Perry appoints banker, toll chair to Transportation Commission

Link to article here.

Jeff Austin III appointed to transportation board

Gov. Perry appoints area banker to oversee TxDOT
JEFF AUSTIN III  

JEFF AUSTIN III Jeff Austin III, area banker and chairman of the North East Texas Regional Mobility Authority (NETRA), has been appointed a commissioner of the five- member Texas Transportation Commission. Gov. Rick Perry made the announcement Thursday.

TxDOT is among the largest agencies in state government with an operating budget of approximately $6.648 billion. Approximately 12,000 persons are employed by the department.

Mr. Austin spoke with the Cherokeean Herald Thursday afternoon and said, “I have resigned my position on the NETRMA board, and I look forward to serving on the transportation commission. I have confidence in this commission. We have a lot of good things in place. When we look at our system statewide, we see we have needs and opportunities.

“As Texas grows, we must be good stewards of what we have. We will have to set new priorities. Everyone travels our roads and highways. We need more money for sure, and we must continue to preserve these roads. The authority board has good team work among itself, and each county has set its own priorities.”

He added, “Folks in East Texas must remember I am still just a phone call away.”

The appointment drew excitement from elected officials in Austin.

State Sen. Robert Nichols of Jacksonville, a former member of the Transportation Commission, said, “I am pleased with the appointment. Mr. Austin has shown dedication and leadership in transportation issues in this region and will be an excellent advocate for rural Texas.”

“My congratulations go out to Jeff. He deserves this honor,” state Rep. Chuck Hopson of Jacksonville said. “I am excited to be able to continue to work with him. He has done an excellent job on the mobility board. His appointment is good for East Texas. With this appointment East Texas is represented on the commission, and Jeff works hard on all his jobs.

“He will work for the people of East Texas, as well as those for the entire state,” Rep. Hopson continued.

State Sen. Kevin Eltife of Tyler said, “I think this is great. I appreciate Gov. Perry’s appointment of Jeff to the transportation commission. Jeff is a good individual and great for our region and for Northeast Texas.

“This appointment is important as the commission provides funding for transportation across the state. It is great to have a voice on the commission for our area.”

Currently, Mr. Austin serves as vice-chairman of Austin Bank and Texas NA.

He is a board member of First State Bank in Athens and Capital Bank in Houston, and past president of First State Bank Frankston.

He is a board member and past chair of the Texas Bankers Association, a member of the American Bankers Association Government Relations Committee and the Bank CEO Network and an executive committee member and past director of the Texas Lyceum.

He serves as a board member of the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum and past board chair of the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce.

He is also a past board member of the Tyler Economic Development Corporation, Better Business Bureau of East Texas, University of Texas at Tyler Business School Advisory Board, UT at Tyler Health Center Development Board and Trinity Mother Frances Hospital Foundation.

Mr. Austin is a native East Texan and grew up in Jacksonville. He is a Jacksonville High School graduate, class of 1980.

He received a bachelor’s degree and Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Tyler.

He is a graduate of the Southern Methodist University Southwestern Graduate and Intermediate schools of Banking and the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program.

He is a also a third generation East Texas banker.

His term will expire Feb. 1, 2013.

On the verge of insanity: A Dallas Cowboys TollTag?

Link to article here.

Show your Dallas Cowboys pride ... with a designer tolltag?

By Mike Drago/Editor
Dallas Morning News
Nov. 2, 2011
 
We have no idea why you'd want one of these. Then again, we understand how little we know about the world.

Your North Texas Tollway Authority is rolling out a designer tolltag. Yes, for only $22.99 you can own your very own Dallas Cowboys tolltag. Why drive around with a bland, beige tolltag on the dashboard when you could be flashing your team spirit for everyone to see in their rearview mirrors?

A release from NTTA says legendary receiver Drew Pearson will introduce "the newest star on the Cowboys roster" himself on Saturday, a day before he officially goes into the team's "Ring of Honor."

Pearson will sign autographs and "debut" the tolltag at the Galleria Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.

As for the tolltag, the release says it is "emblazoned with the Cowboys iconic star on a silver background -- the same look the five-time Super Bowl Champion Cowboys sport on their helmets on gameday." The NTTA website makes having one look like a laugh riot (cheerleader not included).

The release says only a limited number of tolltags have been manufactured. They don't say how many. "Once they're gone, they're gone," the release says. So, if you're of a mind, better hurry.
Here's the full release:

PLANO, Texas - Nov. 1, 2011 - Dallas Cowboys legend Drew Pearson is set to introduce the newest star on the Cowboys roster. On the eve of his long-awaited induction into the Dallas Cowboys "Ring of Honor," the original 88, one of the greatest receivers in Cowboys history, will sign autographs and debut the new limited-edition Dallas Cowboys TollTag at the Galleria Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop Saturday Nov. 5, from 3- 5 p.m.

The Dallas Cowboys TollTag is emblazoned with the Cowboys iconic star on a silver background - the same look the five-time Super Bowl Champion Cowboys sport on their helmets on gameday. Now Cowboys fans can display pride for their favorite team and pay the lowest toll rates available as they drive NTTA roadways.

 

The Dallas Cowboys TollTags will be available at select Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop locations, while they last, for $22.99 each to both new and existing NTTA customers. In addition to the Pro Shops, customers can also purchase the TollTags online at ShopCowboys.com A limited number of Dallas Cowboys TollTags have been created, once they're gone, they're gone.

 

When fans get their distinctive Dallas Cowboys TollTags, they must contact the NTTA Customer Service Center at (972) 818-NTTA (6882) to activate them. Representatives are available Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. and Saturday 9:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.

 

Customers who already have a TollTag must remove it from their vehicle before installing the new Dallas Cowboys TollTag and must activate the new tag. Old TollTag stickers will be inoperable once removed. Do not attempt to install them on another vehicle.

 

Hard-case TollTags must be returned to the NTTA Customer Service Center at P.O. Box 260928,

Plano, TX 75026-0928.

 

About the NTTA

The North Texas Tollway Authority, a political subdivision of the state of Texas, is authorized to acquire, construct, maintain, repair and operate turnpike projects in the north Texas region. The nine-member governing board is comprised of Chairman Kenneth Barr; Vice Chairman Bill Moore; and Directors Kent Cagle, David Denison, Michael Nowels, George "Tex" Quesada, Bob Shepard, Victor Vandergriff and Jane Willard.

 

The NTTA serves Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties and owns and operates the Dallas North Tollway, President George Bush Turnpike, Sam Rayburn Tollway, Addison Airport Toll Tunnel, Lewisville Lake Toll Bridge and the Mountain Creek Lake Bridge. The NTTA is able to raise capital for construction projects through the issuance of turnpike revenue bonds. NTTA toll projects are not a part of the state highway system and receive no direct tax funding. Tolls are collected to repay debt and to operate and maintain the roadways.


www.NTTA.org

Tolling nightmare continues in Virginia despite Georgia failure


Following the Washington Times editorial is an article on the FAILED Georgia HOT lane experiment that "conservative" think tanks are trying to spin as a success-in-waiting.

Link to article here.

EDITORIAL: Georgia’s tolling nightmare

Old Dominion set to repeat the Peach State’s mistake

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES - The Washington Times

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Virginia is sticking stubbornly by its unpopular decision to convert Interstate 95 into one big toll road. The idea is to double-tax drivers from the North Carolina border all the way up to Stafford County and then have high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes take over up to Interstate 395. The commonwealth’s residents instinctively know this is a dumb idea.

Last month, a Quinnipiac University survey found 52 percent don’t want tolls. Notably, the opposition was spread equally among Republicans, Democrats, independents, men and women. And the results likely would have been far more negative if voters had realized HOT schemes have a long history of failure. Take Georgia, which took away 15 miles of existing high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes last month to charge motorists up to $5.40 for the privilege of commuting between DeKalb and Gwinnett counties on Interstate 85 - a trip that previously had been free.

The social engineers behind such grand experiments pretend tolling is a “free-market” solution to congestion. Instead of adding new capacity to meet demand, the idea is to price the existing, insufficient capacity and “manage” the demand. It all works out perfectly in the confines of an ivory tower, but it’s a disaster when translated onto the asphalt. “We typically don’t have complete-halt traffic here,” said Lawrenceville, Ga., resident Chris Haley about his new commute. “But in the first few weeks the lanes were implemented, it was near at a dead stop. You’re looking over in the left-hand HOT lane, and it’s empty.”

Mr. Haley told The Washington Times that he was so outraged that his daily commute doubled from 40 to 90 minutes a day that he set up the website StopPeachPass.org to chronicle the project’s failings. Republican Gov. Nathan Deal took note of the problem and intervened to lower the sky-high tolls. With cheaper rates, more people are using the HOT lanes, but the basic problem remains. Mr. Haley’s analysis of the road’s traffic data shows the same total number of people are using the regular freeway lanes, but they’re being forced to leave far earlier or later than they had done previously to avoid the jam.

It’s hard to see how the lanes could survive financially at prices and traffic levels far below projections. Such unrealistic predictions are common. The most recent annual report for Washington state’s 3-year-old HOT lanes on State Route 167 boasts of extracting $420,400 in gross revenue from drivers, but it neglects to mention the net loss of $173,939 through March 2011.

So the states lose money and commuters are stuck with higher bills and worse traffic. It turns out that the only winners here are the private contractors responsible for the massive overhead needed to keep the tolling operation running smoothly. Little surprise that these companies frequently can be found behind the scenes lavishing money on legislators and encouraging pundits to sing the praises of the schemes that line their pockets.

When government sets out to manipulate public behavior, failure is the inevitable result. Virginia’s transportation problem won’t be solved unless the commonwealth stops wasting $6 billion on transit boondoggles like the Metro to Dulles International Airport. That money, which is being taken from drivers, should be invested instead in maximizing general freeway capacity by doing away with failed HOV and HOT experiments.


____________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Getting to the truth about HOT-lane operations

7:35 am November 2, 2011, by Jay Bookman

Atlanta Journal Constitution

The Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an Atlanta-based free-market think tank, wields a lot of influence with the state’s conservative leadership. The foundation has also been a leading advocate of public and private toll-road projects, including the controversial I-85 HOT-lane conversion.

In an article headlined “State must ensure Georgians warm up to HOT lanes,” GPPF vice president Benita Dodd pleads for patience from commuters and politicians alike, saying it’s much too early to proclaim the I-85 project a failure. In other cities, she points out, it took some time before motorists got used to the idea and began to use HOT lanes regularly.

Her point is valid. When Ga. 400 first opened, Atlanta media outlets, including this newspaper, ran a lot of stories pointing out that very few people were using the highway. That situation changed pretty quickly as commuters changed their travel patterns.

To bolster public patience, Dodd cites the example of State Route 91 in southern California. After HOT lanes opened on that highly congested route, Dodd writes, toll-paying commuters not only saved 30 minutes on a 10-mile trip, “Rush-hour speeds in the regular lanes increased by 17 mph and peak-period congestion in the morning was reduced by over an hour.”

That does sound highly encouraging — a 17-mph increase in the general lanes! Unfortunately, it has not exactly been the experience of commuters in the I-85 corridor, where motorists in the regular lanes complain that commutes have gotten considerably longer. Why has our experience been so different?

Well, here in Georgia, the two new HOT lanes — one in each direction — were carved out of existing interstate, pushing traffic into the remaining lanes. In California, traffic flow improved because four additional travel lanes — two in each direction — were built in the median of SR 91 as HOT lanes. In other words, significant new capacity — not HOT-lane technology — accounted for the improvement cited by Dodd. (By the way, that improvement proved temporary, largely disappearing as additional traffic was drawn by that additional capacity.)

GPPF has also tried to dispel the notion of HOT lanes as “Lexus lanes,” which it defines as “an elitist way to enable wealthier, paying motorists to bypass the congestion that the unwashed masses must endure.” Again citing California’s experience, GPPF claims that HOT-lane users on SR 91 were no different demographically than those using regular lanes.

The Reason Foundation, the libertarian think tank that has championed HOT lanes on the national level, makes similar claims, arguing that “studies of the 91 Express Lanes indicate that use increases slightly with income group.” However, the studies cited by Reason and GPPF directly contradict what they claim.

According to those studies, commuters with incomes above $100,000 were more than twice as likely to use the toll lanes frequently than those making less than $60,000. That is not a “slight increase” among income groups. The studies also found that as fares rose higher and higher, usage by middle-income commuters dropped significantly.

