NEW Truth Be Tolled to premiere at Houston Film Festival Tuesday


PRESS ADVISORY

Contacts: Terri Hall, Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, (210) 275-0640 Bill Molina, Storm Pictures, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WEB: www.TexasTURF.org / www.TruthBeTolled.com

Feature Documentary Sheds More Truth on Trans-Texas Corridor and Toll Roads


Houston, TX - “Truth Be Tolled: The 281 Special Edition,” a newly completed feature documentary from Storm Pictures, has been nominated for a 2010 Remi Award and will premiere as an Official Selection of The 43rd Annual WorldFest Houston International Film and Video Festival on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 5 pm at AMC Theaters, 2949 Dunvale, Houston, Texas 77063. This new film documents the bitter fight in the Alamo City behind the controversial plan to toll an existing freeway, US Highway 281.

WHAT: NEW Truth Be Tolled documentary to win top award and will premiere at Houston Film Festival
WHEN: Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 5:00 PM
WHERE: AMC Theaters, 2949 Dunvale, Houston, Texas, 77063

Director William H. Molina has chronicled public meetings, press conferences, environmental lawsuits and citizen protests that erupt and eventually culminate in a State Legislative session plagued by back-room deals, loop-holed bills and turncoat leadership.

The 281 Special Edition follows a trail of federal stimulus funds, comprehensive development agreements and lobbying efforts that pave the way to ultimately privatize public infrastructure. The documentary also exposes the truth about the Trans-Texas Corridor, a threat still alive for many ranchers, farmers and residents that sit in its path.

“This is not just one toll road, this is going to be an entire new policy, every new lane, every new road in the State of Texas is slated to become a toll road, if they can make it toll viable,” states Terri Hall, a home-schooling mother turned activist who leads a grassroots effort to halt the proliferation of tolling plans and the Trans-Texas Corridor.

The Texas Department of Transportation is so entangled in its own shortcomings that the Sunset Commission declares, “Until trust is restored at TxDOT, the state can not effectively meet its transportation needs.”

There will be a question and answer period with cast and crew after the screening.

For more information, see the following links:
http://www.truthbetolled.com/

Film Trailers also on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUF9eVBzeLk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwewG4ufNDQ

Perry & TxDOT continue to lie about tolling existing freeways

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Perry’s debate fib about state law prohibiting tolling existing freeways repeated in news report

(Wednesday, February 3, 2010) Confusion persists about whether or not it is legal to convert free highway lanes into toll lanes in the state of Texas, despite Governor Rick Perry’s claim that it is illegal during the January 29 Republican gubernatorial debate. In an article in the Dallas Morning News February 1, TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott stated:

"’The department has made it clear that we have no interest in tolling existing lanes,’ Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Chris Lippincott said this afternoon, when told of the Obama budget provision. ‘Whether we are prohibited from doing so in federal law is irrelevant,’ he said.

The article goes on to say...

“And it wouldn't be easy, even if the state's Transportation Commission didn't have a policy in place that effectively abides by the moratorium. To turn a freeway (or even a single lane of existing roadway) into a toll road, TEXDOT would need a waiver from the Federal Highway Administration. These are granted only rarely. Then, state law requires approval from the county commissioners and then from a county's voters.”

Terri Hall, Founder of Texas TURF counters, “Not only is TxDOT planning to toll existing lanes, they're lying about it. The feds are not only aware of the plans for US 281 in San Antonio in particular, it had already granted clearance until we sued to stop them. So rare or not, the feds granted it.”


Perry's greatest fib of the January 29 debate was his insistence that the Texas legislature passed a bill in 2005 prohibiting the conversion of free lanes to toll lanes. However, the bill, HB 2702, tells precisely how TxDOT can LEGALLY convert existing highway lanes into toll lanes through 6 exceptions, one that allows a conversion of free lanes by simply downgrading the free lanes to access roads adjacent to the tollway.

Though the language doesn’t specifically use the term “access roads” to refer to the relocating of free lanes adjacent to the tollway, TxDOT has consistently interpreted the law to mean it has the authority to downgrade freeway lanes to access roads without triggering a public vote based on HB 2702. See the two-part discussion of this law before the Sunset Commission in 2008 here and here. Part-two shows TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz stating TxDOT’s interpretation of HB 2702 allows highway lanes to be downgraded to access roads.

The bill also contains a gaping grandfather clause that exempts virtually all the toll projects currently on the table (because they were designated as toll roads in MPO plans prior to September of 2005), so no public vote would be triggered for the dozens of grandfathered toll projects.

“Perry's elitist ‘you can eat cake’ attitude is this: if you can't afford the toll lanes, you can sit in congestion on the stop-light ridden access roads. He thinks replacing free highway lanes with access roads is acceptable and his highway department is doing it all over Texas,” says Hall.

The citizens’ fight to stop the conversion of existing FREEway lanes into toll lanes on US 281 and Loop 1604 in San Antonio, 290 West in Austin, and Hwy 59 in East Texas (part of Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 that’s still alive and well), has languished precisely because of the loopholes in HB 2702.

TURF worked 24/7 in the last session to fix these loopholes. Rep. David Leibowitz of San Antonio introduced a bill to do so and got it attached to the TxDOT sunset bill (but it was stripped in the Senate).

“Texans deserve protection from the DOUBLE TAXATION of converting freeways into tollways. Perry was dead wrong to imply Texans are protected in state law. They’re not, especially for the exempted Trans Texas Corridors, like TTC-69, that will ‘upgrade’ existing freeways (like Hwy 59) into tollways at the hands of foreign companies,” Hall emphasized.

See detailed proof of the freeway to tollway conversion plans for US 281 on this web site: http://www.281overpassesnow.com.

Portion of HB 2702 that addresses converting existing highways into toll roads –

SECTION 2.36. Chapter 228, Transportation Code, is amended
by adding Subchapter E to read as follows: SUBCHAPTER E. LIMITATION ON TOLL FACILITY DETERMINATION; CONVERSION OF NONTOLLED STATE HIGHWAY Sec. 228.201. LIMITATION ON TOLL FACILITY DESIGNATION.
Except as provided by Section 228.2015, the department may not operate a nontolled state highway or a segment of a nontolled state highway as a toll project, and may not transfer a highway or segment to another entity for operation as a toll project, unless: (1) the commission by order designated the highway or segment as a toll project before the contract to construct the highway or segment was awarded; (2) the highway or segment was open to traffic as a turnpike project on or before September 1, 2005; (3) the project was designated as a toll project in a plan or program of a metropolitan planning organization on or before September 1, 2005; (4) the highway or segment is reconstructed so that the number of nontolled lanes on the highway or segment is greater than or equal to the number in existence before the reconstruction; (5) a facility is constructed adjacent to the highway or segment so that the number of nontolled lanes on the converted highway or segment and the adjacent facility together is greater than or equal to the number in existence on the converted highway or segment before the conversion; or (6) the commission converts the highway or segment to a toll facility by: (A) making the determination required by Section 228.202; (B) conducting the hearing required by Section 228.203; and (C) obtaining county and voter approval as required by Sections 228.207 and 228.208.

Sec. 228.2015. LIMITATION TRANSITION. (a) Notwithstanding
Section 228.201, the department may operate a nontolled state
highway or a segment of a nontolled state highway as a toll project
if: (1) a construction contract was awarded for the highway or segment before September 1, 2005; (2) the highway or segment had not at any time before September 1, 2005, been open to traffic; and (3) the commission designated the highway or segment as a toll project before the earlier of: (A) the date the highway or segment is opened to traffic; or (B) September 1, 2005. (b) This section expires September 1, 2006.

SECTION 2.37. Section 362.0041, Transportation Code, is
transferred to Subchapter E, Chapter 228, Transportation Code,
redesignated as Sections 228.202-228.208, and amended to read as
follows:
Sec. 228.202 [362.0041 ]. COMMISSION DETERMINATION [CONVERSION OF PROJECTS ]. The [(a) Except as provided in Subsections (d) and (g), the ] commission may by order convert a nontolled state highway or a segment of a nontolled state highway [the free state highway system ] to a toll project [facility ] if it determines that the conversion will improve overall mobility in the region or is the most feasible and economic means to accomplish necessary expansion, improvements, or extensions to that segment of the state highway system.

Sec. 228.203. PUBLIC HEARING. [(b) ] Prior to converting a state highway or a segment of a[the ] state highway [ system ] under
this subchapter [section ], the commission shall conduct a public
hearing for the purpose of receiving comments from interested
persons concerning the proposed conversion [transfer ]. Notice of
the hearing shall be published in the Texas Register, one or more
newspapers of general circulation, and a newspaper, if any,
published in the county or counties in which the involved highway is
located. Sec. 228.204. RULES. [(c) ] The commission shall adopt
rules implementing this subchapter [section ], including criteria and guidelines for the approval of a conversion of a highway. Sec. 228.205. QUEEN ISABELLA CAUSEWAY. [(d) ] The commission may not convert the Queen Isabella Causeway in Cameron
County to a toll project [facility ].

Sec. 228.206. TOLL REVENUE. [(e) Subchapter G, Chapter
361, applies to a highway converted to a toll facility under this
section. [(f) ] Toll revenue collected under this section:
(1) shall be deposited in the state highway fund;
(2) may be used by the department to finance the
improvement, extension, expansion, or operation of the converted
segment of highway and may not be collected except for those
purposes; and (3) is exempt from the application of Section 403.095,
Government Code.

Sec. 228.207. COUNTY AND VOTER APPROVAL. [(g) ] The
commission may only convert a state highway or a segment of a[the ]
state highway [ system ] under this subchapter [section ] if the
conversion is approved by : (1) the commissioners court of each county within
which the highway or segment is located ; and (2) the qualified voters who vote in an election under Section 228.208 and who reside in the limits of: (A) a county if any part of the highway or segment to be converted is located in an unincorporated area of the county; or (B) a municipality in which the highway or segment to be converted is wholly located .

Sec. 228.208. ELECTION TO APPROVE CONVERSION. (a) If
notified by the department of the proposed conversion of a highway
or segment under this subchapter, and after approval of the
conversion by the appropriate commissioners courts as required by
Section 228.207(1), the commissioners court of each county
described by Section 228.207(2)(A) or the governing body of a
municipality described by Section 228.207(2)(B), as applicable,
shall call an election for the approval or disapproval of the
conversion. (b) If a county or municipality orders an election, the
county or municipality shall publish notice of the election in a
newspaper of general circulation published in the county or
municipality at least once each week for three consecutive weeks,
with the first publication occurring at least 21 days before the
date of the election. (c) An order or resolution ordering an election and the
election notice required by Subsection (b) must show, in addition
to the requirements of the Election Code, the location of each
polling place and the hours that the polls will be open. (d) The proposition submitted in the election must distinctly state the highway or segment proposed to be converted
and the limits of that highway or segment. (e) At an election ordered under this section, the ballots shall be printed to permit voting for or against the proposition:
“The conversion of (highway) from (beginning location) to (ending
location) to a toll project.” (f) A proposed conversion is approved only if it is approved
by a majority of the votes cast. (g) A notice of the election and a certified copy of the
order canvassing the election results shall be sent to the
commission.

End the grip of BIG MONEY on Transportation Policy


IMMEDIATE RELEASE

End the grip of BIG MONEY on Transportation Policy
TURF STATEMENT ON GREASING THE WHEEL REPORT

(Austin, TX - November 12, 2009) My name is Terri Hall and I’m the Founder/Director of Texas TURF, an all-volunteer, grassroots group defending the citizens’ concerns with toll road policy, and working toward affordable and transparent non-toll transportation solutions.

We applaud the Greasing the Wheel report released today by TX PIRG because it affirms what we already knew...that the road lobby is driving transportation decisions and policy not the taxpayers. In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to oust his own transportation board appointee for objecting to the Governor’s proposal to sell a CA freeway to private investors. His appointee called the deal “too risky for taxpayers.” In Idaho, the Governor had the Director of their DOT fired in a “political powerplay to help Governor Butch Otter and his big campaign donors.” Her crime? Saving the taxpayers money by steering money away from high-paid outside consultants back to the highway department who can do the work far cheaper.

