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TEXAS TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION
COMMISSION MEETING
Thursday, October 27, 2005Ortiz CenterNueces Room
402 Harbor DriveCorpus Christi, Texas 78401
COMMISSION MEMBERS:
Ric Williamson, ChairmanJohn W. Johnson
Hope AndradeTed Houghton, Jr.
STAFF:
Michael W. Behrens, P.E., Executive DirectorSteve Simmons, Deputy Executive DirectorRichard Monroe, General CounselRoger Polson, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director
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I N D E X
AGENDA ITEM PAGE
CONVENE MEETING 8
Receive comments from area public officials, 14community and civic leaders, and private citizens.Report by the Corpus Christi District. 69
1. Approval of Minutes of the September 29, 2005, 83regular meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission
2. Public Transportation 84El Paso County - Award Rural TransportationAssistance Program funds to El Paso County (MO)
3. Discussion ItemDiscussion on various Vehicle Title and 88Registration public outreach and marketingefforts
4. Promulgation of Administrative Rulesa. Proposed Adoption Under Title 43, Texas
Administrative Code, and the AdministrativeProcedure Act, Government Code, Chapter 2001:(to be published in the Texas Register for public comment)(1) Chapter 17 - Vehicle Titles and
Registration (MO) 108Amendments to ''17.2-17.3, concerningMotor Vehicle Certificates of Title,''17.21-17.24, '17.28, '17.30, '17.33,and '17.36, concerning Motor VehicleRegistration, '17.54, concerningAutomated Equipment, (Registration andTitle System), '17.61, '17.62, '17.65,and '17.68, concerning Nonrepairableand Salvage Motor Vehicles, and '17.72,'17.73 and '17.79, concerning SalvageVehicle Dealers
(2) Chapter 21 - Right of Way (MO) 111New Subchapter N, Rail Facilities,New '21.801, Acquisition of RealProperty, and New '21.802, Disposalof Real Property (relating to railfacilities)
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(3) Chapter 23 - Travel Information (MO) 113New '23.13, Links to Community WebSites from Rest Areas and TravelInformation Centers (Travel Information)
(4) Chapter 28 - Oversize and Overweight 115Vehicles and Loads (MO)Amendments to '28.11, General Oversizeand Overweight Permit Requirements andProcedures (General Permits), '28.14,Manufactured Housing, and IndustrializedHousing and Building Permits, '28.15,Portable Building Unit Permits (HighwayCrossings by Oversize and OverweightVehicles and Loads) and '28.92, PermitIssuance Requirements and Procedures(Port of Brownsville Port AuthorityPermits), New Subchapter H, ChambersCounty Permits, New ''28.100-28.102,Purpose
b. Final Adoption Under Title 43, TexasAdministrative Code, and the AdministrativeProcedure Act, Government Code, Chapter 2001:(1) Chapter 7 - Rail Facilities (MO) 117
Chapter 7 - Rail Facilities; SubchapterB, Contracts, New '7.11, ComprehensiveDevelopment Agreements
(2) Chapter 15 - Transportation Planning 119and Programming (MO) Amendments to '15.4, Unified PlanningWork Program
(3) Chapter 25 - Traffic Operations (MO) 121Repeal of ''25.400-25.409, SubchapterG, Specific Information Logo Sign Program and New ''25.400-25.409,Subchapter G, Information Logo Signand Tourist-Oriented Directional(TOD) Program, and Repeal of ''25.700-25.708, Subchapter K, Major AgriculturalInterest Sign Program
5. Transportation Planninga. Approve the 2006 Statewide Mobility Program 123
(MO) (Draft SMP)b. Approve the Texas Rail System Plan (MO) 126
(Draft Summary) (Draft Plan)
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c. Various Counties - Application for approval 129to deviate from the terms of the railroadclearance statutes for the following companies (MO):1. Synsil Product, Inc.2. Cemex, Inc.3. Prime Rail Interest, Inc.4. ConocoPhillips Sweeny Refinery5. Rohm and Haas Company Bayport Plant
6. Toll Projectsa. Bexar County - Consider final approval of 132
a request for financing from the AlamoRegional Mobility Authority to pay certainengineering, legal and financial planningcosts to study and analyze competing proposals submitted for the proposed Loop1604 and US 281 turnpike project and itsimpacts on other potential elements of aproposed toll system in Bexar County (MO)
b. Bexar County - Authorize the executive 136director to negotiate and develop an agreement with the Alamo Regional MobilityAuthority (AlamoRMA) for the planning,financing, and potential design, construction,operation, and maintenance of managed ortolled lanes on I-35 from the Bexar/Guadalupe County line to the San AntonioCentral Business District, managed ortolled lanes on SH 16 west from InterstateLoop 410 to Loop 1604 northwest, and the tolled interchange at US 281 and Wurzbach Parkway, including the license or lease ofstate-owned right of way to the AlamoRMAfor the purpose of developing these potentialAlamoRMA turnpike projects (MO)
c. Bexar County - Consider the preliminary 137approval of a request for financing from the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority to pay for certain costs for developingpreliminary feasibility, environmental,public involvement, schematics and preliminary financial plans for managedor tolled lanes on I-35 from the Bexar/Guadalupe County line to the San AntonioCentral Business District, managed or tolled lanes on SH 16 west from InterstateLoop 410 to Loop 1604 northwest, and the tolled interchange at US 281 and WurzbachParkway (MO)
d. Travis and Williamson Counties - Accept 149
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the General Engineering Consultant quarterly progress report as of August 31,2005, for the 2002 Project of the CentralTexas Turnpike System (MO)
7. FinanceTravis and Williamson Counties - Accept the 152Quarterly Investment Report as of August 31,2005, for the 2002 Project of the Central TexasTurnpike System (MO)
8. Pass-Through Tollsa. Authority to Negotiate Agreement
(1) Galveston County - Authorize the 154executive director to negotiate a pass-through toll agreement withGalveston County for improvementsto FM 646 from FM 1764 to FM 517 (MO)
(2) Hays County - Authorize the executive 156director to negotiate a pass-throughtoll agreement with Hays County forimprovements to various highwayprojects in the county
b. Authority to Execute Agreement 167Williamson County - Authorize the executivedirector to execute a pass-through tollagreement with Williamson County forimprovements to various highway projectsin the county (MO)
9. Traffic Operations, 176Dallas, Harris, and Tarrant Counties - Proposedlane use restrictions for trucks on I-20 inDallas County, I-10 and US 290 in Harris County,and I-30 in Tarrant County (MO)
10. Contractsa. Award or Reject Highway Improvement Contracts
(1) Maintenance(see attached itemized list) (MO) 180
(2) Highway and Building Construction(see attached itemized list) (MO) 181
11. Routine Minute Ordersa. Donations to the Department 194
(1) Brazos County - Consider a donationfrom Keep Brazos Beautiful for approximately $30,000 worth ofwildflower seeds to be planted on state right of way (MO)
(2) Bridge Division - Acknowledge adonation from the Precast/Prestressed
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Concrete Institute (PCI) for a departmentemployee=s travel expenses to attend thePCI Convention and National Bridge Conference that was held in Palm Springs,California from Oct. 16-19, 2005 (MO)
(3) Human Resources Division - Acknowledgea donation from KARRASS for two departmentemployees= registration fees to attend ashowcase on a training program entitled,AEffective Negotiating in Your OwnOrganization.@ The showcase was held inDallas, Texas from Sept. 15-16, 2005 (MO)
(4) Live Oak County - Consider a donationfrom Mr. Bruce Harvey, a private landowner, for funds associated with upgrading highway fencing alongside I-37 (MO)
(5) Texas Turnpike Authority Division -Consider a donation from InfrastructureJournal for a department employee=s travel expenses to participate in theTransportation Investment Forum to beheld from November 7-8, 2005 in Glasgow, Scotland (MO)
b. Eminent Domain Proceedings 194Various Counties - noncontrolled and controlled access highways (see attacheditemized list) (MO)
c. Highway Designations 194(1) Brown County - Designate a segment of
FM 823 along a new location on thestate highway system and redesignate a segment of FM 3064 as FM 823 in thecity of Brownwood (MO)
(2) Kaufman County - Remove a segment ofFM 548 from the state highway system and return control, jurisdiction, and maintenance to the city of Forney (MO)
d. Load Zones & Postings 194Comanche County - Revise load restrictionson a bridge on FM 1689 (MO)
e. Right of Way Dispositions and Donations 194(1) Bexar County - Loop 1604 at Huebner
Road in San Antonio - Consider thesale of a surplus drainage channeleasement (MO)
(2) Chambers County - FM 2354 south of FM 565 - Consider the release of asurplus easement (MO)
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(3) El Paso County - FM 258 (Socorro Road) at Southside Road in El Paso -Consider the sale of a surplus maintenance site (MO)
(4) Johnson County - I-35W at FM 917 inBurleson - Amend MO 109998 to revisethe value of the consideration forsurplus right of way (MO)
(5) Travis County - US 183 at Tracor Lanein Austin - Consider the exchange ofright of way (MO)
(6) Travis County - FM 685 at CR 138 -Consider the release of a surpluschannel easement (MO)
f. Speed Zones 194Various Counties - Establish or alterregulatory and construction speed zoneson various sections of highways in thestate (MO)
12. Executive Session (none required) 195
OPEN COMMENT PERIOD 195
ADJOURN 196
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P R O C E E D I N G S
MR. WILLIAMSON: Good morning.
