Mike Krusee and his Special-Interest Travel Agents

Rep. Mike Krusee is one of the top legislative recipients of private travel gifts, according to Texans for Public Justice (TPJ): The report called "Making Connections: State Officials and their Special-Interest Travel Agents" gives some in-depth details on how Krusee lives large on toller cash.

Governor Rick “Mr. 39%” Perry was the top recipient of private travel gifts, receiving $205,460 worth. The report states this about Mike Krusee:

House Transportation Committee Chair Mike Krusee (R-Round Rock) was another lobby favorite—especially for highway-contractor lobbyists. One lobbyist who paid Krusee’s travel bills is HillCo’s J. McCartt. His clients included Trans-Texas Corridor contractor Fluor Corp. and PBS&J—an engineering firm that has worked on several Texas toll road projects. McCartt flew Krusee to Washington in October 2005 to address a conference on public-private transportation ventures held by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. Krusee stayed at the Marriott’s Renaissance Hotel.

McCartt also flew Krusee to Las Vegas to deliver the keynote address at a PBS&J toll summit a week after the 2005 regular session ended. The following year federal prosecutors charged PBS&J’s former chief financial officer with running an embezzlement scheme to disguise the source of thousands of dollars in political contributions to U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-Florida). Around this time the Texas Department of Transportation blacklisted the firm for suspected overcharges stemming from the scandal. Yet the North Texas Tollway Authority awarded PBS&J a five-year contract to work on a joint project with TxDOT just three months later.

Representing the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA), Locke Liddell lobbyist Brian Cassidy sent Krusee to New York City in December 2005 to attend an awards ceremony held by the Bond Buyer newspaper. The Bond Buyer gave CTRMA the Southwest region’s “Deal-of-the-Year” award for debt-financing a 12-mile stretch of toll road with $238 million in bonds. Krusee authored the 2003 legislation that authorized CTRMA to issue such bonds.

Researchers found Texas’ poor system for disclosing official travel is both overly complex and inadequate. “Sorting out who paid whom to fly where is like flying in the dark,” said Texans for Public Justice Director Craig McDonald. “Despite murky disclosure, it’s clear that some corporate-jet owners operate frequent-flier programs for our state officials.”

The report concludes that Texas’ crazy-quilt system for reporting official travel paid for by private interests is at once too lenient and too complex. It recommends reforms to provide greater transparency and better protect the public interest.

DALLAS NEWS LETTER TO EDITOR TODAY

Delay 121 also

Re: "Transportation bill curbs agency's powers – Legislature: Senate plan would increase regional bodies' voice on projects," Thursday news story.

I would like to ask our local state legislators why they allowed the toll road moratorium to exempt State Highway 121.

It is utterly preposterous to stop all toll roads in the state except one. Is the Frisco/Plano area of Collin County the cash cow for the rest of the metroplex? What happens if alternative highway funding becomes available during the two-year period? Does Cintra give back Highway 121? Yes, we need the highway to be built, but a two-year delay is nothing compared to being stuck for a 50-year commitment to pay tolls, so other localities can build their roads at our expense.

The "outcry" by state Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth; state Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller; and others is self-serving. Try to toll Highway 114 through Southlake and see the reaction. Locally, Collin County Commissioner Joe Jaynes and McKinney Mayor Pro Tem Brian Loughmiller applaud the exemption, because they daydream that tolls will pay for North Central Expressway improvements, again at our expense.

Plano already has two toll roads. One letter writer pointed out that all citizens will pay more for purchased goods, as businesses that are forced to use toll roads pass along their costs. Part of Highway 121 from the Dallas North Tollway to Hillcrest was already funded by the Texas Department of Transportation, yet it's part of the "sale."

Someone has to step forward and put a stop to this inequity. Perhaps a lawsuit is the only option – or the next election. In any event, the local taxpayers should not have to pay the brunt of fixing what the Legislature failed to address for years.

Joe Schumacher, Plano

BOND BUYER: "Cintra agreed to seek the contract with the understanding it would not have to compete against the NTTA."

