I was contacted by another person last night, who has more information and evidence about rampant corruption within Perry's TxDOT. My first TxDOT informant contacted me some time ago and I've been asked to keep what I know confidential. I believe, very soon, one of these brave whistle blowers will be the first to pull down TxDOT's dirty diaper.
The fact is we pay too much for the roads that are being built - just look at the overblown costs.
General Accounting Office report of state highway construction shows the median cost of a road lane mile in the US to be $1.6 million per lane mile. A look at 130 east of Austin shows it costs a whopping $7.6 million per lane mile. And, San Antonio's 281 is jaw dropping $27 million per lane mile!
And just last week, TxDOT had a workshop to give NO BID, secret contracts to the private sector to toll MORE Texas public highways and take more private land from Texans for the TTC. They call these contracts Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDA's) and the slide presentation TxDOT gave to the private sector was called "Texas: Open for Business". Mike Krusee's legislation, HB 3588, allowed these fiscally irresponsible contracts into existence.
Building a tollway costs double or triple the cost of a freeway. Perry's TxDOT uses the "we've run out of money" excuse to privatizing and toll our public highways. TxDOT is sitting on $2.8 Billion today, claiming they have no money, as they restrict our tax dollars for toll roads only. TxDOT crying poor, so it can create a new drivers tax is like Bill Gates saying he needs to rob you because he has no money (while all along Gates reserves his fortune for his kids).
Perry's TxDOT wants us pay the daily drivers tax to drive on what we've already paid for.
SOLUTIONS
1) Use our gas tax dollars to finish building the roads we've already paid for, and open them up as freeways NOT tollways. Tolling roads we've already paid for with gas tax dollars is highway robbery. Permanently taking and tolling our already funded public expressways is immoral. Sending Austin's toll revenue to Williamson County is more than obscene.
2) Texas has more sprawl than any other state in the country. Zone for denser development in urban and suburban areas so people don't have to drive as far for needs.
3) Focus on building more arterial road lane miles and less highway lane miles. Phoenix, AZ produces more arterial lane miles that cost 90% less than highway lane miles.
4) Clean up TxDOT CORRUPTION: Get rid of the good old boy network that causes our roads to cost much more than other states. The General Accounting Office report of state highway construction shows the median cost of a road lane mile in the US to be $1.6 million per lane mile. A look at 130 east of Austin shows it costs a whopping $7.6 million per lane mile mile!
5) Some states realized that the smartest way to stop the political blame game of raising the gas tax five to ten cents every two to four years to keep up with inflation. Texas needs to index the gas tax.
6) Stop Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDAs). CDA's are road and land development contracts that hand over our tax dollars, our public highways, our right of way, and our private property to private corporations for profit. These NO BID, Secret, Corporate Welfare contracts must be stopped.
7) Remove self serving politicians who ignored 93% of the public feedback and voted to toll roads we've already paid for (nothing more than a new tax scheme).
I'll have more details of the TxDOT corruption here on this blog - very soon.
by clicking the envelope icon below.
1/27/2006
Corruption of Perry's TxDOT to be exposed soon.
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6 comments:
Sal,
The solutions section is missing a remedy to restore the 25% gas tax going to the general fund back to building new road construction. Or increasing gas tax 5 cents to make up for it.
Mark
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Mark,
They don't need more money, and people are driving less as gas prices have tripled. The new Mobility fund "diverts" Billions from the general fund (education) and into toll roads.
I was in the capital when all the tollers spoke for the additional regional gas tax...they said they needed it to REDUCE the total toll lane miles. That is when I realized they want both tolls and more gas tax money.
Giving them more money is like giving a crackhead crack...
Sal
First of all. Thank you very much for getting the right kind of discussion points on the table. This article is great.
All the woes emanating from HB3588 cannot however be treated surgically. It came from a pervasive overriding metastacized cancer and from it is speading more wildfire cancer.
Governor Rick Perry and Mike Krusee and Ric Williamson can in no wise be identified as the originators or main or sole culbrits behind this deadly House Bill 3588. I dearly wish the matter could be so isolated and dealt with as a localized cancer.
There are forces and people than run the United States government. These behind the scenes people have a different agenda from the agenda and ideals of our nation's founding fathers and founding documents. I call these folks the "brotherhood of darkness." Some call them the "internationalists", "globalists", or "corporatists" or the "international banksters." These anti-freedom, anti-U.S.A. sovereinty folks control all of our U.S. and Texas politicians even down to the regional planning bodies level.
The plan is to meld the U.S.A. with Central and South America and with Canada. Erase our borders under the guise of "free trade." These false anti-freedom "free trade" constructs have already wiped out U.S. and Mexican farmers as well as a giant portion of the U.S.A. middle class.
