VICTORY BATTLE!
WAR CONTINUES AS “PLAN B” SLITHERS
ALSO: OUR LAWSUIT MOVES FORWARD
ALSO: OUR LAWSUIT MOVES FORWARD
THIS IS A KEY ARTICLE - PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND
CLICK ON BLUE HYPERLINKS TO LEARN MORE.
CLICK ON BLUE HYPERLINKS TO LEARN MORE.
In early 2004, TxDOT and the new toll authority (CTRMA), presented a $2.2 Billion dollar Phase II toll plan to our elected officials on CAMPO, that would steal and toll our freeways for the first time in our country.
Back in 2004, CAMPO asked for public feedback. Naturally, 93% of the feedback opposed the double tax toll plan. Our elected officials on CAMPO, ignored the overwhelming public opposition, and voted YES for the freeway tolling plan.
That is when AustinTollParty.com was created.
Monday night, with a packed auditorium, after 31 months of battle - and our many accomplishments along the way - the bureaucratic money-hungry corrupt giant, finally said “Uncle”.
Monday at about 10pm, a formal vote was cast to "shelve" or "pull out" Phase II Tolls from the CAMPO TIP.
This was a huge battle that we won by using political pressure. But the war to keep our freeways free is not over because the special interests are behind the scenes pushing a “Plan B”. The good news is, we’ve already put a dent into “Plan B”, by not allowing Sen. Kirk Watson to be seen as the hero.
Monday, Kirk Watson became chair of CAMPO, as predicted in early December on this blog. And, Watson hijacked CAMPO as I predicted last week, as he now hand selects his own powerful special committee and only that committee decides what can go on the agenda. Watson also altered CAMPO from 23 voting members to 18. The unaccountable Waston, who has a history of back-room deals that costs us millions, refuses to create a citizens committee for crucial input needed for any successful transportation solution. Watson is only interested in controlling the process by having a massive majority of his special interests Krusee/Toller pals run the show.
THE SPECIAL INTERESTS PLAN B REVEALED
STEP 1) Monday night, State Rep. Mike “King Toller” Krusee recommended that Senator Kirk Watson chairs CAMPO so Watson can run CAMPO and repackage the toll roads to sell them to the public.
INSIDER FACT) A lawsuit we filed in 2005 will most probably remove Watson from CAMPO within weeks or months.
The constitution states there must be a “separation of powers between the legislative and executive branch”, therefore, the legislative Senator Watson (and others) cannot sit on CAMPO’s executive board. Only City and County officials are allowed to sit on CAMPO. People for Efficient Transportation, Inc. is represented in this suit by the Texas Legal Foundation and its President and General Counsel, former Texas Supreme Court Justice Steve Smith. Next hearing is scheduled for Jan 31st, news here on this blog soon.
STEP 2) Have Kirk Watson stop Phase II tolls and be seen as a hero. That credibility will allow him to sell the newly repackaged toll roads on roads we’ve already paid for, without calling them toll roads.
INSIDER FACT) Kirk Watson has now been exposed as part of the problem in the press. Watson’s past also includes a diversion of our freeway funds for toll roads as $67 Million of his Prop 1 City of Austin Bonds intended for free roads, have been diverted to 45N and 130 toll roads.
It’s simple really, especially when you see it’s just a simple con job.
Have the Watson “hero” introduce “managed lanes”, and not use the nasty “toll” word.
What are managed lanes exactly?
"Managed lanes" is a marketing term that sounds better than “toll roads”: Express lanes that parallel an existing highway and charge drivers a toll. So, a managed lane on a road we’ve already paid for, is a toll road on a road we’ve already paid for.
"Value Pricing" is another marketing term that goes hand in hand with Managed lanes. The tollers sell it to the public by saying Value Pricing will "reduce congestion".
How does Value Pricing reduce congestion you ask? By increasing the toll cost within the day as the need rises (such as charging more during rush hour). If less people can afford to drive, less people are on the road. Viola, less congestion. And more money into the pockets of the tollers.
And, why didn’t the Statesman report the death of Phase II? The Snakesman endorsed the Austin freeway tolling plan on June 27, 2004. Since then they have failed to do any investigative reporting on the corruption of the privtization and tolling of our public highways. They have even deleted a blog on the Statesman.com website that exposed that corruption. Read about it HERE.
Once again, KXAN's stellar Chris Willis, our good pal, did the story right!
