TXDOT Busted Trying to Buy Love
February 14th, 2007 at 9:32 am
The Texas Department of Transportation has hit another rough patch in the road. In a memo to state Sen. Royce West, a Dallas Democrat, the Legislative Budget Board says TXDOT violated state law by failing to report that it awarded a contract for more than $1 million to the Rodman Group, a Washington, D.C. lobbying firm. (The Rodman Group also received almost $500,000 more that was to be split among four subcontractors, including Garry Mauro, a Democrat and former Texas Land Commissioner, ViaNovo, Chad Bradley & Associates and the Federalist Group.) West and other senators questioned TXDOT officials extensively about the expenditures at a recent Senate Finance Committee hearing. Coby Chase, director of TXDOT’s government and business enterprises division, said the department hired the lobbyists because of the strong negative reaction it is receiving on its Trans-Texas Corridor project, a network of super-highways which will contain multiple lanes for trucks, cars, trains, and a swath of land for cable, pipelines and underground utilities. (With all that infrastructure, critics complain the TTC will make a heck of a target for terrorists, not to mention a fiery collision). Chase said the TTC, which will be one of the largest construction projects on the planet, has also required one of the world’s “largest public hearing processes.” He seemed genuinely puzzled by the overwhelmingly negative response to the department’s plan, which reveals a lot about the parallel universe in which TXDOT apparently lives. “It left a lot of scars,” confessed Chase. Well, sniffed one senator, “if you’re outreach leaves a lot of scars, then it hasn’t been efficient.”
February 14th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Do you think there might be some remote possibility that Gary Mauro’s share of this $500,000 lobbying contract may have in just a very small way influenced his decision to write that op-ed piece for the Austin American-Statesman late last year telling Democrats that they ought to get behind the Trans-Texas Corridor? Perish the thought! The hell you say.
February 18th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
AN excerpt from the Chronicle Blog with the lead in..
Tops in Politics - Perry’s Plan vs. the Lege
“It’s time to move on, Harris County Judge Robert Eckels decides. There are two contenders to be the next head of the county Commissioners Court, which oversees budgets, tax rates, and construction.”
MY POSTED COMMENTARY (in 2 installments & referencing your Blog item “TXDOT Busted Trying to Buy Love”):
Comments
INSTEAD of speaking of contenders for Judge ECKELS’ job, I’d like to speak of the likely contenders bidding for County Judge ECKELS’ favors in the private sector (read privatize here). The local temptations from a New York bank could be GOLDMAN SACHS or UBS and the international bidders could be MACQUARIE or CINTRA FERROVIAL. That is my private opinion and tendered here without any expectation of gilt (sp., guilt?) or power.
The doors that swing between government and the privatized, er private sector are made of solid gold and impart seductive powers. The first assignment for MR. ECKELS after hitting the “open road” might be sitting down with MARY PETERS, that U.S. DOT transportation magician, to “fast track” the TRANS-TEXAS CORRIDOR I-69 into the deep pockets of his new employer. Removing the legal obstacles might require assistance from DOT General Legal Counsel & “a frequent swinging door professional”, DAVID JAMES GRIBBIN, IV. Giving up his Directorship of Macquarie Holdings, the lure of “public service” returned Gribbin to the fold. Yes, THAT MACQUARIE (MIG).
Governor PERRY has suggested my “public service” might come as a result of Eminent Domain on TTC -69.
What do you think? Am I one of the “kooks” TxDOT’s Good Will Ambassador RIC WILLIAMSON says question Texas Transportation visions & policies?
Posted by: martha in waller county at February 16, 2007 11:36 PM
Gov.39% RICK PERRY’s transportation visions of “sugar plumbs” & RIC WILLIAMSON’s Atilla the Hun tactics of “MY WAY or the delapidated highways” have inspired more than a million and a half of our state taxes to be funneled quietly into the deep pockets of the media amplified “professional propaganda machines” to “counter” the “KOOKY” 61% of the voters. KOOK Demographics MUST BE commanding a GROWING “share”. An INDEPENDENT transportation SURVEY by “KOOK E. Transportation TRENDS” of the I-35 congestion in Austin recently revealed the culprit at the exits near the CAPITOL: the focal point of the “congestion” is found on the roads to the STATE TROUGH taken by the special interest privateers & their elected state partners! That may also account for the difficulty of the “KOOKS” in paying the parking fees in the “Left Field” Lot and merging onto the recently narrowed high road lane to reach the CAPITOL and be “heard”. It is reported by a “far out” blogger that they have “appropriated $1000. under suspicious circumstances” to purchase & stockpile “low tech cardboard megaphones” to blast the airwaves on the CAPITOL steps (left side) on TEXAS INDEPENDENCE DAY on FRIDAY, MARCH 2. LEGE traffic will probably be “outbound” and asleep at the wheel both Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.
The following VALENTINE was posted on an Austin blog. PROCEED WITH CAUTION as this may cause YOU to “change lanes”! …martha (possibly only temporarily located on a ranch in Waller County) YIELD to >>>>> Eileen Welsome>>>