“The significant decline in reported toll lane use by commuters in the $40-60K category suggests that these middle-income commuters have been unusually sensitive to the toll increases, and are less willing to pay tolls despite the worsening traffic congestion in the corridor,” the study concluded.

That trend could be important to travelers in the I-85 corridor as that project matures, usage increases and tolls are raised to fend off congestion. (Today, the highest toll collected on SR 91 is $9.85 for the 10-mile trip, more than double the highest fare of 10 years ago.)

Interestingly, that study, led by Edward Sullivan of Cal Poly State University, also found that SR 91 commuters consistently overestimate how much time they save by using the toll lanes, overshooting the mark by anywhere from five to 30 minutes a trip.

“It suggests that making available accurate data on actual toll lane time savings might result in reduced toll lane use,” the writers warn. In other words, it’s not the deal it may appear to be, although you may already know that.

I-69 signs erected along Hwy 77 in the valley


Link to article here.

I-69 signs to go up in South Texas


By Michael Lindenberger/Reporter

 
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11:39 AM on Thu., Oct. 27, 2011

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Well it's official. Texas has a new Interstate highway.

Texas transportation commissioners voted minutes ago to begin erecting Interstate 69 signs on a 6.2-mile stretch of U.S. 77 between Interstate 37 and State Highway 44 in Nueces County in south Texas near the Gulf of Mexico . The Texas segment of the 1,000-mile interstate is expected to eventually stretch from Texarkana to the border.

Polk County Judge Judge John Thompson, chairman of the Alliance for I-69, hailed the decision in a press release issued by TxDOT.

"It's a visible sign of the progress being made on I-69," Thompson said. "This is the result of the strong partnership between the Alliance for I-69 Texas, TxDOT, the I-69 Segment Committees, the I-69 Advisory Committee and the many elected officials and community leaders along the I-69 route in Texas that have remained committed to and focused on the development of the system."

The I-69 corridor, which TxDOT began upgrading in 2008 to meet federal interstate standards, was once part of the Trans Texas Corridor, and some elements of that project are still alive in the toll projects that the state and developers are hoping will fast-track the building of the free lanes on the highways.

The statement by TxDOT notes that the department is also asking the FHWA for approval to add completed sections of US 59 in the Houston metropolitan area to the Interstate Highway System as I-69.

Phil Wilson, in his first month as executive director at TxDOT, said bringing the interstate system to south Texas is vital.

"Access to an interstate is an important driver of economic development activity, so this effort is of particular importance to South Texas communities and businesses," said Phil Wilson, TxDOT executive director. "It's not every day that a transportation department gets to add a new interstate to the books, and it's thanks to the collaborative relationship between TxDOT, local stakeholders and planning groups, and elected officials that we can make this happen."

Houghton will continue Williamson era at TxDOT

Link to article here.

Perry's new Chair will continue dysfunction at highway department
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
October 11, 2011


It was no surprise that Deirdre Delisi stepped down as Chairwoman of the Texas Transportation Commission to focus on Texas Governor Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. He apparently needs it. However, Perry’s choice to tap Commissioner Ted Houghton to take the helm in Delisi’s place is shocking, yet also not surprising.

Rather than turn a new page and aid the process of getting the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) back on the right footing after heavy criticism of its handling of finances, the Trans Texas Corridor, and the Department’s push for private toll roads,  Perry chose an in-your-face Chairman with a history of picking fights with the public (watch this video of him calling concerned citizens ‘bigots’), legislators, and local toll authorities.

TxDOT came under Sunset Review at the peak of the public outcry over the Trans Texas Corridor. At the time the review began, Ric Williamson, very close friend of Perry’s since the time they had served in the legislature together when Perry was a Democrat, was the Chair of the Transportation Commission. He ushered in the era of selling off Texas public roads to private toll operators, actually gallivanting across Europe announcing to key global players that Texas was for sale.

Williamson was Perry’s chief henchman in getting Perry’s legacy building project implemented -- the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC), a 1,200 foot wide, 4,000 mile multi-modal network of toll roads, toll rail, telecommunications lines, pipelines, and utilities, snatching up 580,000 acres of private Texas farm and ranch land that would all fall under the control of a foreign company for a half century. The development rights for TTC-35 were awarded to Madrid-based Cintra and San Antonio based Zachry in March of 2005.

A Texas-sized backlash ensued causing the legislature to slap a moratorium on private toll contracts (called Comprehensive Development Agreements/CDAs or public private partnerships/P3s) in May of 2007, but not before Williamson signed off on handing Cintra-Zachry two segments of SH 130 for the first such contract in the state of Texas, delivered in the midst of the monolithic battle going on in the legislature that year. Williamson was in his element when controversy and opposition whirled around him, the more the better.

But even for him, the controversy and stress took its ‘toll,’ Williamson died of a heart attack in December 2007 just as TxDOT was getting ready to launch the second corridor, TTC-69. TxDOT received an unprecedented 28,000 comments against TTC-69. Not long afterwards, the Department revealed it had made a $1.1 billion ‘accounting error’ causing a slew of projects to be put on hold drawing ire from legislators who TxDOT initially blamed for the cancellations, only to find out it was the agency’s fault and they purposely hid the facts from the legislature for three months.

One Senator, Tommy Williams (strangely now the Senate Transportation Committee Chairman and TxDOT’s biggest defender of late), basically quipped at a hearing in February of 2008 that if TxDOT’s lips were moving they were lying. Senator Judith Zaffirini said at the same hearing “This is an agency in turmoil and chaos.”

Also during this time, TURF sued TxDOT over the US 281 toll project. It was found that TxDOT had rigged the environmental study and conspired to break federal law, resulting in one employee being fired and another being “reassigned.” Both the public’s trust and the legislature’s were irreparably breached.

Status quo will continue dysfunction

This was the backdrop to TxDOT’s Sunset Review process. The Sunset Advisory Commission, tasked with rooting out waste and mismanagement in state agencies, issued two scathing reports recommending the legislature not only abolish the current Transportation Commission (5 appointees of the Governor), but also to place TxDOT under a legislative conservatorship.

Then came a bruising 628-page management audit by Grant Thornton, then the “Restructuring Council.” All recommended sweeping changes to the agency, particularly the leadership (leading to the resignations of the Executive Director and other top posts), and a fundamental shift in the culture of TxDOT.

The Grant Thornton Audit said: “TxDOT has significant leadership issues that impair staff and management effectiveness and morale...Conversations with TxDOTʼs senior leaders reveal a deep-seated belief that TxDOT is doing all the right things and that criticisms leveled against the organization will decline when TxDOT is better able to demonstrate to people how right the organization is.”

The Sunset Advisory Commission report from 2009 states: “Many expressed concerns that TxDOT was 'out of control,' advancing its own agenda against objections of both the Legislature and the public. Sunset staff found that this atmosphere of distrust permeated most of TxDOT’s actions and determined that it could not be an effective state transportation agency if trust and confidence were not restored. Significant changes are needed to begin this restoration; tweaking the status quo is simply not enough.”

Yet Perry defied all the recommendations of the Sunset Advisory Commission, the Management Audit, and the Restructure Council and picked a lobbyist and former Perry staffer, Phil Wilson, as the new Executive Director and the commissioner that’s the most like Ric Williamson, Ted Houghton, to be the new Chair of the Commission. At the press conference to announce that Perry had pulled the plug on TTC-35 facing the threat of litigation from two cities in its path, Houghton wisecracked that he was "the most arrogant commissioner of the most arrogant state agency in the history of the state of Texas."

News coverage of Houghton’s appointment affirms that he sees his primary mission as handing Texas public roads over to private toll operators in sweetheart P3 contracts, despite the years of public opposition, including from within the Republican Party platform and tea parties alike. Status quo for sure, a thumb in the public’s eye most certainly, and it affirms Perry’s determination to continue the Williamson era of division, controversy, and strife in the midst of his struggling presidential campaign with charges of crony capitalism flying. Makes one shake one’s head in stunned amazement.

Houghton named new Texas Transportation Commission Chair

Remember, Ted Houghton is the Transportation Commissioner who called Hank Gilbert, Board Member of TURF, and TURF supporters 'bigots' for opposing the sale of Texas roads to foreign entities. He also announced at the press conference stating the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 project was being pulled that: "I'm Ted Houghton, the most arrogant commissioner of the most arrogant state agency in the history of the state of Texas." Watch it here. This is who Governor Rick Perry chose as the new Chairman of the Transportation Commission!

Texas Department of Transportation - Press Release

Statement by Texas Transportation Commission Chair Ted Houghton

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- "I'd like to thank Governor Perry for his trust in me to continue TxDOT down a path of responsiveness, change and modernization. I look forward to leading the department as it becomes a better TxDOT, living up to the expectations of the Governor, the Legislature and our stakeholders.

"Texas is a national leader in infrastructure and transportation system development, and I intend to reaffirm our place among the best, strongest and most innovative states as TxDOT delivers the projects the Legislature, our local partners and Texas motorists expect."

Houghton was first appointed to the Texas Transportation Commission in 2003 by Governor Rick Perry, and was reappointed in 2009. A native of El Paso, Houghton is self-employed in the financial services industry. He is the first resident of El Paso to serve on the Commission.

Houghton previously served on the School Land Board, the El Paso Water Utilities Public Service Board, El Paso's Rapid Transit Board, the board of directors of the El Paso Electric Company and as president of the Sun Bowl Association. He was also a member of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee.

Ted is married to Hettie Cardon Houghton and they have five children -- Jennifer Houghton Lindsay, Cinco, John, Michael and Chris Houghton.

The Texas Department of Transportation The Texas Department of Transportation is responsible for maintaining 80,000 miles of road and for supporting aviation, rail and public transportation across the state. TxDOT and its approximately 12,000 employees strive to empower local leaders to solve local transportation problems, and to use new financial tools, including tolling and public-private partnerships, to reduce congestion and pave the way for future economic growth while enhancing safety, improving air quality and preserving the value of the state's transportation assets.

###
_____________________________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Houghton appointed new Transportation Commission Chairman
by Gordon Dickson
Fort Worth Star Telegram
October 7, 2011
 
El Paso businessman named chairman of Texas Transportation Commission
Gov. Rick Perry has appointed El Paso businessman Ted Houghton chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission. The five-member body oversees the Texas Department of Transportation.

Houghton has served on the commission since 2003 and is a staunch advocate of hiring private developers to build and manage highways and toll roads. He believes that it helps transfer the financial risks of transportation projects away from taxpayers and makes up for a chronic lack of gas-tax-supported funds for road work.

"Texas is a national leader in infrastructure and transportation system development, and I intend to reaffirm our place among the best, strongest and most innovative states as TxDOT delivers the projects the Legislature, our local partners and Texas motorists expect," Houghton said in a statement.

Houghton replaces Deirdre Delisi of Austin, who resigned as chairwoman Thursday to dedicate more time to advising Perry's presidential campaign.

Houghton runs a financial services company and is the first El Pasoan to serve on the five-member commission.

He has previous experience on the School Land Board, El Paso Water Utilities Public Service Board, El Paso Rapid Transit Board, El Paso Electric Co. board and as president of the Sun Bowl Association.

Houghton was also on the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee.
____________________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Houghton new Chair of Transportation Commission
by Michael Lindenberger
Dallas Morning News
Friday, October 7, 2011

Update : TxDOT just sent a statement from Houghton, who says: "I'd like to thank Governor Perry for his trust in me to continue TxDOT down a path of responsiveness, change and modernization. I look forward to leading the department as it becomes a better TxDOT, living up to the expectations of the Governor, the Legislature and our stakeholders.

"Texas is a national leader in infrastructure and transportation system development, and I intend to reaffirm our place among the best, strongest and most innovative states as TxDOT delivers the projects the Legislature, our local partners and Texas motorists expect."

***
The new chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission is Ted Houghton of El Paso, according to a press release issued moments ago by Gov. Rick Perry.
Houghton has been on the commission since the chairmanship of Ric Williamson and, since 2008, Deirdre Delisi. (Update: He was appointed in 2003.)

Delisi resigned yesterday.

Unlike Delisi, a former Perry chief of staff who now works for his presidential campaign, and the outspoken Williamson, who was one of Perry's best friends and a former Austin roommate, Houghton lacks the strong personal connection to the governor of his two predecessors.