AUDIENCE: Good morning.
MR. WILLIAMSON: What do you think, Richard, do
it again?
MR. MONROE: It's all up to you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Good morning.
AUDIENCE: Good morning.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Man, we're asleep. One more
time. Good morning.
AUDIENCE: Good morning.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Good morning. It's a great
day to be a Texan.
It is 9:24 a.m., and I call the October 2005
meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission to order
here in the Sparkling City by the Sea, Corpus Christi,
Texas. It's a pleasure for us to be here this morning and
we thank each of you for joining us.
Please note for the record that public notice
of this meeting, containing all items on the agenda, was
filed with the Office of the Secretary of State at 1:55
p.m. on October 19.
Before beginning today's meeting, we
characteristically stop, take a moment, pat our pockets,
find our cell phones, iPods, Dewberries, and everything
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else we carry, and we ask everybody to put them on the
silent or no-ring mode so that we won't disrupt anybody
while they're offering testimony. If you will join with
me in doing that, I will be appreciative. Thank you.
This is officially the sixth time a highway or
transportation commission has convened a meeting in Corpus
Christi. Interestingly for us, the first meeting was held
on July 17, 1920, in the wake of the devastating 1919
hurricane. At that special called meeting, the Highway
Commission approved $100,000 in state funds to cover 25
percent of the cost to reconstruct the causeway. The
causeway, as most of you from Corpus Christi will remember
in your history lessons, was completely destroyed by the
hurricane.
In that era, counties were entirely responsible
for building and paying for their roads and their
transportation infrastructure. As motorized
transportation has become more important to the state's
economic growth, the federal government has joined with
the state government in providing funds for the
infrastructure business.
This $100,000 in 1920 was an early example of
state and local partnerships to solve a local and state
problem. The relationship between the state and local
transportation officials is a long-standing one, and as
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you will learn from the meeting today, continues to grow
and evolve.
Now, it's our practice to take a commission
meeting on the road three or four times a year. It gives
us a chance to see firsthand what's going on in different
parts of this great state. It also gives us an
opportunity to listen directly to the leadership and the
citizens of every part of the state as they express their
compliments and their concerns about the future of
transportation in our state.
It is our custom to open our meetings by
permitting each commissioner to make a quick comment to
the audience and then proceed with our agenda. So with
your indulgence, Commissioner Houghton.
MR. HOUGHTON: It's a lonely way down here, the
far left, far right, depending on your perspective. It's
a beautiful facility, and to the hospitality by the
citizens and the employees of Corpus Christi, I thank you.
This has been a marvelous couple of days, and we look
forward to this meeting.
And to the leadership in this community,
there's a lot of great things happening in your court, as
demonstrated yesterday, and in the state of Texas many,
many things are going to happen in the next couple of
months that will be very profound.
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And I thank you again for your hospitality.
MS. ANDRADE: Good morning. I'd like to also
thank you all. Craig, last night was an incredible
evening with our staff. We truly enjoyed ourselves, and
you made us all feel so special. So thank you, City of
Corpus Christi, the hospitality that we have received
during this trip has been incredible. Thank you so much.
I applaud you and I congratulate you for such a
community that works together, and that understands the
challenges that we face and are willing to step up and
take advantage of the many tools that we have.
Thank you all for coming to listen to our
commission meeting and what we discuss here, and for
helping us keep moving transportation forward in Texas.
Thank you.
MR. JOHNSON: My turn?
MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir.
MR. JOHNSON: First of all, a note of apology.
Craig, I know the district went to great ends for a fun-
filled, informative day yesterday, and I apologize for not
being here. I attended a baseball game last night and I
just heard on the news that the Astros bat rack was
examined this morning and they found a termite
infestation.
(General laughter.)
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MR. JOHNSON: It was a great thrill to have a
World Series in Texas and in your hometown, and so I had
to avail myself of that opportunity, and unfortunately
wasn't here to partake in the hospitality of the district.
But as the Chairman alluded to, being in the
Sparkling City by the Sea is a great treat. I've come
here often as an adult, came here more as a child, and
it's wonderful to see what's happened here in terms of
community involvement, as Hope referred to, and getting
things done. This is really a gem. If there's a better
example of the success in multimodal challenges around
these United States, I would be surprised.
Congratulations to each and every one of you
for what you do and have done to get us where we are, and
of course, for what you will do to get us even in better
shape. Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: And I'd like to associate
myself with those same remarks, Craig, to you and your
staff. It was a fun time last night, and we appreciate
the hospitality shown by yourself and earlier in the day
by the business leadership in welcoming the commission to
the city.
Let me remind you that if you wish to speak
during the commission meeting this morning, we have a
system -- we're an engineering firm at heart, so we've got
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plans and procedures and a system for everything -- we
have a system for testimony.
If you are going to comment on an item that's
on the agenda, I need for you to fill out a yellow card,
and you'll find one of those in the lobby, and please take
time to tell us what item you're going to comment on.
If you want to comment in the open comment
period on just whatever is on your mind, please fill out a
blue card, and you can find those in the lobby.
