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CAMPO crapped all over the carpet again last night. And, it’s time to rub CAMPO’s nose in it.
The majority of our elected representatives failed to represent us again. This was no surprise. The real work to start pulling more toll roads from the plan begins in the coming days.
How do we pull more tolls from the plan?
The same way we pulled toll ways from the plan AFTER the CAMPO 2004 toll vote. Political pressure. We need to send letters to the editor, talk with neighbors about the DOUBLE TAX tollers by name, and we need to be creative. Let’s share creative ideas in the comments area below.
These people VOTED FOR FREEWAY TOLLS
and failed to represent our families:
and failed to represent our families:
They ignored the public and voted to spend $910 million tax dollars to shift our Central Texas freeways to toll roads. The tollers below with photographs, have terms ending in 2008, and are our targets for the coming weeks and months.
GET TO KNOW THE "SLEAZY SIX"
AND LET'S FIRE THEM IN 2008!!!
AND LET'S FIRE THEM IN 2008!!!
Mike KruseeState Representative
(Double Tax Architect)
Re-Election in March 2008!
Gerald DaughertyTravis County Commissioner
Viable OPPONENT NEEDED
Re-election in March 2008!
Nyle MaxwellCity of Round Rock Mayor
Term ends in 2008!
Gary L. NelonCity of Georgetown Mayor
Term ends in 2008!
Bob LemonCity of Cedar Park Mayor
Term ends in 2008!
Miguel GonzalesCity of Kyle Mayor
Term ends in 2008!
Kirk Watson (Chair), State Senator & Lobbyist
Term ends in 2011
Brewster McCracken, Council Member Austin
Expected to Run for Mayor in 2009
Cynthia Long (Vice Chair), Williamson County Commissioner
Term ends in 2011
Sam Biscoe, Travis County Judge
Term ends in 2010
Sarah Eckhardt, Travis County Commissioner
Term ends in 2010
Will Wynn, City of Austin Mayor
Term limited - ends in 2009
Betty Dunkerley, Council Member Austin
Term ends in 2008 - Expected to Retire
John Trevino, Capital Metro
Unelected. Unaccountable to voters.
Bob Daigh, TxDOT - District Engineer
Unelected. Unaccountable to voters.
The Good Eggs!
They Listened and Voted NO to Freeway Tolls.
They Listened and Voted NO to Freeway Tolls.
Jeff Mills, Council Member Sunset Valley
Eddie Rodriguez, State Representative
Liz Sumter, Hays County Judge
Jennifer Kim, Council Member Austin
Find emails and phone numbers of the good eggs (to thank), and the deaf CAMPO board members here.
YOU CAN RUN,
BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE!
OTHER FREEWAY TOLLERS
These folks ran away from the CAMPO toll road heat,
after they voted for freeway tolls. They still have a special place in our hearts:
Our Political Action Committee has a campaign strategy that works, but we need funded viable opponents to contact me at sal at austintollparty.com ASAP. Most deadlines to run for office are at the first of the year. Most viable opponents announce from September to November. A viable opponent is someone who already has a base of supporters and can raise large sums of money to support a full campaign office, an experienced campaign manager and equally important - the money to put forward a political advertising campaign to communicate with voters.BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE!
OTHER FREEWAY TOLLERS
These folks ran away from the CAMPO toll road heat,
after they voted for freeway tolls. They still have a special place in our hearts:
Mark Strama, State Rep.
Dawnna Dukes, State Rep.
Steve Ogden, State Sen.
Dan Gattis, State Rep.
Dawnna Dukes, State Rep.
Steve Ogden, State Sen.
Dan Gattis, State Rep.
I’ll have an updated scoreboard PDF, article on Sarah Eckhardt, Powerful video from the CAMPO vote and more - all in the coming days on this blog!
22 comments:
A news station just called and asked if I would do a debate with Sen. Kirk Watson later this week.
I told them I'd be shocked if Watson would ever debate the issue with me, but if they can make that magic happen, I'm in.
What's the use of looking for viable opponents to the toll trolls and working to get them elected when they too just turn around and screw the very people who put them into office? Sarah Eckhardt - you've broken my heart.
Hi Sal...