Even worse, federal transportation agencies are using OUR taxpayer money to both lobby to and waive provisions in the law to handover our public highways to the private sector.  Most of these changes were authorized by the Bush Administration, but the Obama Administration has allowed this controversial policy to stay in place, which is public private partnerships (PPPs, also called CDAs in Texas). PPPs are the most expensive way to fund roads.

A recent article in the Bond Buyer exposed that: “...there are a number of tolling and P3-related programs administered by the Federal Highway Administration. One is the Special Experimental Project Number 15, or SEP-15, which gives the transportation secretary the ability to waive certain rules of the current transportation law on a case-by-case basis. The program allows the FHWA ‘to experiment in four major areas of project delivery’ including project finance, and one of its goals is to promote P3s, according to the FHWA.”

Why would the feds want to promote the sale of our public roads to private corporations? To enrich the highway lobby who’s been greasing the wheel.

Perry’s behavior in Texas has been equally deplorable: stacking his commission with goons who rabidly promote the sale of TX infrastructure to his cronies, payments of up to $3.6 million to losing bidders on CDAs, withholding highway funding from local communities until they capitulate to tolling existing freeways, illegally hiring registered lobbyists with taxpayer money to lobby to relax and even remove prohibitions on tolling, the revolving door between his office and Cintra lobbyist Dan Shelley, the list goes on and on.

When our elected representatives are bought and paid for by road building interests, how can the citizens stand a chance? It's no wonder why our politicians are so tone-deaf to the public outcry against enormously expensive, unwanted toll roads and privatization schemes that will break the backs of the middle class. It's time to clean-up Texas politics, By exposing the link between the BIG MONEY and the types of road projects that get priority, the taxpayers can then hold their politicians accountable in the ONE way they can...at the ballot box.

We also think it’s time to consider TX PIRG’s recommendation of publicly-funded elections. It may be the only way to shatter the vice grip special interests’ wield over our politicians and public policy.

Transparency is the first step toward accountability. May this report and our efforts to shine the light on the today be the first step toward citizen-driven transportation policy in the great State of Texas!

Houghton flip flops on promise not to interfere with local toll decisions

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Transportation Commissioner wants to strip local toll agency of project after promising “TxDOT should be out of the toll business”
Grassroots cry foul over Houghton flip-flop

(November 6, 2009) - In today’s Star-Telegram article, Texas Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton reversed his position on the department’s involvement in toll roads. The article states Houghton “wants the North Texas Tollway Authority to withdraw as the lead partner in the Southwest Parkway project and let the state seek a private developer to build the toll road from Fort Worth to Cleburne.”

When Houghton was up for confirmation in the Texas Senate, he stunned the Chair of the Nominations Committee, Senator Mike Jackson, when the Commissioner said in the hearing on May 13, 2009, "I think TxDOT should be out of the toll business. That's not our business. It's the NTTA's business, it's the CTRMA's business, it's the El Paso RMA's business."


Jackson said he was surprised by Houghton’s comment and asked him "and is that a dramatic change in your position over the last few years?"

Houghton acknowledged that it was.

Jackson then asked him what changed his mind and Houghton replied, "We have RMAs that are created. We have people like NTTA and HCTRA that have a history behind them and know how to do it. That has changed my mind, that local RMAs should be the, and local toll road authorities...should be those agencies that build those projects...and again if we (the department) have the resources....enable these authorities to build those projects to give 'em that credit lift, or to participate....There's a menu to be able to participate, but not to run these toll, no, these toll projects."

Apparently, Houghton lied to the Nominations Committee to win confirmation and now that lawmakers have left Austin, it's back to business as usual at TxDOT. The Perry-appointed Transportation Commission is again interfering with local decision-making and attempting to sell our Texas highways to private developers in its classic "it's our way or no highway" form.

This development comes after more than 80% of Texas voters in Tuesday's election voted to keep Texans' land from being taken through eminent domain and given to private developers for profit. However, Proposition 11 doesn't protect Texans’ private property from being taken in the name of public use for a state highway then sold to foreign entities for private gain.

“Houghton and TxDOT in their arrogance, fail to grasp (or care) that they are under Sunset review once again, and taxpayers and legislators alike are none too happy with them on ANY front. Houghton’s attempt to strip the NTTA of the Southwest Parkway project so the department can sell it off to the highest bidder on Wall Street is another example of why TxDOT has been in perpetual hot water.

“Houghton recently identified himself as the most arrogant commissioner of the most arrogant state agency in the state of Texas. Perhaps a new addition to his list is in order. Let’s add: the most untruthful commissioner,” suggests Terri Hall, Founder/Director of Texas TURF.

-30-
__________________________________________________________________
Link to article here.

Official says tollway authority should bow out of Southwest Parkway
Thursday, Nov. 05, 2009
By GORDON DICKSON
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

A Texas Transportation Commission member wants the North Texas Tollway Authority to withdraw as the lead partner in the Southwest Parkway project and let the state seek a private developer to build the toll road from Fort Worth to Cleburne.

Commissioner Ted Houghton of El Paso discussed his recommendation about Southwest Parkway in an interview a day after the tollway authority said that the toll road is expected to cost $2 billion but that only $1 billion is available. The tollway authority said it would needs state aid to start construction next year.

Houghton wrote in an e-mail to Commissioner Bill Meadows of Fort Worth this week that his "recommendation on the project on the western end of the Metroplex is that NTTA turn that project back to us and we utilize the private pass-through tool that would bring in private equity."

A third party would pay for Southwest Parkway upfront and be repaid over time with tolls from the road.

Pass-through financing has built smaller city- or county-funded projects in other cities and would not be covered by the Legislature’s ban on comprehensive development agreements between the Texas Department of Transportation and private developers, Houghton said.

Concession fee

Houghton, one of five state transportation commissioners, also said that the Plano-based tollway authority had requested a $200 million discount on another Dallas-Fort Worth toll project: Texas 161, which is under construction in Irving and Grand Prairie and is a gateway to Cowboys Stadium in Arlington.

Last year, after months of intense negotiations, the state Transportation Department and the tollway authority agreed that the market value of the Texas 161 toll road from Texas 183 to Interstate 20 was $458 million. That would be the "concession fee" the authority would have to pay the state to take over the project.

The authority hasn’t decided whether to take over Texas 161.

But Houghton and other state officials have balked at the authority’s requests for financial aid, including a request for the state to use its gas-tax-supported Fund 6 as a guarantee against certain authority debts, and a loan of $300 million to $500 million from the state infrastructure bank.

State law gives the authority primacy, or first dibs, on toll projects in Dallas-Fort Worth, and the Transportation Department can’t pursue private development of a toll project unless the authority declines it.

The first portion of Southwest Parkway, an eight-mile stretch from Interstate 30 in west Fort Worth to Dirks Road in an undeveloped part of the city’s southwest side, was expected to be under construction in 2010.

'I’m all ears’

Tollway Authority Vice Chairman Victor Vandergriff of Arlington said Thursday that he was unaware that a pass-through tolling arrangement with a private developer could even be done.

"I’m all ears," he said. "I would be pleased to understand that, and be supportive of that, if it will get the project done."

But Vandergriff reiterated that the authority wants to build Southwest Parkway.

Negotiations between the authority and Transportation Department are reaching a crucial phase, and Vandergriff said he doesn’t want to "point a finger" of blame for the Southwest Parkway funding gap.

But he did say that part of the problem is that the Transportation Department withdrew about $211 million in gas-tax-supported funds from the project to make ends meet on other Tarrant County projects, including the proposed expansion of Northeast Loop 820 and Airport Freeway.

That funding loss is part of the reason the authority is seeking a state loan, Vandergriff said.

Earlier this year, Johnson County officials, who refer to the project as Chisholm Trail, warned that moving gas tax funding out of the project could delay it.

"We’ve got a very tough finance market and very financially challenged agency" in the Transportation Department, Vandergriff said. "It really doesn’t do any good for one side or the other to point fingers unduly. I think it’s premature to say the parties can’t work together to get it done."

Eminent domain reform has a long way to go

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Texans want eminent domain reform
Prop 11 falls short of giving it to them

(November 3, 2009) - Texans overwhelmingly voted for Proposition 11 in hopes that it sends a strong message that Texans want eminent domain reform. However, Prop 11 didn't get the job done. The Texas Legislature needs to continue the push for further reforms and to prevent abuses. TURF didn't support Prop11 because it still allows a governmental entity to take Texans' private property for "urban blight" and "certain economic development or enhancement of tax revenue purposes," nor did it include:

- Strong definition of public use limiting eminent domain for ANY economic development and tax enhancement purposes

- Good faith negotiations (prevent entities from low-balling landowners and forcing them to hire expensive lawyers to get fair market value)

- Compensation for diminished access to a landowner's property

- Limit the granting of eminent domain to any further entities without a vote of the people

- Relocation assistance for displaced landowners

- Ability to buy land back at original cost after 10 years if the State doesn't use it

Bottom line, the State can still condemn Texans' land against their will and hand it over to private developers for toll roads using public private partnerships called Comprehensive Development Agreements. The Trans Texas Corridor, originally slated to gobble-up massive swaths of private property (4 football fields wide, biggest land grab in Texas history) through rural Texas, along with dozens of toll projects in urban areas are precisely why Texans have yet to get a strong eminent domain reform bill. When foreign corporations get controlling interest in public highways in such sweetheart deals with guaranteed 12-19% annual profits, non-compete agreements that guarantee congestion on the free routes, etc., they become defacto taxing entities and charge Texans hefty tolls to access their own public roads.

"It's private profits in the name of  public use," noted Terri Hall. Founder/Director of Texas TURF.

Stunning grassroots victory: CDAs die, pensions protected


IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Grassroots defeat GOLIATH: Stop the sale of TX roads to foreign corporations, protect public pension funds

(Austin, TX – July 2, 2009) Today, ordinary Texans brought Governor Rick Perry’s road privatization, toll road, and Trans Texas Corridor agenda to a screeching halt. The Legislature adjourned without re-authorizing private toll road contracts called Comprehensive Development Agreements (or CDAs). The grassroots scored another victory by KILLING the revolving fund in HB 1, preventing the $2 billion in bonds from being spent to build toll roads, convert freeways to toll roads, or subsidize private toll deals, as well as protecting public employee pension funds from risky toll roads schemes that are failing all over the world.

“It is a hard-fought victory for the grassroots. We killed Goliath, not just Perry’s controversial toll road policies, but we defeated a sold out Senate and the BIG MONEY, the lobbyists, who sank millions into pushing for the sale of Texas highways,” Hank Gilbert, Texas TURF Board member and President of Piney Woods Subregional Planning Commission.

“We applaud Rep. David Leibowitz, once again, for standing up for Texas taxpayers and leading the charge to fix the bill that created a revolving fund that would have raided teacher retirement and public employee pension funds for risky toll road schemes. He authored the bill to KILL the Trans Texas Corridor and another to prevent the conversion of freeways to tollways during the regular session. He’s a proven taxpayer hero and Texans owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude,” said TURF Founder, Terri Hall.

“However, no session is without a few villains. CDA proponents and senate leaders like John Carona and Steve Ogden need to be taken to the woodshed for promising to promote the MOST expensive method of road funding, CDAs, next session, and for wanting to continue to raid public pension funds over the LOUD objections of Texans. None of this is dead in their minds, just postponed until they can resurrect this controversial public fleecing for another day,” Hall emphasized.