We normally in our meetings in previous years
proceeded with the local presentation and at that time
recognized local legislators. For those of you who are
not aware, I did have the privilege of serving in the
legislature for 13-1/2 years, and it's my habit to first
permit sitting members of the legislature to speak if they
so choose. If they choose to be part of the program, then
that's their choice, but having been through the ringer,
I'm tremendously respectful of the time and the effort men
and women have to put into serving on the legislature, and
so I place their remarks at the highest top of the list
for attention, and I always try to operate on a seniority
basis, so I think Vilma is more senior.
MS. LUNA: We'll all come together if you'll
allow us.
MR. WILLIAMSON: You are a legislator, madam.
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Whatever you want is okay with us. Ms. Luna, Mr. Seaman
and Mr. Herrero.
MS. LUNA: And actually, you just forgot to
mention that Senator Chuy Hinojosa is right here standing
shoulder-to-shoulder with us, and in fact, does send his
regards and regrets that he's not able to be here.
First of all, I am Vilma Luna, State
Representative of District 33 and welcome each and every
one of you, Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Johnson,
Commissioner Andrade, and Commissioner Houghton. We are
so pleased to have you here and I know that it is a
tremendous amount of time and energy out of your very busy
schedules to come here, but we really welcome you.
I have been very lucky in my life -- and I
always share this with you guys and your staff knows
this -- but our family has a real direct link to TxDOT.
My grandfather worked for the State Highway Department for
45 years on a road crew, and as a matter of fact, I was
reminiscing with some of the staff this morning about it
was not unusual that one of our weekend outings would be
going from highway marker to historical marker to highway
marker because he was so proud, as were many of the other
gentlemen that worked with him on that crew, to show us
the work and so proud of the maintenance and the upkeep
that they did on roads and bridges throughout this entire
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area. They had a big territory.
But more important is the work that you guys
now do, and we want to thank you. I know that you are
very focused on the needs of this region. I am very
heartened every time I hear you speak, Mr. Chairman and
the rest of you all, to hear you talk about what we're
going to look like in 35 years, in 35 years we won't have
the congestion, in 35 years we will have done our part for
air quality, in 35 years, in 35 years, and so on. But
it's not just looking down there, we're looking at all the
steps in between now and then, and I want to thank you all
very much for being so forward-thinking.
We have worked very closely together on
appropriations. As vice-chair of Appropriations and
sitting on LBB, I think I know your budget inside and out.
If there's any little thing I've missed, you know what,
Mike, brings it to my attention pretty quickly. So not
only does Mike and all the rest of your staff, but your
field staff do a tremendous job.
So we as a delegation would like you to know
that we appreciate very much the work that you're doing,
and ask you to please pay special attention to the needs
of our region. We have done our part. I think we are
being very forward-thinking in how we're trying to use our
dollars and our resources, be partners -- which is what I
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consider us. I think you all are partners with us as
legislators; our local community wants to be a partner
with the state in making sure that we make the best use of
all available resources and be very forward-thinking and
creative.
And we do have an outstanding staff in this
region. Frankly, I think we have an outstanding staff
throughout the state of Texas, it's not just because my
grandfather was there all those years that you all have a
special place in my heart, but I do think that you've got
an outstanding staff, individuals that do not only a lot
of work for TxDOT but incredible work for the community,
such as Cliff Bost, who is my son's soccer coach.
And so thank you and welcome.
(Applause.)
MR. SEAMAN: And I echo what Vilma said. In
fact, when we came up, I said, Can I carry your purse?
Being the vice-chair of Appropriations handles the money,
I always want to carry her baggage.
As Murdock said, we're going to go from 22- to
44- in a couple of decades, million, and if we don't do
education and taxation -- this is from Sharp last week for
a session on the tax bill, and John Sharp, and education
and taxation but most of all transportation.
Thank you for being here, I commend you for
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what you're doing, I support your goals. Thank you.
MR. HERRERO: Mr. Chairman and members, I'd
also like to reiterate the welcome. It is extremely
important, not only for Corpus Christi but also the
region, the issues regarding rail and port issues and also
highway.
And as Vilma mentioned, we are members of the
transportation industry. I worked for the Highway
Department also one summer, and so I cut brush under
highways, I poured sand on the hot asphalt as it was
beading on the highways, and so I understand the hard work
that it takes both in the field and behind the desk where
you work, and I understand the responsibility and the
dedication that all of you have as commissioners.
I'd also like to commend the work that your
executive director has done. Just in the short time that
I've been in the legislature, he's done a tremendous job,
and I want to thank him for the great work that he's done,
as well as your local district offices here, Craig Clark
as well. But I want to thank you, especially, because I
understand the significance and the importance that you
give to the commission and also that you bring to the
state of Texas. Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you. We appreciate your
comments.
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(Applause.)
MS. LUNA: I'm sorry. Did you have a question
or a comment?
MR. HOUGHTON: No. Go ahead.
MS. LUNA: I was just going to say I'm calling
an emergency delegation meeting down the street, and so we
will allow you to go forward with your work and get out of
your hair, figuratively speaking.
MR. HOUGHTON: I'll let you go ahead, Ric, and
respond to that.
MR. JOHNSON: Thanks so much for searching for
our hair.
MR. HOUGHTON: Well, she obviously wasn't
referring to me.
(General laughter.)
MR. JOHNSON: Representative Luna, thank you
for everything that you said. I also wanted to thank you,
the last time our paths crossed here, I wasn't disheveled
but my tie was not exact, and you were nice enough to get
me more neatly dressed, and I remember that and I thank
you for it.
MS. LUNA: I've got to keep you looking good.
MR. JOHNSON: Well, I need a lot of help.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Ted?
MR. HOUGHTON: Representative Luna and I have a
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common goal down in this part of the world and in El Paso,
and I look forward to working with you not only that but
the transportation issues. And Abel and Gene, thanks for
your support. It's something we take note of. Thank you.
MS. LUNA: Thank you all very much.
MS. ANDRADE: Thank you also so much.
Representative Luna, I had the pleasure of meeting you
last year, and I was touched by your story of your
grandfather working for TxDOT, but I have to tell you that
you're absolutely right, we cannot do this by ourselves,
we need partners and supporters, and you certainly have
been that, all three of you. So thank you for your
leadership, and I'm just looking forward to working
together with you all. Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Anything more, John?
MR. JOHNSON: No.
MR. WILLIAMSON: You know, I said this
yesterday to a slightly different audience, and I take
great pleasure in saying it to anyone who will listen: we
do not waste our time saying thank you to legislators,
past or existing, who do not understand the importance of
transportation, we just stay silent. When we have the
opportunity to address the legislators who understand
transportation, we never pass up that opportunity.
When Rick Perry sent me to the commission, he
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reminded me there are no Democratic highways, there are no
Republican bridges, there are no Liberal right of ways,
there are no Conservative parking lots, transportation is
for all Texans, and we maintain that here at the
commission.
And in your representation, particularly with
Ms. Luna and Mr. Seaman, who I served with -- and Abel is
going to get tired of me saying this, when I get to serve
more with him, I'll understand him better, but he appears
to be the same way -- they understand the importance of
transportation, and we could not be where we're going to
be in 35 years if we didn't have you on the legislative
side as our partners, and we're very appreciative of your
leadership. You're to be commended for what you've done
for transportation in the last six years.
Thank you for being here, and we'll take care
of our business.
MS. LUNA: Very good. Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, thanks.
(Applause.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Mike?
MR. BEHRENS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We'll
begin today by introducing Craig Clark who is our district
engineer for the Corpus District, and he will lead the
district's delegation and then introduce the local folks
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that have been our hosts and who are part of the backbone
of transportation here in the Corpus area. Craig?