Is Macquarie Robbing the Public Treasury?

As reported on this blog, Macquarie recently purchased one of it’s most outspoken toll and privatization critics in Texas, a newspaper group, in January.

Today, Alice S. McGuffie reports that one of Macquarie’s key players, who has been pushing the privatization of our infrastructure (a corporate subsidy scheme) for Macquarie profit is on the verge of being appointed as a key player on the other side of the negotiating table - as a U.S. Department of Transportation representative. Macquarie, who has partnered with Cintra in the past, can profit off TTC deals worth hundreds of Billions of dollars in Texas alone - in the coming decades.

MacQuarie's D.J. Gribbin moves closer to assuming DOT general counsel role

By Alice S. McGuffie, Waller Tx

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Nomination hearing of David J. Gribbin, IV on Thursday, March 29, 2007 for the position of General Counsel of the Department of Transportation has totally gone without notice by any news organizations. This quiet event, though not particularly individually significant, is one more step in the United States' giant leap toward privatizing our national infrastructure.

Gribbin was nominated by President George W. Bush in January of this year and his credentials demonstrate rapid job bounces between the public and private sectors.

D.J. Gribbin has served a little more than a year as a Division Director of Macquarie Holdings, Inc. While in this role he testified at the U.S. HOUSE TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE “UNDERSTANDING CONTEMPORARY PUBLIC-PRIVATE HIGHWAY TRANSACTIONS: THE FUTURE OF INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE” MAY 24, 2006 and encouraged Congress to "liberate" the "dead capital" of the U.S. Highway Infrastructure by facilitating more public private partnerships. Macquarie Holdings is the U.S. based "child" of Australia's Macquarie Bank.

In an October 2005 article, The Sydney Morning Herald Newspaper called Macquarie Bank the Millionaire's factory, an insatiable innovator, mesmerising the market with financial origami and generating apparently endless streams of money, and likened Macquarie Bank to "the greatest corporate catastrophe in history … Enron, the energy monster that invented new markets in everything from electricity to bandwidth to weather futures and then imploded."

Read the rest of the article HERE.

Bad TxDOT Deal Exposed - FREEway Sold For Peanuts!

Just days ago TxDOT sold a Dallas state highway (SH 121 - intended to be a freeway) to Cintra for 50 years. Most sane people knew selling a public highway to a spanish company was a bad deal, but who would have thought it would be exposed to be an outrageous financial screw up so quickly?

First, you need to know this important tid-bit: TxDOT would not let the North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) bid on the tolling of 121 freeway. But it allowed corporations from other countries bid. Cintra won the deal, to toll a Texas Freeway for 50 years, just days ago.

North Texas Tollway Authority estimates it would have given the state $4.2 billion in the freeway for sale deal. Instead TxDOT cut a deal with Cintra for only $700 million. From the Dallas Morning News today:

“The deal to make State Highway 121 a toll road for $2.8 billion in cash was less than half of what the state could have gotten, according to a very rough estimate unveiled Monday by the North Texas Tollway Authority.

In what everyone acknowledged to be an extremely preliminary analysis, the tollway authority said it could have given the Texas Department of Transportation $2.1 billion up front for the rights to the toll road project in Collin and Denton counties. That is the same figure as the winning bidder, Cintra Concesiones Infraestructuras de Transporte SA.

The difference came in how much money the tollway authority said it could pay over the life of the 50-year toll contract: $4.2 billion vs. Cintra's $700 million offer.”

We get screwed by billions of dollars and our roads are being stolen for corporate profits. Our elected officials (Perry, Craddick, Williamson, Krusee and others) have sold us out. When will this madness be stopped?

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NEWS ALTERT: CINTRA wins Hwy. 121 toll bid for 50 years

Cintra was selected today to operate State Hwy 121 and collect toll profits for the next 50 years. This will mark the second time in US history that a public highway, originally intended to be a freeway, is privatized and tolled for corporate profit.

