(San Antonio, TX) - It's apparent that the fix was in
before a single
citizen ever walked into the Bexar County San Antonio
Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) meeting Monday. The tumult and
chaos surrounding transportation decision-makers in Bexar County has hit a
feverish pitch and it's getting plain ugly for taxpayers.
After several
hours of debate, Bexar County Commissioner Kevin
Wolff gave
the board his blessing to adopt a plan that includes toll
lanes along 36
miles of Loop 1604 and 7.8 miles of the US 281
corridor, parts of which
were completely new and were never
discussed, presented, or properly posted
for the public prior to
today's meeting.
"Why let a
little thing like the Open Meetings Act get in their way?
TheMPO has
always operated as if it were above the law. Nearly
every agenda is so
vaguely worded, they could vote on a field trip
to Tahiti at taxpayer
expense and the public would never know it,"
fumes Terri Hall,
Founder/Director of Texans Uniting for Reform
and Freedom.
"They voted
to adopt an un-vetted plan for dedicated bus-toll lanes
along 281, to shift
3-4 different pots of money around, including
stealing money from 281 and
handing it to 1604, to convert existing
free lanes into toll lanes, and to
take the toll roads away from the
RMA and give them to Via, and it was
posted as 'Action on
additional Federal and State funding opportunities.'
They even
claimed local ATD tax revenues fit under 'federal and state
funding.'
By anyone's definition that's a violation of the Open Meetings
Act."
Four elected
officials, Commissioner Chico Rodriguez and Councilmen
Cris
Medina, Rey Saldana, and Carlton Soules, were
notable no-
shows for such a critical vote that allows the unelected Advanced
Transportation District (ATD) Board (one in the same with the Via
Transit Board) to control who will operate the toll lanes, who can
use them
for free (buses and 'registered carpools' only), and, hence,
who will have
the power to collect and spend the tolls.
"Moms in
minivans need not apply, ditto for business colleagues
headed to lunch or
to the airport. Unless some government agency
pre-approves you as a
registered carpool, you'll still have to pay
to use these lanes, even
though your sales tax money built them,"
Hall notes.
The ATD Board put
specific conditions on the deal, making a
very public swipe at the Alamo
Regional Mobility Authority
(ARMA) by requiring TxDOT, not ARMA to
build the toll
lanes. Why? The ATD Board telegraphed at its meeting
Friday
that it
plans to use toll revenues to fund a myriad of mass transit
projects.
"The war
against cars is alive and well in San Antonio. This fight
has always been about
who gets the pot of 'toll gold' at the end
of the rainbow," Hall
contends.
First it was
TxDOT, then Spanish toll operator Cintra, then
ARMA (which just got
absorbed by Bexar County who also
wants the pot of toll revenues), now the
ATD Board.
Though Wolff
negotiated and authored a resolution specifically
to add new non-toll main
lane capacity to US 281 from Loop
1604 to Stone Oak and Loop 1604W from
Bandera to
Wiseman, it's pretty clear that Wolff never intended to fix 281
non-toll nor to hold TxDOT accountable for what it's proposing
(its diagram
was vague & misleading). They've never been made
to explain, in plain
English, where every existing lane is and what
the corridor will look like
with the proposed improvements,
much less to explain why they can fix Loop
1604 for $25 million/
mile compared to $37 million/mile on US 281.
"If Wolff and
the MPO had insisted this basic information be
presented prior to any vote,
then the board would have seen
without a shadow of a doubt that TxDOT's
plan does not ADD
a single new lane of added non-toll capacity and, in
fact, converts
an existing free main lane into a transit-toll lane,"
insists Hall.
"Stone Oak isn't clamoring for bus lanes or toll lanes,
it's
demanding the non-toll fix that's been funded and promised
to
congestion-weary commuters in hearings since 2001."
Now you see it,
now you don't
TxDOT claims the free lanes will remain in place, when, in fact,
they count
the frontage roads as 'what's there now,' not the
freeway main lanes.