MR. CLARK: While we're trying to find our
presentation, I would also like to recognize our local
political delegations who are so valuable to us and do
such good work for our area. We also have Esther Oliver
from Congressman Solomon Ortiz's office here with us, and
Sondra Zuniga with the office of Senator Chuy Hinojosa.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, Craig, while you're
looking for your CD, let me speak for the commission to
the young lady representing Congressman Ortiz.
Now, you don't need to hear me say it but
everyone else does. We consider Congressman Ortiz one of
the best transportation congressmen in the United States
Congress. He understands transportation to the level that
most people can only dream of. We're very grateful for
his service.
MR. CLARK: While we continue to look, we have
a team atmosphere in our community.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Are you going to try to read
it, Craig?
MR. CLARK: We recognize that Commissioner
Johnson was called up to the big show last night and
couldn't be with us at our event that we had with the
commission, but to make up for that and recognize him as
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part of our local team, I would like to approach the dais
and provide Commissioner Johnson with this jersey for the
Hooks.
(Applause.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: We wish that he was really
called in to play and maybe we could have a little better
offense last night and made some more history.
MR. JOHNSON: Craig, I was at a Hooks game in
June -- I believe it was June -- and there was eleven
innings of free baseball, they played 20 innings that
night, and what an experience. This is great for the
community, Whataburger Field and the Hooks, a great family
atmosphere, and for the price of entertainment today,
there's no better value, and I had a fantastic night.
And I'm deeply appreciative for this; in fact,
I'm going to put it on. You can only wear one hat but you
can wear many jerseys. Where's Representative Luna when I
need her?
(General laughter.)
MR. JOHNSON: Send me in, Coach.
(Applause.)
MR. CLARK: Commissioners, we're going to
continue on with our team report, and I would like to
begin the first part of our presentation for our district
with the very durable city manager for Corpus Christi,
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Skip Noe.
(Applause.)
MR. SKIP: I have to admit I've been called
many things but durable has not been on the list. Thank
you, Craig.
Mr. Chairman, members of the commission,
members of the staff. Good morning and welcome to Corpus
Christi. We're very pleased you're here. We're very
excited to have the opportunity to share with you some of
the things that are happening in Corpus Christi.
Before I start, I really want to thank Craig
and his staff. This is about team work and we do have a
great working relationship with your folks here at the
district office. They work with us every day, day-in and
day-out, on all those little problems, making sure that we
get things done here in Corpus Christi, and we appreciate
the great relationship we have with the staff here.
You had an opportunity, a number of you, to
tour a number of things that are happening in Corpus
Christi yesterday, and we're going to take a minute today
to share some of the things that are happening.
You'll find two words in our vocabulary here:
one is investment, we're investing in our future; the
other is partnership, virtually all these projects we're
working on here have a partner we're working with, either
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at the state or federal or local level.
This map shows you the five areas we cover just
so you can get a sense of the geography of the various
areas where there's been significant investment, and we'd
like to talk about them just for a few minutes.
We've been fortunate that the community and the
leadership of the community and the voters have been
willing to invest in our community for the last six years.
Beginning in 1999 with the decision in our airport, over
$30 million, a new terminal, reconstructed runways, new
parking areas, a new tower, all resulting in a
reinvigoration of our airport.
In fact, we were able to announce this last
week that for the first time in many, many years we'll
have international service out of the Corpus Christi
International Airport to Monterrey starting November 21.
The partnership with TxDOT, the JFK Causeway,
that improvement is significant to Corpus Christi, and we
learned that no better than this last hurricane season
when for the first time in the EOC we weren't sending
staff members out to check the level of the water over the
causeway to see if we could get folks off the island.
That improvement made a significant difference for folks
who live on the island, their ability to get out of the
way of those kinds of storms and disasters we've seen this
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year.
A number of bond issues. In 2000 the voters
approved $30 million worth of improvements, as well as two
sales tax-supported propositions that paid for
improvements to the seawall and the marina.
The Packery Channel project, the decision, in
partnership with the Corps of Engineers, the General Land
Office and a number of others, to build the Packery
Channel project which has been on the agenda here in
Corpus Christi for many years, a partnership effort, $30
million.
The convention center expansion. Recognizing
that tourism is part of our future, reinvigorating our
convention center, a $25 million expenditure funded
predominantly from the hotel tax.
You all got a chance to take a peek at
Whataburger Field last night, our $29 million project, a
joint venture with not only Ryan-Sanders Baseball but also
the Port of Corpus Christi, the landowner and our partner
in the parking and development of that area.
Marina improvements. There's a big demand for
marina slips and a need to improve our facilities there.
We have our own Riverwalk, only it's called the Bayfront.
We're investing in new slips and facilities to support our
folks who have boat slips in the marina.
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And then lastly, in November of 2004 the voters
approved another $95 million in capital improvements all
intended to invest in our long-term future.
The Bayfront is obviously important for Corpus
Christi because of our tourism base, and this shows you a
number of the projects that we've been involved with, the
top being the arena on the left with the convention center
on the right, Whataburger Field -- and by the way, it did
exceed 500,000 fans this past year, which was a feat
that's only been accomplished several times in minor
league baseball.
In the middle there at the bottom you see the
marina facilities we're constructing, and then the
seawall.
The Packery Channel project, a major investment
on our part, $30 million, $20 million from the Corps of
Engineers, the federal government and $10 million funded
from a tax increment district on the island, causing and
spurring significant potential growth and real growth in
our community. To the right you see the channel itself
that cuts through to connect the Gulf of Mexico with
Laguna Madre, and the area in front of the seawall on the
island is being restored with the dredged sand material.
There's an opportunity there for significant development
and we're seeing that development occur.
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On the left you see a bigger picture of the
island itself. In the upper part of that picture you see
the JFK Causeway and the bridge over the Intracoastal
Waterway.
As this development occurs, we see continued
interest in looking for opportunities for a second
crossing in connection to the island as we try to deal
with the growth that occurs there.
Texas A&M Corpus Christi is part of our
foundation for our long-term future. It's the fastest
growing regional university in the state. They've seen
significant growth and development on the campus, and as
you might suspect, with the campus being an island of 240
acres, they're starting to run out of room.
There's a partnership developing with the city
and the university and the community on how we can assist
them to make sure they will continue to be able to grow in
the future. Part of that involves looking for
opportunities to develop off-site, either spinning
projects off the campus into the community or other sites
for development of university facilities.
One of those is a project that we hope to bring
to the commission soon. This is a picture of one of the
opportunities is a private developer who is willing to
donate property the university could use if Spur 3, which
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is currently under construction by TxDOT, is extended
southward from 358 to 357, creating an opportunity to have
a connection to that property.
To assist the university in this effort, the
council has authorized an application for a pass-through
toll financing project that we submitted this last week,
and we're looking forward to having the opportunity to
discuss that with your staff over a period to accomplish
this important project.
The south side of Corpus Christi has seen
significant growth. What you see here is a facility near
the intersection of SH 357 and Farm to Market 2444. We're
fortunate enough to have the opening of the first HEB Plus
store, a store of over 180,000 square feet, a new concept
for HEB.
The good news is the great facility is
attracting lots of shoppers; the bad news, you might
suspect, an already congested intersection continues to
see growth and pressures. We know congestion management
and dealing with traffic is going to be a significant
issue on our south side as we deal with the growth that's
occurring there.
