Where were you Royal?


Mr. Masset:

How very like you to remain absent during the struggle and then surface after the fight and criticize those who had the courage to participate.

Where WERE you Royal? Where was your sage advice when it might have been considered and acted upon? More to the point, what did you do to help? Did you contribute any funds to the fight? any efforts? any words? anything?

Of course you didn't, because you favor the toll road plan and those whose interests are served by getting the contracts to build it. Don't think you are fooling anyone. You still haven't offered a single constructive idea that would be of benefit to anyone.

Toll Roads aren't the answer

I am not opposed to ALL Toll roads.

I am opposed to making existing roads into Toll Roads.

There is a huge difference.


What the CTRMA did was very clever. They first proposed Hwy 130 and North SH 45 to be Toll Roads. Very few people have issue with that, because those roads are needed, they are brand new routes, and you can make a good case for using extremem measures (ie Toll plan) to fund them.


That is NOT the case on Mopac, Hwy 183, or Loop 360.

I do recognize that the CTRMA slipped the Toll Road conversion plan in, after the public had accepted those two toll roads. Nobody, including CAMPO members, had enough time or information in front of them, to fully analyse and study the road conversion idea - The infamous Moblity Plan.

It's not a TOLL ROAD, it's a REVENUE GENERATION scheme that CAMPO allowed past it's gates.


Sure, Circle C and other HOA's in the area were first alerted to the Toll booth in their own backyards. They did respond appropriately, too. Several of them were chastised by Sen Barrento Gonzales, the CAMPO chair, too!

However, Barrientos conveniently ignored they fact that OHAN, boasting membership of SW HOA's representing over 10,000 houses, sent CAMPO a resolution, backed by a unanimous vote, that the Mobility Plan was NOT in Austin's best interest.

The letters, email, and phone calls to our CAMPO members confirmed that this part of the Toll plan is unacceptable to the voters - NOT ALL TOLL ROADS.

There is a big difference between a new, long stretch of Toll Road, and chopping up the best new highway lanes in Austin, and making them tiny Toll roads, with the specific purpose of funding bonds for more toll roads.


Before last year, this scheme was not legal in Texas and I for one, expect that a new Texas Legislature is going to have re-visit this option, which I think the CTRMA has abused.

I DO blame our Governor!
I DO blame our Texas Senate and House.
I DO blame CAMPO members, and especially our own city council members (Will Wynn, Brewster McCracken, and Danny Thomas).

And, I will sign petitions to recall the Mayor and McCracken.

And I'm still very unhappy to see that $210 M DPS fee fund get taken away from our Texas Schools and redirected towards building roads.

Good 'old boy Texas

Russ Said:

I DO blame our Governor!
I DO blame our Texas Senate and House.
I DO blame CAMPO members, and especially our own city council members (Will Wynn, Brewster McCracken, and Danny Thomas).

And, I will sign petitions to recall the Mayor and McCracken.

SO WHO IS GOING TO START THE RECALL ON OUR WONDERFUL (WHO'S IN HIS POCKETS) MAYOR & BREWSKI MCCRAKEN (NOT A MAN OF HIS WORD)?

Actually most of the council members, especially Jackie Goodman & Danny Thomas sit around like they are on some kind of medication or they are half brain dead. I have been to council and watched them for hours. I can tell you they ALWAYS decide before their butts hit their ego chairs and we spend SOOOOOOOOO much time protesting.
It does squat!

It is disgusting how many time we have voted in our public servants who give us lip service (tell me what YOU THINK I WANT TO HEAR) in order to get elected and as soon as their pockets are stuffed, they change their minds.

The only who is TRUE to his word has been Daryl Slusher. Maybe he?’ll run for mayor one day or maybe he?’s smart enough not to but in the meantime

LET'S START A RECALL!

Circle C was not my district....

YOU DIDN?’T LISTEN TO YOUR CONSTITUENTS?—THE FOLKS WHO PUT YOU IN OFFICE. With all due respect, it is necessary to review the boundaries of my precinct. The County Commissioner for the Circle C and William Cannon area, those who sent the overwhelming majority of emails, is Gerald Daugherty. He reflected your sentiments with his ?“no?” vote. Precinct 2 is another area. I represent residents north of Town Lake to the Williamson County line, taking in all of the MoPac North neighborhoods and extending northeast to Pflugerville. What my constituents have been unbending about is the failed promise of sound walls along central city MoPac to mitigate noise from traffic generated throughout the corridor. It?’s been 30 years and all they have to show for hosting MoPac at traffic levels never envisioned in the 1975 traffic studies that preceded the approval is a lousy wooden fence. The MoPac South amendment will fund sound barriers. Work can begin immediately on establishing base noise levels, analyzing noise wall designs and constructing alternative noise wall designs and configurations in test areas backing up to homes along MoPac/Loop 1. Toll revenues generated from in the MoPac corridor (all the way north to Parmer Lane) will stay in the corridor---and tolls will fund express lanes into downtown from the William Cannon area. That?’s new added capacity, not a conversion of existing lanes and the S. MoPac express lanes would remain undone and unfunded if left on TXDOT?’s to do list. Also, despite grousing to the contrary, those express lanes will not carve up Zilker Park nor require condemnation of parkland and, in consultation with the City of Austin, it will retrofit environmental controls for water quality controls on the entirety of MoPac, both existing and proposed express lanes. A do-nothing scenario means runoff will continue to contaminate Town Lake, Barton Creek and the recharge zone. We can do better. We must do better. This was reason enough for me to endorse the amended plan. I did indeed listen to my constituents and voted in accordance on the MoPac issue and amended plan.

YOU DIDN?’T LISTEN TO YOUR CONSTITUENTS?—PART 2. I do fully realize that while I do not have a district that is south of the river that I do have responsibilities countywide because Travis County is part of my title. Please take note of the SH45-SW amendment. This is indeed where I continue to stick up for a county project that causes great heartache to a core part of my constituents because of the road?’s location over the Aquifer. But Travis County voters in 1997 overwhelmingly voted to invest in that road. I was lectured to pay attention to about 6700 emails (Commissioner Daugherty?’s count, not mine). Try spinning an argument to ignore 33,745 votes cast to acquire right-of-way for this road.

(reposted from a mass email letter to People who wrote to the commissioner. Russ Hodes)