The first public private partnership scheme for Hwy 91 in California cost taxpayers hundreds of millions more, not counting the high cost of tolls. A non-compete clause kept the state from increasing highway capacity on nearby roads. The state had to spend more tax payer dollars to buy back the toll roads for $207.5 million.

Right-of-way and a portion of the main lanes already built with public money will go to Cintra as a corporate subsidy. TxDot denies it was a freeway project “converted” to a toll road, because technically it was never open as a freeway, but we've paid well over $700 million plus the cost of right of way. Gov. Rick Perry announce the plan in North Texas just hours ago.

Perry's Transportation Advisor and lobbyist, Dan Shelly was rehired by Cintra in 2006. Cintra is also the majority partner in Cintra Zachry, which is planning the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor. Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte SA will pay $2.1 billion for the rights to operate the very lucrative toll project through 2057, most probably with profits close to $100 Billion. THERE WILL BE NO TOLL RATE CONTROLS FOR 121...CINTRA WILL RAISE THE PRICE AS HIGH AS THEY’D LIKE OVER THE NEXT 50 YEARS.

From the Houston Chronicle/AP:

"The advantage is roads will be built sooner," (Sen.) Carona said. "What you won't hear about is toll rates will be raised unlike anything we have seen today."

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, who pushed the 2003 bill that helped set up the toll road initiative, said he was "asleep or not smart enough" to recognize potential problems.

"We are giving away a public asset and don't have much say about it for 50 years," said Ogden, R-Bryan.

BREAKING NEWS: State Auditor Warns TTC Costs and Benefits are Unknown.

Updated 2/24

A new astonishing State Auditor's Office report, raises grave concerns as the highest ranking Auditor in the state is unable to decipher how much the first part of the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) project will actually cost, even though the first Cintra/TxDOT contract was signed two years ago.

The Audit also reveals TxDOT downplayed costs and withheld information.

The report focused on the Texas Department of Transportation's first of many sections of the TTC, the TTC-35 Comprehensive Development Agreement with Cintra-Zachry, LP.

Perhaps the most shocking part of the report is the fact that TxDOT could be required to forgo ALL the revenue it’s claimed the state would receive.

The revenue TxDOT promised to members of the legislature, the public and the press, has been one of the key selling points that TxDOT has used time and time again.

This new information ads fuel to the fire as thousands of Texans have attended public hearings to oppose the TTC. Many are outraged over TxDOT’s 90 day forceable eminent domain “quick-take” for over 500,000 acres of private land.

The report states that accounting “misallocations and exclusions” of work done to date on the 50 year contract, are of concern. Pulled from the report:

"Weaknesses in the Department’s accounting for project costs and monitoring of the developer create risks that the public will not know how much the State pays for TTC-35 or whether those costs were appropriate.

Not adequately monitoring developers also exposes the State to future financial liability.”

And, 53% of TTC-35 costs to date were incorrectly allocated to other projects. Invoices included hours billed that could not be tied to any progress reports or tasks performed. The report also states:

“The Department omitted indirect costs of $906,774 in fiscal year 2005 and $583,642 in fiscal year 2004.”

Also, from the summery:

“There is a lack of reliable information regarding projected toll road construction costs, operating expenses, revenue, and developer income.”

UPDATE: The Houston Chonicle and Statesman offer articles, "Audit rebukes corridor costs, Report says TxDOT estimates unreliable for Trans-Texas plan" and "Auditor scolds agency for corridor project, Texas Department of Transportation downplayed costs, withheld information, audit says".

In 2005, the State Comptroller came out with an investigative report showing how Regional Mobility Authoritys that privatize and toll public highways are creating double taxation, by diverting tax dollars intended for free roads, into toll roads. The report also showed RMA board members giving no-bid contracts to themselves and their friends. Board members of RMA's have property in the vicinity of toll roads that have increased by as much as 989%.

Bureaucracy always costs more, and it allows much more waste and fraud.

The Texas Transportation Institute report that came out just weeks ago stated that tolls would NOT be needed if we indexed the gas tax to inflation, like most products and services we purchase.