As we look to the future, the community is
committed to economic development. One of the things that
comes out repeatedly in all of our surveys is the high
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priority on growing our economy and providing jobs for our
future. We recognize we need to take advantage of a lot
of the options we've been given by you and the legislature
to fund these kinds of projects and we're working on
those.
We're working to manage our congestion and
that's a bit of a challenge, but we know we need to do
that for the future and do it in advance of development.
And then lastly, with this hurricane season
we've spent a lot of time looking at the impact of storms
and potential storms on our ability to evacuate. Our
evacuation this last September with Hurricane Rita went
very smoothly, but we learned some lessons and -- the best
dollar of the day to assist us in the event of a
hurricane.
At this point I want to turn the program over
to Ruben Bonilla, the chairman of the Port of Corpus
Christi.
MR. HOUGHTON: I've got one question. What's
the enrollment at the university here?
MR. NOE: About 8,300.
MR. BONILLA: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I
have the opportunity of introducing to you one of our
commission members for our presentation on the port, but I
first wanted to acknowledge fellow commissioner Mike
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Terrell who is here. Mike is secretary of the Port
Commission, and I believe other than Commissioner Hawley,
we may not be graced with the presence of other
commissioners.
I did want to assure you that as we coordinated
your trip and visit with the World Series when we planned
this several months ago, we anticipated this Astros
rebound and we were assured of a sweep so that we could
celebrate today, but we forgot to tell them we wanted an
Astros sweep.
(General laughter.)
MR. BONILLA: But it is true what you said
earlier, there is a little bit of a problem with offense
in Houston, and we attribute that here in the Port of
Corpus Christi to their problem with air quality. As you
know, we have a significant competitive edge here at the
Port of Corpus Christi, we have no problem with air
emissions, we have clean air, clean water, abundant
transportation arteries, and I think it all goes to the
issue of congestion and poor air quality in Houston.
And when you think about, the Houston Texans
have also got trouble with offense. They're also zero-
and-six or so. In fact, I don't know if you heard about
the anthrax scare that happened on the Houston Texans
practice field and they found a white powder and they
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called in the FBI just two days ago. And the FBI arrived
and conducted a complete investigation, and of course, the
coach suspended practice while they did that
investigation.
They took it to the lab real quickly in
downtown Houston and then discovered that white powder was
actually the goal line chalk. That's why the Texans were
petrified because they hadn't seen that white powder all
year long.
(General laughter.)
MR. BONILLA: Well, that's just a mild-mannered
introduction. If it was a bad joke, blame Judy Hawley.
MS. HAWLEY: I thought it was a bad joke too.
(General laughter.)
MR. BONILLA: With all due respect to our
president.
The Port of Corpus Christi, Mr. Chairman and
members of the commission -- and my remarks are going to
be very brief because I don't want to duplicate Judy's
presentation -- we have a strategic vision that results
from our decision several years ago to diversify our
mission.
As you know, historically the Port of Corpus
Christi arose really from the debris and the tragedy of
the hurricane of 1919, that hurricane which moved inward,
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to the development of the Inner Harbor with the vote and
the endorsement and encouragement of our citizens, and it
began as an agricultural port, made a transition to a
petrochemical giant to where now we're the sixth largest
port in America in terms of tonnage.
We provide 90 percent of the gasoline that is
provided to the city of Austin via pipeline. We provide
about 56 percent of all diesel and jet fuel that's
consumed at DFW Airport, also by pipeline. So that its
importance strategically and economically is vast, and
therefore, that's why we've placed so much importance on
strengthening our security subsequent to the 9/11 tragedy.
With the help of federal and state grants, we believe we
are well positioned to protect our assets and to prosper
in the future.
So that's what Judy will set out for you is how
our diversification program is vital, is vibrant, it also
depends on seamless transportation arteries both by rail,
by road, by water. And we are appreciative to you for your
support in helping us carry out this mission, and we're
gratified that the community of the Coastal Bend has also
endorsed our efforts.
Lastly, I would say that Judy's presence on the
commission has transformed us and allowed us to be more
visionary, because we have taken the navigation district,
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the port authority into San Patricio County. This was a
result of legislation passed only a few years ago. Some
people were cynical about that, but what it has allowed us
to do is to position the Port of Corpus Christi into
greater growth, and we believe that the future growth and
prosperity of the port and the Coastal Bend is going to
extend far beyond the borders of Nueces County into San
Patricio County because of our assets at Naval Station
Ingleside which reverts to the Port of Corpus Christi, the
development of our container terminal and the elevation of
the Harbor Bridge, to name a few, that link us not as two
counties, eliminating those artificial boundaries, but as
one region that's going to provide great job creation for
the state of Texas.
Without further ado, let me call upon
Commissioner Judy Hawley to provide some highlights.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MS. HAWLEY: Thank you. While we have this
slide up, I would like to just show you the parameters of
the navigation district now. You can see that the Port of
Corpus Christi really wraps around, it's kind of encircled
in that area, the blue area that's sort of like a
triangle. The Port of Corpus Christi literally has ship
channel going through San Patricio County and then coming
on into the Inner Harbor. So it is a greatly expanded
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port and port jurisdiction, and a lot of that is what
we're going to talk about today.
You see the visual, this really does wrap all
the way around Corpus Christi Bay.
We'll go to the next slide which is one of our
first real successful joint ventures, and actually, this
was a first for TxDOT as well: the Joe Fulton Corridor
and the rail corridor.
What the Joe Fulton Corridor has done is it
has -- and I know some of you traveled it yesterday as you
came in early before the reception -- what it does is it
opens up 4-1/2 miles of deep water frontage on certainly
the largest tract in Texas and maybe one of the largest
tracts available in the United States.
What that does for us -- and you know how
timely this is with the events of the last few months --
is that is land, 1,200 acres that is eminently suitable
and appropriate for expanded refinery capacity, and deep
water right there, the infrastructure is already in place,
rail is going in, so you've got the pieces that are
already there, and you have partnered with us in making
this happen.
This was your largest project -- and Mike, you
were intimately in on this when we pulled this together,
and Billy Parks as well -- it's the largest project where
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you have had a public entity be involved on the
contracting and project management and the engineering,
and it was one of those that just worked so successfully,
in record time, and with just tremendous trust between
TxDOT and the Port of Corpus Christi with our engineering
department led by Frank Brodie who has done such an
exemplary job with the management of this project.
Not only does this project open up huge assets
for the United States, for the state of Texas and for the
Port of Corpus Christi with the refining capacity, but it
also provides opportunities for some expanded trade, even
some spillover of the container trade that we're
anticipating once we have the La Quinta Trade Terminal
open.
Not only was it an engineering partnership that
was so eminently successful, but it was also a funding
partnership, and you can see that the very sources of
funds, just like all projects today, you just have to
cobble together the pieces wherever you can find them.
Local funds, federal funds, state funds, and the Port of
Corpus Christi actually put up half of the cash involved
in this project.
Those of you that travel that corridor can see
how close we are to being able to develop that and
actually have that materialize into some economic gains
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for the state of Texas and certainly handle some of our
strategic refining capacity needs.
The La Quinta and Port-to-Port corridor has
been a project we've really worked on for the last ten
years, really before the container trade increased so
exponentially. And we've talked about that before with
the commission with the China trade, Far East trade, CAFTA
and NAFTA and lots of reasons for that happening, what's
happened at LA-Long Beach and on and on and on.