Therefore, the plan adopted Monday
expressly defies the MPO's March 26
resolution to add non-toll
capacity to 281 -- and Wolff not only allowed
it, he encouraged it,
despite telling TxDOT just over a week ago (at a June
15 MPO
special meeting), in rather heated tones, that he's made it clear
he
wants added non-toll capacity -- all non-toll, no toll elements.
He even
threatened that he wouldn't take a vote on it until they
changed the
proposal to be consistent with the resolution.
My, what a
difference 10 days makes.
Overwhelming
public opposition
The public testimony emailed in to the board opposed the plan,
130-3, and
the three in favor were area Chamber of Commerce organizations and industry
shills.
"The fact
that the elected officials for the US 281 corridor, Wolff
and Senator Jeff
Wentworth, voted to adopt a proposal that steals
$58 million in
non-toll funds for US 281 to build a Via direct
connect to a Park-N-Ride
only three percent of the population
will ever use (that amount of money
would build roughly 6
overpasses on US 281), the fact that this plan will
steal another
$20 million in non-toll funds from US 281 and hand it to Loop
1604 for a free overpass and non-toll expansion over there, and
the fact
that the plan beyond Stone Oak would convert every
existing free main lane
into a toll lane (again trying to count
frontage lanes as the free lanes),
is beyond comprehension,"
said an incredulous Hall.
North of Stone Oak
could be fixed non-toll using the remaining
$88 million in Texas Mobility
Funds (TMF) already allocated to
US 281. Now, that's not possible since the
plan adopted Monday
steals nearly every penny of the remaining TMF money,
and gives
it to Via and Loop 1604.
The fact that the
ONLY dissenting vote was by a Democrat,
State Rep. Joe Farias,
who cited DOUBLE TAXATION as his
reason for voting against (and the fact
that this was in no way
properly posted under the Open Meetings Act), is an
indictment
of today's establishment Republican Party.
"The GOP is
NOT for the public's right to know, for
transparency, for accountability,
for limited government,
or for the taxpayer. It's of, by, and for the
special interests,"
observes Hall.
We don't buy it
Advocates of the plan say, but 'we took $500 million in
planned toll lanes
and made them non-toll,' when what they
did in reality was renege on a
promise made March 26 to
add non-toll capacity only.
In truth, the toll
plan for US 281 should never have been
adopted by the MPO in July 2004 in
the first place. The gas
taxes to fix US 281 without tolls were already
there and
disappeared in 2008, well after the MPO vote to convert it
to a
tollway in July 2004. With the arrival of $246 million
in new money ($146
million from TxDOT's recent $2 billion
windfall, $100 million in ATD),
plenty to fix a measly 3 miles
on US 281 without ANY tolls, it unfathomable
that NOT
one new non-toll main lane will be added to 281 under this
plan,
yet a 10-mile stretch of four new non-toll lanes are
being added to Loop
1604 with an 8-10 year delay in
toll lanes being built.
"The excuse
that we have to toll US 281 because 'we're
out of money' or can't get
clearance doesn't hold muster
anymore. Anyone with a pulse can see this
whole scheme
is fraud," Hall points out.
The elected
officials who voted to toll US 281 & Loop
1604: State Senator Jeff Wentworth (in a run-off against
anti-toll Dr. Donna Campbell July 31)
Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson
Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff
Leon Valley Mayor Chris Riley
Selma Councilman William Weeper
San Antonio City Councilman Ray Lopez
(plus 8 unelected appointees, including two votes from
TxDOT and two votes
from Via)
"The
commuters along US 281 and Loop 1604 won't ever
forget who voted to do this
to them, because they'll be
forced to pay a DOUBLE TAX in PERPETUITY,"
Hall predicts.
However, none of
this is yet set in stone until the MPO's
short and long-range plans are
officially amended.
"There is
still time to redeem the March 26 resolution.
What board members do after
today's fiasco, will determine
whether they'll face retribution or
redemption," promises Hall.
Tuesday, 26 June 2012 17:16
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