I was at the meeting last night, and I'm seriously pissed off about the whole thing, even though I knew what was going to happen before I walked into the building.
I am wondering if you could address a couple of things about Sarah Eckhardt. It seemed to me that she knew that her NO vote would not defeat the TIP. To hold some sort of accountability to the other board members, she proposed the four ammendments. I don't understand what they are supposed to change about the TIP. Could you give me a run down on them in normal language? Did she think this was the only power move she could make? I am just not sure what her ammendments are supposed to accomplish. And, it looks like there are plenty of loop-holes in all of her ideas. Am I right about this? In the end, I was extremely disappointed that she voted YES to the TIP.
Also, I was hoping that you might comment about the exchange between Gerald Daugherty and Bob Daigh regarding the "Y" in Oak Hill. Daugherty asked Daigh, if he voted NO to this particular part of the plan, would Oak Hill loose funding for road improvements from TxDOT. Daigh said that, yes, it would. Is this true or false?
Thanks for all the work you do. I e-mailed Liz Sumter before the meeting, because I had heard that she would be one of the dissenting votes. I thanked her and she sent me a very nice message back. I will thank her again with "snail mail" and also Jennifer Kim, Eddie Rodriguez, and the eloquently spoken Jeff Mills...(who, by the way, I think should run against Brewster McCracken for Mayor of Austin, if he is eligable.)
I'll be doing a Sarah Eckhardt article for the blog this week.
TxDOT and other tollers would call a dog a cat, if it meant they could tax us to drive roads we pay for with our tax dollars. TxDOT and the CTRMA (local toll authority) is eager to become a taxing authority.
Did anyone ever hear of taxation without representation?
Take a good look at the Toller pics and names for 2008. Start spreading the news via word of mouth folks...we need to find viable candidates for all of them.
Like others, I am deeply disappointed in Sarah Eckhardt. I look forward to your blog post about her Sal.
I can't vote against any of the Sleazy 6 because I am not a constituent, but I can and will donate to their opponents financially. I hope they pay for this vote with their public careers.
I also stand ready to help peel off the East Austin toll roads from the plan. It's pretty telling that the traffic congestion is in West Austin but the tolls are in East Austin.
Down with the Sleazy 6!
Hi folks...
The Oak Hill Gazette did this article that is a brief run-down of Sarah Eckhardt's ammendments. The article was published before last night's meeting.
http://www.oakhillgazette.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=73&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=852&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1846&hn=oakhillgazette&he=.net
Good job....I would especially like to see someone with integrity run against Gerald Daugherty. Travis county has not helped in our fight for our rights and to protect the enviornment and health and safety as a monster marina is proposed where it does not belong. The LCRA needs to be accountable to the people of Texas also.
I can't believe Sarah Eckhardt voted for this, I thought she was against the toll plan. What a betrayer!! I'm so sick of all the phony spineless politicians in Austin!
WITH PERMISSION FROM GARY:
Dear Judge Sumter:
Despite the fact a large balance of CAMPO Board Members acted against the will of the majority of citizens during last nights vote and additionally allowed several unattributed public comments to be presented (since no properly executed public comment affidavits or identification were secured) via tape recordings made, (as I understand) by an organization consisting mainly of building contractors and suppliers claiming their only interest to be concern over traffic, I am not so angered by Ne'er- Do-Wells that I would fail to take time to express my thanks to you for voting against this scheme.
When elected officials honor their oath of office, and keep their word to voters, they should be thanked.
So thank you very much Judge.
I appreciate the fact at least you and four others acted properly.
(By the way, if you'd like to sign a petition to the Legislature for impeachment of Governor Rick Perry, one is available on-line at:
www.impachperry.com )
Sincerely,
Gary Conner
Dripping Springs, Texas
FU%& YOU BASTARDS. OPPRESSING THE MIDDLE CLASS FURTHER TO LINE YOUR POCKETS. FU%& YOU!
Sal,
What a disappointing loss this was for common sense, honesty and especially for the notion that politicians have to at least pretend to care about the will of their constituency. What a blatant disregard for the will of the people. This is a very sad day for a representative republic.
Thank you for all of your hard work. I will personally commit to helping un-elect as many of these crooks as possible. Take care.