A couple of statistics that I'd like you to
just sort of hold in your back pocket, because I think
they are significant, is that in ten years the population
of both California and Texas together will increase to 65
million. In that same ten years, we are anticipating that
the container traffic coming into the United States -- and
this is really amazing -- will increase by 40 percent.
And to put that in just real terms from where we are right
now, in ten years that means we will need 12 more
Houstons, the capacity of 12 more Houstons to handle that
increased container traffic.
So it lets you see how timely we are and how
well positioned we are with the La Quinta Trade Corridor.
We have a lot of the infrastructure in place; we have the
permitting; the financing is in the Worther bill in front
of Congress right now, the parts that we don't have are
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the parts where we have opportunities for partnerships
with you all, and that is capitalizing on that container
facility and linking it to our other corridors in
Mexico -- we're handling the water part, but the corridors
in Mexico and then the corridors on up into San Antonio
and points north, into Houston as well.
One of the advantages of having two container
facilities in Texas is it allows Texas to grow
exponentially. Houston does a great job, Houston is
expanding; Houston does not have the ability or the
capacity to handle all of the volume that's out there.
Chairman Williamson mentioned, I think last
night, if you go to Mobile, if you go to somewhere in
Louisiana, if you go to Florida, that trade is going to
come into the Gulf of Mexico, and we as Texans need to
capture that. Huge opportunities for export/import, huge
opportunities for expanded business opportunities, and
certainly more jobs.
The NASI redevelopment, as you know, we fought
a valiant fight to keep Naval Air Station Ingleside under
the Port of Corpus Christi. All the communities joined
together, it was a huge fight for us to keep that naval
facility in this area. We did not prevail. The Navy and
DOD decided to disseminate those assets to both coasts.
But there is the issue of the property which is
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on a deep water ship channel, and the port is one of those
very few entities in the history of DOD which has
reversionary rights, and what that means is that we get
the right of first refusal. It's all in the details and
working out if there are going to be dollars associated
with that and what those dollars will be.
But the port, just as Austin was -- just as
actually Mobile was, Staten Island, there's just a handful
of examples, Pascagoula now is in that same position,
where instead of having to go through the public
conveyance process which is very time-consuming, you have
this option of just reverting back to this single entity
point of contact and then they can go ahead and handle
shift of the assets.
We're in that position in the Port of Corpus
Christi right now, and in that capacity we see that there
are many opportunities in that property, many of them
still militarily related. Before the BRAC, we had the
Coast Guard very interested in being there, the Army
Reserve wanted to put warehousing there, Military Sea Lift
wants to be there.
You know, you have partnered with us in a lot
of ventures to try and make us more military compliant for
the efficiency coming in, especially from Fort Hood and
Fort Bliss. That's another opportunity to handle that
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military deployment there.
There are a number of other commercial
opportunities that avail themselves of that property. The
key to that is getting rail into there, and we were
working very closely with the Governor's Office as we were
going through the BRAC process about how to make that
property more military suitable, and part of that was to
bring in rail. We're still following that, looking to
bring that rail corridor in, working with the Governor's
Office, working with you all.
There are a number of options about how it
might be best to do that, but that rail into the La
Quinta/Ingleside area is critical for some of the economic
and certainly the military options that may be available
with that particular piece of property. So we'll continue
to visit with you on that.
Parlaying on this, I think you saw -- if you
haven't, please step out on the apron outside and you'll
see one -- again another deployment, and it's so
interesting to watch the loading of the material that's
heading over to Iraq.
We've played a huge role in this and we'll
continue to play a huge role, and I think you've been
briefed on this before, but with the relocation of a lot
of the force that were in Europe over back to Texas, Fort
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Bliss has had a huge increase, Fort Hood as well, and a
number of those have just sort of funneled down into the
Gulf Coast, the Port of Beaumont and the Port of Corpus
Christi are going to have an even larger role in
deployment.
Even as the war winds down, we're still going
to have those military deployments for exercises, and we
are ramping up. We've invested a lot of our own dollars
into building some expanded apron space and staging areas,
and you all have come in and helped us. And this is a
huge success story because this is about not only doing
what's right to make things happen, this is about being
American.
What you all helped us do with this, and not
only did you help us find a way to fund it through some
dollars that we managed to move some dollars from one
project to another project and it's really been such a
creative way to handle problems of strategic importance,
but what we have done is we've been able to do it fast
enough to make a difference.
We started talking to you less than a year ago
about the extreme need to get expanded rail into the Port
of Corpus Christi so that we could deploy quicker. And
with this rail, $5.2 million that you have helped us work
through, with that rail expansion -- which will be
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completed by the first of next year, of 2006 -- we will be
able to handle those military deployments twice as fast as
we've been able to up to this point. So tremendous
investment being able to deploy that material through here
much, much faster.
So thank you for that partnership, thank you
for being responsive, and on top of that, it's the right
thing to do. And you talk about economic development,
what greater partner do we have in Texas than the
military. The military is a huge economic partner as well
as being good friends, good neighbors and a vital part of
what happens in our state.
Another project that we have on line with the
port is the channel improvement project. What we have
now, if you watched the exercise, if you watch ships pass
in our ship channel, it's narrow for them to especially
pass. They call it Texas Chicken where they have to
literally kind of sidle up close to each other and pass.
Fortunately, we have, I think, probably --
well, I say think, I know we have the safest record in the
state of Texas as far as moving traffic, a great pilot
organization and they do a great job. But one of the
things we're going to do to be able to handle more traffic
is to expand and have barge shelves on the outside, and
you can see that that gives us 400 additional feet for the
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barges, and we have considerable barge traffic here.
We're also going to deepen to 530 feet and by
deepening, we'll be able to handle the larger ships, the
petrochemical ships, the tankers that are going to be
coming in. They don't have to be lighter so it becomes an
economic efficiency for them coming in to use this port.
So anticipating the huge size of those tankers, ultimately
positioning ourselves for some of the bigger container
ships as well.
Harbor Bridge air draft limitation. Right now
we are limited to 138 vertical clearance. You don't think
about that when you think about ships, but if you've ever
been on the Harbor Bridge and one of those tankers it was
kind of a close call. We have to have more air draft for
a couple of reasons. Some of the larger ships that are
coming through that have been developed have not been able
to use this ship channel, so that's one of the pieces that
helps us economically; the other, there's a huge interest
in the cruise industry in this area, and those larger
ships are not able to come through either.
But the big rationale from the port's
perspective is that it will allow us to take advantage of
bringing in these supertankers that do need an air draft
up to 200 feet, and we're limited right now to 138 feet.
And that's a project that we've done some initial work,
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one of the MPO's concerns, and you'll be hearing more
about that in the future.
And the Inner Harbor redevelopment initiatives,
one of the things that we have found in the port business
is successful ports use their assets wisely, and their
assets are waterfront assets but people also like to be by
the waterfront, and areas that maybe traditionally have
sort of been rundown can be converted into areas that the
public can use and take advantage of and they become real
assets for the community.
So that redevelopment, retail, sports,
entertainment, hotel district of which this is a part, is
part of that redevelopment effort to allow the public to
have more access and use that land better.
The Harbor Bridge replacement, you saw has
military labor, the Fulton Boat Dock 3, military labor
that's over there on the north side, and new terminal
locations that's on the north side as well.
