Here are some very well stated comments to the Transportation Commission from a fellow supporter in Waller County. I couldn’t have said it better, Alice!…
I don’t understand how TxDOT can relinquish its task of right of way acquisitions for building public roads to multinational financial conglomerations whose primary interests and talents are in making and moving money. These conglomerations rival governments in their size and influence and some have argued they ARE the quasi-governments of our future. Where is the protection for the small Texas land owner, who through no fault of his own, happens to stand in the way of these devouring giants bulldozing their way through our precious countryside? What chance will any Texan have in getting fair justice when what is left of our government is nothing more than a proxy puppet for these financial institutions? Thomas Jefferson said “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” But when and where did the people of Texas consent to be governed by money making corporations?
Ms. Taraborelli, the project manager for the Montgomery County Transportation Program told the Conroe Courier… Texas will be watching to see how the FM 1488 toll road project is handled. Ms. Taraborelli, employed by the private firm, Pate Engineers, went on to say the MCTP is not bound by TxDOT’s philosophy. While she may be implying that a private business may be more efficient in its operations than a governmental agency, she also seems to be suggesting that a private business may have more leeway to operate in a more aggressive way in handling environmental issues and land acquisitions. Do you sanction the public intimidation tactics used by Ms. Taraborelli toward land owners in Montgomery County?
I am very uncomfortable with the idea of a private company taking on so much of the power of the government without the same accountability to the public. It appears that this “aggressive” approach toward building Montgomery County’s new “shadow toll road” at the expense of the environment and landowners may foretell how TxDOT and its private mercenaries will handle the massive Trans Texas Corridor.
Decades from now historians will record our age as one of the most politically corrupt periods in American History rivaling the Gilded Age of the 19th century. Enron, Abramoff and the Trans Texas Corridor. Big Money, Big Manipulations, Big Mistakes.
Alice Sorsby McGuffie
Waller, Tx. 77484
Jan. 26, 2006
Presentation to Texas Transportation Commission