But Houghton brings a passionate -- and articulate -- defense of the pro-business and pro-privatization approach Perry has long championed. Houghton has been one of the fiercest advocates for an untrammeled pursuit by TxDOT of partnerships with private firms to finance and operate Texas toll roads.

He has, however, matched that ferocity with a willingness to reach out to competitors and adversaries, including the North Texas Tollway Authority.

It was Houghton who took the lead in mending fences with then-chairman Paul Wageman of the NTTA and worked with Victor Vandergriff and others on the NTTA board to craft the deal that became the unprecedented loan guarantees that have made NTTA's financing of the SH 161 and Chisholm Trail Parkway possible.

Highlights from our coverage of Houghton on the blog:

* Houghton insists that TxDOT be given equity in future toll projects in which it helps NTTA finance the road.
* Wilson named executive director of TxDOT. Houghton led the search.
* TxDOT offers line of credit to NTTA

The press release announcing Houghton's appointment:

Gov. Perry Names Houghton Chair of Texas Transportation Commission

AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry has named Ted Houghton of El Paso chair of the Texas Transportation Commission for a term to expire at the pleasure of the governor. The commission oversees the Texas Department of Transportation.

Houghton is owner of Houghton Financial Partners. He is a member of the Paso del Norte Group, former vice chair of the El Paso Civic Center Board and a past member of the School Land Board, El Paso Water Utilities Public Service Board, and El Paso Electric Company Board of Directors. He is also past president of the Sun Bowl Association, and a member of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee.

Houghton received a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Schutze: Perry's Trans Texas flip-flop


Link to article here.

Get Off My Lawn

Rick Perry Says He's Mr. Grassroots, But His Trans-Texas Flop Suggests Otherwise

By Jim Schutze Wed., Oct. 5 2011 at 4:34 PM

Tea Party people say they hate Washington and its top-down style of governance. They're the political version of eat-local. Everything should be grassroots.
Here in Texas the Tea Party loves Governor Rick Perry, but if you talk to people who've gone up against Perry on local issues, they will tell you that grassroots is one word the man cannot even find in the dictionary.

I ran into this particular Perry disconnect when I was doing the reporting for a story on Perry in this week's newspaper. One of the little sagas we had to trim back for space had to do with his attempt to build the Trans-Texas Corridor, a proposed but now defunct 4,000-mile-long high-tech transportation right-of-way, four football fields wide, from Mexico to Oklahoma.

Talk about top-down. Perry got beat badly on the TTC because he acted like he didn't even know local communities existed. The local communities that probably had more to do with beating him were our own town, Dallas, and Fort Worth.

For that part of my Perry story, I hardly talked to any progressive anti-highway Democrats at all. The people who fought Perry on it and beat him were mostly conservative-leaning pro-road-building Republicans. They all told me they liked Perry's basic idea but just couldn't reason with the man because of his autocratic style.

The TTC was the brainchild of an oil and gas millionaire pal of Perry's from back in the day, the late Ric Williamson, whom Perry had appointed chair of the state's Transportation Commission. The idea is dead now, shot many times over in the head by the Legislature. In fact, even though it had already been dead four years, the most recent Legislature dragged out the corpse and shot it again just to make sure, passing new legislation to curb the state's use of eminent domain.

One of the first people I interviewed for my piece was Republican State Senator Florence Shapiro of Plano. She said rural dwellers in the proposed path of the TTC learned the details from local newspapers and blogs, not Perry.

"Think if you're living in one of these communities. You've had farm land for three generations, and one day you read in the paper that this mammoth, behemoth, much larger than necessary thing is going to condemn most of your property. They were livid and rightfully so."

But so were the cities. Dallas and Fort Worth at the time were pouring hundreds of millions in infrastructure dollars into our two competing "logistics centers" -- rail and freeway hubs with gargantuan automated warehouses to handle Pacific Rim trade coming up from deep-water ports in Houston, Mexico and Southern California. The TTC would have stepped around both centers, carrying all of that lucrative trade instead out into hinterlands where people didn't want it.


Bill Blaydes, then the Dallas City Council member in charge of our "inland port" project, says he, like Shapiro, thought the TTC idea had merit. He says it could have been married to Dallas' project, as well as to Fort Worth's Alliance Logistics Center, had Perry merely been willing to deal.
"It was a magnificent idea, had he been willing to work with the metropolitan areas and not try to bypass something that we had been working very hard to promote," Blaydes says. "We probably would not have fought it as hard as we did, but we fought it all the way to Washington."

In several years of trying, Blaydes said he was never able to find an inch of common ground with Perry or his friend Williamson. "They were headstrong and hard-headed. They could not and would not revise their vision," he says.

Sandy Greyson was the Dallas City Council member responsible for long-range transportation planning policy. She says when Dallas realized Perry wouldn't negotiate, the city mobilized quickly, hiring David Dean, a transportation lobbyist with strong ties to the Legislature.

Before Dean ever approached the capital, Greyson says, he ventured into the boondocks and did the grassroots work Perry and Williamson had failed to do, knitting together a coalition of every town council, aggrieved rancher and outlet mall he could find along the proposed route. By the time Dean took his "River of Trade" coalition to Austin, the TTC was a dead letter.

Greyson calls Williamson "a brilliant man" and mourns for the better parts of his concept. But, she says, "The fatal flaw in the whole thing was that it seemed to be a very top-down plan that would be imposed on people and cities and counties."

Shapiro says of the plan now, "It's gone." She says Perry could have pulled it off, had he been willing or able to work the grassroots.

"The idea should have been from the bottom up rather than from the top down. You would talk about it," Shapiro says. "You would have discussions about why we need this kind of infrastructure, so it comes from the grass roots, from the community leaders, from the people who own the land, not the government here telling you what to do."

Toss in Perry's decision to order HPV vaccinations for Texas girls and the way he handled the education budget in this recent legislative session: You have a man here who doesn't know a grass root from a railroad tie.

Given his campaign ads and his promises on the stump to put power back in the hands of states and local communities, there is enormous irony in how he really governs. But if something happened to Romney, Perry got the GOP nod and beat Obama ... well, that situation would go way beyond irony.

Revolving door continues: Rodriguez jumps from City Manager post to Zachry

Assistant city manager named to deputy spot after departure
By Josh Baugh
San Antonio Express-News
September 30, 2011


When the City's new fiscal year begins Saturday, it'll bring with it several changes to the City Manager Sheryl Sculley's executive team, including the departure of Deputy City Manager A. J. Rodriguez, and the promotion of Assistant City Manager Erik Walsh.

Sculley gave the City Council a memo Thursday explaining the details of the resignation, several promotions and a rehire.

Rodriguez is leaving the post to return to the private sector as the executive director of public policy and government relations for Zachry Holdings, Inc., where he'll be the primary public policy adviser to ZHI's chief executive and board of directors. His city salary is $194,000.

Read the rest of the story here.

HNTB mismanagement of 'disaster' funds, a disaster


HNTB Corp is the primary contractor for nearly every Regional Mobility Authority (RMAs or local toll authorities) Rick Perry set-up under state law in 2003. RMAs are the primary means Perry is using for off-budget debt for a massive network toll roads across the state of Texas. If HNTB's mismanagement of these federal disaster funds is indicative of how they spend our hard-earned tax dollars on toll roads, then public officials have a fiduciary duty to put their highway work under a microscope and hold them accountable. HNTB holds a virtual monopoly over toll roads in Texas.

HNTB is also a contractor with the Texas Turnpike Division within the Texas Department of Transportation. Tom Wendorf, an HNTB employee quoted in this article as fully expecting to continue working the federal disaster contract despite its mismanagement, is the former Director of Public Works for the City of San Antonio. He sat on the San Antonio-Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization (SABC-MPO) and voted repeatedly to slap tolls on existing freeways throughout the region. When he left that position, he merely stated publicly that he was moving to pursue other opportunities. He failed to disclose the revolving door nature of his new position -- his former position working for a governmental entity that played a role in directing huge public works contracts to what would become his current employer.


Perry fundraising raises questions on relief funds

Editorial Board

 
Published: 6:10 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011

A national audience got a look last week at Gov. Rick Perry's fundraising prowess. Perry reported raising $17 million in the month and a half since he announced his presidential bid. The showing restored some momentum Perry lost in two debates and a lackluster showing in the Florida straw poll late last month.

But that knack for fundraising has raised both questions and eyebrows when big Perry contributors obtain state contracts. The American-Statesman's Brenda Bell reported last week that a contract to manage more than $1 billion in federal disaster funds granted to HNTB, a firm based in Kansas City, Mo., is not performing. Bell reported that HNTB has been paid $45 million so far to process infrastructure grants. The amount the firm has collected comes close to depleting the money budgeted for administration and planning. Only 20 percent of the money released to help repair damage inflicted by Hurricanes Dolly and Ike in 2008 has been distributed.

The administrative spending is sounding alarms with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Texas General Land Office has canceled the HNTB contract.

The firm and its executives have been generous contributors to both Perry and the Republican Governors Association, a group Perry has chaired twice. The association, in return, has contributed $4 million to past Perry campaigns. HNTB was also the principal consultant on the Trans Texas Corridor, an ambitious transportation project Perry championed. The project flopped in face of overwhelming public opposition, but not before HNTB collected $109 million in engineering consultant services.

Even those inclined to give the governor every benefit of the doubt on those contracts should want to know why the hurricane recovery funds didn't reach their intended recipients more quickly.

The General Land Office, led by Commissioner Jerry Patterson, has taken over oversight of the relief effort and has promised greater accountability.

Bell quoted federal officials as saying that using private contractors to manage relief funds is unusual, but Perry has long been a fan of public-private endeavors. Unfortunately for taxpayers, those efforts haven't always produced good results. More than $800,000 went into an effort to merge the data centers of 28 state agencies into two streamlined and secure facilities. The consolidation was supposed to be completed by December 2009 but was still only 12 percent complete when the contract was re-bid in 2010.

Perry is scheduled to face his Republican rivals again Tuesday in a New Hampshire debate to be broadcast by Bloomberg Televison and co-sponsored by The Washington Post. It represents not only an opportunity for Perry to regain momentum, but for his opponents to question the governor on his record of managing public funds.

Bell's article was zipping through cyberspace last week and led to some speculation as to whether the Republicans would start asking questions about Perry and his contributors. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but it's a question that will loom large in the general election campaign should Perry win the GOP nomination.

Regardless of the politics, the fact remains that people who needed help aren't getting it, and they have a right to know why.

Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/perry-fundraising-raises-questions-on-relief-funds-1904331.html

_________________________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

State outsourced allocation of federal disaster recovery funds to firm with ties to Perry

By Brenda Bell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Published: 10:12 p.m. Monday, Oct. 3, 2011

The state of Texas has quietly outsourced the management of more than $1 billion in federal disaster recovery funds to an engineering firm with close ties to Gov. Rick Perry's administration, paying the Kansas City, Mo. -based firm HNTB $45 million so far to process infrastructure grants for communities damaged by Hurricanes Dolly and Ike.

The company's billings threaten to exhaust the amount budgeted for administrative and planning costs, while only 20 percent of the first round of money released to Texas to aid disaster recovery grants has been spent three years after the storms. Based on the state's original timeline, at least half those projects should have been completed by now, federal officials say.

The problems have caused officials with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to voice alarm and begin quarterly reviews in an attempt to get the program back on track.

Hiring a private firm to handle what has been termed the largest public works project in the state's history is unusual, federal officials say.

Weeks ago, the Texas General Land Office cancelled HNTB's contract, which had ballooned from $69 million to $144 million as the firm assumed more responsibility for disaster grants during a downsizing of state government. But HNTB continues to run the infrastructure program on a temporary basis at its downtown Austin offices, where about a dozen state employees also working on the program have been relocated.
Congress appropriated $3.1 billion to help Texans recover from the hurricanes that struck the Gulf coast in 2008. Fifty-five percent of the money ($1.7 billion) is for housing, and 45 percent ($1.4 billion) for non-housing projects — everything from emergency generators to new water and sewage treatment facilities. Of the total $3.1 billion, $1.3 billion was released in the first round of funding.