House Bill 3588 was evil and corrupt from its earliest secret inception. It was motivated by a swift kick from above, from the U.S. secret federal government operatives -- the internalists.
It never should have been written or even proposed as a bill and it should never lasted even a few minutes on the legislative path of a bill. But the fix was in and all our corrupt politicians played their roll and cleared its path and kept the whole debacle completely hidden from we the people. All the Republicans, all the Democrats cooperated.
I am told that that is how almost all bills become laws in the Texas Legislature. Not one of our "elected" leaders makes their vote from informed prinicple. They all make merchandise of their vote. They do not carefully study and deliberate honestly over any legislation, much less collosal debacle bills, such as House Bill 3588.
House Bill 3588 made a giant leap toward "public private partnerships" in the letting of contracts by the State of Texas (and all of its agencies) to private national, international and multinational corporations. That is a giant step toward fascism. That is a giant step away from the United States Constitution and certainly a giant step away from true free market capitalism. That is corporatism or monopoly capitalism. It is the stuff of tyranny and slavery and total prison-like control of all of us.
All top leaders of Texas government have been rapidly becoming more and more corrupt over the last 25 years. Though Perry and Krusee and Williamson seem to have taken such giant strides in that hellish direction.
House Bill 3588 is about the agenda of the elites who run our nation. It has never been about identifying the real tranportation needs of we the citizens of Texas. The transporation needs and planning for this huge diverse state of Texas could never never be dealt with in one collosal bill such as House Bill 3588.
We should not allow House Bill 3588, that piece of tainted piece of meat thrown out to we the groveling, stuggling masses, to determine ...
what the problems are that we can discuss,
what solutions we are allowed to consider to solve the served-up problems,
how we are allowed to "dialog" about these fake problems and reactions to fake problems,
nor to predetermine what exact "consensus" we are to arrive at through the engineered "dialoging."
Trans-Texas corridors are NAFTA corridors. Cyris Gerner of www.AmerikanExpose.com has had on his website a large section of links to government documents and large national associations that deal strictly with the "NAFTA corridors." His website has been in existence since around 1995, and NAFTA was passed in 1993. So do not ever think that Perry or TxDOT or the whole rotten bunch of our corrupt politicians are the authors of original ideas as set forth in House Bill 3588. All those folks are just carrying out orders, working for their unjust rewards.
Whatever the transportation needs and Texas road planning true real needs are for the once great state of Texas, the NEVER NEVER NEVER included horrible Texas-ruining trans-national corridors and they never included taxation without representation tyrannical schemes such as HB3588's triple tax toll road heist.
Texans, rise up and be the true sovereign freedom loving, United States of America loving patriots that is our most wonderful heritage.
House Bill 3588 is a bill that became a law in an illegal and grossly unethical way. It should be totally rescinded.
The corrupt contract with CINTRA should have had very heavy governmental oversight throughout the contract negotiations, and this should have been done in a careful and transparent manner as possible. If that had been done, the contract would never have been consumated. It is legally possible to rescind corrupt non-open, no-bid and bid-rigged contracts after they have been signed. Please read what is happening to some of the grossly corrupt contracts that were let to rebuild Iraq.
First of all. Thank you very much for getting the right kind of discussion points on the table. This article is great.
All the woes emanating from HB3588 cannot however be treated surgically. It came from a pervasive overriding metastacized cancer and from it is speading more wildfire cancer.
Governor Rick Perry and Mike Krusee and Ric Williamson can in no wise be identified as the originators or main or sole culbrits behind this deadly House Bill 3588. I dearly wish the matter could be so isolated and dealt with as a localized cancer.
There are forces and people than run the United States government. These behind the scenes people have a different agenda from the agenda and ideals of our nation's founding fathers and founding documents. I call these folks the "brotherhood of darkness." Some call them the "internationalists", "globalists", or "corporatists" or the "international banksters." These anti-freedom, anti-U.S.A. sovereinty folks control all of our U.S. and Texas politicians even down to the regional planning bodies level.
The plan is to meld the U.S.A. with Central and South America and with Canada. Erase our borders under the guise of "free trade." These false anti-freedom "free trade" constructs have already wiped out U.S. and Mexican farmers as well as a giant portion of the U.S.A. middle class.
House Bill 3588 was evil and corrupt from its earliest secret inception. It was motivated by a swift kick from above, from the U.S. secret federal government operatives -- the internalists.
It never should have been written or even proposed as a bill and it should never lasted even a few minutes on the legislative path of a bill. But the fix was in and all our corrupt politicians played their roll and cleared its path and kept the whole debacle completely hidden from we the people. All the Republicans, all the Democrats cooperated.
I am told that that is how almost all bills become laws in the Texas Legislature. Not one of our "elected" leaders makes their vote from informed prinicple. They all make merchandise of their vote. They do not carefully study and deliberate honestly over any legislation, much less collosal debacle bills, such as House Bill 3588.