Taxpayers wanted Perry’s controversial and virtually universally detested road privatization schemes to die a natural death August 31 as scheduled, which will also KILL the mechanism to build the Trans Texas Corridor (or TTC). Today, they achieved just that. However, TTC-69/I-69 was excepted out of the moratorium, SB 792, in 2007, so TxDOT has the authority to enter into CDAs for that project through 2011. TURF, in cooperation with two private property rights foundations (Stewards of the Range and American Land Foundation) and local governments, have been instrumental in forming subregional planning commissions in the path of TTC-69, and plan to use these commissions to challenge the TTC and keep it from ever being built.

Legislature blinks at road privatization

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Legislature blinks as it contemplates the largest tax increase in Texas history, the sale of TX roads to foreign corporations

(Austin, TX – July 1, 2009) Today, concerned citizens of Texas challenged the Legislature to stand-up to Governor Perry’s road privatization, toll road, and Trans Texas Corridor agenda in a press conference on the South Capitol steps in Austin. Texans demanded the Legislature not just roll over and play dead for Perry's agenda while the leadership of both chambers ram through three bills that will affect Texans for generations.

Concerned citizens are hopping mad about lawmakers’ suspending the rules that are in place to protect the public from a railroad job, and rushing to get home for the 4th of July holiday rather than give due consideration to what some have dubbed the largest tax increase in Texas history, selling Texas highways to PRIVATE foreign corporations. Such a deal inked in North Texas will charge 75 cents PER MILE, or $13 a DAY (like the deal just signed for the North Tarrant Express to privatize I-820) in new toll taxes, for Texans to access PUBLIC roads.

Taxpayers want Perry’s controversial and virtually universally detested road privatization schemes to die a natural death August 31 as scheduled, which will also KILL the mechanism to build the Trans Texas Corridor. Today, it appeared the citizen outcry over the bill, HB 3, to re-authorize such private toll road contracts called Comprehensive Development Agreements (or CDAs) was dead on arrival in the House.

“Texans cannot stomach any more of Gov. Perry's version of AIG (arrogance, ignorance and greed)!  His continued insistence to force privatized toll roads down the throats of working Texans is fiscally irresponsible and morally wrong,” insisted Hank Gilbert, Texas TURF Board member and President of Piney Woods Subregional Planning Commission.


“With these types of projects failing all over the United States, as well as Texas (SH 121), every landowner and taxpayer in Texas will be responsible for the ‘bailout’ of Perry's AIG.  Add to that, the possibility of investing state employee and teachers retirement funds into these road projects, with his proposed ‘Texas Revolving Fund,’ and you have a Governor that has lost all respect for the people of Texas!

“The elected members of the Texas House and Senate need to do what the public elected them to do…Just Say No!  If they don't, then it may very well be the last bad decision that they are allowed to make for the citizens of the great state of Texas!” said Gilbert.

Public subsidies for private profits
CDAS are half-century long sweetheart deals that also suck-up virtually ALL available gas taxes and other highway funds to prop-up toll projects that aren't even toll viable (can't work without subsidizing them). Read about the deals in North Texas that use $1 billion dollars of Texans' gas taxes and public funds, yet motorists won't be able to use the roads without paying $13 a DAY in homage to Spain here.

TURF argues that proponents tell us the private operators are bringing all the money to the table so it's okay to sell-out the taxpayers in sweetheart deals (like non-compete agreements that prohibit ANY new lanes or NEW roads from being built that would "compete" with the private operators toll cash cow as a way to GUARANTEE congestion on free roads). But the FACT is our GAS TAXES and other PUBLIC money are going into these deals, in some cases more public cash than private, then the foreign toll operator charges motorists a DOUBLE TAX to access PUBLIC roads. CDAs also mean massive multi-generational DEBT!

"These public subsidies for private profits are the centerpiece of Rick Perry's special session, yet he claims to be a 'conservative' whose ranks opposed the federal bailout bill that socialized the losses (of private industries) and privatized the profits. There's a name for Perry's actions - hypocrisy," notes TURF Founder, Terri Hall.

Toll authority to raise toll rates 32% because BURIED in debt it can't repay
Read about it here.
Concerned citizens see this as an ALL-OUT ASSAULT on our freedom to travel!
For more info on how just how bad these private toll contracts are for the taxpayers, read more here.

SB 1 to raid public employee pension funds & teacher retirement fund
In another bill for the special session, SB 1, lawmakers resurrect Sen. John Carona's SB 1350 that will set-up a Transportation Bank as a private corporation (controlled by the Governor's political appointees, the Texas Transportation Commission) in order to raid teacher retirement funds and public employee pension funds to invest in these risky toll road schemes that are failing all over the country.

"The revolving fund could provide a vehicle for the Texas Retirement System and Employee Retirement System to invest in state infrastructure, a policy (Sen. Steve) Ogden supports." - Texas Monthly, April 28, 2009

This idea is designed to set-up a "Revolving Fund" to finance toll projects they can't find private investors to bankroll. TURF said it’s the duty of our lawmakers to protect the integrity of public employee retirement funds.
In addition, the Revolving Fund only contributes to the gas tax diversion problem since it will divert MORE gas taxes to toll roads (gas tax can be deposited into the Revolving Fund and recycled to fund toll roads that aren't viable/100% self-sustaining).

Connecting the dots...
Perry, Dewhurst backroom deal to raid funds.
Texas Monthly calls raiding pension funds "irresponsible" and "immoral" here.

Perry vetoes bill to prevent TxDOT’s lobbying for toll roads

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Perry vetoes bill to prohibit TxDOT’s ad campaigns to sway public opinion in favor of tolls
Citizen lawsuit to stop TxDOT’s taxpayer-funded lobbying to continue

(Austin, TX – June 23, 2009) Governor Rick Perry vetoed HB 2142 (authored by Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon), which could have settled the issue of the Texas Department of Transportation's (TxDOT) misuse of taxpayer money to attempt to sway public opinion in favor of toll roads, particularly privatized toll roads, and the Trans Texas Corridor.

“Governor Perry prefers to pour salt in the wound instead of allow meaningful reform of his highway department that’s run amok and lost the trust of many Texans. The wholesale outrage over TxDOT’s propaganda campaign from taxpayers and lawmakers alike prompted the Legislature to act, and, as is his usual course of action, Perry instead chooses to stick his thumb in Texans’ eyes rather than protect citizens from the abuses of taxpayer-funded lobbying,” concluded Texas TURF Founder Terri Hall.

"Losers" still get paid
To further demonstrate the Governor's (and Legislature's) total disregard for fiscal responsibility when it comes to toll roads, he also signed SB 882 (authored by Sen. John Carona) that EXPANDS payments to LOSING bidders by Regional Mobility Authorities (RMAs) to design-build contracts and allows those payments to exceed $250,000 (which was the cap placed on losing bidders on Comprehensive Developments Agreements in 2007)!

"The mantra in Austin is 'the sky is falling, we have no money for roads,' yet we have money to pay LOSING BIDDERS who won't even build any roads? Wouldn't every other industry that bids on government contracts love this goodie? They didn't pass a bill to continue TxDOT or the Department of Insurance, but they were sure to pass this one," Hall noted.

SB 882 also repeals the prohibitions on Board members and RMA Directors from receiving gifts and contributions, which clearly takes a step backwards and allows conflicts of interest to abound.


Keep Texas Moving dubbed propaganda campaign
Lawmakers studied TxDOT's ad campaign in-depth in the interim between the 2007 and 2009 legislative sessions where even the Director of the Government and Public Affairs Division (GPA), Coby Chase admitted in testimony before the State Affairs Committee that “maybe we did overdo it.” Both chambers overwhelmingly passed this bill to send a clear message that TxDOT can only provide public information not crossover into public persuasion on the taxpayers’ dime. As a result of its overreach, the TxDOT sunset bill, HB 300, had the GPA division report directly to the Legislature.

In 2007, TxDOT raised eyebrows when it waged an ad campaign called Keep Texas Moving that clearly tried to change public opinion in favor of Perry’s toll road policies, including hiring registered lobbyists (in excess of $100,000 a month) to get buy-in from local elected officials for the Trans Texas Corridor and persuade members of Congress to allow TxDOT to buy-back existing interstates for the purpose of tolling them. (Read more here)

TURF vs. TxDOT before the Appeals Court
TURF appeared before the Third District Court of Appeals April 24, 2009, in its lawsuit (TURF vs. Texas Department of Transportation or TxDOT) to halt the misuse of taxpayer money for attempting to sell the public on toll roads. Justices demonstrated they were monitoring the actions of the lawmakers in regards to legislation pertaining to the case and noted that the Legislature had acted. TURF attorney, Charles Riley, pointed out that the public cannot be assured TxDOT has been restrained by proposed legislation since the Governor could still veto it. Unfortunately, Riley was proven right by Perry’s veto Friday. Perry’s veto all but ensures the case will continue.

The lawsuit was brought in September 2007 pursuant to § 37, Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. TURF believes the law clearly prohibits TxDOT’s expenditure of public funds for the Keep Texas Moving pro-toll, pro-Trans Texas Corridor propaganda campaign.
 


TxDOT has violated § 556.004 of the Texas Government Code by directing the expenditure of public funds for political advocacy in support of toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor, and have directly lobbied the United States Congress in favor of additional toll road programs as evidenced in its report, Forward Momentum.



Not a license to lobby the public and elected officials
TxDOT claims it has the authority to advertise and promote toll roads citing Chapter 228.004 of the Transportation Code. However, lawmakers have stated they never intended that law to give license to TxDOT to lobby the public in favor of toll road policy, but rather advertising more akin to “get your Toll Tag here.” Rep. Lois Kolkhorst said in an Express-News article in September 2007, "The Legislature did not tell TxDOT to go on a media campaign explaining the pros of the Trans-Texas Corridor and private equity investment (in toll roads).”

“TxDOT is still waging a one-sided political campaign designed to sway public opinion in favor of the policy that puts money in TxDOT’s own coffers. TxDOT may have ceased hiring outside consultants, but by its own admission, it has instead hired an in-house lobbyist, and its Keep Texas Moving web site and use of Department resources continue to attempt to get buy-in for toll roads from lawmakers and the public alike,” says an incredulous Hall.

On August 22, 2007, TURF filed a formal complaint with Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to investigate TxDOT’s illegal lobbying and asked him to prosecute TxDOT for criminal wrongdoing. See the formal complaint here. TURF's petition seeks to stop TxDOT's misuse of taxpayer money in a civil proceeding.

Terri Hall is the Founder of Texas TURF. TURF is a non-partisan grassroots group of  citizens concerned about toll road policy and the Trans Texas Corridor. TURF promotes non-toll transportation solutions. For more information, please visit their web site at: www.texasturf.org

KILL HB 300: Trans Texas Corridor to proceed despite repeal of corridor

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Grassroots call for lawmakers to KILL loaded TxDOT sunset bill
Trans Texas Corridor to proceed despite repeal of corridor

(Austin, TX – May 28, 2009) The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) sunset bill, HB 300, now over 1,500 pages long, has too much baggage for taxpayers to swallow. HB 300 ends the private toll moratorium (which hands our PUBLIC highways to PRIVATE, foreign toll operators), keeps the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) alive, opens a new loophole to toll existing freeways, allows counties a 10 cent gas tax hike, raids public employee pension funds to invest in risky private toll roads deals (Revolving Fund/Transportation Bank), reduces the number of elected officials on transportation boards, and more.

A heavy piece of “baggage” that put the grassroots over the edge was Amendment #1 (scroll down to page 4, Section 4.11) by Senator Glenn Hegar that slipped the Trans Texas Corridor back into the bill after repeatedly assuring lawmakers during floor debate that the Trans Texas Corridor is “DEAD.”

TURF also obtained a memo last week from lobbyist Gary Bushell, with Alliance for I-69, revealing that he and ex-Transportation Commissioner turned Texas Senator, Robert Nichols, brokered a deal to allow the private toll contract with ACS of Spain for the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 to proceed as planned, despite the outcry of more than 28,000 Texans who went on the record against the project. (See the negotiated amendment to Nichol’s SB 17 that protects the private investor’s interest over the public interest here).