The cost per mile for tolls, under the new TxDOT, is more than 15 times the cost of indexing the gas tax.

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10 of 12: How Krusee Cohort, John Langmore, syphons tax dollars for special interests.

This is Attorney John H. Langmore, one of the key confidence tricksters behind the Krusee & Perry TTC Land Grab and Freeway Double Tax Tolls. Langmore is a key player for the Special Interests.

Attorney John Henley Langmore (DOB 11/30/1962) was the Policy Director for the Texas House Transportation Committee during the 78th Legislative Session in 2003. Langmore played a principal role in formulating and drafting State Rep. Mike Krusse’s HB 3588, one of the most comprehensive transportation bills ever passed in the state of Texas, it completely altered the accountability of transportation projects. New powers were given as unelected bureaucratic mini-TxDOTs were created to toll already funded freeways. This “Frankenstein” law also allowed the TTC to take private land for foreign profits.

Many elected officials had no idea that 3588 was a Trojan horse. Most only skim the summary of a bill and use trust as a barometer.

Today, John Langmore continues the confidence game as he impersonates a Transportation Planning Expert to continue to bilk taxpayers for his special interest pals as well as get insider contracts for himself.

But, shockingly, Attorney Langmore has NO education in transportation planning, not even an online college course.

The snakelike Langmore has gone beyond the call of special interest duty. Since creating HB 3588, he’s slithered his way into the deep nooks and crannies of the unaccountable deals his legal language helped to create.

Langmore's SafeRail PAC Opens the Door for Looters.
Langmore was the one man band for SafeRail PAC. He was the campaign treasurer, campaign manager and PR contact for SafeRail PAC, a political action committee that had success in altering our Texas Constitution in 2005. Prop 1 in 2005 allowed unlimited tax dollars and debt to be syphon for new corporate rail in the TTC.

A quick glimpse of state records show Zachry Construction (of Cintra Zachry) gave SafeRail PAC $10,000, Herzog Construction gave $10,000, HNTB gave $6,000, PBS&J, Carter Burgess, Pate Engineer folks each gave $5,000 each.

TateAustin received over $12,000 for PR and Langmore’s SafeRail PAC spent over $32,000 on a radio buy in Houston to trick voters. Langmore contributed $471.31 in cash and $10,000 of campaign management and public relations services, sure to be repaid with thank you contracts.

The Proposition 1 constitutional amendment that Langmore helped to secure (53% to 47%) is a simple open-ended corporate subsidy scheme --- literally a blank check. Taxpayers will pay unlimited tax dollars (and generations of debt) to move private corporation rail lines into Gov. Perry's Trans Texas Corridor (and this after the governor had promised Texans that no public funds would be used for the TTC). Unaccountable people will decide how the taxpayer based rail fund will be spent, as corporations profit.

Langmore registered as a Texas lobbyist in 2005 representing Toll & Road Lobby companies such as Pate Engineering and Infrastructure Corporation of America. Pate and Langmore contributed to Krusee in 2005. Some say “that’s how the wheels stay greased”. Langmore has contributed to other politicos like Gonzalo Barrientos and Kirk Watson as well.

Is the system built for corruption and incestuous deals?

AND, how does Langmore get himself placed on every committee Krusee is not already on? He's also on the CAMPO Growth Subcommittee.

The address that Langmore submitted to the State for lobbying is interestingly the same address as Mike Weaver’s Prime Strategies, 1508 S. Lamar Blvd. Mike Weaver helped to create the local freeway tolling authority (CTRMA) and gave his own company, Prime Strategies, the first Toll Authority NO BID contract. Comptroller Strayhorn’s report shows Weaver's company billed the CTRMA for well over $600,000 from 2002 to 2005. The NO BID contract was paid for with tax dollars.