Walter
Did you notice FORMER Hays County Judge Jim Powers (toller that was fired) was mulling around
the meeting?
I am positive it was him (pink shirt).
He's probably got a fat job making money off the tolls, as a thanks for his toll vote in 2005!
I am very disappointed in Sarah Eckhardt
I am beyond ticked off !!! I hope we can find some good people to run against these cockroaches! We came so close last time to getting rid of Krusee last time. The PRO Tollers have got to go!
This is double taxation and it is wrong. I dont disagree with toll roads, but I do disagree with shifting existing highways into toll roads and spending $910 million tax dollars to do it.
Where are the ethics?!?
i dont like toll roads and havent stooped low enough to use them yet..but it looks like soon we wont have no choice…thanks to our wonderful politicians that supposed to represent texans…it was our politicians that started tax abatements to bring industry to austin ..in the first place…and this started a snow ball effect clear across texas that brought people from one corner of the country to the other here and thats why we have such the mess we do now…….i remmeber when people argued the point that it would bring this sort of growth… but of course our politicians had a deaf ear to it..and a l ot of austinites and texans just dont seem to have the brain cells to comprehend anything like the mess we have today…no one could visualize that tax abatements would bring this uncontrolled growth..but it has…and of course now you dont even need tax abatements…because the snowball is going down hill at full steam ahead….so i hope all you people out there that supported this growth are happy… its amazing what damage the stroke of a pen can do from a few short sighted people…
What I want to know is why will Austin have such an enormous % of toll roads out of our total highway system in the city? I just spent 20 minutes on Rand McNally's website and can find one metro area with significant toll roads that can be hard to avoid (Chicago). I cannot find another city in the entire US (and I've looked at most of them) that will toll ALL major highways to/from the airport. Most major cities do not even have toll roads period. I understand Austin is growing much faster than many of these established cities, but what about Phoenix, Vegas or Atlanta? They are all growing faster than Austin and have virtually no toll roads to speak of.
No city in the country has shifted it's freeways to tollways.
When tollways are added, they are whole new routes, and they go in AFTER the basic infrastructure is built (the expressway portions of the freeways).
Read this to compare TRADITIONAL TOLLS vs FREEWAY TOLLS:
http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2006/07/freeway-tolls-smart-solutions.html
I really think we as a community need to put some severe pressure on the TROLLS. I think we should organize a onsite boycott of the places of business for the TROLLS.
Take Maxwell for example. We should organize groups at each of his dealerships pointing him out as a TROLL and how he voted to double tax Austin.
We should be at city hall protesting in the windows when the council meets to let the TROLLS see in person the backlash of the voting.
We should also show TXDOT the same if not more for the lies and now video taping of drivers in and around Austin.
I really think we should out the TROLLS seriously.
One more aspect I feel is fair. I am not sure about the legal aspects though. Once the TROLLS take away existing roadways and create the TROLL lanes I think a class action lawsuit should be filed for reimbursement of gas tax dollars used to build the original roads. If someone has more legal knowledge of this aspect let me know?
We started the boycott a couple years ago and did some protesting (and got on the news a couple times):
http://www.texastollparty.com/action_maxwellBoycott.php
You'll like this one - Maxwell Protest:
http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2005/08/maxwell-dealership-boycott-week-two.html
and
http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2005/08/maxwell-dealership-boycott-kick-off.html
Focusing our limited time and resources on removing tollers is what we really need to focus on. Just look at the 2004 map of tolls approved and compare that to the 2007 map approved, and you will see how we are on track - we've stopped a lot of tolls since 2004, and I plan on stopping a lot more with your help.
Generally I don't believe boycotts are that effective - they must be focused and done right. The Maxwell Boycott does 2 things, hits the Maxwell dealerships and educates people that Mayor Maxwell voted to toll our freeways with tax dollars.
IF you are serious about a trollers boycott, and you are willing to spend 20-40 hrs a week and head up your own organization from the ground up, email me (sal at austintollparty.com) and I'll let you know how to do it right.
Many of the businesses (lots of banks) that gave money to the pro-toll chamber are found here in the later pages:
www.austinchamber.com/WhatsNew/2006OAAnnualReport.pdf
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