Antone's Nightclub
'Chronicle' Missed Story
RECEIVED Fri., July 27, 2012
Dear Editor,
To be well-informed, a citizen must scan numerous media. Reading the Chronicle is essential because many of the news stories it runs are not covered anywhere else. So how is it that a major news item eluded all of the media outlets in Austin, including the Chron?
In June, our local transportation planning agency, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, voted to let the Texas Department of Transportation build new toll lanes on MoPac with taxpayer money. (Rick Perry says that we need toll roads because there is not enough gas tax money. Why toll the new lanes if they are fully paid for with gas taxes?)
CAMPO didn't just give the money to the local toll road agency, Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority. CAMPO insisted on a signed contract whereby CTRMA would repay the money from toll revenues to CAMPO. You could call it extortion. (CAMPO is a planning agency which has never had any money to spend. It's like, you know, separation of powers. Now CAMPO becomes a dictator.)
There are competing interests on the CAMPO board. The majority would prefer to build passenger train lines and depreciate roads. Their problem is that they are afraid to ask citizens for more train money after their first project, the Red Line, has become a laughingstock.
The CAMPO train advocates have executed two previous oral contracts with TxDOT/CTRMA but have twice become jilted brides. This time CAMPO wanted a prenuptial with everything in writing. "We [CAMPO] will give you money looted from the gas tax fund, but you [CTRMA] must give us back a similar amount from your toll collections [so that we have some money to build trains]." It's called money laundering.
The pro-toll-road faction on CAMPO humored the pro-train people. It was (almost) a unanimous vote to steal the gas tax money. But I doubt that any toll revenue will ever be put into train lines. (The ditsy, pro-train brides on CAMPO might as well have married death row inmates.) Ask Sarah Eckhardt.
In 2025 the majority of citizens who oppose toll roads and trains will wonder how this went down but there will be no history. Nobody will know how it went down. They will not know that the train fanatics sold them out to the tollers because it was never reported. Where is the Chronicle?
To be well-informed, a citizen must scan numerous media. Reading the Chronicle is essential because many of the news stories it runs are not covered anywhere else. So how is it that a major news item eluded all of the media outlets in Austin, including the Chron?
In June, our local transportation planning agency, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, voted to let the Texas Department of Transportation build new toll lanes on MoPac with taxpayer money. (Rick Perry says that we need toll roads because there is not enough gas tax money. Why toll the new lanes if they are fully paid for with gas taxes?)
CAMPO didn't just give the money to the local toll road agency, Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority. CAMPO insisted on a signed contract whereby CTRMA would repay the money from toll revenues to CAMPO. You could call it extortion. (CAMPO is a planning agency which has never had any money to spend. It's like, you know, separation of powers. Now CAMPO becomes a dictator.)
There are competing interests on the CAMPO board. The majority would prefer to build passenger train lines and depreciate roads. Their problem is that they are afraid to ask citizens for more train money after their first project, the Red Line, has become a laughingstock.
The CAMPO train advocates have executed two previous oral contracts with TxDOT/CTRMA but have twice become jilted brides. This time CAMPO wanted a prenuptial with everything in writing. "We [CAMPO] will give you money looted from the gas tax fund, but you [CTRMA] must give us back a similar amount from your toll collections [so that we have some money to build trains]." It's called money laundering.
The pro-toll-road faction on CAMPO humored the pro-train people. It was (almost) a unanimous vote to steal the gas tax money. But I doubt that any toll revenue will ever be put into train lines. (The ditsy, pro-train brides on CAMPO might as well have married death row inmates.) Ask Sarah Eckhardt.
In 2025 the majority of citizens who oppose toll roads and trains will wonder how this went down but there will be no history. Nobody will know how it went down. They will not know that the train fanatics sold them out to the tollers because it was never reported. Where is the Chronicle?
Vince May
Elgin
Elgin