Coming Tomorrow - HOT EXCLUSIVE right here on the Muckraker Blog: Toll Profiteers buy Texas Newspaper Companies to Control the Negative Toll Road News! (This is for real)
Coming Soon - A big thank you article and list of some of the important organizations and individuals that over the past years and months have joined in the successful fight to keep our freeways free.
14 comments:
Thank you for this article. I only get my local news from alternative media and news of this victory was spotty and inaccurate until now.
"a formal vote was cast to "shelve" or "pull out" Phase II Tolls from the CAMPO TIP. "
Are Phase II toll roads really permanently dead? Are they permanently pulled out or will they be added back in as an agenda item they next time a TIP vote comes up, which I think is a recurring agenda item for CAMPO?
Kirk Watson is bad bad bad. He is already so clearly showing "his true colors." This is what "straignt Democrat ticket" voters get for voting that way.
Many people have the idea that "managed lanes" (tolls on roads we've already paid for) only refers to a new parallel lane constructed in the future that will be the only lane tolled on that roadway, but from your definition, "managed lane" euphemism would also include just designating one lane of the already existing freeway as a toll road. Please clarify.
I am so happy to hear that the lawsuit by PetPac will proceed. Yes, it is a violation of the separation of powers to have state lawmakers on CAMPO, but I personally think it is also a violation of the separation of powers to have lawyers/attorneys allowed to be state lawmakers. Attorneys/lawyers belong to the state bar and the judicial branch of Texas government.
Bob Daigh from TxDOT (http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2006/08/9-of-12-txdot-engineer-bob-daigh.html) said Monday that they might be coming back for some clearances, for some roads separately. So each road is in danger.
HERE IS HOW YOU CAN HELP:
I would like a number of other folks to start FREE blogs (see the top of my blog to start one free today), and track some of this unaccountable corruption. If you do your homework and confirm what you write about, you will be a credible source of information, and we can link to each other's blogs AND your info could end up on google.
For example, if someone wanted to find out about "Bob Daigh" on google, my article pops up as #1.
: )
The more the public shares credible info, the more we learn. The key word here is "credible", that means to double check or have a reliable source. And, the some in the media come to my blog to see the latest toll corruption or scam, and they have done stories (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erx7R6vHMvU).
Thanks!
Bob Daigh from TxDOT (http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2006/08/9-of-12-txdot-engineer-bob-daigh.html) said Monday that they might be coming back for some clearances, for some roads separately. So each road is in danger.
HERE IS HOW YOU CAN HELP:
I would like a number of other folks to start FREE blogs (see the top of my blog to start one free today), and track some of this unaccountable corruption. If you do your homework and confirm what you write about, you will be a credible source of information, and we can link to each other's blogs AND your info could end up on google.
For example, if someone wanted to find out about "Bob Daigh" on google, my article pops up as #1.
: )
The more the public shares credible info, the more we learn. The key word here is "credible", that means to double check or have a reliable source. And, the some in the media come to my blog to see the latest toll corruption or scam, and they have done stories (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erx7R6vHMvU).
Thanks!
Way to go Sal! Keep exposing these scumbag legislators for the money and power grabbing despots that they are.
You had previously blown the whistle that TxDOT was photographing every license plate that went through the Toll booths. KXAN even did a story on it.
We were told that the cameras were only being tested and that the data would be discarded YEAH, RIGHT
As of today, the cameras are still photogaphing the license tag of every vehicle passing through.
I consider this to be a violation of my privacy and I believe we need to raise hell with TxDOT and force them to stop this egregious violation of our privacy and only photograph the license plate of violators as they claim will be done.
I am making a $50 contribution today.
Thank you for the update.
I want to see the evil doers in Jail.
Keep the pressure hot and legal.
FROM ROGER:
[Some of my opinions might get me strung up from the nearest lamp
post, but the following reflects my take. I intend to send Sarah
Eckhart an email thanking her for being the only one to vote against
Watson's autocracy. Somebody said I was on TV, but I don't watch it
anymore.]
Politics makes for strange bedfellows. I have been pretty active in
fighting the Texas road lobby, which has been actively promoting a
giant $185 billion Trans-Texas Corridor boondoggle supported by Rick
Perry and TxDOT. They want to join up Mexico, the US and Canada by
building a NAFTA road infrastructure to bring Asian imports in
through deep water ports in West Mexico, up and rails and trucks
through Texas, and likely on up into Canada.