Bushell is the same lobbyist the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) illegally hired using taxpayer money to lobby elected officials in the path of the TTC, which is the subject of several bills before the Texas Legislature in response to a TURF lawsuit currently awaiting a ruling by the Third District Court of Appeals.

“So this backroom deal-making not only betrays Texans, including those in Hegar and Nichols’ own districts, it’s also a betrayal of his fellow legislators who have voted to repeal and repeatedly promised the public that the Trans Texas Corridor is ‘dead,’” proclaims an outraged Terri Hall, Director of Texas TURF.

Also slipped into the senate version is a bill by Senator Tommy Williams to add license plate cameras to state highways, Senator John Carona’s bill to lift the cap on payments to LOSING BIDDERS on toll contracts (used to be $1 million cap, then in 2007 dropped down to $250,000, now there would be NO limit), and a provision to allow TxDOT to increase speed limits on the Trans Texas Corridor and certain toll roads up to 85 MPH with the intent of reducing speed limits on competing free roads (to drive more traffic to high speed toll roads).

“HB 300 abandoned the original Sunset committee recommendations long ago, and it's been loaded up with too many anti-reform, anti-freedom, anti-taxpayer provisions for Texans to choke down,” states Hall.

TURF is advocating the legislature KILL HB 300 and pass what’s called a safety net bill that moves TxDOT’s sunset to next session, when they hope Texans will have a new Governor.

“No meaningful reform of this agency is possible as long as Rick Perry hold a veto pen,” Hall predicts.

Terri Hall is the Founder of Texas TURF. TURF is a non-partisan grassroots group of  citizens concerned about toll road policy and the Trans Texas Corridor. TURF promotes non-toll transportation solutions. For more information, please visit their web site at: www.TexasTURF.org.

Nichols brokers deal to sell out Texans for Spanish Company, ACS

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BETRAYAL: Nichols brokers deal with lobbyist to allow Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 to proceed despite repeal of corridor

(Austin, TX – May 21, 2009) TURF obtained a memo from lobbyist Gary Bushell, with Alliance for I-69, revealing that he and ex-Transportation Commissioner turned Texas Senator, Robert Nichols, brokered a deal to allow the private toll contract with ACS of Spain for the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 to proceed as planned, despite the outcry of more than 28,000 Texans who went on the record against the project. (See the negotiated amendment to Nichol’s SB 17 that protects the private investor’s interest over the public interest here).

Bushell is the same lobbyist the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) illegally hired using taxpayer money to lobby elected officials in the path of the TTC, which is the subject of several bills before the Texas Legislature in response to a TURF lawsuit currently awaiting a ruling by the Third District Court of Appeals.

The Texas House is set to vote Friday on whether to end the moratorium on private toll contracts and vote to re-authorize them for another 4 years. The House unanimously voted to REPEAL the Trans Texas Corridor just weeks ago in a floor amendment to the Texas Department of Transportation Sunset bill (HB 300).

“So this backroom deal-making not only betrays Texans, including those in Nichols’ own district, it’s also a betrayal of his fellow legislators who have voted to repeal and repeatedly promised the public that the Trans Texas Corridor is ‘dead,’” proclaims an outraged Terri Hall, Director of Texas TURF.

Comprehensive Development Agreements, called CDAs in Texas (also known as public private partnerships or PPPs), would hand over an untold number of our PUBLIC highways to PRIVATE, mostly foreign, corporations for a half century at a time. Senator John Carona’s bill, SB 404, is eligible to be taken up by the full House tomorrow. The Senate passed the bill in April. So if the House passes SB 404 Friday, the bill that allows the sale of our public highways to private corporations will head to the Governor's desk where it will become law.

Those promoting the Trans Texas Corridor relish in the confusion between TTC-69 and I-69. However, the two are one in the same. Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton testified under oath in the TURF lawsuit to stop TxDOT’s illegal lobbying by Bushell that TTC-69 is I-69; they are one in the same. The private developer, ACS, confirms in a news release that this CDA is for a 621 mile corridor through East Texas that would give them the right of first refusal for more segments of the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 project.

“Politicians will spin this, but the documents don’t lie,” Hall contends.



“Texans don’t want their PUBLIC highway system sold to the highest bidder, nor do they want corporate-run toll roads that cost commuters 75 cents a mile to get to work,” said Hall. "The Texas Legislature has been derelict in its duty to properly fund our state highway system through the gas tax thinking raising the gas tax is political suicide. We contend selling our highways to foreign corporations is even more so!"

Private toll road contracts are due to sunset this fall. In 2007, Texans stood-up and demanded a moratorium on CDAs and sent a bill to the Governor with a combined vote of 169-5.

“Our politicians got the message in 2007 that Texans don’t want to sell our highways to the highest bidder, and yet they are about to ram through billions in multi-generational debt to benefit private foreign corporations at the expense of the taxpayers,” Hall notes.

These deals cost taxpayers 50% more, are failing all over the country, and result in extremely high tolls, like the DFW contracts just signed with Spain-based Cintra that will charge commuters 75 cents a mile to get to work. That’s $3,000 a year in new toll taxes.

In fact, just days ago, Florida’s “Alligator Alley” couldn’t get a single bidder to privatize that tollway. TURF thinks lawmakers need to wake-up to the economic realities that selling our highways to the highest bidder, and relying on rosy traffic counts that amount to pure speculation to make these multi-billion dollar boondoggles work will fall flat, leaving the taxpayers to bailout yet more corporations.

“Public infrastructure that Texans depend on for daily living shouldn’t be under the control of private companies whose primary motive, naturally, is profit, not the public interest,” states Hall.

TURF believes that especially in these economic times, the higher toll rates charged by these foreign toll operators are completely unsustainable. CDAs also eat-up our existing gas tax and other public funds to privatize and toll our public roads, taking away virtually ALL of our available funding for non-toll roads.

CDAs are the most risky and most expensive method of delivering toll projects. Testimony from Dennis Enright of Northwest Financial in New Jersey before the Senate Transportation Committee March 1, 2007, seems to have been quickly forgotten by the Legislature. Mr. Enright said there is no risk transfer to the private entity and that CDAs cost the taxpayers of a minimum of 50% more than public toll roads. Mr. Enright rightly called toll roads monopolies by their very nature. He also said it’s always best to keep these projects in the public NOT private sector.

A second bill, SB 17 authored by Nichols, is tied to Carona’s SB 404. If the House votes to re-authorize CDAs, it’s contingent upon SB 17 passing as well. SB 17 purports to protect the public from private toll contracts and make CDAs only a last resort. However, the way the current bill, SB 17, is structured, if the public toll entity cannot get the financing together to do a public toll road, they'd have to pass the project to TxDOT who would hand it to the private developer. Even worse, Nichols has amended the bill to remove all the projects involved in the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 corridor from many of those “protections,” and he’s agreed to protect the private operator’s financial “interest” in the project, hanging the taxpayers out to dry.

“Lobbyists are hogs at the public trough and our politicians bow to these special interests time and again. We need to hold them accountable for this highway robbery at the ballot box, or selling out the public interest for special interests will continue unabated,” Hall warned.

Hall says the bill doesn't give the public any protection, but shows TxDOT how it can just wait it out and then hand projects to the private companies. The bill also allows the whole evaluation process to be waived and TxDOT and public tolling entities can jump precipitously into CDAs.

Texas examples...

The recent I-820 deal in Tarrant County uses a host of public money (gas taxes, federal TIFIA loans, private activity bonds or PABs) to subsidize this PRIVATE toll contract, yet Cintra gets the right to toll Texans for 50 years and take all the profits out of state. In fact, TxDOT plunked down more cash for the project than did Cintra! (Read it here.)

The LBJ freeway CDA project to toll I-635 uses public employee pension funds to invest in the deal, with toll rates of 75 cents a mile and can rise monthly. TxDOT will even pay Cintra for the loss of the "prevailing toll" revenues due to HOV users and Cintra is guaranteed 12% to 23% PROFIT! (Read more here.)

Their models show only 10 & 11% of all traffic will be able to afford to take these billion-dollar toll lanes. The congestion, or variable, tolling actually jacks-up the toll rates to guarantee certain speeds or pay TxDOT a penalty for slower travel times. This means they purposely price cars off the toll lanes as a financial incentive.

“So what's the point of all this risky, multi-generational leveraged debt? Mobility or making money? We’re headed for an infrastructure bubble that is destined to fail, which is likely to ensure massive taxpayer bailouts when they do. All those cars not on the toll road will be sitting in traffic, contributing to our air quality issues and being late to work while still paying taxes for highways (gas tax) and not getting a thing for it,” Hall observes.

TURF is urging Texans to call their State Representative and tell them not to let private corporations takeover our public highways. Tell them “NO” to SB 404 and SB 17, and “NO” to more sweetheart deals.

Read how CDAs are failing all over the world on our CDA Fact Sheet here.

Terri Hall is the Founder of Texas TURF. TURF is a non-partisan grassroots group of citizens concerned about toll road policy and the Trans Texas Corridor. TURF promotes non-toll transportation solutions.

House poised to sell Texas highways to foreign corporations

IMMEDIATE RELEASE


House set to sell Texas highways to foreign corporations, end private toll moratorium
Bill would go to Governor's desk and become law

(Austin, TX – May 19, 2009) The Texas House is set to vote on whether to end the moratorium on private toll contracts and vote to re-authorize them for another 4 years. Comprehensive Development Agreements, called CDAs in Texas (also known as public private partnerships or PPPs), would hand over an untold number of our PUBLIC highways to PRIVATE, mostly foreign, corporations for a half century at a time. Senator John Carona’s bill, SB 404, is eligible to be taken up by the full House tomorrow.

“Texans don’t want their PUBLIC highway system sold to the highest bidder, nor do they want corporate-run toll roads that cost commuters 75 cents a mile to get to work,” said Terri Hall, Founder of Texas TURF.

Private toll road contracts are due to sunset this fall. In 2007, Texans stood-up and demanded a moratorium on CDAs and sent a bill to the Governor with a combined vote of 169-5.

“The public is largely unaware of what our politicians are about to ram through. They think they took care of it two years ago only to wake-up to find the nightmare continues unabated,” Hall notes.

These deals cost taxpayers 50% more, are failing all over the country, and result in extremely high tolls, like the DFW contracts just signed with Spain-based Cintra that will charge commuters 75 cents a mile to get to work. That’s $3,000 a year in new toll taxes.

In fact, just days ago, Florida’s “Alligator Alley” couldn’t get a single bidder to privatize that tollway. TURF thinks lawmakers need to wake-up to the economic realities that selling our highways to the highest bidder, and relying on rosy traffic counts that amount to pure speculation to make these multi-billion dollar boondoggles work will fall flat, leaving the taxpayers to bailout yet more corporations.

“Public infrastructure that Texans depend on for daily living shouldn’t be under the control of private companies whose primary motive, naturally, is profit, not the public interest,” states Hall.


TURF believes that especially in these economic times, the higher toll rates charged by these foreign toll operators are completely unsustainable. CDAs also eat-up our existing gas tax and other public funds to privatize and toll our public roads, taking away virtually ALL of our available funding for non-toll roads.

CDAs are the most risky and most expensive method of delivering toll projects. Testimony from Dennis Enright of Northwest Financial in New Jersey before the Senate Transportation Committee March 1, 2007, seems to have been quickly forgotten by the Legislature. Mr. Enright said there is no risk transfer to the private entity and that CDAs cost the taxpayers of a minimum of 50% more than public toll roads. Mr. Enright rightly called toll roads monopolies by their very nature. He also said it’s always best to keep these projects in the public NOT private sector.

A second bill, SB 17 authored by Senator Robert Nichols, is tied to Carona’s SB 404. If the House votes to re-authorize CDAs, it’s contingent upon SB 17 passing as well. SB 17 purports to protect the public from private toll contracts and make CDAs only a last resort. However, the way the current bill, SB 17, is structured, if the public toll entity cannot get the financing together to do a public toll road, they'd have to pass the project to TxDOT who would hand it to the private developer.