Most media attention has focused on problems with post-hurricane housing assistance, which has been managed by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

In Houston, the first new homes to replace those destroyed by Hurricane Ike were only recently completed. In Galveston, where 75 percent of the island's structures were damaged in the 2008 storm, the initial $259 million phase of rebuilding has been plagued with local delays, dissent and complaints about padded costs and inadequate inspections of rebuilt homes.

The role played by HNTB in managing grants for non-housing infrastructure — originally the responsibility of the now-defunct Texas Department of Rural Affairs — has largely escaped public attention, but not the federal government's.

In a May letter to state officials obtained by the American-Statesman, Stanley Gimont , director of block grant assistance for the U.S. Housing and Urban Development, said that using HNTB "to administer virtually all aspects" of the state agency's work on the community development block grants "presents significant cause for concern." Gimont said that as an engineering firm, HNTB lacked experience with community development block grant programs — the funding vehicle for Ike and Dolly disaster relief.

"There are fundamental responsibilities that must not be ceded by the state to a third-party contractor," he wrote. Those responsibilities include "proper monitoring" of local grants and policy and program guidance on the proper use of community development funds, he wrote.

The letter, which also cited a half-dozen deficiencies in the housing portion of the disaster program, raised questions about the state's oversight of HNTB, including:

• The department of rural affairs was in disarray, its disaster recovery staff had been reduced from 42 employees to 10, and it had "no procedures or policies in place to oversee" HNTB's work.

• The state's contract with HNTB lacked performance measures and carried the potential for "considerable cost increases."

In June, HUD warned that the rate of spending on administrative expenses, which as of Aug. 31 totaled 92 percent of what's been budgeted, could jeopardize the processing of construction projects in the second round of funding.

On July 1, Perry moved oversight of disaster recovery to an elected official, General Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, "to provide more accountability." About a dozen employees of the department of rural affairs, which the Legislature abolished at Perry's request, and 51 from the department of housing and community affairs — all working on disaster recovery projects for those agencies — were transferred to the land office's payroll.

"I'm taking a hard look at the whole program," said Gary Hagood , deputy commissioner of financial management at the land office. "I look at every dollar that goes out of here."

His priority, he said, "is to get stuff done in a timely manner. Every contract will have timelines. They had no timelines before — they just set it on the back burner."

Hagood canceled HNTB's contract as of Aug. 31, four years before it was to expire, and split the disaster recovery work into two parts, engineering services and grant management. The land office posted a request for companies to submit their qualifications to finish the job. Hagood said 10 to 12 firms have responded, including HNTB, and that future work might be contracted out to several vendors in coming weeks.

For now, HNTB continues to run the program. Tom Wendorf , HNTB vice president in San Antonio, said that with some adjustments to the scope of work and the new oversight under the land office, "we fully expect to continue to work toward completion of the infrastructure projects" in 2015. State officials originally expected to have the entire $3.1 billion in federal funds spent by 2013.

Long ties to Perry

According to its website, HNTB was founded in 1914 as a railroad bridge design firm and has designed "a significant portion" of the interstate highway system. Its headquarters are in Kansas City, Mo.

Almost all of the firm's business is with public agencies, said Wendorf, and during Perry's administration its presence in Austin has grown.

It was the principal consultant for Perry's first — and largest — pet project as governor, the proposed $184 billion Trans-Texas Corridor, which succumbed to widespread public opposition in 2010. Since 2008, the Texas Department of Transportation has paid HNTB $109 million for engineering consulting services, according to records with the state comptroller. Ray Sullivan, communications director for Perry's presidential campaign, has been a lobbyist for HNTB.

The firm is one of 139 major "crossover donors" identified by Texans for Public Justice who have contributed substantial sums to Perry and the Republican Governors Association, which Perry has twice chaired. According to campaignmoney.com, HNTB and its executives have given more than $500,000 to the association, which has sent $4 million to Perry's political campaigns.

By most accounts, the Department of Rural Affairs — a 70-employee agency that normally dispensed less than $100 million in grants to rural communities each year — was overwhelmed in 2009 when it got the job of managing $1.4 billion in disaster-related public works projects. The department hired 40 new employees, expanded its offices and turned to HNTB to manage the anticipated deluge of 6,000 community development block grants.

Exactly how HNTB was chosen is not clear; because its contract was for professional services, it was not subject to a bid process. State records show the firm was paid $45 million under the contract before it was canceled.

Counting a $3 million contract with the land office for post-Ike debris removal and an earlier $8 million contract with the Department of Rural Affairs for assessment of hurricane damage, HNTB has earned $56 million for its hurricane-related services to the state in the past three years.

In 2010, the Obama administration began looking closely at overhead expenses for community development block grants nationwide and found that Texas was rapidly spending down the money budgeted for administrative and planning costs for disaster-related infrastructure grants. Federal guidelines set a limit on such expenditures.

In February, rural affairs Director Charlie Stone laid off a number of upper-echelon employees and assigned more responsibilities to HNTB. That raised concerns on the part of federal officials that the result was "a significant gap in the agency's ability to interpret, understand and comply with" federal grant requirements.

Critics have questioned whether some projects approved in the first round of funding met the federal criteria of serving areas with the greatest unmet need and replacing infrastructure that was damaged or functioned inadequately as a result of the storms.

Many infrastructure grants were made to buy emergency generators. Lufkin, unharmed by the storms, is doubling the size of its civic center, which served as a temporary shelter for Ike and Rita evacuees.

And in other East Texas counties far from the coast, new roads, water lines and community centers are planned.

Truckers prefer gas tax funded roads over toll roads

Link to article here.

Truckers prefer fuel taxes over tolls

By Ben Wolfgang - The Washington Times

Monday, October 3, 2011

Calls for higher fuel taxes are coming from an unexpected place: the trucking industry.

As an alternative to more tolls on major highways, the American Trucking Association supports an increase in federal fuel taxes, provided the money is put toward desperately needed infrastructure repair.

"We have yet to see a scenario where some form of financing other than fuel taxes actually works and works as efficiently and effectively," ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said in an interview with The Washington Times on Monday.

Mr. Graves, the former two-term Republican governor of Kansas, rejected tolls such as the ones recently proposed in Virginia and enacted in New York and New Jersey.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell a Republican, supports tolls on Interstate 95 as a way to generate revenue. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey recently approved major toll increases at the urging of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.

The ATA called those levies "ill-conceived and unprecedented," and said the average truck hauling goods from Baltimore to Manhattan will see its toll burden rise from $114 to more than $209 by 2014.

Tacking a few pennies onto the gas tax, Mr. Graves said, is a far better option because it doesn't require governments to hire workers to man toll booths or spend millions of dollars to build and maintain toll plazas.

While governor, he pushed two fuel tax increases through the Kansas Legislature and argued that tolls are less efficient financially and can add precious hours to a trucker's drive time.

But given the reluctance of federal and state lawmakers to raise any taxes during a recession, the ATA isn't holding out much hope that its suggestions will be implemented.

"At this moment, our advocacy [for a fuel tax increase] is falling on deaf ears," Mr. Graves said.

Selling the Capitol: Facilities Commission first to implement new P3 law


Link to article here.

State set to accept proposals for public-private partnerships for an array of government facilities

By Laylan Copelin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Updated: 5:09 a.m. Monday, Oct. 3, 2011

The State of Texas has hung a "Partners Wanted" sign on its vast amount of public property.

It is a message to developers and contractors that the state — land-rich but cash-strapped — will accept unsolicited proposals for public-private partnerships to construct and operate a wide array of facilities from offices to power generation sites to medical buildings.

The new guidelines, which went into effect Sept. 1, could help the state reduce its reliance on leased facilities, particularly office space, and make it easier to develop the Capitol complex by involving the private sector.

Texas government is spending about $150 million a year on leases for 10.6 million square feet of space, including about $48 million for 3 million square feet in Travis County. Almost three-fourths of those leases will come up for renegotiation over the next six years, but the state must act quickly if it wants to move more of its operations into new facilities on state lands.

"Time is the killer of any real estate deal," said Aundre Dukes, a portfolio manager at the Texas Facilities Commission. "This will go a long way to getting shovels into dirt."
The guidelines were written in response to Senate Bill 1048, which passed during this year's legislative session and covers local governments and higher education institutions, as well as state government.

Public-private partnership has its detractors and defenders, but it might be more widely used as governments try to stretch their budgets without increasing taxes.

The facilities commission already had the authority to accept unsolicited proposals, but the state seldom did, Dukes said. Instead, the public sector typically advertised for proposals after it had identified a project.

Local examples of public-private partnerships include the Triangle, a complex of apartments, retail shops and restaurants, and the original Central Market shopping center, both on state lands in Central Austin.

Though state law allowed such projects before Senate Bill 1048, it didn't provide a clear, predictable path.

"The private sector didn't want to reinvent the wheel every time," said Chris Lloyd, a Virginia-based lobbyist who supported the Texas legislation that was patterned on a Virginia law.

Senate Bill 1048 creates a single format to encourage the private sector to approach the public sector with its proposals.

"In essence, they are submitting a business plan," Dukes said.

When it comes to structuring the deal, the guidelines are open-ended. Companies, for example, could build, own and operate a facility with a long-term ground lease from the state. Or they could build it, transfer it to the state and then operate it. There are at least a dozen variations in the guidelines that try to anticipate any construction project or service the state might need.

There is a $5,000 fee to cover the cost of the initial review by the state staff.

If the Texas Facilities Commission accepts the proposal at one of its public meetings, the details are published. The company's financial data and other proprietary information are protected from disclosure, but the rest of the proposal becomes public information.

The Legislature added an 11-member oversight group made up of four senators, four House members and three officials from the executive branch. It has 45 days to review each proposal.

At that time, competitors are allowed to offer their own versions of the initial proposal.

Once the facilities commission chooses a proposal, the winning company must pay for advisers, lawyers or consultants who are hired to do the final evaluation before the state approves the proposal.

Dukes said allowing competition ensures the public gets a good deal.

During debate over Senate Bill 1048, however, critics questioned the public-private partnership approach.

"There isn't really a public-private partnership that is a good deal for taxpayers," said Terri Hall, executive director of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, a group formed in 2005 to oppose toll roads, including instances in which foreign companies designed, built and operated the roads for the state.

"It's all about cronyism," Hall said of public-private partnerships.

She said 99-year ground leases give the private sector virtual ownership of state land.

Even with competing proposals, Hall said the devil is in the details of the final contract. She said the private sector "out-lawyers and out-negotiates" the public sector. And she said she is worried that in some instances taxpayers could end up guaranteeing the debt.

"We are basically subsidizing private profits," she said.

The Legislature disagreed. It overwhelmingly passed Senate Bill 1048, though 28 conservative House members voted against it.

The Texas Facilities Commission could provide the biggest test run of the new law.

Two years ago, the commission began steering away from leasing office space to a vision of public-private partnerships helping fully develop the Capitol complex.

The concept is anchored in three ideas:

• It's cheaper to build on land the state already owns.

• Money now being spent on leased space could be redirected toward construction.

• Developers might be drawn upon to put up the cash for a role in the projects.

A former director of construction at the University of Texas, James Broaddus has seen public-private partnerships from both sides since he founded his project management firm, Broaddus and Associates, 11 years ago.

He supports the concept and said he believes it could provide cash-strapped governments and public institutions with the money to build facilities needed for Texas' exploding population.

"There's a lot of private capital sitting on the sidelines looking for a sound investment," he said.

However, Broaddus warned: "This is not a playing field for amateurs. The government owners need to really evaluate what they are getting."

The seven-member facilities commission has approved the concept for the Capitol complex, but it still must solicit bids for a master plan. Dukes said the guidelines could speed up implementation once that plan is created.

In the meantime, the guidelines can be applied to public-private partnerships anywhere in the state.

"Our task is not just downtown Austin," Dukes said. "It's much bigger than the Capitol complex."

The development community has been inquiring for months, since the commission released its inventory of state properties and first floated the idea of public-private partnerships.

Dukes said he has heard from developers coast-to-coast.

"There hasn't been a parcel in our master plan," he said, "that I haven't gotten a phone call on."

Will Trans Texas Corridor sidetrack Perry candidacy?

Link to article here.

Scuttled highway may sidetrack Perry
By: Kendra Marr, Politico
October 3, 2011 10:30 PM EDT

Rick Perry’s small-government record has yet another blot.

It’s called the Trans-Texas Corridor.