Needless to say this grand vision has the support of the Texas road
contractors who want to leverage lots of debt to build toll roads by
getting foreign investments. Spanish toll road builders named Cintra
have formed a partnership with Zachry to form Cintra-Zachry,
initially contracted to extend the SH 130 toll road down to Seguin.
The sober factual case against Perry’s toll road scam is extremely
well documented by David Stall on his “www.corridorwatch.org” website.
I used to think it would be mostly leftish progressives like me
fighting such corruption, but now there are many average Republicans
involved, sort of analogous to the growing opposition to the Bush
administration. Plus a whole ‘nother element of right wing
nationalists involved who make the Libertarians seem pretty mild by
comparison. Sort of a broad spectrum anti-corruption coalition, but
its not mainstream politics.
I was leafleting against the toll roads and speaking against them at
the CAMPO meeting on Monday and these guys were out in force. The
toll roads are a big money special interest boondoggle, so it is no
wonder that a whole anti-corruption political spectrum from extreme
right nationalists to honest republicans to libertarians to the Green
Party (me) opposes them. But a lot of the numbers of activists are
strong nationalists now aleinated from Bush and the Republicans and
they seem to have adopted toll roads as a major cause in Texas.
They are big on liberty and gun rights and protecting our borders
from foreign ownership of Texas roads as toll roads they fancy will
be “controlled by the King of Spain”, probably because of the Cintra
link. I think some of them come by way Alex Jones and his
conspiratorialist Infowars group. They seem to distrust almost all
government, and are naturally against making all the roads in Texas
into toll roads. When I spoke, one of them handed me a packet of info
that spoke about “Rifleman’s Boot Camp”, which I googled and which
led me to the following sites:
http://www.rwva.org/oldsite/ (go from here to “Save America”)
From there, I got here. I never thought I would see a militant
Jewish gun owner association, but here it is. God knows what
political alliances are behind it, maybe some Zionist/fundamentalist/
nationalist thing that originated from Karl Roves or Abramoff's efforts.
http://www.jpfo.org/alert20051110.htm
But back to the toll roads. I think the politicians sense that TxDOT
went too far in trying to make every road into a toll road. Kirk
watson just became state senator from the Austin area. He got himself
appointed to be chair of CAMPO, got the rules changed to give himself
godly powers (he and a group that he appoints are now the sole ones
that can put items on the CAMPO agenda). What made the news
headlines is that he got the next planned batch of toll roads favored
byTxDOT removed from the to-build list that TxDOT uses, at least for
the time being, and by unanimous vote while a special mobility study
group that he appointed considers what to do now.
Watson is also now vice chair of the Senate Transportation Committee
chaired by Sen. Corona. Corona is said (by Paul Burka) to be
supportive of sound public policy and opposed to Ric Williamson and
Rick Perry trying to privatize Texas roads by selling them to foreign
contractors under extremely long-term (99 years in one case!), weakly
regulated lease arrangements like the Cintra-Zachry group is promoting.
My take is that there is a turf battle between TxDOT, which is
corrupt and out of control, and the more sober politicians like
Watson (coming from the Austin Chamber of Commerce) who want
intelligent planning that won't bankrupt local business interests and
threaten local long term growth and development interests through
greedy bad planning.
The rumor is that Watson wants tolled (or managed) lanes instead of
building big new toll roads as TxDOT had wanted to build to keep its
road contractors rich and happy. The road contractors get most of
TxDOT’s $7 billion a year budget, and where it gets spent is nearly
pure politics in which TxDOT can play one area off against the other
for the biggest additional subsidies amounting to quasi-bribes.
The Texas Transportation Institute which is more or less the TxDOT
think tank recently released a study that indicates that the roads
TxDOT wants could be funded by a mere $.08 per gallon gas tax indexed
for inflation, instead of everyone having to pay tolls to ride on
roads built on land taken from landowners concerned about their
property rights.
In other words TxDOT's think tank is rebelling against their parent
institution for some reason. More evidence that TxDOT has gotten too
greedy, gone too far, and their political support is collapsing, even
among Republicans. Especially the political support for their giant
$185 billion Trans-Texas Corridor.
-- Roger
Thanks for the update!
FROM ED:
Sal,
Just something I thought of that might help people understand just how much
the tolls will cost after reading the "15 cents a mile statement".
These numbers are from the IRS, and I have not checked to see if they have
been updated in last few years - if they have been it will only be a few
pennies.