“The bill doesn't give the public any protection, but shows TxDOT how it can just wait it out and then hand projects to the private companies,” Hall points out.

The bill also allows the whole evaluation process to be waived and TxDOT and public tolling entities can jump precipitously into CDAs.

“So what’s the point of the bill, if they can waive the requirements and get a free pass?” asks Hall.

Texas examples...

The recent I-820 deal in Tarrant County uses a host of public money (gas taxes, federal TIFIA loans, private activity bonds or PABs) to subsidize this PRIVATE toll contract, yet Cintra gets the right to toll Texans for 50 years and take all the profits out of state. In fact, TxDOT plunked down more cash for the project than did Cintra! (Read it here.)

The LBJ freeway CDA project to toll I-635 uses public employee pension funds to invest in the deal, with toll rates of 75 cents a mile and can rise monthly. TxDOT will even pay Cintra for the loss of the "prevailing toll" revenues due to HOV users and Cintra is guaranteed 12% to 23% PROFIT! (Read more here.)

Their models show only 10 & 11% of all traffic will be able to afford to take these billion-dollar toll lanes. The congestion, or variable, tolling actually jacks-up the toll rates to guarantee certain speeds or pay TxDOT a penalty for slower travel times. This means they purposely price cars off the toll lanes as a financial incentive.

“So what's the point of all this risky, multi-generational leveraged debt? Mobility or making money? We’re headed for an infrastructure bubble that is destined to fail, which is likely to ensure massive taxpayer bailouts when they do. All those cars not on the toll road will be sitting in traffic, contributing to our air quality issues and being late to work while still paying taxes for highways (gas tax) and not getting a thing for it,” Hall observes.

TURF is urging Texans to call their State Representative and tell them not to let private corporations takeover our public highways. Tell them “NO” to SB 404 and SB 17, and “NO” to more sweetheart deals.

Read how CDAs are failing all over the world on our CDA Fact Sheet here.

Terri Hall is the Founder of Texas TURF. TURF is a non-partisan grassroots group of  citizens concerned about toll road policy and the Trans Texas Corridor. TURF promotes non-toll transportation solutions. For more information, please visit their web site at: www.TexasTURF.org.

TURF Tea Party speech hammers private toll deals, runaway toll taxes

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TURF Founder to address the San Antonio Tea Party

San Antonio, TX, April 15, 2009 – TURF Founder, Terri Hall, addressed thousands in attendance at the San Antonio Tea Party today at the Alamo. The event hosted Glenn Beck, Ted Nugent, and slew of concerned citizens speaking out against unresponsive government and runaway taxation and spending. Hall spoke about the tax burden of converting existing freeways into toll roads, which is a DOUBLE TAX. She also addressed the shift away from affordable, gas tax-funded roads to public private partnership (PPPs) toll roads, which hands our public infrastructure over to private corporations who charge extremely high tolls, like 75 cents a mile (as evidenced in the two deals inked with Cintra in the DFW area).

The text of the speech is below.

Texas for Sale

I think the words of a patriot of the past, Thomas Paine, that were uttered in 1776, reflect where we find ourselves again today in America.

He said:
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”

Is that not so true today? Fellow Patriots, the Trans Texas Corridor and the widespread proliferation of toll roads, particularly the use of public private partnerships to exploit the eminent domain powers of govt and join it with the financial self-interest of private corporations, is nothing more than an all-out assault on our freedom: the freedom to travel, the freedom to own private property, and the freedom from oppressive taxation and overbearing government. And that, my friends, is tyranny! Though not easily conquered, it can and must be crushed.

The NAFTA Superhighway, known as the Trans Texas Corridor (or TTC for short) to Texans and called a myth by those trying to silence the truth, is very real and even has some segments already under construction. It’s a 4,000 mile, multi-modal network of toll roads, rail lines, utilities, telecommunications, and pipelines of all sorts. It will be up to 1,200 feet wide (4 football fields wide) and will take a total of 580,000 of private land. Two foreign companies partnering with an American company have been given the rights to develop the TTC, which includes the right to build the most lucrative segments without being subjected to competitive bidding, leaving the taxpayers to subsidize the parts that aren’t toll viable.

The TTC will literally bisect whole cities and towns slicing them in two, giving residents, farmers, and schoolchildren no access to the other side of this 1,200 foot wide tollway. In fact, the law states the private operator only has to build overpasses where the corridor intersects state hwys and interstates. So on TTC-35 there are only 5 exits in the entire state of Texas!

So make no mistake, this nightmare called the TTC is alive and well. We’ve personally attended most all of the nearly one hundred TTC hearings since 2006. When more than 40,000 Texans have gone on record against it, politicians take notice. But instead of KILL this nightmare; they try to find new ways to put lipstick on their pig.

Last year, there was an announcement disguised as a victory, where the Texas Department of Transportation, or TxDOT, said it would now expand existing highways (primarily Hwy 59) to build TTC-69, instead of building a massive new corridor through rural Texas. But guess what? There’s always a catch when billions of dollars are to be made, and when multi-national corporations are chomping at the bit to get their cheap Chinese goods into the U.S. exploiting cheaper Mexican ports, trucks, and labor.

Let me read to you what the winning bidder, ACS of Spain, said was the purpose of this corridor:

“The TTC-69 will connect the Mexican border with the Gulf of Mexico coastline, Houston and major industrial and logistics centres in Texas with the north of the country.

…ACS (and its partner) the Texan concessionaire Zachry American Infrastructure, have become the successful bidders for the design, planning and development, as strategic partners of…TxDOT, of the TTC-69 infrastructure corridor for the next 50 years.”

The purpose for these corridors is international trade, not congestion relief as our politicians claim, and they have no intention of killing their plans to build these trade routes at Texans’ expense.

Oh they’ll tell you your free lanes will still be there, but they’re fixin’ to do to freeways here in San Antonio (281 &1604) and that is, toll the existing freeway lanes and make the only free lanes, frontage roads. Calling it highway robbery is no exaggeration!

It’s a DOUBLE TAX to charge us again for what we’ve already built and paid for. Concerned citizens through TURF have also been on the front lines fighting the use of stimulus money to build toll roads in yet another DOUBLE TAX scheme. The Transportation Commission voted to use 70% of the federal stimulus funds to build toll roads, yet you’ll have to pay another tax, a toll tax, to drive on them!

Within TWO weeks of TxDOT’s announcement that it’ll use existing roads for TTC-69, TxDOT signed the public private partnership contract with ACS of Spain and Zachry of San Antonio that gives them 12% guaranteed annual profits, a no-bid right to cherry-pick the most lucrative segments to profit from, and they’re not even bringing their own money to the table since 3/4 to 100% of the construction cost will be paid for with YOUR MONEY…that’s right, Texas lawmakers are stealing gas taxes, and public bonds and loans to build the NAFTA superhighway but they’ll charge you again and again to drive on it and give all the profits to Zachry and ACS of Spain!

On January 6 of this year, TxDOT also announced that its renaming the TTC, “Innovative Connectivity” Plan, because 40,000 Texans stood-up against the Trans Texas Corridor. Now they try to fool us by giving this detested project another fancy name, which in reality is just more lipstick for their pig!

We’ve been brow beat with a pack of empty talking points by think tanks and government alike, that these public-private toll deals are free market, and the silver bullet to funding infrastructure without having to raise taxes, because the private partners bring all the money to the table, not cash-strapped govt, and it’s the private partner, not the taxpayers, who carry the financial risk, they’ll say.

Well, all you have to do is dig into any one of the 5 contracts in TX and those in other states (Indiana, Illinois, Florida, and Virginia) to know that not one of those things is true. First of all, a toll is a tax, and, in the case of public-private partnerships, it’s a tax in the hands of corporations, not elected officials! Try 75 cents a mile on for size. That’s the published toll rate Cintra, also based in Spain, will charge on two projects inked just weeks ago in Dallas Ft. Worth.

Second, there is no risk to the private operator when the taxpayers are subsidizing these projects with HEAPS of public money, including gas taxes, and when the state grants investors a non-compete agreement that prohibits the expansion and construction of free roads that “compete” with their tollways, they can guarantee congestion on the free lanes for a half century or more.

When these sweetheart deals fail, like we’ve seen with the mortgage crisis and the subsequent global financial meltdown, it’s the taxpayers on the hook for the debt, not these global corporations.

One contract even gives TxDOT a financial incentive to lower the speed limit on the competing “free” interstate, I-35, to drive more traffic to the high speed Trans Texas Corridor,

Our government has become the puppet of private industry and they’ve figured out how to team-up to make billions off the public’s roadways. These highways belong to WE THE PEOPLE, not the government, not the road lobby.

They have NO right to steal our land in the name of “public use” when it’s really about private gain and big government profiteering that will relegate those who cannot afford the tolls to second class citizens. Eminent domain has always been used for roads, but now for the first time, the government can literally steal your land, pay you next to nothing for it, and give it to a private company for private profit. It’s the Kelo vs. New London case wrapped up in a different colored bow applied to roads.

In Texas, they even passed a law, called quick take, that allows the govt to vacate the landowner within 90 days of notice of condemnation whether or not your case is settled. This almost guarantees the landowner will have to take the state’s offer, because who can re-locate hundreds of head of cattle in 90 days without compensation?

There is a massive war going on in this country between the pro-privatization special interest groups and freedom-loving Americans. The laws have already been dramatically altered to allow these public-private partnerships, and politicians have orchestrated a shift away from an affordable, gas tax funded freeway system to a new policy of prolific and oppressive toll taxation. They’re planning to toll the living daylights out of urban commuters in order to give their cronies government-sanctioned monopolies over YOUR roads that you depend for daily living.

We experienced uncharted territory when gas hit $4 a gallon last year, above the inflation-adjusted high of 1980. We’re back up to $2.00 a gallon right now. The mentality inside the beltway and in Austin is that no matter what they decide to charge us in new toll taxes, that motorists will pay it. They know we have to get to work. We won’t have real alternatives.

This is oppressive taxation on top of skyrocketing fuel costs. There’s only so much money in the family budget that can go to transportation before it takes money away from the necessities. We already see the dramatic decline of the standard of living in America in a very short period of time. It’s only going to get worse, they tell us, in order to condition us into accepting the globalists’ agenda.

Toll roads ultimately chop up our public freeways into a two-tiered highway system; one for those who can afford thousands a year in new toll taxes, and another one those who can’t. And those who can’t afford the toll roads will become second class citizens stuck in congestion while still paying gas taxes, and will also face the reality of having their freeways downgraded to access roads. This is not only UN-Texan, it’s UN-American!

So isn’t this what we’re conditioned to accept in government? We’re endlessly being asked to tighten OUR belts, while both our state and federal governments siphon-off our gas taxes for diversions that don’t even pertain to roads, and squander the rest on frivolous earmarks, like the bridge to nowhere?

How about TxDOT spending $9 million of taxpayer money to wage an ad campaign to advocate tolls roads and the Trans Texas Corridor? TURF filed a complaint with the Travis County District Attorney’s office immediately upon learning of this illegal use of taxpayer money. The DA’s office did nothing. So we filed a lawsuit in civil court to stop TxDOT from spending anymore of our money on taxpayer-funded lobbying.

• Through our lawsuit we’ve discovered that indeed TxDOT has been engaging in illegal lobbying. They can’t say they’re not lobbying when invoices show they’ve hired 5 registered lobbyists to the tune of $100,000 a month to lobby elected officials in Texas and in Washington, particularly targeting local elected officials in the path of the Trans Texas Corridor.
• We found documents that show the purpose of the ad campaign is to “neutralize” toll and TTC opponents and to target counties opposed to the TTC in order to turn the tide of opposition.
• PR firm stated: “The political environment needs to be changed to make it less hostile to the TTC.”  The goal of the campaign is to define the benefits of the TTC to the majority of Texans and help inoculate it from negative attacks."