House Bill 3588 made a giant leap toward "public private partnerships" in the letting of contracts by the State of Texas (and all of its agencies) to private national, international and multinational corporations. That is a giant step toward fascism. That is a giant step away from the United States Constitution and certainly a giant step away from true free market capitalism. That is corporatism or monopoly capitalism. It is the stuff of tyranny and slavery and total prison-like control of all of us.
All top leaders of Texas government have been rapidly becoming more and more corrupt over the last 25 years. Though Perry and Krusee and Williamson seem to have taken such giant strides in that hellish direction.
House Bill 3588 is about the agenda of the elites who run our nation. It has never been about identifying the real tranportation needs of we the citizens of Texas. The transporation needs and planning for this huge diverse state of Texas could never never be dealt with in one collosal bill such as House Bill 3588.
We should not allow House Bill 3588, that piece of tainted piece of meat thrown out to we the groveling, stuggling masses, to determine ...
what the problems are that we can discuss,
what solutions we are allowed to consider to solve the served-up problems,
how we are allowed to "dialog" about these fake problems and reactions to fake problems,
nor to predetermine what exact "consensus" we are to arrive at through the engineered "dialoging."
Trans-Texas corridors are NAFTA corridors. Cyris Gerner of www.AmerikanExpose.com has had on his website a large section of links to government documents and large national associations that deal strictly with the "NAFTA corridors." His website has been in existence since around 1995, and NAFTA was passed in 1993. So do not ever think that Perry or TxDOT or the whole rotten bunch of our corrupt politicians are the authors of original ideas as set forth in House Bill 3588. All those folks are just carrying out orders, working for their unjust rewards.
Whatever the transportation needs and Texas road planning true real needs are for the once great state of Texas, the NEVER NEVER NEVER included horrible Texas-ruining trans-national corridors and they never included taxation without representation tyrannical schemes such as HB3588's triple tax toll road heist.
House Bill 3588 is a bill that became a law in an illegal and grossly unethical way. It should be totally rescinded.
The corrupt contract with CINTRA should have had very heavy governmental oversight throughout the contract negotiations, and this should have been done in a careful and transparent manner as possible. If that had been done, the contract would never have been consumated. It is legally possible to rescind corrupt non-open, no-bid and bid-rigged contracts after they have been signed. Please read what is happening to some of the grossly corrupt contracts that were let to rebuild Iraq.
Texans, stand up, speak up, and fight for the freedom you know and love. If we do not do this, we are no better than the greedy corrupt freedom destroying, Texas destroying scamsters who are currently running the once great State of Texas !
Thanks for pointing out the Phoenix solution. I was a PHX resident in the 80's when they passed the 1/2 cent sales tax to fund a metropolitan freeway network. However, PHX already had an outstanding 1-mile arterial road grid system. So, although you had to deal with 40mph roads with stoplights every half mile, you had viable alternatives to freeways. The Austin area, by contrast, is basically the town that the hillbillies built; paved-over cattle paths that start and stop without much thought or reason. And then, area traffic engineers constantly shut down the few arterials we do have for elongated periods of construction. WTH don't they coordinate these projects so that traffic can continue to flow? Beyond me...
So, bravo for the suggestions that we look to PHX as an example of how to handle growth and infrastructure needs without gouging the public!
--Paul in Austin
Sal
This is the text of the comments I made to the Texas Transportation Commission, Jan. 26, 2006, during the public comment portion of the meeting:
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
Presentation to Texas Transportation Commission
Sal,
It's a theory of mine that what the "tollers and Co."
are doing is buying the road "wholesale",i.e. Getting
governments to hand over m(b)illions worth of public
eminent domain rights and throw in as much gas tax and other tax monies as they can squeeze from Fed, State, and local governments, then the tollers pony up their 0 to 20%. The price of the road is then marked up to retail by some Plucked From Thin Air Multiple(PFTAM) and the bond holders get to hold the dirty diaper right along with the taxpayers! Example: Road cost $100(80 to 90% from Taxpayers), mark up to $1000 and float to the bondholders. Tollers and Co. make a nice immediate spread of $900 profit. Just change the #s to as Carl Sagan would say "billions and billions".
Then as if all that is not outlandish enough, the
years go by, traffic is strangled by non-compete
agreements and boom the solution is extorted out of
the taxpayers once again ala SR91, Orange County.
It's just a matter of time 'til we get the proof!
Check my blog for the following headline with comments about a Forbes article that you also posted:Taxpayers and Bondholders Beware of the Toll Road Bandits!
TollsWorseThanTaxes.blogspot.com
This is really starting to get FUN!
Rich
You think the Toll Roads are Corrupt (and yes I agree they are). Look into the Texas Drivers Responsibility Act.
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