Check out this scathing letter to the editor from State Representative Joe Pickett in El Paso to the Austin-American Statesman. Link to it here (scroll down to Pickett’s letter): http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/07/15Letters_edit.html.
TxDOT trampled on us
On June 29, a group of elected officials from the El Paso area appeared before the Texas Transportation Commission to oppose the creation of a Regional Mobility Authority. Our regional Metropolitan Planning Organization voted against creating a toll authority.
The Congress member in our area opposes creating a mobility authority, as does the county judge-elect. Do you think the Texas Department of Transportation honored the decision of the local planning organization? No way. It is the state’s way or the highway, I mean tollway. It gets worse, 30 minutes after the vote was taken in El Paso against a mobility authority, a TxDOT commissioner called a road contractor and threatened to kill a pending project if they didn’t get the mobility authority in line. Then TxDOT threatened the state of New Mexico by saying it would kill a joint railroad relocation study because some of our planning organization members who voted against the mobility authority are from New Mexico.
STATE REP. JOE C. PICKETT
Chairman El Paso area
Metropolitan Planning Organization
El Paso