The governor’s 2012 rivals have latched onto his executive order mandating the HPV vaccine and his advocacy for in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, while little has been said about his unrealized 1,200-foot-wide toll road project that would have swallowed more than 500,000 acres of Texas farmland and wildlife habitats. But as the focus of debates increasingly turn toward President Barack Obama’s jobs agenda — a plan calling for a heavy dose of infrastructure investment — that may change.

“Pay to play, cronyism — all those charges can be found right here in the Trans-Texas Corridor,” said Terri Hall, founder and director of Texans United for Reform and Freedom, a group that fought the project. “We had a Texas-sized uprising.”

In 2002, Perry unveiled his $175 billion blueprint for Texas transportation, calling for 4,000 miles of new toll roads, high-speed rail lines and pipelines “as big as Texas and as ambitious as our people.” Not unlike Obama, Perry envisioned a government role in cultivating private-sector investment in infrastructure.

But awarding new toll development to a Spanish company stoked nativist fears — and questions about a revolving door to the governor’s office. His massive land grab through eminent domain, the practice of government seizing private property for public use, incurred the wrath of farmers, environmentalists and members of his own party.
Nearly 10 years later, Perry signed the death certificate for his brainchild, scrubbing all references of the corridor project from state statutes during the most recent Texas legislative session.

“I supported the ban of ever making a taxpayer-paid road a toll road. You cannot do that in the state of Texas,” he said in an August interview with Des Moines-based WHO Radio, stressing that tolling alternatives are raising taxes, asking Washington for money or waiting for the “asphalt fairy.”

Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan said the failed initiative ultimately fostered conversations about how to fund road projects without increased taxes or relying on the Federal Highway Trust Fund.

“We would describe it as one starting a very important, robust public debate and discussion of financing and developing transportation infrastructure,” he said. “While the corridor concept is dead, the debate has resulted in more transportation funding options and high-priority projects going forward with some private financing and strong state and local cooperation.”

Tolling and public-private partnerships have helped the state’s infrastructure keep up with the big influx of people moving to the state, Sullivan said, adding that the debate had evolved in such a “positive way,” the governor “could agree with the legislature that the corridor was no longer the right approach for the state.”

It’s clear that Texas needs to do something about its crumbling and aging transportation network. The state added 4 million people over the past decade, and its population explosion isn’t expected to slow down. Nearly half of the state’s major highways are congested, and one-third of its major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

At the same time, the state has borrowed heavily to fund its road projects since 2003 and will owe $17.3 billion by the end of next year.

Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor proposal — launched during his first gubernatorial campaign — would have run from the Mexico border to Oklahoma. It was the answer to the challenges of a growing state that was expecting increased international traffic under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Perry envisioned separate lanes for cars and trucks, as well as a rail system. The project was also slated to carry water pipes and utility lines. It was the “largest engineering project ever proposed for Texas,” according to one transportation department report, promising to reduce congestion, cut pollution, improve safety and speed up trade routes.

Given the state’s budget difficulties, Perry’s financing schemes included public and private money, including some toll roads.

Republicans took control of the state Legislature in 2003, pushing the Trans-Texas Corridor project through both chambers as part of an omnibus transportation bill. But evidently, few lawmakers knew what the bill contained.

When the state Transportation Department began holding public meetings about the project in early 2004, voters were fuming at the possibility that private corporations — particularly foreign ones — might exercise eminent domain to build massive amounts of infrastructure for profit.

“His plan was meant to be bold, get one’s imagination working, and it turned out to look scary to people,” said Matt Dellinger, author of “Interstate 69,” which details the fight over the Trans-Texas Corridor.

County toll authorities in Dallas and Houston complained the state was forcing them into contracts with private companies, while voters began calling their legislators to repeal the law. David and Linda Stall, a Republican couple from Fayetteville, Texas, formed a group called CorridorWatch.org, which held meetings across the state about the details of the plan and whipped up outrage.

Environmental groups objected to the wildlife being lost, and farmers turned on the former state agriculture commissioner, calling it an abuse of eminent domain.

“It would have claimed a lot of farm and ranch ground — some of the best in farm and ranch country in the entire state,” said Jim Sartwelle, director of public policy for the Texas Farm Bureau.

Perry’s decision to award development rights to a Spanish company, Cintra, only tapped into anxieties about immigration, free trade and border security. Conspiracy theorists dubbed it the “NAFTA Superhighway” and protested the alleged plot to dissolve the nation’s borders.

And voters cried foul when it came out that one of Perry’s top aides, Dan Shelley, worked for Cintra until three months before the company was selected for the state road project. When Shelley left the governor’s office, he signed a lucrative lobbying contract with Cintra.

But the Perry administration held its ground. Texas Transportation Commissioner Ric Williamson, one of Perry’s closest advisers and friends, frequently intoned, “There is no road fairy.”

“We either build toll roads, slow roads or no roads,” Perry said in 2007.

Ultimately, the uproar forced state officials to scale back the proposal. In 2007, the Legislature dealt a blow to the main tenant of the corridor by placing a moratorium on public-private toll partnerships. In 2009, Perry’s Transportation Department officially killed it off with a “no build” recommendation on the corridor’s first segment, which was being handled by Cintra.

It was one of the most controversial issues of Perry’s gubernatorial career — yet he emerged from the fight relatively unscathed.

During his 2006 reelection, there wasn’t a strong Republican challenger to bring up the Trans-Texas Corridor. Perry, who continued to support the corridor, won the four-way general election with 39 percent of the vote.

During his 2010 gubernatorial fight, Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison aired a biting attack ad accusing Perry of tolling roads for the benefit of foreign companies. Hutchison lost, and while the Democratic nominee, then-Houston Mayor Bill White, also ran an attack ad on the project, Perry won easily.

By the recent midterm election, the issue was too old to cause much damage. Yet tea party activists were still vocally hesitant at what they viewed as the government’s big private-land grab.

Will it damage Perry’s national ambitions?

“Rick Perry talks a good game about getting government out of your life, but if there’s any utility at all for him to put government in your life, you’ve got government in your life,” said Leland Beatty, who worked for Perry’s agriculture predecessor Jim Hightower.

Hall fumes that some public-private partnerships are still alive and well in Texas — even if the corridor project is dead. “There are all these sweetheart deals for all his corporate cronies,” she said.

Meanwhile, others have forgiven.

“Were there disagreements in the middle of the process? Certainly,” said Sartwelle. “But it never happened. The bottom line is it never happened.”

Kirby Brown of the Texas Wildlife Association insisted that “the governor got bad advice.” But he admitted, “There’s no question, we have members who are still mad about it, and they didn’t like the way it played out.”

Dellinger offered this defense: “I could see Perry’s eventual answer being like his HPV response: ‘My heart was in right place, but I went about it all wrong.’”

Perry's pay-to-play evident with choice to lead TxDOT

Perry’s pay-to-play on display in choice to head TxDOT

By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
September 29, 2011

Today, the Texas Transportation Commission announced the new Executive Director to head the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), former Secretary of State Phil Wilson. Wilson was also Governor Rick Perry’s designee for two of his corporate slush funds, the Texas Enterprise Fund and Emerging Technology Fund at that time. Wilson stepped down from Secretary of State in 2008 to become a lobbyist for Luminant, whose parent company is Energy Future Holdings Corp. (formerly TXU Corp.). Wilson also formerly served as Perry’s Chief of Staff and Communications Director.
 

Now we have two Perry political hacks running the highway department, one of the most criticized and broken state agencies in Texas. When Perry tapped Deidre Delisi to head the Transportation Commission in 2008, the move was highly criticized by many in the Texas Legislature. The Senate Transportation Committee Chair at the time, John Carona (R - Dallas), called Delisi a “political hack" with ZERO transportation experience. The same could be said of Wilson. Ultimately, Carona backed down when he got Perry to appoint Bill Meadows, former Board member of the North Texas Tollway Authority, to the Commission.

Flaming pay-to-play cronyism on display
The Transportation Commission wasted taxpayer money hiring Grant Cooper & Associates, an executive search firm based in St. Louis, Mo., to conduct a national search for a new director only to have Perry choose a crony from within Texas. Wilson’s former employer donated over $1 million to Perry through the Republican Governor’s Association when Perry chaired it. This newly released Texans for Public Justice report shows how Energy Future Holdings Corp. benefited directly with Perry appointing Wilson to five (now six) different state posts and four other employees snagging five state appointments in return for its generous donations.

For the first time, TxDOT will not be managed by a professional engineer, but rather a former politician and puppet of the governor. To add insult to injury, Wilson will be paid fully $100,000 more per year, totaling $292,000, than his predecessor (who was a professional engineer, not a former lobbyist). The 628-page management audit done by Grant Thornton recommended new leadership at the top of the troubled agency due to its entrenched culture. It said: “TxDOT has significant leadership issues that impair staff and management effectiveness and morale.” The report also reveals: “Conversations with TxDOTʼs senior leaders reveal a deep-seated belief that TxDOT is doing all the right things and that criticisms leveled against the organization will decline when TxDOT is better able to demonstrate to people how right the organization is.”

The Sunset Advisory Commission also issued two scathing reviews of TxDOT and recommended the Transportation Commission be abolished. Perry’s choice of Wilson is a slap in the face to the sunset review process and will do nothing to convince the skeptical public that this agency’s waste, fraud, and abuse has been put behind them.

The Sunset Advisory Commission report from 2009 states: “Many expressed concerns that TxDOT was 'out of control,' advancing its own agenda against objections of both the Legislature and the public. Sunset staff found that this atmosphere of distrust permeated most of TxDOT’s actions and determined that it could not be an effective state transportation agency if trust and confidence were not restored. Significant changes are needed to begin this restoration; tweaking the status quo is simply not enough.”

Well, the appointment of Wilson is not only a move to keep the status quo, it wreaks of cronyism and puts Perry’s pay-to-play cronyism on display for the national stage. Texas transportation will no more be fixed under this new regime than the old one, and likely will only get worse for taxpayers, for transparency, and for accountability.

A new, much darker era at Perry’s highway department begins....

_____________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Texas Gov Perry headed for more PPPs with close associate Phil Wilson new head of TxDOT

Posted on Thu, 2011-09-29 23:45
Toll Road News
 
Gov Rick Perry seems to be laying the ground for stepping up tollroad concessioning or PPPs in Texas. Today the state's Transportation Commission - a body which generally does the Governor's bidding - announced selection of a longtime Perry political confidante and associate Phil Wilson as the new executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation. That position has normally been filled by a transportation professional.

Wilson, aged 44, comes immediately from head of public affairs at a large electric generation company Luminant.  

Previously Wilson was Perry's Secretary of State. However Phil Wilson was no Hillary Clinton. In Austin TX that position is less far-ranging than here in Washington DC.

But it does involve representation of Texas with Mexico!

Also it involves supervision of elections and assorted other highly political jobs delegated by the governor. Wilson chaired the governor's Competitiveness Council and various economic development committees so he is well known to top businessmen in the state.

Before the secretary of state post Wilson spent time on Perry's personal staff and got in some DC experience working for the prominent Texas US senator Phil Gramm.

Statements today

Ted Houghton, Texas Transportation commissioner and chair of the commission’s executive director search committee is quoted in the announcement today: "Phil (Wilson)’s experience as a public servant and member of the Texas business community has prepared him well to lead the department as it continues to modernize. While TxDOT is certainly a national leader in transportation infrastructure development, there are opportunities for Phil (Wilson) to guide the department through this period of transition, emerging a more responsive and efficient organization."

Wilson himself is quoted: "I am honored to be selected as the next executive director of TxDOT. This is an agency with a rich history in successfully building for our future with dedicated employees. I look forward to working with the agency, Commission, Legislature and local communities on the most efficient and effective ways to build infrastructure for Texas."

PPPs, CDAs?

That last sentence looks like a proposal to enlist investors and private enterprise more heavily in transportation in the state - to do more tollroads with public-private partnerships or concessions ('comprehensive development agreements' (CDAs) is the favored Texas term.)

Earlier this year Texas DOT was reorganized to separate concessions out from operations within the Turnpike division. They are getting separate managers, we're told, which would also seem designed to allow a greater focus on PPPs or CDAs.

In most jurisdictions where a state toll agency coexists with a policy of privatization the work of privatization is conducted by a separate agency.