• They’ve conducted push polls on the taxpayers’ dime to garner support for the TTC.
• The testimony from someone in the State Auditor’s office found TxDOT knowingly ginned-up bogus funding shortfalls in order to push toll roads!

I’m afraid this doesn’t stop in Texas. Just last summer, a new lobby group called Transportation Transformation or T2 announced that not only TxDOT, but 3 other state DOTs have officially teamed up with the bond investors and private toll road and corridor interests to directly lobby Congress in Washington for more public private partnerships and toll roads.

TURF has actively worked to effect change through the Texas Legislature for the last two sessions. I was appalled at the level of corruption and outright contempt for the average citizen in Austin. When we go to testify for and against bills, we are literally the only ordinary citizens in the room. In fact, these hearing rooms are packed with lobbyists and even 3 & 4 rows deep of standing room only in the back. Do you want to know why your phone calls and comments aren’t heeded in Austin? Because special interests and lobbyists run our government from the shadows. I like to call them the shadow government. We never elect them, and we have no influence over them at the ballot box. They exist solely for their own self-interest; to exploit you and I, the taxpayers, in order to increase our tax burden for their own benefit. It’s a feeding frenzy at the public trough.

In a book by a friend and member of TURF’s Advisory Committee, Dr. Pat Choate called Dangerous Business, the Risks of Globalization for America, he includes an entire section that lists page after page of elected officials turned lobbyists now making six figure + incomes lobbying their former colleagues in Congress for money, lots of it. And this is from just the last two Administrations. That’s why they don’t listen to us any longer, even if we are successful at booting them from office, they know that they and their families will be taken care of by the big money for the rest of their lives. It’s abundantly clear that our elected officials no longer represent us.

We have volunteers handing out an important flyer to you today that gives you a list of bills currently before the Texas Legislature, which is just a taste of the taxation free for all happening in Austin this very hour. Last session, the Legislature placed a moratorium on these public private partnership toll road contracts, but it was a counterfeit moratorium since at least a dozen of the contracts were taken out of the moratorium as evidenced in the two just signed and given to Cintra who will charge us 75 cents a mile to get to work!

The Texas Senate just passed two horrific bills last week: one to re-authorize the private toll contracts that sell our highways to the highest bidder, and the other to allow counties to levy a litany of local taxes on everything that moves like:

- an impact fee for new residents
- a tax on passenger vehicles
- a vehicle registration tax
- a vehicle sales tax
- a sales tax
- a local gas tax increase
- a tax on every mile driven (with no limit)
- a congestion tax for "high congestion areas during peak hours" (in addition to their plan to toll those areas!)
- a driver's license tax
- an emissions tax and even
- a tax on a parking space.

And that’s not counting other transportation taxing zones that come after your property taxes, too! These are just two of over 400 transportation bills, dwarfed by the grand total of 7,000 bills working their way through the Legislature. One would create an entire state agency that does nothing but write these public private partnership contracts! We cannot afford to bury our heads in the sand or simply wish it all goes away. We need your help to stop this runaway taxation and threat to our freedom to travel!

WE MUST TAKE OUR GOVERNMENT BACK! We need to fight for elected representatives who are public SERVANTS and statesmen, not self-absorbed politicians who exploit those they are elected represent. That means some of you need to be willing to run for public office. All of us need to support candidates who value the Constitution more than winning re-election, and we all MUST get involved in the political process in some way in order to preserve our precious Republic for future generations.  We need leaders who take an oath to always put the public interest above special interests, principle over Party, and values over what’s politically expedient.

It all starts with educating ourselves and our children on the Founders, their lives, and the principles and they fought and died for in order to establish a country based on self-governance, set apart from those before her and after her that still stands as a City on a Hill today, like in this book, For You They Signed, by Marilyn Boyer, that has character studies on the lives of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

We need a new generation of patriots willing to mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to once again establish a free Republic for OUR posterity! We must demand fundamental reform to ensure checks and balances and to put the power back in the hands of the PEOPLE as the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees a free people. If we don’t, our government is on track to bankrupt us and future generations.

So I ask you, have we had enough? I cannot help but be inspired by the resolve of another patriot, Patrick Henry, who said in his famous speech that sparked a revolution:

“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

We need to ask ourselves, will we allow our government to shackle us with oppressive taxation just to get to work and go about daily living? Will we allow our government to carve a 1,200 ft wide swath through the heartland of America and sacrifice private property rights in the name of foreign trade and commerce? Or will we continue to fight a new revolution, a taxpayer revolt, a political movement to stop the sale of America’s freeways to the highest bidder on Wall Street, to stop tolls across Texas and America, protect our right to own property without fear of government abuses, and preserve our way of life and our precious freedoms bought with a price from those who came before us?

They, those who have sold out American freedom in favor of the almighty dollar and the intoxication of power, aren’t counting on you and me and this freedom movement taking our government back. But as for me, and I think all of you here today and the hundreds of thousands who couldn’t be with us, the resounding answer is: give us liberty!

May this event spark a movement of ordinary citizens from all walks of life and all political stripes who have had enough of abusive, overbearing government and who see the dire necessity to change course. We stand at a crossroads, and may this day, April 15, 2009 mark a turning point back to Constitutionally-restrained government, and one that’s OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, and FOR THE PEOPLE!

We invite you to get involved and join us on the frontlines of a taxpayer revolt to preserve our freedom to travel by visiting our table right next to the KSLR and WOAI booths to the right of the stage or going to the Texas TURF.org web site. No one else can do it for us; we MUST do this ourselves. Government certainly doesn’t fix itself. We often feel like Peter, the little Dutch boy who had his finger in the crack of the dike and held back certain disaster for his homeland. We need more people in this fight. It will take a Texas-sized tax revolt to stop the assault on our freedom and prosperity.

But most importantly, never give up, do not falter, and NEVER waver in the cause of liberty. If this one homeschool mom can start a movement that spread across this state to influence the Texas Legislature, all the way to Washington D.C., and recently even to Denmark, so can each and every one of you. Thank you and may God bless and preserve what our Founders’ inherently knew was a fragile Republic, the United States of America!

Senate poised to hand freeways to private toll operators


IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Senate poised to hand public freeways to private toll operators


(Austin, TX, April 1, 2009) Texans don’t want their PUBLIC highway system sold to the highest bidder, nor do they want corporate-run toll roads that cost commuters 75 cents a mile to get to work. Private toll road contracts are due to sunset this fall. Today, the Texas Senate will vote on whether to extend these contracts called Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDAs) in Texas also known as public private partnerships (PPPs). CDAs need to sunset. In 2007, Texans stood-up and demanded a moratorium on CDAs and sent a bill to the Governor with a combined vote of 169-4.

So what happened to our politicians? Do they think Texans have changed their mind and will choke down the loss of control of our public highways and such oppressive taxation?

Hardly. The public is largely unaware of what our politicians are about to ram through, and they think they took care of it two years ago only to wake-up to find the nightmare continues unabated.

These deals cost taxpayers 50% more, are failing all over the country, and result in extremely high tolls, like the DFW contracts just signed with Spain-based Cintra that will charge commuters 75 cents a mile to get to work. That’s $3,000 a year in new toll taxes. Especially in these economic times, that’s completely unsustainable. There were 20 lawyers present at the signing of the SH 130 CDA. TxDOT has squandered at least $18 million on legal fees alone for just the TTC-35 CDA. When TxDOT is claiming we’re out of money for roads, CDAs are the height of hypocrisy.


CDAs are the most risky and expensive method of delivering toll projects. How quickly the testimony from Dennis Enright of Northwest Financial in New Jersey before the Senate Transportation Committee March 1, 2007 has been forgotten. Mr. Enright said there is no risk transfer to the private entity and that CDAs cost the taxpayers of a minimum of 50% more than public toll roads. Mr. Enright rightly called toll roads monopolies by their very nature. He also said it’s always best to keep these projects in the public NOT private sector.

So why are CDAs being discussed at all? Public infrastructure that Texans depend on for daily living shouldn’t be under the control of private companies whose primary motive, naturally, is profit, not the public interest.

The way the current bill, SB 17, is structured, if the public toll entity cannot get the financing together to do a public toll road, they'd have to pass
the project to TxDOT who would hand it to the private developer. The bill doesn't give the public any protection, but shows TxDOT how it can just wait it out and then hand projects to the private companies. The bill also allows the whole evaluation process to be waived and TxDOT and public tolling entities can jump precipitously into CDAs. So what’s the point of the bill, if they can waive the requirements and get a free pass?

Texas examples...

The recently signed I-820 deal includes gas taxes, federal TIFIA loans, and other public money yet Cintra gets the right to toll Texans for 50 years and take all the profits out of state. In fact, TxDOT plunked down more cash for the project than did Cintra! (Read it here.)

The LBJ project to toll I-635 uses public employee pension funds to invest in the deal, which is risky and fiscally irresponsible, with toll rates of 75 cents a mile and can rise monthly. TxDOT will even pay Cintra for the loss of the "prevailing toll" revenues due to HOV users and Cintra is guaranteed 12% to 23% PROFIT!

Their models show only 10 & 11% of all traffic will be able to afford to
take these billion dollar toll lanes. The congestion or variable tolling is the most insidious of all where they jack-up the toll rates to guarantee certain speeds or pay TxDOT a penalty for slower travel times. This means they purposely price cars off the toll lanes as a financial incentive.

So what's the point of all this risky, multi-generational leveraged debt? Mobility or making money? We’re headed for an infrastructure bubble that is destined to fail, which is likely to ensure massive taxpayer bailouts when they do. All those cars not on the toll road will be sitting in traffic, contributing to our air quality issues and being late to work while still paying taxes for highways (gas tax) and not getting a thing for it!

Call your state lawmakers and tell them not to let private corporations takeover our public highways. Tell them NO to SB 17, and NO to more sweetheart deals.

Read how CDAs are failing all over the world on our CDA Fact Sheet here.

Terri Hall is the Founder of Texas TURF. TURF is a non-partisan grassroots group of  citizens concerned about toll road policy and the Trans Texas Corridor. TURF promotes non-toll transportation solutions. For more information, please visit their web site at: www.TexasTURF.org.

Nichols' senate bill expands loopholes to toll existing freeways

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Senate bill opens NEW loophole to toll existing highways

Friday, March 27, 2009 – SB 220 authored by Senator Robert Nichols actually opens a NEW loophole that would allow existing highway lanes to be tolled and the free lanes to be subsequently downgraded to access roads. This bill would legalize the conversions of at least three highways: 281 N and 1604 in Bexar County and 290 E in Travis County. SB 220 passed the Senate 31-0 despite citizen concerns, TURF testimony, and our action alert notifying EVERY single senator of this problem.

"It's an outrage that the author of this bill, Senator Nichols, is out there touting that he's ended the tolling of existing highways, and he knows his bill does just the opposite! He's an ex-Transportation Commissioner who not only was involved in writing the first bill to address tolls on existing highways that had the original loopholes back in 2005 (SB 2702), but also he was present when Governor Perry signed the contract with Cintra for the Trans Texas Corridor, and he has plenty of ties to and funding from the highway lobby. He knows exactly what he's doing. The leopard is showing his spots," explains Terri Hall TURF Founder.

The wording of this bill leaves a number of loopholes for TxDOT to leap through.

Sections 228.201 (a) 1, 3, 5 are the trouble spots and need to be omitted. Section one essentially allows the Texas Transportation Commission to convert any freeway as long as they do it before it awards a contract. Section three would allow virtually EVERY toll project in the state to be a conversion since most were in an MPO plan prior to September of 2005. Then, section five permits TxDOT to convert freeways all it wants if they simply slap a stoplight on it and snarl traffic for years on end until the public capitulates to toll taxes. It states if a highway lane has a "control device" prior to the conversion, those lanes can be tolled and the free lanes downgraded to frontage roads with permanent stoplights and slower speed limits.

