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Legislature blinks at road privatization
Written by Terri Hall   
Thursday, 02 July 2009
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.


Last Updated ( Thursday, 02 July 2009 )
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Help us STOP foreign-owned toll roads = $13 a DAY in NEW taxes!
Written by Terri Hall   
Monday, 29 June 2009

Help us STOP foreign-owned toll roads = $13 a DAY in NEW taxes! Public pension funds at risk, too!

URGENT ACTION ITEM
Texans need to DEFEAT CDAs & protect public pension funds this week!

Call your STATE legislators in Austin today and tell them to vote NO on CDAs and NO to the Revolving Fund that raids gas taxes and public pension funds for risky toll roads!

CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES: 

 
You may also contact each representative by calling the Capitol switchboard: (512) 463-4630.

CDAs mean foreign corporations have the power to control EVERY MILE WE DRIVE for a half century at a time!


So the Legislature didn't pass bills to end gas tax diversions, restrain toll taxation for every new lane of highway, prevent the conversion of FREEways to tollways, finally repeal the Trans Texas Corridor or pass a STRONG eminent domain bill, but they're spending millions for a special session to sell-out Texans to benefit private road lobbyists drinking from the public trough!

These private toll contracts, called Comprehensive Development Agreements or CDAS, are sweetheart deals that will charge the traveling public 75 cents a mile to use our PUBLIC roadways. That's $13 bucks a DAY and more than $3,000 a year PER COMMUTER on average.


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McCombs takes swipe at citizen voice on Express-News blog
Written by Terri Hall   
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Pro-toll Terrell McCombs, who is paid to lobby for toll roads by those who will profit off of them, opines that the Express-News asked concerned citizen and San Antonio Toll Party and Texas TURF Founder, Terri Hall, to do a blog for their paper. The BIG MONEY can't handle losing its monopoly on the discussion. McCombs is also clearly in the dark on the facts, fails to mention how we've "misrepresented the facts" (while he's made a profession out of misrepresenting the facts and stooping to what seems like endless personal attacks) and our policy positions. Check out the blog here.

06/25/2009
Why not substance on new lanes?
Editorial by Terrell McCombs
Express-News

The San Antonio Express-News' ability to engage people at the citizen level is remarkable, and I applaud your encouragement of ordinary Texans to make their voices heard. A new perspective on local issues and public policy is always refreshing to hear, so long as it is an informed one.

For this reason I must question your recent decision to allow a citizen activist from outside of San Antonio to publish a regular blog on the Express-News' Web site.

Terri Hall has misrepresented facts to support her arguments in the past. I hope she will use this new-found prominence to make her arguments based on substance and fact rather than one-sided opinions.

You and your readers must hold her accountable for the accuracy of what she says.

Hall does not represent the voice of all Texans. She represents a small group of followers who are apparently pro-gridlock, given their lawsuits to block additional lanes, which would relieve congestion on U.S. 281 North. Their voices may be loud, but they are misguided and use misinformation and scare tactics to block possibilities for new or innovative transportation finance options.

Instead, Hall clings to an old, indirect, and increasingly ineffective model for building new transportation infrastructure: the gas tax.

Now, don't get me wrong, the gas tax can work. However, we would be looking at an increase of more than $1.25 per gallon to begin to seriously address our huge transportation infrastructure deficit. An increase of that magnitude is politically unacceptable to state policymakers.

Frankly, many Texans and Texas businesses oppose dramatically raising the gas tax in challenging economic times and welcome the idea of private funding and user fees as ways to lower traffic congestion and improve our quality of life.

I hope Hall's Express-News blog will cause other readers who are frustrated with traffic congestion to speak up rather than allow her to tell the story for all of us.

Terrell McCombs is chairman of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition.

 
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