In 2006, I witnessed the special interest trio, Mike Weaver, John Langmore and Bill Burnett (former CAMPO board member who voted to toll roads we’ve already paid for) as they told Travis County Commissioners that Hays, Williamson County and two dozen other local governments across Texas are moving forward with a common sense NO TOLL option (pass through financing) while Travis must tolls on roads we’ve already paid for. The Commissioners bought it hook line and sinker.

As a very close associate of Mike Krusee, like Melinda Wheatley, Langmore cleans up on "Good Old Boy" transportation contracts. So many transportation contracts came his way, including Zachry, in 2004 that he needed to create a new business as a Transportation Consultant. He calls it “John Langmore Consulting” and it to offices out of 1508 S. Lamar Blvd. Langmore has also received toll road related marketing contracts through TateAustin, paid for with our tax dollars.

Having NO education in Transportation doesn’t stop Langmore. Hey, Mike Krusee has NO college degree, and that doesn’t stop him. Langmore is a Co-Chair of Envision Central Texas Transportation and Land Use Committee, which is now focused on planning the details of the primer for the TTC, the $1.5 Billion dollar SH 130. Mike Heiligenstein joins Langmore as a board member of ECT.

After graduating from UT’s School of Law and Graduate School of Business in 1989, John began his career working in Akin Gump’s Washington D.C. office. Langmore was Licensed in Texas in 1991 (State Bar Card Number 11922650), but, as of this year his license is inactive. Langmore had an executive role with Caterpillar in Tennessee for 11 years and a short stint as a photographer in San Antonio.

Langmore’s past also includes two (2) DRIVING WHILE INTOXICATED (DWI) CONVICTIONS, at least 24 months of probation and hundreds of dollars in fines.

Public records show Langmore and his wife Catherine Langmore owning 1408 Preston Ave. Austin TX 78703-1902, with an assessed value of about $500.000.

John Langmore has altered our Texas Laws and our State Constitution to where it is now legal to steal our roads, our land, our tax's and even generations of debt for the Toll Road Mafia's Personal Enrichment Program.

To this day Langmore, continues to influence where and how our tax dollars are spent, as he skims a bit for himself and impersonates a Transportation Planning Expert.

This article is part 10 of a 10 part series called “Circle of Parasites”. Freeways have never been tolled in the history of the U.S., but that doesn’t stop a close circle of self serving individuals with a long history of looking out for themselves at the expense of others.

Read the other “Circle of Parasites” articles (just click below):

1 of 10: Deadbeat Mike Heiligenstein Runs Freeway Tolling Authority

2 of 10: Two Toll Authority Board Members Refuse to Resign

3 of 10: Austin American Snakesman

4 of 10: Convicted CRIMINAL, Pete Peters, Connected to Freeway Tolls

5 of 10: Rep. Mike Krusee and Lobbyist Melinda Wheatley.

6 of 10: Ghost Organization Voted to Toll Austin Freeways

7 of 10: State Rep. Dawnna Dukes Payolla Toll Vote Ignores Constituents and Federal Law

8 of 10: County Commissioner Limmer and Convicted Criminal formally do business.

9 of 10: TxDOT Engineer, Bob Daigh: Secret Deals, Lies and a Convicted Criminal

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PERRY AIDE WORKING FOR TTC's CINTRA and More

MORE NEWS ARTICLES: PERRY AIDE WORKING FOR CINTRA BELOW:

• DALLAS NEWS TODAY: Perry's Transportation Advisor rehired by Cintra
  

• CorridorWatch TODAY: Cintra's Inside Man - Dan Shelly

• -DALLAS NEWS: Perry's Top Donors Get TTC related Appointments-

• Who profited from Cintra's public stock offering?

• Top Aide to Perry Worked for Cintra

• Shelley's previous employment for Cintra adds questions about the Trans-Texas Corridor.

• Account of aide's role at Cintra contradicted

• Perry's office downplays ties to corridor firm

• Perry aide was at toll road meetings

• Revolving roles stir concerns in Austin

• "Governor's motives are open to question in light of the large campaign contributions he received from interests boosting the privatized corridors."

Cintra behind Secret 5 Billion TTC Rail Deal