“It should NEVER be legal to take away existing highway lanes and downgrade the free lanes into frontage roads. But section #5 of this bill would do exactly that,” notes Hall.

On the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 expansion of Hwy 59, for instance, SB 220 would enable TxDOT to convert existing highway lanes (that have stoplights when it traverses through small towns) into a toll road. Then those toll lanes would be under the control of a Spain-based company, ACS, which has the development rights to the TTC-69 corridor, leaving access roads as the only non-toll lanes.

Hank Gilbert, on the Board of TURF, directly questioned TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz about this at the 2008 TxDOT press conference promising to use existing highways for the footprint on TTC-69, and he failed to give a definitive answer.

If you watched the Sunset Commission hearings last July, you saw legislators awaken to the fact that TxDOT was NOT following the legislative intent of its previous attempt to outlaw converting existing freeways into toll roads.

“When TxDOT is going to toll every single mainlane currently open to traffic as a US highway built and paid for with state and federal dollars and leave only frontage roads as the non-toll, the taxpayers have rightly gone nuclear,” says Hall.

Most rural divided highways eventually need stoplights at the crossovers. The stoplights make it no less a highway than before it had stoplights, but it certainly slows the thru traffic. Then, TxDOT usually upgrades to a controlled access highway by building overpasses over the stoplights and adding frontage lanes where needed. So TxDOT has been exploiting this all over the state by turning freeways with stoplights (which are naturally congested by having to stop) into tollways instead of building overpasses and keeping those lanes toll-free.

“This is wrong and unacceptable. You’ve also been hearing plenty of protest about using stimulus money to build toll roads in a TRIPLE TAX scheme Texans WILL NOT tolerate. Converting existing freeways into toll roads is the same tax scheme, this time a DOUBLE tax, using a different pot of money,” relates Gilbert who protested the use of stimulus money for toll roads for which a commissioner called him and TURF supporters, “bigots.” Watch it here.

“By leaving this bill as is, it's legalizing theft, period. If TxDOT can slap a stoplight on a highway as a license to double tax motorists to get to work, then that’s exactly what they’ll do to get easy access to our wallets. This is horrific public policy and it needs to be fixed,” Hall said.

Texans say: No stimulus money for toll roads

PRESS ADVISORY


Texans to TxDOT:  No stimulus funds for toll roads! Slow down and fix it first, invest stimulus wisely

Austin, TX, March 3, 2009 – The Texas Transportation Commission is poised to ram through $1.7 billion of new stimulus-funded projects at their meeting Thursday. The project list is chock full of controversial projects, including the Grand Parkway in Houston, the US-281 toll road across the Edwards aquifer in San Antonio, more toll roads to nowhere, and sprawl highways through environmentally-sensitive areas. Further, many Texans object to spending stimulus on toll roads.

On Tuesday morning, Texans from across the state will converge at the capitol to demand that Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) slow down and do this right. We must ensure our federal stimulus isn't wasted on boondoggles!

What: Joint citizen press conference on stimulus funds

Who:
Texans United for Reform and Freedom (TURF), Terri Hall,
Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter, Ken Kramer,
Environment Texas, Alejandro Savransky,
Independent Texans, Linda Curtis,
Houston Tomorrow, Jay Crossley,
Citizens' Transportation Coalition (CTC), Robin Holzer,

When: Tuesday, Mar 3, 2009 at 9:15 am

Where: East steps of the Texas capitol, Austin, TX

Visuals: Texas capitol, Texans on the steps, TxDOT headquarters across the street

Background:
In February, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) allocated $2.25 billion in federal transportation funds to Texas. The US Department of Transportation (DOT) will allow states up to one year to decide which projects to build.

Planning Commission takes on TxDOT, Trans Texas Corridor in Nacogdoches


TURF Board member Hank Gilbert is the President of the 391 planning commission in the Piney Woods/Nacogdoches region and they're using local government to challenge the Trans Texas Corridor. Go Hank!

PRESS RELEASE -January 16, 2009

PWSRPC Hosts Meeting with TxDOT, EPA Next

The Piney Woods Sub-Regional Planning Commission (PWSRPC) took another step in the process of maintaining local control of future highway construction during a meeting held with TxDOT representatives last week.  The over-flow capacity crowd of public supporters caused the PWSRPC-TxDOT meeting to be moved to a much larger meeting room in the Nacogdoches County Courthouse Annex.  This did not miss the attention of the three TxDOT officials, two of which were from the Austin Office, and the panel of consultants TxDOT brought with them, as nearly a hundred local citizens turned out to hear the Planning Commission's President, Hank Gilbert, grill TxDOT as to their plans.


Doug Booher, 'on the scene' Environmental Manager stated, "We're not going to pursue the 4,000 mile network.  We are going to continue to pursue two individual projects; one of them would be the I-35 corridor project and the other one would be the I-69 corridor project."

When asked the question from the attending audience about a loop that once was planned to go around the West side of Nacogdoches, Booher stated, "I'm sure those plans would be dusted off and looked at again."  He also stated the name 'Trans Texas Corridor' would be 'phased out' and mentioned several times that tolling and public/private partnerships (by foreign investors) would still be an option in TxDOT's transportation plans.

Hank Gilbert also expressed to PWSRPC members that he is concerned about legislation Governor Perry may try to pass that would eliminate SRPC's, such as the Piney Woods.

"We have people watching out for such legislation and if it is introduced, we will need for the citizens of Texas to call their Representatives and let them know that they want to keep their local SRPC's," Gilbert stated.

The strong show of public support for the PWSRPC's meeting with TxDOT validates the desire of the public for input and information.  The NEXT Piney Woods Sub-Regional Planning Commission meeting will be with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Representatives on Thursday, February 5, at 10:00 a.m. in the Nacogdoches County Annex.  This will also be an open meeting and the public is urged to attend.  As Board Member Larry Shelton has stated, "You are either at the table or you are on the menu."

TTC is NOT dead

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Trans Texas Corridor renamed, not dead

TURF supporters demand ACTION, not rhetoric

TURF reaction to TxDOT announcement:

The announcement by TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz at the Texas Transportation Forum that the "Trans Texas Corridor, as it was originally envisioned, is no more," is just another in a series of comments to lead opponents into believing the Trans Texas Corridor is indeed dead. TURF believes this is a deliberate move to dupe opponents into complacency, and we expect iron-clad action before we begin celebrating victory.

It's clear from the TxDOT Director's speech, that it's only a name change and the Trans Texas Corridor is, in reality, going underground.

This fact is evident in just about every news source across the state:

"'Amadeo told folks at the forum that the Trans-Texas Corridor, as it was originally envisioned, is no more,' Amacker (Saenz spokesperson) said. 'Instead, what we've got is a series of smaller projects.'

Those 'smaller projects' will apparently include the 300-plus miles of what has been called TTC-35 from San Antonio to the Oklahoma border and the I-69 project from the Rio Grande Valley to Texarkana. But they will not be called the Trans-Texas Corridor." -- Austin American Statesman

________________________________________________________

"Other than backpedaling from the Trans-Texas Corridor brand, and the goals and priorities set over the years, the Trans-Texas Corridor remains intact.

TxDOT still plans to partner with private corporations to build and lease projects. Toll roads, truck-only lanes and rail lanes are also still on the table.

Environmental studies for the I-35 and East Texas corridor segments still chug through the pipeline. And a development contract with Cintra of Spain and Zachry Construction Co. of San Antonio, for projects paralleling I-35, is still valid." -- San Antonio Express-News

_________________________________________________________

"The renewed effort now will operate under the name 'Innovative Connectivity Plan.'" -- Houston Chronicle
_________________________________________________________

No law has been changed, no minute order rescinded, no environmental document re-done (as is required by federal law), and there are still two contracts signed giving two Spanish companies the right of first refusal on segments of the corridor previously known as TTC-35  & TTC-69. So by every real measure, the Trans Texas Corridor goes on full steam ahead. What today's hype was about is a political ploy to make the public go back to sleep while it gets built under a different name. While we welcome genuine responsiveness from TxDOT and a true repeal of the Trans Texas Corridor, this hardly qualifies.

Lets just say, we agree with Senator Robert Nichols' statement in the Dallas Morning News:

"If it is just a name change, and nothing more, I don't think that is going to do much to appease lawmakers," said Nichols, R-Jacksonville.

TxDOT's top brass commit perjury

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TxDOT’s top brass perjures themselves

TURF releases explosive footage of depositions from ad campaign/lobbying lawsuit to Sunset Commission

Tuesday, July 15, 2008 – Some very damaging footage of TxDOT’s top brass under oath was presented to the Sunset Advisory Commission at its hearing on the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) today (view here or go to www.TruthBeTolled.com to view). As part of TURF’s lawsuit against TxDOT to stop its illegal lobbying and ad campaign called Keep Texas Moving to promote toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor in violation of Texas Government Code Chapter 556, several top officials of TxDOT were deposed under oath where they perjured themselves.

TURF gave each member of the Commission a DVD of a new documentary film, Truth Be Tolled TURF Special Edition, made about TxDOT’s Keep Texas Moving campaign that shows portions of legal depositions of TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz, Director of Government and Public Affairs Division Coby Chase, and Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton.



TURF showed the Sunset Advisory Commission that TxDOT has made an unprecedented push to win public approval for its controversial toll road and Trans Texas Corridor project, using public money, which is not only illegal, it unfairly stacks the deck against citizens.

Houghton swore under oath that TxDOT had not hired registered lobbyists when these invoices show they have (as well as Houghton’s own admission during a Town Hall Meeting in Hempstead). State law prohibits state agencies from hiring lobbyists and prohibits them from using public money for a political purpose. State agencies are to implement policy, not shape it. Video clips from the Town Hall meeting in Hempstead, January 22, also show Houghton trying to sway the crowd in favor of the Trans Texas Corridor while under oath he was adamant that TxDOT and he had not done so.



PULL ANY ADVOCACY CAMPAIGNS FROM TXDOT
Keep Texas Moving advocates the Trans Texas Corridor, privatization of infrastructure, and tolling. The information in this campaign only extols the benefits of tolling and privatization (and never includes criticisms).

The stated goal of the campaign found in TxDOT documents is:
"To shift perception among those who are opposed to or on the fence about the TTC" and to change the political environment to “make it less hostile to the TTC" and to promote the “benefits of TTC…and help inoculate it from negative attacks" as well as “increase support of TxDOT programs."

“This is no public information campaign. It’s a taxpayer-funded political ad campaign, which is not only illegal, but it also abuses the taxpayers in order to line TxDOT’s pockets with the MOST EXPENSIVE transportation tax,” says Terri Hall, TURF Founder who testified before the Sunset Commission.

TxDOT hired 5 registered lobbyists to the tune of $100,000/month to directly lobby Congress and other elected officials for more CDAs, the TTC, and tolling. Saenz, Chase, and Houghton all claimed ignorance of the law under oath, but Chapter 556.009 says all state officers and employees are given the law prior to taking a position with the State and a record of their acknowledgment of receipt is to be kept in writing.

“So any claim of ignorance of the law by the top brass is no get out jail free card,” Hall said.

This document shows TxDOT targeted County Judges in the path of the TTC-69. Houghton testified in the TURF lawsuit that lobbyist Gary Bushell is who arranged Houghton’s meetings with the County Judges. County Judges are key in appointing an arbitration committee between landowners and the State in eminent domain cases. So TxDOT’s lobbying effort was clearly to give the State an advantage in eminent domain proceedings for the Trans Texas Corridor.

Despite the TURF lawsuit and the suspension of hiring outside lobbyists, TxDOT recently hired an in-house lobbyist, Rebecca Reyes, to lobby Democrats in Congress through TxDOT’s Washington office and joined a lobby group named Transportation Transformation, or T2, with 4 other DOTs and private investors, like Goldman Sachs, to lobby Congress for more CDAs.

