ad campaigns, and millions to restore historic courthouses while we languish in traffic? Will they be told that market-based tolls have replaced traditional turnpikes like the ones in Houston and Dallas and they can expect tolls to start at 29 cents a mile up to $1.50 a mile like in Austin which means $2,000-$4,000 a year in new toll taxes versus 1-3 cents a mile in gas tax? Bottom line: will they be properly informed of the truth or be treated to a dose of pro-toll, TxDOT/RMA spin?

There can be no denying it. San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger is pro-toll and he’s rabidly promoting his buddy Zachry’s pro-toll agenda by ousting County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson who was next in line to be Chair of the San Antonio Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). Zachry & Hardberger hand-picked Councilwoman Sheila McNeil, who is cozy with road builder Zachry since she took office, to oust Adkisson. McNeil had not ONE DAY of experience on the MPO and walked in and demanded to be Chair. Hardberger falsely claims in his letters to MPO Board members asking for support of McNeil’s ouster of Adkisson that past chairs served 4 year terms and the City was “shorted” the final two years of its term because former Councilman Richard Perez was term-limited out.

FACT: The MPO bylaws state the Chair position is held for a two year term NOT a FOUR year term as he claims in his letters.

FACT: Since the MPO began in 1988, the cumulative total number of years the City has held the Chair is two years LONGER than the County.

So their arguments are BOGUS and they know it! The MPO is the key decision-making body that decides which highways are tolled.

Click to view the letters sent to MPO Board members here.

Councilwoman Sheila McNeil marched into her first MPO Transportation Policy Board Meeting and demanded to be Chair. She exploited the City’s voting block (the City has two more appointees to the Board than the County) to oust her own County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson who was to succeed the City’s former Chair, Councilman Richard Perez. Read more about it here.

Follow the money…when a Zachry executive called McNeil’s district “the ghetto,” she managed to secure $750,000 in east side projects from Zachry as a reprisal. Now she’s rather cozy with the City’s most powerful business interest, Zachry, since she’s also taken campaign contributions from him. Considering his name was on the private bid to build San Antonio’s first toll projects, it explains her new-found pro-toll leanings rather nicely.

Link to the Express-News article on the $750,000 pay-off here.

Zachry trying to fix E. Side damage

Web Posted: 08/24/2005 12:00 AM CDT

Greg Jefferson
Express-News Staff Writer

Zachry Construction Corp. has agreed to give $750,000 to help lure jobs to the East Side, and to try to repair the firm’s reputation there several months after a company executive referred to the area as “the ghetto.”

District 2 Councilwoman Sheila McNeil pushed for the deal with Zachry, which is seeking $1 million in tax money for a planned hotel project near Sunset Station.

McNeil — who took office in June — said that without the agreement, the company’s bid for city assistance would not have her support.

“Based on what happened and the community’s reaction to it, I couldn’t,” she said. “This agreement helps me get behind the project and move it forward.”

Zachry, Sunset Station’s developer, agreed to contribute the money to the city for East Side economic development initiatives over three years.

McNeil “believed that we needed to demonstrate that we are committed to the East Side community, in addition to the investments we’ve made in the community over the years,” Zachry spokeswoman Vicky Waddy said.

The money, McNeil said, would flow to the East Side’s Community Economic Revitalization Agency, a nonprofit specializing in economic development that’s been criticized for producing few results.

McNeil is looking to retool CERA to draw development to areas that have seen precious little of it over the years. The $750,000 could propel that effort.

“That’s more than the operating budgets of most not-for-profits in town,” city Economic Development Director Ramiro Cavazos said.

Zachry originally sought $1.9 million from the Inner City Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, which includes a broad slice of the East Side, for a planned Staybridge Suites hotel directly south of Sunset Station.

But TIRZ directors delayed a decision on the project after community activists railed against the company during a June 27 meeting.

They were angry about a Zachry employee’s now infamous e-mail during the mayoral runoff election between Phil Hardberger and Julián Castro.

Ken Wolf, then-vice president for Metropolitan Resources, a Zachry subsidiary, sent an e-mail in May urging friends and associates to support Hardberger.

In the message, he wrote that the SBC Center was built “in the ghetto” because of poor leadership in city government.

Wolf resigned from the company in June, and H.B. Zachry Jr., head of Zachry Construction, said in a letter to Castro he “regretted this incident.”

The TIRZ board revisited Zachry’s project Monday and agreed to advance it, along with six others, to the City Council for approval Thursday.

T.C. Calvert, president of the San Antonio Observer and an activist leader at the June 27 showdown, dismissed the deal with Zachry.

“This was an agreement that was worked out by the political people, by Sheila McNeil, and the community wasn’t involved,” said Calvert, who’s president of the Neighborhoods First Alliance. “To me, it’s like another slap in the face.”

McNeil, meanwhile, said an agreement spelling out terms of Zachry’s “partnership” must be finalized before the council takes up the company’s funding request; otherwise, it could be postponed. McNeil, a member of the TIRZ board, won support for the contingency Monday.

Zachry, which is planning a second development near Sunset Station, has a catch of its own.

“Our contributions are contingent on our projects going forward,” Waddy said.

As far as the hotel, that means tapping TIRZ dollars, as well as lining up private investors and working out a deal with a hotel operator.

Zachry Realty, a Zachry Construction subsidiary, is looking to develop the 13-story, 141-room hotel. Company officials say they need TIRZ funding to make the project attractive to investors, though they trimmed their request to $1 million. City staffers said the project was eligible for about $1.6 million.

The other $600,000 would go toward the creation of a “quiet zone” in the St. Paul Square/Sunset Square area, an initiative aimed at lessening noise from passing trains.

Zachry also plans to build condominiums in the area. The company wouldn’t seek TIRZ funding for the project, Waddy said, but it might apply for a property tax abatement.

She said Zachry’s contributions would go to the city, which is expected to direct the money to CERA, a recipient of city funding and federal Community Development Block Grants that fought for the creation of the Inner City TIRZ.

“We’re going to give it to the city and tell them we want it used for economic development on the East Side. How they use it is up to them,” Waddy said.

The pact, Cavazos said, sounded similar to Zachry’s agreement in 2001 to contribute $60,000 to an after-school program when it sought a controversial tax abatement for a new headquarters on the South Side.

According to McNeil, one of CERA’s first changes could be its name, to Center for Eastside Economic Development.

“That agency should be serving as a vehicle for economic development on the East Side,” McNeil said.

Windcrest Mayor Jack Leonhardt betrayed his own County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson (who endorsed Leonhardt) and the Council of Mayors who appointed him to the MPO in order to give the City of San Antonio a quid pro quo for his own self-interest. Read details here.

Watch his pontificating prior to the vote where he DIRECTLY tells the MPO Board to vote against Commissioner Adkisson (so much for being an un-biased parliamentarian who presided over the vote) so as not to label the Board “anti-toll” due to Adkisson’s criticism of toll plans in full color on YouTube here.

Never mind that the community IS against the proposed toll plans and Adkisson is merely trying to reflect what the community wants! He’s representing the taxpayers while Leonhardt carries the highway lobby’s water! Leonhardt even contradicts himself when, first, he says the Chair vote isn’t about toll vs. anti-toll, then later he says he doesn’t want the MPO to be labeled anti-toll if Adkisson were Chair. Nice try, Mayor, it was a pro-toll vs. anti-toll vote…you made that clear! I’m sure the citizens of Windcrest will be outraged to learn of their Mayor’s pro-toll antics since I-35, their main artery, is in the toll plans.