So lots of projects that are going on, we're a
vibrant port, but the reason we've been so successful is
because of the great partnership we've had with the State
of Texas and the vision of this particular commission has
really made our job easier and it excites us to think
about the opportunities we have by working with you.
So thank you again for your presence here.
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Before I sign off, I would like to say, and I'd be remiss
in not saying thank you to our district engineers. We've
had such a great string of district engineers in this
area. Mike Behrens, once we have you, you're always ours,
and we had you for a while. Billy Parks is here, we had
him as a great district engineer. We had David Casteel
and you stole him from us, Hope, but we almost forgive you
for that, and he did a great job. And now we have Craig
Clark and what a super job you all did last night, I've
just heard rave reviews about that, and we're just
delighted to have your leadership in Corpus Christi as
well.
Thank you to the commission for being here.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Wait. Any questions for Judy?
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, thanks.
MR. BONILLA: Mr. Chairman, I'm back briefly
wearing a different hat, as Mr. Johnson stated earlier, as
chairman of the MPO. As a member of the Port Commission
and as chairman of the Port Commission, I have the
pleasure and privilege of serving on the MPO. It's called
the Corpus Christi Metropolitan Planning Organization
which is really a misnomer because it includes the City of
Corpus Christi, the City of Portland, Gregory and San
Patricio County through its able and very committed judge,
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Terry Simpson.
But let me recognize Thomas Fallon and his
staff from the MPO -- if you would stand, please -- just
so you'll know the team behind this effort, the staff that
is here. Thank you.
I have a few prepared remarks and I'd like to
make those for the record because these are matters of
achievement and matters of cooperative and collective
efforts between the MPO and your agency.
As chairman of the MPO, I'd like to thank the
commission for providing communities across Texas with
progressive financial alternatives that will enable us to
accelerate the development for needed projects on the
Coastal Bend.
As you know, the replacement of the Harbor
Bridge, its elevation is vital to the safety and increased
cargo opportunities, as outlined by Commissioner Hawley.
Linked to construction to the new Harbor Bridge is needed
capacity on State Highway 286, known locally as the
Crosstown and added capacity on Padre Island Drive, or SH
358.
We're currently exploring the financing
alternatives available to build these projects in the next
ten years by using the tools you have provided.
Otherwise, it would take us 30 years.
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Local mobility projects are not the only
priority of the city and the Port of Corpus Christi.
Projects that provide regional connectivity are essential
to sustaining the economic vitality of South Texas.
The MPO is making certain we establish a
transportation network that capitalizes upon our global
competitive position, our productivity and our efficiency.
I would like to emphasize those projects of regional
significance that will establish a trade triangle between
Laredo, the city of San Antonio, Corpus Christi, all
leading, with seamless transportation arteries by rail and
land, into Mexico.
The first being what Judy referred to as the La
Quinta Terminal, that we also refer to as a Port-to-Port,
Laredo to La Quinta freightway. The continued development
of intermodal port facilities in Texas is vital and
necessary to meet the demands of international trade.
The need to link our inland ports like Laredo
to seaports that have the capacity to efficiently move
freight and cargo are readily apparent. The MPO continues
to stress the feasibility of developing an exclusive
freight corridor between the Port of Corpus Christi and
Laredo.
A TxDOT-sponsored feasibility study is underway
that is developing a concept for a truck-only tollway
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linking Corpus Christi and the 21-mile Camino Colombia
Tollway which was recently acquired by TxDOT. This
exclusive freightway will be designed for overweight,
high-speed operation of trucks only from the inland port
of Laredo to the Port of Corpus Christi and the La Quinta
container terminal.
The second project of regional significance is
the US 77 Cross-Border Trail. Connectivity to the Rio
Grande Valley is equally as important as trade routes from
Latin America and Mexico seek alternatives to the Laredo
port of entry. A coalition of economic development
interests from Harlingen to Corpus Christi have been
exploring the benefits of an initial phase appropriating
existing US 77 from the Valley to I-37 in Corpus Christi,
providing an interface with the highway system in Mexico.
Projects in the TxDOT Pharr District have
resulted in the majority of US 77 being improved by the
controlled access corridor. However, major projects in
the Corpus Christi District remain unfunded, including a
relief route around Driscoll, a relief route around
Ricardo, and additional intersection crossings at
Kingsville, Ricardo and Sarita.
Development of this trade corridor benefits the
entire Gulf Coast, including the Port of Corpus Christi
and our colleagues at the Port of Houston.
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Recent natural tragedies like Katrina and Rita
have underscored the need of having significant
alternative ports of entry. During the recent hurricanes,
almost 35 percent of our nation's refining capacity was
shut down. Much cargo was diverted to the Port of Corpus
Christi, and with these improved corridors, we can expect
increased freight traffic as shippers learn the
opportunities and the efficiencies available in South
Texas.
The third regional project which was also
referred to in Judy's comments is the strategic military
support, but it has a highway linkage. Due to the war
against terrorism, the efficient deployment of military
materials and vehicles through the strategic military
ports of Corpus Christi and Beaumont have become a high
priority.
The development of a strategic military
highway, utilizing US 181, State Highway 123, and the new
Austin toll road, SH 130 between Fort Hood and the Port of
Corpus Christi, will support the capability of the Port of
Corpus Christi. Obviously other supporting projects are
in various stages such as improved rail access which has
been earlier explained.
In addition, improvements to the Port Avenue
which is the entry path of Whataburger Field leading to I-
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37 will permit the improvement and the movement of
oversized and overweight cargo from I-37 to dock
facilities in our port efficiency operations. The
planning and design is scheduled for 2006 and accelerated
funding is being sought for construction.
Project number 4 is the South Loop. This is a
creative idea arising from the growth of South Texas which
has resulted in significant population growth on Padre and
Mustang islands.
Safe access to the island was enhanced with the
elevation of SH 358 causeway, but planning for the
development of additional capacity is needed. The initial
concept of a relief route from I-37 to south Corpus
Christi and Padre Island was developed in the late '90s.
The funding for the first phase, the environmental
review -- which I believe is $1.5 million -- is programmed
for this year, and is a collaboration between the MPO,
TxDOT, the county, and the City of Corpus Christi that is
of high value to our region.
This new corridor will provide not only a
relief from I-37 around Corpus Christi with a new
connection to the island but will also provide a relief
route around Robstown that connects US 77 to SH 55 and IH
37. The development of this new capacity is only possible
utilizing the new financial tools offered by the
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legislature and by the commission.
Lastly, a word about the importance of
hurricane preparedness. Recent events have shown the
vulnerability to our coastal transportation network.
Although improvements to SH 358 and US 181 causeway has
improved the region's evacuation potential, other water
crossings, such as the I-37 bridge over the Nueces River,
are of concern.
The MPO Policy Committee has asked our MPO
staff to explore the issues associated with the safe
evacuation of our area and improvements needed to ensure
access by relief vehicles and equipment following an
emergency event.
The demands on our transportation network have
increased as health, safety and security have become
increased priority for our region. Our MPO supports
collaborative planning and welcomes the financial tools
you have provided to make our plans a reality. Our
regional mobility with the Free Trade Alliance in San
Antonio, USA, and the San Antonio Economic Foundation
headed by Mario Fernandez, as well as stakeholders'
incentives in Laredo will help refine our trade triangle
in Texas and promote seamless transportation links by sea,
land and rail into Latin America.