The IRS uses 37.5 cents a mile for the "offical" what it costs to operarte
at car. It is a number they consider "fair" for people to use in such
things as deducting business mileage. 16 cents of that amount is
depreciation.
So that 15 cents a mile increases the cost of operating that car to 52.5
cents a mile for a 40% increase in operating the car. Just shy of double.
So it would now cost $1.04 every 2 miles to drive on the tollways.
So hardly a small number. It would be like saying you owe $20,000 in taxes
to IRS and them taking $28,000.
Maybe something you can use in getting the point across.
Thanks,
ed
Excellent Job Guys!
It just so happened that my family was heading to the meeting, and the road signs for Burnett were no where to be found, so we drove almost to round rock and drove back and forth and then gave up and went home after an hour... How convenient.
IMPORTANT
FOLKS,
A number of you have complained about the automatic email Donna Howard has sent out that glorifies Kirk Watson.
I'd strongly suggest that you call her office (463-0631) and tell her staff you are not happy with her letter.
We can keep Donna on course if we call.
Also tell them the task force must have some citizens on it and we will NOT accept tolls or managed lanes on roads we've already paid for.
Thanks!
Sal
-------
ALSO, FROM EMIL:
Sal, thanks for the info & updates. im all for the people and screw the politicians and corporations, its time to take back our country. let me know what i can do to help.
emil
FROM STUART:
Sal,
They want to change the name from "toll" roads because of its unpleasant
association.
I think you should call them the "graft roads", which is what they are. That's even more unpleasant.
Stuart
---------
GREAT QUESTION FROM MARSHALL:
Sal,
When you write phase II was shelved does this mean that SH130 will not continue to ABIA?
Thanks,
Marshall
--------
Hello Marshall,
I formed AustinTollParty.com in in 2004 in response to Phase II tolls, which was originally presented and voted on in 2004.
SH 130 and the other toll roads we see today are Phase I. Phase I was voted on in 2000 and have not been our focus (since they were well underway and too late in the game for us to be able to stop).
Thanks
Sal
Thank you, Roger, for this information.
"Kirk
watson just became state senator from the Austin area. He got himself
appointed to be chair of CAMPO, got the rules changed to give himself
godly powers (he and a group that he appoints are now the sole ones
that can put items on the CAMPO agenda). What made the news
headlines is that he got the next planned batch of toll roads favored
byTxDOT removed from the to-build list that TxDOT uses, at least for
the time being, and by unanimous vote while a special mobility study
group that he appointed considers what to do now."
Since the Phase II toll roads were just shelved for now by CAMPO and could be brought back individually for vote by CAMPO in the future, I deduce that there is nothing we the people can do to get all of the PHASE II roads PERMANENTLY taken off the CAMPO table.
As for the "victory", in effect it looks like Kirk Watson got just what he wanted: a postponement so that he will have time to stack the CAMPO board with his North American Union cronies. Isn't it amazing what clout Kirk Watson has so early on in his senate office?
Donna Howard not only betrayed those who voted for her because of her campaign rhetoric against the corridors and toll roads, she is also pushing for legislation that would create widened vaccination registration and tracking, also BAD BAD BAD. I did write her and told her what I thought of her betrayal.
The toll roads are about the NAFTA corridors and the NAFTA corridors are about ending the sovereign United States of America, our Bill of Rights, and our freedom. All of it is in violation of the U.S. and Texas Constitutions and all of it has been hushed and rushed through by hook and by crook.
Jeannon,
Read the article again.
We've been successful, and we'll be more successful because we have MOMENTUM, the LAWSUIT (that will most probably "pluck" Watson and others from CAMPO), and we are finally ahead of the crooks instead of playing followup.
Most importantly, we are organized, and the blog is now a source for the press, elected representatives and the public. We are clearly winning.
There is also something very big coming down the pike, within days or weeks, that I can't talk about. There will be a Rectification - soon.
Stay Focused - Don't Sweat the Small Stuff,
Sal
God willing, when the TTC-35 comes here in my neighborhood, I will be ready to defend my home from the government who believes they can take my land under "eminent domain." But I tell you, they take my land to build something as stupid and foolish as a road/railway/ or whatever the hell they want now, they won't like when their road is demolished by the TUF (Texas United Front). I'm not talking about court appearances (well, maybe at first). But destroying toll booths work just as well.
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