5/12/2007

HAYS COUNTY CITIZENS VOTE DOWN ROAD BOND SCHEME BY 52%

Congratulations to Hays County Citizens! Road Bond Proposition 1, a $172 million road bond scheme to have County taxpayers pay for unneeded state roads, has been defeated by 52%.

As reported on this blog weeks ago, these oversized, overpriced 9 million dollars a mile state roads got stopped, thanks to Citizens for Responsible Roads, Charles O'Dell, lots of hard workers and good friend Peter Stern, who said hell no and educated others about the special interest pay day scheme. The public was not part of the process that decided on what roads would be put on the ballot - even the county’s transportation department was left out of the loop.

Greedy Special Interests (Former County Commish Bill Burnett, Klotz Associates Inc.; Dannenbaum Engineering Corp.; Carter & Burgess Inc.; and Lockwood, Andrews & Newman - as Hays Future Now PAC) spent over $83,000 to try and trick voters, thirteen times as much as Citizens for Responsible Roads.

Special Interest politicos who pushed for the scam were
(NEVER VOTE FOR THESE SELL OUTS) :

Former Pct. 3 Commissioner Bill Burnett, who voted to toll roads we've already paid for as a member of CAMPO, works for Dannenbaum Engineering Corp, as he did while he was working for the county. Records show Gov. Perry has received more than $150,000 from President of Dannenbaum Engineering, James D. Dannenbaum, who does road work for TxDOT.

See more details in the comments area below.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Sal. The truth is that many of my Hays County neighbors and friends worked VERY hard to defeat this special interest crusade led by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, Rep. Patrick Rose, TxDOT's Bob Daigh and Don Nyland, Hays County Commissioners Will Conley and Jeff Barton and so many developers and profiteers. The next step is to vote-out these special interest parasites and get some good people back in government who will honestly and relentlessly work for the people they represent.

Sal Costello said...

SUSANS EMAIL:

"Money doesn't decide elections in Hays County, the voters do".

In this brief quote, Charles O'Dell of Dripping Springs sums up what happened in the May 12 bond election. The vast amounts of money and political influence funnelled into the pro-road bond PAC by developers, road engineering firms, lawyers and politicians-on-the-take was not enough to fool the voters of
Hays County.

Amid a deluge of slick advertising, much of it appealing to fear and filled with misreprentations and outright lies, the voters of Hays County saw through the hype and voted with clear minds to stop our county from becoming yet another Round Rock. We have a different vision for our beautiful hills and valleys: visions of swimming in clear creeks and enjoying quiet, star-filled night skies, breathing clean air and deciding our development policies with reason and finesse, not greed.

My thanks to all those who worked so hard to defeat this road bond and especially to Citizens for Responsible Roads for standing up to the "Powers
that Weren't".

I could not be more proud of Hays County citizens today. Let's continue to develop this county as a special place, not just any place.


Susan

Anonymous said...

Isn't it great that $ 6K worth of truth can overcome $ 83K worth of hype? Especially when that 83 K worth of hype is accompanied by political pressure via extortion- like scare tactics, delivered through powerful government agenciy "Heads" in conjunction with government "Representatives" trying to "close" us with the oldest and most unprofessional "sales close" in the world.

Any time a smiling Jack car salesman tells you, "...this is a one time chance, and you can NEVER have another opportunity" you need to escort them to the door. Damn quick.

Hopefully, we can continue this movement by cleaning house next election. Next election, we should remove from office every "official" at each level of "government" (Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian) who was in the least bit associated with the attempted "sale" of this "product" using unethical sales actics.

At least that is whay I think.