In Ohio Governor Kasich's proposal to privatize the Turnpike is being conducted by the Office of Management and Budget. In Puerto Rico tollroad privatization (and other privatizations) are being conducted by a Puerto Rico Public Private Partnerships Authority. In Indiana the same is true.

By contrast in Virginia where the Virginia DOT conducts P3s almost nothing ever gets to financial close. There is study after study and multiple procurements in glacial slow motion.

The Norfolk/Hampton Roads area is in its second decade of P3s being "in process" with nothing ever coming out of the pipeline.

The problem with having the state toll authority conduct the privatization is that it has a huge conflict of interest. It is being asked to execute its own dismemberment, if not a death sentence. Its natural tendency is to go through the motions.

Non-viable projects for which no state money can be raised can usefully be passed off for P3 procurements, the protracted procurement process itself being a convenient response to constituencies asking what's being done for their problem corridor. The real problem is toll projects that the state sees as financial duds are also likely to be P3 duds.

Odd record - from Mussolini & Mao to markets

Governor Perry has an odd record in transportation.

Early in his term Perry promoted the most grandiose statist planning with so-called Texas Transportation Corridors (TTCs) crisscrossing the state gridlike. Within thousand foot-plus rights of way 4,000 miles, 6500km of TTCs were seen as catering separately to cars and trucks, separate freight and passenger rail, with oil and gas pipelines and electric transmission lines. The concept was a financial absurdity - more akin to authoritarian and monumental planning in China or fascist Italy than to a market oriented economy and a democratic polity.

Practical civil servants in TXDOT and the Turnpike Division attempted to extract something useful and positive from the TTC concept by focussing attention on "early priorities" (I-35, I-69) and slimmed down "first stages"  - but the political damage was done. Texas' legislature saw bipartisan opposition develop.

All the TTC concept achieved was to mobilize a powerful anti-roads political backlash. Naysayers were given a whole armory of weapons to bludgeon every TXDOT proposal.

The disastrous TTCs were quietly buried in 2009.

P3s

Texas under Perry has seen much effort to develop P3s. Again the state's credibility in P3s was heavily damaged when the Governor failed to weigh in against North Texas Turnpike Authority's late takeover of the north Dallas area Route 121 (now Sam Rayburn Tollway) P3 project in the first half of 2007. Perry's failure to back his department saw last minute withdrawal of a $2.8b P3 contract with Cintra.

EDITING: the initial version painted this too starkly as "a breach of contract." A TXDOT official says it was "close" but the contract was not executed so there was not a legal issue. And Cintra were compensated for their work on the project. He agrees however the whole 121 affair created a credibility problem for the P3 program in Texas, and slowed it down. He says the department took its time with new P3s such as 35E and the Grand Parkway precisely to be sure there wouldn't be a repeat of the 121 chaos (our word.) He says the program is now has a sounder political and legal framework in SB1420 and SB19.

Despite Perry missteps

Despite these missteps Texas under Perry has seen major improvements in highways through TxDOT's embrace of tolling, and most of all through regional and county initiatives - "regional mobility authorities."

Texas' is clearly the most dynamic economy in the country, attracting people and business, and generating jobs like no other state, so one way or another there's lots of road work there.

Stickin' around Austin

His presidential prospects rapidly evaporating as the Tea Party crowd move to the more promising Herman Cain, Perry seems likely now to be "stickin' around" Austin, making the Wilson appointment more important.

Wilson succeeds Amadeo Saenz, a consummate professional engineer-manager who retired in August. Wilson brings important PR and political skills, it is said, to a job where they can be more important than engineering or management.

The transportation commission today voted Wilson a salary of $292.5k, which must be one of the highest salaries for the head of any state agency, and should also encourage him to stay around. Saenz was paid $100k less.

TOLLROADSnews 2011-09-29 EDIT: 9-30 13:30

Perry pushes toll agency to sell, privatize I-35 in Denton

Link to article here.

It's significant to note that Deirdre Delisi is Chairwoman of Perry's Texas Transportation Commission and running his presidential campaign at a time when she has the power to direct billions in state contracts to potential campaign donors, like the corporations who will benefit from privatization. The NTTA already knows this project isn't toll viable, so why is Perry's Commission pushing to have it privatized? How will they make money? The same way they all do -- taxpayer subsidies, or public money for private profits.

Gas taxes would build it, but can't use it without paying again through toll taxes:
"With half-a-billon dollars in public money (note: total project cost $3 billion), TxDOT could attract private firms to build the tolled portion of the project -- ie, the two managed lanes in each direction -- and perhaps a small portion of the improvements to the main lanes first. The revenue from those toll lanes would then, supporters hope, be sufficient to help finance the subsequent improvements."

This also shows how diabolical Perry's highway department remains, even after two scathing and a 628 page management audit sunset reviews that could have abolished the agency altogether. So now that the sunset review is over, they're up to their usual bullying that got them into trouble in the first place. Commissioner Ted Houghton even promised TxDOT was no longer in the business of toll roads and that it would defer to the LOCAL toll entities to do it, if they chose. Now that the sunset review is over, TxDOT is NOT deferring to the LOCALS and is foisting its agenda upon them with the MOST expensive way to fund roads that result in toll rates as high as 75 cents PER MILE!

The most shocking statement in this article:
"NTTA executives said this morning that there is no way NTTA could borrow enough to pay for the road because it would take decades before its projected toll revenues would be enough to pay both the debt service on the necessary loans and the operations and maintenance of the road -- even if it is built in stages."

With pressure from state, NTTA board poised to clear way for privatization of I-35E toll project to Denton
By Michael Lindenberger/Reporter
Dallas Morning News
9:50 AM on Wed., Sep. 21, 2011

Free lanes would be expanded; new tolled managed lanes added to I-35E

Update: The board voted 9-0 to waive its rights to develop the project, with the controversial caveat deleted.

Should the NTTA waive its right to develop the Interstate 35E project between Dallas and Denton?

It's a $3.2 billon construction project, and would stretch 29 miles and cover two tolled lanes in each direction, two to three frontage roads lanes in each direction, and between three and four lanes of rebuilt interstate lanes -- big enough, in other words, to make it the largest and most expensive project in NTTA history.

Support for the project is near unanimous from Dallas to Denton to Arlington to Austin. And expectations are high that work on at least part of the project could get underway in the next couple of years, despite its high costs.

But those costs and a strong preference for privatization on behalf of the Governor and his appointees who run the Texas Transportation Commission have likely sidelined NTTA for this project.

Here's why: NTTA executives said this morning that there is no way NTTA could borrow enough to pay for the road because it would take decades before its projected toll revenues would be enough to pay both the debt service on the necessary loans and the operations and maintenance of the road -- even if it is built in stages.

So the staff has recommended to the board that it formally waive its rights to develop the road and by doing so let TxDOT work with local officials to attract a private investor who would finance the road in return for the right to collect tolls. That's an approach that was outlawed by the Legislature in 2009, but given new life again in 2011.

TxDOT wants that project badly enough that Gov. Rick Perry's chief transportation advisor, chairman Deirdre Delisi of the Texas Transportation Commission, called NTTA chairman Victor Vandergriff last night urging him to support the waiver and get his agency out of the way of the project.

The board hasn't voted yet -- though it appears certain they will support the waiver -- because the proposal made by the staff includes a caveat that the waiver would be rescinded if TxDOT kicks in significant tax dollars to make the project more attractive to the private sector. The thinking at NTTA has been if TxDOT is willing to heavily subsidize the project with tax dollars, then why should such funds only be available to the private sector.

The amounts are huge. CFO Janice Davis told board members that a private firm eager to build the project would likely need government assistance to back its debt -- giving it a lower borrowing costs -- as well as upfront payments of hundreds of millions of dollars, and annual payments to assist it in paying its loans.

Of course, TxDOT and other backers of the project are smart enough to see that a caveat that rescinds NTTA's waiver in the event of such assistance is tantamount to no waiver at all, since the assistance is necessary.

That's likely the message Delisi delivered to Vandergriff last night.

So where's that leave the project? NTTA is going to consultant with its lawyers in a few minutes and will likely delete the caveat. If it does, it will give the project to TxDOT.

That will be a mixed blessing for the state, which wants to showcase the power of private investment in highway infrastructure. But as Michael Morris, the transportation chief at the NCTCOG said this morning, with only about $500 million to $600 million in public money available for the more than $3 billion project, the challenges in funding the project through any means will be significant.

What's also clear, however, is that once NTTA moves out of the picture, the state will be free to pump as much money as it can find into the project to secure the interest of a private sector partner. What that means for folks like Denton Judge Mary Horn, who has been pushing for a rebuilt link between Denton and Dallas for years, will likely look like this:

With half-a-billon dollars in public money, TxDOT could attract private firms to build the tolled portion of the project -- ie, the two managed lanes in each direction -- and perhaps a small portion of the improvements to the main lanes first. The revenue from those toll lanes would then, supporters hope, be sufficient to help finance the subsequent improvements.

NTTA has attempted to keep its finger in the pot long enough to get back into the game if the project turns into a primarily toll project. That's the kind of prospect TxDOT wants to avoid, and it is likely what it is going to get once the board meets with its attorneys this morning.

When it meets with its attorneys, the overriding reality will be financial, not legal: With so little money to bring to the table, NTTA is likely to find that it simply can't afford to stay in the driver's seat for the Interstate 35E project.

Obama gives green light to toll existing interstate, I-95

Link to editorial here.

EDITORIAL: Taking Virginia taxpayers for a ride

Obama administration approves multimillion-dollar tax hike on drivers

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Washington Times Editorial Board

Wednesday, September 21, 2011


The freedom of the open road could soon be a thing of the past for Virginia motorists. Big-government bureaucrats of all political stripes yearn to return to the days when toll barriers were used to shake down anyone using main thoroughfares. They’ve been upset ever since President Eisenhower’s system of gas-tax-funded freeways spurred commerce, industry and travel across the country. On Friday, the Obama administration gave the green light to turn back the clock.

Republican Gov. Robert F. McDonnell received preliminary federal approval to hit people in the wallet as they pass over the North Carolina border on Interstate 95. Tolls of around $2 per axle will be levied at several points all the way up to Fredericksburg, where the planned High Occupancy Toll (HOT) charges will take over. The ultimate goal is to make all free lanes disappear, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation tolling application, which stated, “VDOT believes that the ability to extend [tolls] past mile post 126 would be beneficial in the future.”

With HOT lanes on the Beltway, and additional plans to toll I-66, taxpayers won’t be able to move anywhere in Northern Virginia without being nickeled-and-dimed. The I-95 plan would fatten Richmond’s coffers to the tune of at least $50 million per year, although the agency admits, “Toll-rate increases have not been included in the analysis.”

The Dulles Toll Road is a perfect example of how that works out. This major commuter route will see the price of a round trip rise to $17 over the next five years, and to $34 by 2040. That huge expense doesn’t go to fund any road improvements. Instead, it foots the bill for the $6 billion Metrorail to Dulles International Airport. These outrageous rates are set by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, an unconstitutional body that doesn’t answer to the residents of Northern Virginia.

Tolling advocates insist there is no other way to fund improvements to I-95 because the state is broke. Perhaps that has something to do with blowing $6 billion on an airport trolley. What’s really happening is that the General Assembly has outsourced the politically unpopular duty of revenue raising to unaccountable agencies and foreign corporations. It’s a thinly disguised tax hike that used to be the sort of thing one expected from Democrats.

In 2003, the Federal Highway Administration granted the request of then-Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, to force drivers to toss coins into the government basket when driving on I-81. Fortunately, widespread public opposition forced the legislature to pass a law blocking the deal. Lawmakers need to do the same with the current Republican governor’s plan.

Perry's cronies: The Shelley-Cintra-Giuliani connection

Link to article here.

Perry & his cronies: The Shelley-Cintra-Giuliani connection

By Terri Hall, Examiner.com, September 21, 2011

With the pay-to-play Solyndra scandal rocking the White House, presidential hopeful Rick Perry is embroiled in a mountain of crony capitalism controversy all his own. During the September 12 GOP presidential debate, Michelle Bachmann exposed the money trail behind Perry’s Executive Order mandating all 6th grade girls in Texas receive the Gardasil HPV vaccine made by the drug company, Merck, the employer of Perry’s former Chief of Staff, Mike Toomey, at the time. Merck funneled money to Perry, initially $5,000, but eventually adding up to the tidy sum of closer to $400,000, sparking outrage across Texas and now the nation.