TxDOT also conducted push polls seeking to gain public approval of the TTC, which included asking overtly political questions like political party affiliation and if the respondent voted straight ticket in the last election.

In another document, it states TxDOT’s messages in the ad campaign would promote tolling over gas taxes with statements like, “tolls are better than gas taxes to fund roads.”

“The Sunset Commission needs to strongly recommend the repeal of Section 228.004 from the transportation code and remove from TxDOT any ability to promote toll roads. They’ve become an arm of private industry that cannot be trusted to expend funds in a way that protects the public interest,” insisted Hall.

END FREEWAY TO TOLLWAY CONVERSIONS
TURF and many of its supporters addressed the reforms the citizens demand in order to restore trust in the agency, anywhere from replacing the unelected 5 member Transportation Commission with a single ELECTED commissioner to fixing how decisions to toll roads are made (and giving the public real veto power), to getting an accurate figure of road funding needs independently of TxDOT, as well as ending freeway to tollway conversions.

The complete conversion of US 281 from a freeway, already built and open to traffic for decades, to a toll road shocked the Commission and was a central part of the hearing. Representative Linda Harper-Brown questioned TxDOT’s perversion of a state law, HB 2702, that prohibits conversions without a public vote and requires them to leave as many non-toll lanes that exist before adding toll lanes. But TxDOT is tolling every single express lane (or main lane) on US 281 and downgrading the non-toll lanes to access roads with slower speed limits and permanent stop lights, an unfair replacement say critics.

Even worse, the 281 improvements have been funded with gas taxes starting in 2003 ($100 million plan total), but it was turned into a toll road simply to generate revenue for other area projects, clearly a discriminatory, targeted tax. Now as a toll road, the pricetag has ballooned to a whopping $1.3 billion!

“With highway robbery of this scale, it’s no wonder the supposed funding gap for future roads swelled to $86 billion. This is insane! Rep. Joe Pickett once stated we can build 4 freeways for the price of one toll road. In the case of US 281, we can build 10 freeways for the price of one toll project!” notes an outraged Hall.

TURF also delivered disks of all the evidence in their lawsuit to the Travis County District Attorney’s office to press them to file criminal charges against guilty parties.

“Texans are tired of one legal standard for them and another for those in power. The Truth Be Tolled TURF Special Edition DVD (www.TruthBeTolled.com) is enough evidence to show TxDOT is guilty of lying under oath and prosecuting an illegal ad and lobbying campaign on the taxpayers’ dime. Blood’s in the water now, and the sharks are circling. The people demand justice,” Hall commented.

TURF reaction to TxDOT awarding TTC-69 to ACS of Spain & Zachry


IMMEDIATE RELEASE


TURF statement on TxDOT selecting private partner to develop TTC-69

Austin, TX, June 26, 2008

After the overwhelming public feedback preferred the “no build” option and after the Legislature made it clear it wanted time to slow down this train of privatizing our public infrastructure, TxDOT’s selection, today, of a private partner to develop TTC-69 is a total slap in the face to the people of Texas.

This proposal awarded to ZAI/ACS (Zachry American Infrastructure and ACS, based in Spain) is chalk full of egregious taxpayer exploitation. For instance, it tolls loops around Riviera, Driscoll, Corpus Christi and other cities (7 loops total) to fund non-toll improvements to Hwy 77 in yet another Robin Hood scheme. The deal gives ZAI/ACS a guaranteed 12% rate of return on their investment, and it relies heavily on public funds, like federal taxpayer backed private activity bonds (PABs) and TIFIA loans to front the vast majority of the construction costs and then gives all the profit to Zachry & ACS!


They also plan to use taxable zero coupon fixed rate bonds issued by the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority and controversial Transportation Reinvestment Zone (TMZ) funds, which will essentially heist property taxes. The deal also gives ZAI/ACS cherry-picking rights (or right of first refusal) on multiple segments for the TTC-69 without being subjected to a competitive bidding process. The sham of an announcement pandering to landowners promising to use existing highways for TTC-69 wasn’t a concession at all. The private “partners” informed them the new corridor route wasn’t toll viable so they reverted back to using existing freeways (which would have been the tollway’s biggest revenue “competitor”) so as to capture more toll revenue. It was Cintra and Zachry who determined the re-route, not TxDOT being responsive to an outraged public!

“If this isn’t a wake-up call to the Legislature that it’s business as usual at TxDOT until they forcibly restrain them via state law, we don’t know what is. This removes any requirement for competitive bidding, which on its face is an absolute failure of the State's fiduciary duty to protect the taxpayers from monopolistic sweetheart deals and what's certain to be inflated costs. We must make Legislators pay at the ballot box for their malfeasance in granting the authority for such no-bid contracts and for failing to rein-in TxDOT with a GENUINE moratorium last year BEFORE this next private sweetheart deal got signed. If they don’t completely clean house at TxDOT and end this public fleecing, there won’t be enough political cover for the consequences at the ballot box. Enough is enough. End this now!” notes Terri Hall, TURF Founder.

“At today’s Transportation Commission meeting, it was a lovefest between David Zachry and the South Texas politicos pushing this nonsense. TxDOT and their buddies at Zachry/ACS found a way to follow the bare minimum of the law to sign this CDA and continue to steamroll a plan the majority of Texans don’t want. It was also evident the Transportation Commission is desperate to come up with their own alternative reforms since they’re facing an angry public demanding TxDOT be scrapped, a discontented Legislature, and scathing Sunset Commission recommendations,” observed Hank Gilbert, TURF Board member and acting President of the Piney Woods Subregional Planning Commission who attended and testified at today's meeting.

For more detailed analysis of how TxDOT can legally award a Comprehensive Development Agreement (CDA) outside the moratorium (SB 792), go to TURF’s web site here.

-30-

Link to article here.

Commission picks developer for I-69 project
Plan would build toll road loops around Corpus Christi, other cities
By JANET ELLIOTT
Houston Chronicle, Austin Bureau
June 26, 2008
AUSTIN — The Texas Transportation Commission on Thursday selected San Antonio's Zachry Construction Corp. and a Spanish toll road developer to plan a superhighway from Texarkana to Brownsville.

The $5 million contract calls for Zachry American Infrastructure and ACS Infrastructure to create a financial plan for the Interstate 69 segment of the Trans-Texas Corridor.

"This team represents the best in the balance of local and global expertise necessary to complete a project of this scope," said David Zachry, chief operating officer of Zachry Construction Corp.

The private developers' plan calls for seven new loops around Corpus Christi and other cities to be constructed as toll roads. Revenue would pay for bringing existing stretches of U.S. 77 up to interstate standards. U.S. 77, however, would not be tolled.

They also propose 60 potential infrastructure projects, including commuter rail along U.S. 90 northeast of Houston, a bridge to Bolivar Peninsula, a container facility at Freeport and a desalinization plant in Brownsville. Transportation commissioners said, however, that there was no guarantee any of those projects will be built.

Houston route unknown

The final decision on the route for the corridor will be made by the Texas Department of Transportation through an ongoing environmental study. It is expected to roughly follow U.S. 59 through East Texas and south of Houston, and U.S. 77 south of Victoria.
Earlier this month, TxDOT said it had abandoned plans to build part of the I-69 corridor through rural areas north and west of Houston. Instead, it said it would stick to major highways for most of the route.

The way through or around Houston has not been determined, although it could stay on U.S. 59 or go on Loop 610 or the planned Grand Parkway.

The developers' financing ideas boosted their proposal over one submitted by a joint venture led by another Spanish company, Cintra, which is developing a master plan for the segment of the Trans-Texas Corridor slated to run from Oklahoma to Mexico, east of Interstate 35.

Zachry is a Cintra partner on the project paralleling I-35.

"We feel (this proposal) is the best value to the state," said Mark Tomlinson, director of TxDOT's turnpike division.

An anti-toll road group called the method of financing a "Robin Hood scheme."

"TxDOT and their buddies at Zachry/ACS found a way to follow the bare minimum of the law to sign this (Comprehensive Development Agreement) and continue to steamroll a plan the majority of Texans don't want," said Hank Gilbert, a board member of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom.

Toll roads operate locally

South Texas political leaders applauded the decision to move toward a longstanding goal of having the Rio Grande Valley served by an interstate highway.
"It's like getting indoor plumbing. We've waited that long for it, and it's really important," said Bill Summers, president of the Rio Grande Valley Partnership, a chamber of commerce group.

The I-69/TTC corridor is part of Gov. Rick Perry's vision for a network of broad corridors linking major cities, with toll roads for cars and trucks, rail tracks for freight and passenger trains, and space for pipelines and power lines.

The corridor plans have been met with controversy due to opposition to tolls and concern that family farmland would be lost to development.

Corridor supporters say the routes would make the highways safer and improve the flow of goods by directing commercial traffic to designated lanes. Revenue from the state's gasoline tax is insufficient to fund improvements, they say.

The developers plan to work with local authorities to operate $1.5 billion worth of toll roads. TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott said that arrangement would meet the requirements of a law passed last year that forbids private companies to operate toll roads.

TxDOT to change TTC-69 route

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TxDOT route change on TTC-69 requires new environmental study BY LAW

Citizens concerns remain since corridor still tolled behemoth in hands of private company

Austin, TX, June 11, 2008 – Today’s announcement by TxDOT that it will “consider” the use of existing right of way wherever possible on the TTC-69 Trans Texas Corridor project and its release of a new project map and study area requires a completely new environmental study per federal law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Also, TTC-69 can still be 1,200 foot wide land grabbing, privatized tolled corridor and it will toll existing right of way already paid for with gas taxes, which is DOUBLE TAXATION. TxDOT claims it won't toll existing lanes, but they've been downgrading the existing lanes to frontage roads all over the state.
 
“Why should we believe TxDOT now? The public has lost all trust in this agency that even the Sunset Committee calls ‘out of control.’ While certain landowners will no longer be affected and can breathe a sigh of relief, this project is still ill-conceived. This corridor was promised as a FREE interstate highway for decades, now they’ll convert existing freeways like Hwy 59 into privately-controlled toll roads. Somehow we feel in no mood to celebrate,” notes TURF’s Founder Terri Hall.

 

If TxDOT changes the scope of the project like a new route and study area, TxDOT has to, by law per NEPA, redo the environmental study totally and take public comment all over again, not just submit some letter to the FHWA reflecting the change. They are required to redo the document reflecting the new project route (see map here) and study the impacts of the new "alternative" selection using existing right of way replacing the new corridor "alternative" as the current document states.
 
While TxDOT says its reasons for the change are in response to the overwhelming public opposition to a new corridor, it lacks any credibility because nearly EVERY toll project in urban areas and the TTC-35 corridor also had record public comment against the projects and yet TxDOT has refused to listen to the public or change its railroading tactics.
 
“We feel this move by TxDOT may, in part, be in response to the forming of 391 regional planning commissions. They're playing legal games with semantics. Needless to say, we're very cautious about this announcement. We think it's to quell the forming of more commissions and to make concessions to the Legislature before the Sunset Commission/Legislature guts TxDOT if they don't ‘act’ more responsive to the public,” said Hank Gilbert, of TURF and acting President of the Piney Woods Subregional Planning Commission.
 
With the 391 commissions, TxDOT has to do what these local governments require of them by invoking the coordination mandate in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) "to the greatest extent practicable." That puts TxDOT in a HUGE legal box they cannot wiggle out of. The wording of this TTC-69 TxDOT statement (and the transportation commission's minute order from a few weeks ago. Read more here) is very intentionally saying they'll simply "consider" existing right of way, that is NOT a mandate to do so which the 391 commission by contrast can force. So anyway, TxDOT isn't giving up much, they're playing legal games. Needless to say, we're very cautious about this announcement. We think it's to quell the forming of more commissions and to make concessions to the Legislature before the Sunset Commission/Legislature guts the agency if they don't "act" more responsive to the public.

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