Toomey’s just the tip of the ice berg.

A recent bill pushed through the Texas Legislature benefited the company Waste Control Specialists, owned by #2 donor to Gov. Rick Perry, Harold Simmons.  Just days after the bill was signed into law, Mr. Simmons wrote a $100,000 check to Americans for Rick Perry, the super PAC supporting Gov. Perry's candidacy for president notes Debra Medina of We Texans.

Janet Ahmad, President of Homeowners for Better Building, pointed to similar problems in the construction industry.  Top Rick Perry donor, Bob Perry, paid nearly $8 million in campaign contributions and sought and received his own regulatory agency called the Texas Residential Construction Commission in 2003.  Gov. Perry appointed industry-connected people to that agency, including Perry Homes VP, corporate counsel John Krugh. “The resulting agency was so anti-consumer and so counter-productive that the Texas Legislature later decided to abolish it,” Ahmad concludes.

Texas for Sale

Then there’s Perry's penchant for selling off Texas infrastructure to the highest bidder, particularly to the employer of his former staffer Dan Shelley, a Spanish company, Cintra. Shelley worked as a ‘consultant’ for Cintra (in 2004), became Perry’s liaison to the legislature during the time that Cintra was awarded the development rights to the $7 billion dollar Trans Texas Corridor (in 2005), then went back to work as a lobbyist for Cintra (in 2006). He and has daughter reportedly earned between $50,000-$100,000 on lobbying for Cintra that year.

Two key bills that just passed the Texas Legislature and signed into law by Perry further illustrate the crony capitalism and pattern of governance in the Perry Administration, both of which will benefit Cintra, in particular.

SB 1420 makes 15 Texas roads eligible for public private partnerships (P3s) that sell- off Texas sovereign land/public roads to private entities in 50 year monopolies. P3s involve public money for private profits (including gas taxes and other public subsidies), contain non-compete clauses that penalize or prohibit the expansion of surrounding free routes, and put the power to tax in the hands of private corporations that result in toll rates as high as 75 cents per mile ($13/day or like adding $15 to every gallon of gas you buy). It’s selling off Texas to the highest bidder, which is the MOST expensive, anti-taxpayer method of funding infrastructure.

Four road projects under SB 1420 have already been awarded to Cintra. In fact, every single P3 for roads in Texas has gone to Cintra: SH 130 (segments 5 & 6) and I-635 and the North Tarrant Express (comprised of multiple projects, primarily on I-820) in Dallas/Ft.Worth. All have been heavily subsidized with gas taxes and other public money (see pages 2 & 3), yet Cintra walks away with a sweetheart deal and guaranteed profits. Despite Cintra’s shaky financial situation (its debt rating just got lowered due to fears of the Cintra-controlled Indiana Toll Road going into default), Perry’s highway department continues to press ahead with these extremely controversial and unpopular privatization projects.

 
Perry’s connection to Cintra explains why he endorsed Rudy Giuliani in the last presidential election. At the time, Giuliani’s law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, was the legal firm representing Cintra in its bid to takeover SH 121 (which eventually unraveled) in the Dallas area. Giuliani’s investment firm was purchased by an Australian firm, Macquarie, another global player in P3s at the same time his law firm was advising Cintra on the SH 121 deal. While many social conservatives were baffled by Perry’s backing of Giuliani, it was no surprise to those following the Trans Texas Corridor and Perry’s push to privatize Texas freeways.

Balfour Beatty enters the scene

Perry likes to brag ‘Texas is Open for Business’ and here’s what that means to property rights and taxpayers. The second key public private partnership bill, SB 1048, Perry signed into law will mean Katie-Bar-the-Door on selling off virtually everything not nailed down. The bill was written by lobbyist Brett Findley on behalf of another infrastructure firm, British company Balfour Beatty, and it will allow all public buildings, nursing homes, hospitals, schools, ports, mass transit projects, ports, telecommunications, etc. to be sold-off to corporations using P3s. Unlike the 50 year cap on road P3s, SB 1048 gives no limit on the length of time a P3s can last or whether such broad authority expires.

Two particularly anti-taxpayer provisions in SB 1048 are the fact taxpayers secure the private entity’s debt (2267.061 (f)) and that it authorizes public subsidies for private profits by raiding taxpayers’ money through loans from the State Infrastructure Bank.

Michelle Malkin called P3s corporate welfare. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are P3s and required massive taxpayer bailouts. P3s socialize the losses and privatize the profits. These contracts also eliminate competitive bidding and grant government-sanctioned monopolies (with guaranteed profits) to the well-connected.

Public interest not protected, kept secret


These contracts can be negotiated in SECRET, without financial disclosures (like financing, the structure of the ‘user fees’ or lease payments, viability studies, public subsidies, or whether or not it contains non-compete clauses or other gotcha provisions). There is no meaningful public access to P3s before they’re signed, and the few guidelines created simply exist to advise governmental entities outside the public purview.

Eminent domain for private gain


P3s represent eminent domain for private gain -- the source of much of the backlash to the Trans Texas Corridor, where P3s were the financing mechanism that granted these private entities the control of not just the facility, but the right of way/surrounding property where private companies make a killing on concessions. A plurality of Texans don’t like the idea of foreign ownership of our public infrastructure and they dislike eminent domain for private gain even more.

Of course, it started with the Trans Texas Corridor, known at the federal level as high priority corridors, corridors of the future, or the NAFTA superhighways. Just in Texas, it was to be a 4,000 mile multi-modal network of toll roads, rail lines, power transmission lines, pipelines, telecommunications lines and more. It was going to be financed, operated, and controlled by a foreign company, Cintra, granted massive swaths of land 1,200 feet (4 football fields) wide taken forcibly through eminent domain.

Called the biggest land grab in Texas history, it was going to gobble up 580,000 acres of private Texas land (the first corridor alone was to displace 1 million Texans) and hand it over to well-connected global players using PPPs, who would gain exclusive rights to determine the route and what hotels, restaurants, and gas stations were along the corridor in a government-sanctioned monopoly for a half century. It was the worst case of eminent domain for private gain ever conceived.

Property rights shredded
The Trans Texas Corridor, and P3s in general, represent an imminent threat to private property rights. While lawmakers repealed the Trans Texas Corridor from state statute only months ago due to the public backlash, the corridor lives on through these P3s.

So Perry basically granted government a blank check to trample on property rights and the power to pick the winners and losers — who will lose their land to benefit another, rather than restricting the power of eminent domain to matters of public necessity. If the government can steal your land, it’s tantamount to stealing your wealth. Who said Republicans aren’t socialists? P3s are just the sort of wealth redistribution they like — giveaways to their cronies and special interest friends. They’re also a BIG step in enacting the U.N.’s Agenda 21 policies where the stated goals are to abolish private property and restrict mobility.

Rick Perry’s crony capitalism wasn’t just a fleeting lapse of judgment pertaining to the HPV scandal, it’s a consistent pattern of revolving door, pay-to-play crony capitalism that Americans detest and can ill afford.

Terri Hall, San Antonio Transportation Policy Examiner
 
September 21, 2011 - Like this? Subscribe to get instant updates.

America's most expensive highways - toll roads

Where Are America's Most Expensive Highways and Byways?

By Jo  Piazza

Published September 20, 2011 | FoxNews.com

With air travel becoming prohibitively expensive, more travelers are taking to the roads. But even our nation's highways and byways are no longer the cheap alternative, as tolls continue to climb for states seeking additional revenue streams.

The most recent pain in the wallet is the preliminary approval for the state of Virginia to levy tolls on Interstate 95, extending the pay-to-ride corridor on the highly traveled North-South route even deeper into the Southern states, starting south of Fredericksburg.

So where are the nation's most expensive highways and byways?

It's a common belief among the road warriors who say that the Delaware Turnpike -- the 11.2 mile stretch of road that connects from New York and Philadelphia take to Baltimore and Washington D.C. -- is the most expensive toll road in the U.S.

But according to the Federal Highway Administration, the most costly interstate toll road for passenger vehicles, broken down by average cost per mile, is the Chicago Skyway -- a 7.8-mile toll road connecting the Dan Ryan Expressway to the Indiana Tollway, costing drivers a whopping $.46 per mile. The tolled express lanes in downtown Denver, Colo. come in second, costing $.29 cents a mile. The Delaware John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway comes in third, costing approximately $.23 cents per mile.

The priciest non-interstate toll roads include New York's Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway at stunning $3.11 per mile, the Prospect Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway in New York at $1.01, the Fort Bend Parkway Extension in Texas at $.59 and Colorado's scenic Pike's Peak toll road where the average cost is $.53 per mile for a passenger vehicle.

Tolls are revenue generators for states, which means that in tough economic times they are only going to go up.

According to the Federal Highway Administration the number of interstate and non-interstate toll roads and bridges has increased from 4,601 miles to 5,079 miles since 2001.

Virginia estimates that with the new tolls, they will collect $250 million in the first five years of implementation, if they win final approval. Under mandate from the Federal Highway Authority the funds must be put back into the state's highway system.

The American Automobile Association (AAA) does not keep track of how tolls affect the number of drivers on the road, nor does the Federal Highway Administration, but AAA is strong in its stance against tolling existing capacity.

“As a general principle, AAA believe that all roads should be toll free. Tolls should not be imposed on existing capacity, especially on the Interstate Highway System.. We recognize that all levels of government are facing transportation funding shortfalls. And at the same time, states face tremendous transportation system maintenance and construction backlogs that need addressing,” said AAA spokesman Troy Green.

Toll increases always seem to come with it grumbling from frequent commuters, and then followed by a spark of creative ingenuity as drivers attempt to save a few bucks each day.

“It's is usually an issue if there's a big toll increase. People start to think about avoiding the toll. They research it, try out alternates,and make a judgment whether the toll is worth it to them,” explains Peter Samuel, the editor of the independent website Toll Road News that collects data on toll increases nationwide.

“On the long turnpikes - like N.J. Turnpike, Ohio Turnpike, I-95 in Delaware and Maryland etc. - there's usually a parallel free road, however (with) lots of stoplights, much slower. But if the toll is high enough some people do switch to that slower but free road, no doubt about it,” Samuel said.

This will likely be the case if the toll increase is approved in Virginia, particularly in our digital times when there is no shortage of information online about how to ditch tolls and the costs of doing so.

“People start to research it with Google Maps and such like. I'm sure someone will come up with an iPhone app 'Avoid the Toll' which will map the toll points and show a motorist how to get around the toll, maybe estimate the time it will cost you and the toll charge you'll avoid,” Samuel said.

But the real question is how the rising prices of tolls impact drivers?


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2011/09/20/americas-most-expensive-highways-and-byways/print#ixzz1YebKBsBK

Fitch warns of toll troubles

Article from: www.thenewspaper.com/news/35/3586.asp


Credit Ratings Agency Warns of Tolling Troubles
Fitch Ratings reports toll roads imperiled by lack of sustained growth in the economy.

Fitch reportToll roads at one point appeared to be unstoppable. Steady growth in traffic yielded rapidly rising profits, especially for pioneers in the field such as Australia's Macquarie Bank where executives became so rich from deals that included the leasing of US roads that it was dubbed the "millionaires' factory." That all changed when the recession took hold and motorists scaled back on the mileage driven each year. Losses began to mount, and as a report released last week by Fitch Ratings argues, the dynamics for tolling may not improve in the near future.

"Fitch tracks data on toll roads, bridges, and tunnels across its ratings portfolio," Fitch analysts wrote in the report, Downshifting: US Transportation Reacts as GDP Growth Flattens. "Traffic declined year over year as much as 10 percent during the Great Recession. Sustained positive growth in traffic commenced in February 2010. The most recent Fitch data indicates that growth in traffic volumes began slowly declining on tolled facilities, heading to zero growth in second-quarter 2011."

The US Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported a similar decline in commercial transportation services for both goods and passengers. Despite some recovery, the index remains below pre-recession levels. These transportation statistics mirror figures for consumer spending which began recovering early last year only to falter this March. Growth in consumer spending for the second quarter of 2011 was under 0.1 percent.

The credit ratings agency argues activity in the economy at large and the in the transportation sector are directly linked. When someone gets a job, he generally gets in his car to drive to work. When stores sell goods, the supplies, raw materials and final product are usually transported by truck. When unemployment is high and sales are low, such transportation activity drops.

"Higher oil and other commodity prices account for some of the change in consumer spending," the analysts explained. "Unlike past downturns, these prices are increasingly influenced by external factors as well as US demand. Consumers are reacting to increased prices and a weak labor market with belt tightening."

Fitch will not downgrade any existing credit ratings for toll roads because these operations have a monopoly position that enables them to recover from downturns by hiking tolls that many motorists have no choice but to pay.

"Tolled facilities have experienced low and even negative traffic growth since 2007," the analysts stated. "Revenues have grown at a much higher rate as facility operators reacted to the downturn by raising rates to preserve financial and operational flexibility."

The ratings agency warned that sustained periods of low economic growth imperils the financing of deals built with healthier traffic and economic forecasts in mind.

"Most public infrastructure facilities should be able to weather little to no growth scenarios over the next three to five years," Fitch wrote. "However, there are a number of issuers whose escalating debt profiles could pose a problem in the medium term. Newer toll facilities generally have such debt service profiles... Stand-alone, concession-based facilities, originally financed in 2006 - 2008 when expectations for future economic growth were very high, will be more vulnerable."

_____________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

2010 recovery in toll traffic stopped in Q2, unprecedented stall-out - Fitch Ratings

Posted on Sun, 2011-09-11 23:30
 
Fitch Ratings say in a recent report that traffic on toll facilities ceased to grow in the second quarter of this year, suggesting the weak recovery from the 2008-2009 recession in 2010 and first quarter 2011 has stalled. An accompanying graph shows 4/11 traffic and revenue as still growing but at 2 to 3% versus a healthy revenue growth 5% year-on-year -  rather constant for a year through the first quarter.

Fitch says this "second dip" is unprecedented. No recovery in the past 40 years has seen such marked stoppage before pre-recession levels are reached.

Traffic has been growing through to the second quarter but less strongly than toll revenue,  the difference reflecting an increase in average toll rates. But growth in traffic along with revenue has plunged towards zero since, the Fitch report says.

They see approximate "zero growth" now.

Untolled roads too

They say untolled roads are experiencing a pattern of stagnant year-on-year traffic numbers in recent months similar to that of toll facilities.

They write: "It is important to note that this second dip in the trajectory is very different from any seen over the past 40 years."

Reflection of consumer spending

Fitch analysts say the stall-out of traffic recovery is a reflection of the deterioration of the US and world economy over the summer.

"The direction of the economy and the general economic climate has become uncertain over the summer months. The housing market shows rising delinquencies; firms are holding back on expansion plans; and consumers are husbanding their financial resources. The recent dramatic decline in the U.S. stock markets and the overhang of the debt crisis may keep consumers in a conservative posture. Consequently, the prospects for near-term growth in traffic volumes in transportation infrastructure facilities as seen in late 2010 now seem low."

Higher toll rates have boosted revenues

The only good news from Fitch is many tollers have found they can increase revenue with higher toll rates. Those motorists who are traveling apparently find the benefits of tolled travel greater than the cost, so total revenues are up compared to pre-recession levels, though traffic volume has not recovered.

Growth prospects now "low"

Whereas by late 2010 it looked as though there was a recovery under way that would continue through this year and next, the prospects for growth are now  "low."

How does the a no-growth scenario affect the viability of tollers whose capital was raised in a more optimistic atmosphere?

Most will weather the no-growth period for 3 to 5 years

Fitch Ratings say most "should be able to weather little or no-growth scenarios over the next three to five years." But a number of bond issuers could find escalating debt a problem "medium term."

This includes several "newer toll facilities" and airports.

No agencies are named, but they say:

"For such facilities, an extended period of limited or flat growth in volume will require they make more dramatic increases in tolls/airline rates and charges coupled with continued expense reductions to maintain their credit profile. Stand-alone, concession-based facilities, originally financed in 2006−2008 when expectations for future economic growth were very high, will be more vulnerable."

SIDENOTE: Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) had its bonds recently downrated in a quite separate Fitch analysis. MWAA has been borrowing heavily to expand capacity at Washington Dulles International Airport and the poor air traffic has depressed landing fee revenues, making the debt for expansion tougher to support.

But MWAA also has plans to issue $3.2b in toll revenue bonds as part of its underwriting of the extension of the DC metrorail system to Dulles airport and beyond. Huge revenue increases will be needed on the Dulles Toll Road to support this. Studies on the future likely traffic and revenue on the Toll Road by consultants Wilbur Smith Associates won't be done until year's end.

Strangely the Fitch rationale for the MWAA downrating focuses exclusively on the airport portion of MWAA business, making no references to the extraordinary rail debt planned to be borne by the Toll Road.

The major report cited here is titled "Downshifting: US transportation reacts as GDP growth flattens."

Named analysts are Thomas McCormick, Michael McDermott, Cherian George and Jeffrey Lack.

TOLLROADSnews 2011-09-11

Perry denies support of NAFTA superhighway

Link to article here.

Okay, Perry must be having a total break from reality is he thinks he can tell such a bald-faced lie and get away with it while he's under the media microscope of a presidential campaign. Perry is truly trying to re-make himself as he runs for president...is he for real? After shoving the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) down Texans throats for the last 8 years in stubborn defiance against the tens of thousands of Texas who rose-up to oppose the the TTC, he honestly thinks he can get away with this denial of his support for it? Had it not been for a Texas-sized uprising, the Trans Texas Corridor would have NEVER been repealed from the transportation code in June of this year! To add insult to injury, Perry also signed into law another bill that still allows 15 Texas roads to be sold off to these foreign companies using public private partnerships. So the pie in the sky TTC is over, but a smaller version built in segments will commence.

Rick Perry Says He Opposes Globalist Super Highway

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
September 15, 2011

During a call-in radio show in Des Moines, Iowa, declared GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry told a whopper. He said the idea of a NAFTA Super Highway (or Trans-Texas Highway) does not appeal to him.

“I’m looking for a candidate that is actually going to walk their talk, so I want to know how Gov. Perry justifies being in a Bilderberg meeting and also in my research and reading, I’ve read that he is interested in joining Canada, United States and Mexico and developing our currency as an ‘Amero.’ That doesn’t appeal to me at all, I think our sovereignty is at threat,” the caller said.

“I agree with you there. It doesn’t appeal to me at all either,” Perry responded.

In fact, the idea of linking Mexico, the United States and Canada via a transnational highway appeals to Perry so much that his campaign website lists it as one of his accomplishments.

Perry was a well-paid pimp for the globalist “corridor” that would take a big bite out of the sovereignty of the United States.

Rachel Alexander writes:

Construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor began in 2007. Perry received substantial campaign contributions from the companies expected to benefit from the construction, Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transport and Zachry Construction Company. Cintra is a Spanish-owned company that would own the toll roads. This arrangement has been accused of being a hidden tax payable to a foreign corporation. Zachry was selected by the Texas Department of Transportation to construct the Trans-Texas Corridor.

Perry and the elite tried to sell the highway concept as nothing more than a “free trade” arrangement between neighbors, but in fact, as Jerome Corsi and others have documented, it “goes well beyond simple free trade agreements and purposely disguises efforts to subvert U.S. sovereignty to an entity that would operate much like the European Union,” as Alexander puts it.

Corsi and Judicial Watch made repeated Freedom of Information Act requests and received over a thousand pages of material affirming the globalist plan.

Perry’s disavowal, however, of the Amero appellation stands up. I can’t find any evidence that he ever supported the concept, although he brags about being a minion of the globalists on his campaign website.

On the subject of the 2007 Bilderberg meeting, Perry attempts to defuse and minimize it by stating that he only attended once and talked about energy.

Fact of the matter is Rick Perry violated the Logan Act when he trekked to Istanbul, Turkey, to attend the secretive meeting.

The Logan Act states:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

“Rick Perry seems to have attempted to get ahead of accusations that he was violating the act in making the visit by claiming the trip was paid for out of campaign contributions and not by taxpayers, but this is inconsequential,” Paul Joseph Watson wrote on May 31, 2007.

It is inconsequential because he violated U.S. law and should be held responsible for doing so.

It’s too bad the caller didn’t point this out. It would have probably put an entirely different spin on the conversation.

Ten pillars deemed flawed on US 290 project


Link to article here.

This is what happens when our highway department outsources its expertise and project management to these new Regional Mobility Authorities that have no earthly idea how to build highways. They're Rick Perry's Wall Street JP Morgan-Chase-First Southwest cocktails specializing in "innovative financing" and building debt bombs (like the subprime mortgage crisis), not highways. We have got to get  rid of these RMAs and of Perry's attempt underway to re-make of the highway department into a Goldman Sachs finance zone (eventually on track for massive taxpayer bailouts -- think Greece), and get back to TxDOT building traditional state highways (that used to be the envy of the nation).

Jacobs is also the firm that engineered the southern ramps of the 281/1604 interchange in San Antonio and it's also conducting the US 281 environmental impact study that involves preliminary engineering and cost estimates. FYI, Webber may be Houston-based, but it was purchased by Cintra's parent company, Ferrovial a few years back. So this is what we get when Cintra's on the job. We have confidence in none of the above!

10 pillars on U.S. 290 tollway project deemed flawed

By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Updated: 10:21 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011

Published: 9:10 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011

Ten concrete columns were built either too high or too low on the U.S. 290 tollway project in Northeast Austin and will have to be replaced or altered, an official with the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority said Thursday.

Two columns will be completely rebuilt. The other eight must be shortened or made higher.

The cost of the reconstruction efforts will be borne by the project's general contractor, Webber LLC , because the error was determined to be Webber's fault, said Steve Pustelnyk , spokesman for the mobility authority. Pustelnyk said the added work will not delay opening of the first mile and a half of the 6.2-mile Manor Expressway project, which will be owned and operated by the local toll agency and will run from U.S. 183 to just west of Manor.

He said that first phase of the tollway, including the four flyover bridges, should open by late 2012 .

The flyovers, which will connect U.S. 183 with what will be new, tolled express lanes on U.S. 290, are being built under a $52.5 million contract. The first section of toll lanes and access roads is being built under another $207.3 million contract, also with Webber.

That company is also the general contractor on the mobility authority's five-mile extension of the 183-A tollway in Leander and Cedar Park, a $75.7 million project that should open by spring.

Pustelnyk said Webber is "in concurrence that the cost is theirs."

Mario Menendez , general counsel with Houston-based Webber, said Thursday that he was not familiar with the problem and could not comment on whether his company was at fault, or whether it will cover the cost of repairs. Nor could he say what that cost would be.

"Certainly we're going to stand behind the contractual obligations we've assumed," Menendez said.

The flawed columns involved three of the four flyover bridges in the project: two on the flyover that connects eastbound U.S. 290 to northbound U.S. 183, four on the flyover that connects westbound U.S. 290 to southbound U.S. 183, and four on the flyover that connects northbound U.S. 183 to eastbound U.S. 290.

The problem was discovered about two months ago as crews were attempting to suspend a steel beam between concrete columns and found that "things were not lining up the way they were supposed to," Pustelnyk said.

But the origins of the flaw go back about two years, before construction began in spring 2010 .

Pustelnyk said that an original set of plans for the interchange by Jacobs Engineering Group , when it was reviewed by Webber, were found lacking. So Jacobs redesigned the project and the resulting plans were approved by the mobility authority and Webber.

However, "for an unknown reason, the old set of design plans was used to build these particular columns," Pustelnyk said, and that mistake was not discovered until they had been built. Initially, officials thought only one column was built under the wrong specifications, but a follow-up investigation confirmed that 10 of 117 would have to be altered.

On Thursday, one of those flawed columns and its triangular "bearing seat" on top was part way through a demolition effort in the median between the eastbound and westbound lanes of U.S. 290.

Pustelnyk said the new columns will be structurally sound. "Any of the changes that are being done have been reviewed and approved by licensed engineers," he said.

A column on the MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1)/U.S. 290 flyover project in Southwest Austin, found by inspectors to have inadequate concrete, had to be rebuilt earlier this year. That episode on the Texas Department of Transportation project was followed a few months later by the bankruptcy of the Nevada-based contractor and abandonment of the job. A new contractor resumed work this week on that job.

U.S. 290 in Northeast Austin is likewise part of the state highway system under TxDOT's control. But TxDOT ceded control two years ago of the future tollway section to the mobility authority.

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