Finally, just a couple of days ago there was a
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headline here where the city council okayed flights to
Monterrey, providing needed air service, direct passenger
service between our two great communities that compliments
the thoughts and strategies that are outlined and
envisioned by your body and supported by the MPO.
We believe that the Coastal Bend, and
specifically the Port of Corpus Christi, is indeed the
gateway to the world. It's a message that we are shouting
across the country.
I might just conclude, Mr. Chairman, that as I
see you sitting under the Port of Corpus Christi
Authority, the same seating where Commissioner Carrell and
Commissioner Hawley and I sit, that your presence here
certainly elevates the stature of our port commission.
I'll be happy to entertain any questions.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I thought the joke was good.
I don't think the Houston Texans do know where the goal
line is.
(General laughter.)
MR. BONILLA: My son at the University of
Texas, who thinks the BCS is the greatest thing in the
world, was the architect of that joke, so I'll be sure and
advise him of that.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Being from North Texas, I can
tell you the Dallas Cowboys are having a hard time finding
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the chalk line too.
Well, I'm sure we have several questions,
Commissioner, Chairman. We, first of all, want to thank
you for the presentation.
Anything specific, members?
MR. JOHNSON: I have one or two. I had a
question. Commissioner Hawley's presentation talked about
deepening the channel, and I was curious as to both the
additional depth that the channel is going to and also the
additional width, and what do you see as the timing of
that.
MS. HAWLEY: Well, the timing, of course,
depends on the financing and the financing or the big hunk
of that is right now in WRDA and I think it's passed the
House but it hasn't passed the Senate. It's been in WRDA
since last year and they just didn't pass the WRDA bill
which is the Water Resources Development Act, they just
didn't get it done. So our consultants in Washington are
giving us a little more hope that it's going to get
through this year.
The La Quinta project, part of that deepening
is tied up with this, but if the WRDA does not come
through at this point in time, we have the authority to go
ahead and deepen that and then when WRDA comes through
then being compensated for that. So the La Quinta project
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we could and would move forward regardless of that, but
we're looking at as soon as the funding is made available,
and there will be a local match, of course, that we'll
have to come up with. And that's still variable, they're
not sure if that's going to be 15 percent, 10 percent. It
hasn't been defined yet, so there are still some issues
out there, and that, of course, will determine when we
start as well. But it's a project that we'd like to get
underway as soon as possible.
MR. CARRELL: I think the cost is significant
as far as the match because the deeper you go, the more
the sharing.
MR. JOHNSON: What is the additional depth?
MR. CARRELL: Forty-five to 50 feet.
MR. JOHNSON: And the additional width?
MS. HAWLEY: Four hundred; 200-foot barge
shelves on each side.
MR. BONILLA: If we go to 55 feet, there's a
more favorable sharing formula, the percentage for the
Port of Corpus Christi is less, and that legislation is
tied up in Congress, and since the attention seems to be
focused on Supreme Court nominations today, we may or may
not have that legislation passed favorably this session.
But it's presented each congressional session and this is
the first time it has passed one of the houses, so we
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believe it's inevitable.
And as we deepen the channel we'll be able to
receive ships of greater depth so they'll be able to bring
in more cargo, and that will ultimately reduce the cost
of, we believe, fuel, also reduce the cost of consumer
goods.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Just to give us some
comparison, how deep is the Houston Ship Channel.
MR. BONILLA: Houston just went to 45 recently,
and we've been at 45, Frank?
MR. BROGAN: Since 1989.
MR. CARRELL: I think part of the significance
of having the port -- we keep referring to Frank. Frank
you might want to come up.
MS. HAWLEY: Frank is the engineer to whom I
referred and sort of the brains behind the Joe Fulton
Corridor process.
MR. CARRELL: Yesterday when Commissioner
Houghton and I were taking a tour of the Fulton Causeway,
I think he made a comment about how many times ships get
to the port, and I think you said three to five different
times to lighten it to get to the size where it can
transport into the Port of Corpus Christi.
And back on Chairman Bonilla's comment about
the cost, help us on that.
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MR. BROGAN: Total project price for the
deepening, widening and extension is $200 million total.
That would include government share, local share and
private share for things like pipeline lowering.
MR. CARRELL: And I thought at a 50-something-
foot depth we had like 50 percent sharing and at 45 it's
only 75-25.
MR. BROGAN: That's correct. The old formula
was 75-25 and the break point if we went deeper than 45
feet, then the local sponsors were obligated to put up 50
percent. And as more ports around the nation are going
deeper than 45, the West Coast and the East Coast, there
is increasing pressure to revisit that matching formula
and try and adjust that to get it back to the 75 federal
and 25 local, so that's an effort we're working on.
MR. CARRELL: And I think if WRDA takes enough
time, we'll finally outlast them and have a better
equation, because we can't move forward without the WRDA
bill.
MR. BROGAN: And I think one of the significant
advantages that our own port has over other ports in the
gulf is that we're closer to the deep water line out in
the Gulf of Mexico than any other port is, and what that
does is that reduces the length of the channel that has to
be dredged and reduces the cost.
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Houston, for example, wanted to go from 40 feet
to 50 feet, but that cost is going to exceed $1 billion to
do that because their channel is so much longer. Because
our channel is so much shorter, then our cost is that much
less. But it's just a few miles offshore to get to 52
feet, whereas it's much, much longer in Houston, and
that's why we've always had that advantage. We're the
first port on the Gulf Coast to have 45 feet, and with any
luck, we'll be the first port to have 50 feet. But other
ports around the nation are getting ahead of us, on the
West Coast and the East Coast, and we need to continue to
press forward with that project.
MR. JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman, with your
permission and indulgence of the port commissioners, and
with this many potential voters in the room, I wanted to
talk about the importance of Proposition 1 on the ballot
Tuesday.
There's an interplay here between the port and
rail that it's a multimodal issue. The port owns 26 miles
of rail that circulates throughout the port assets, and
the creation of the Texas Rail Relocation Fund provided
for in Proposition 1 will serve as a twin to the Texas
Mobility Fund which has been the huge shot in the arm for
surface transportation. And this will enable a fund to
relocate rail and to do rail improvements, and I think the
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port will benefit and our urban areas around the state
will benefit.
I mentioned this morning it's sort of been
conspicuous by its absence, the fact that there is an
election on the 8th and early voting is on seems to not be
in the public focus. So I want to take this opportunity
to mention that and how important it is from a multimodal
aspect, and as I mentioned in my prelude, I don't think
there's any community that I'm aware of that has done the
job on a multimodal basis as Corpus Christi and the
surrounding area.
So please consider that one vote and please
consider that when you do vote.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I appreciate you bringing that
up because you're right, the linkage between the rail
relocation fund and what the commission wishes to do with
their port is pretty apparent.
Ted?
MR. HOUGHTON: It looks to me that your
container operations is a big part of your future. Who is
your partner, or do you have a partner in that on the
private side?
MR. BONILLA: We're engaged in discussions. We
had an MOU with ICT-SI for about six months, and that's
one of the largest Philippine container terminal operators
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in the world. That did not quite materialize when they
shifted their focus to Asia.
However, we have engaged another firm and we
have met with their senior staff and we anticipate taking
some action on that in November. So while it hasn't been
ratified by the commission, therefore it's still
proprietary information, we're very optimistic. We have
cleared all the environmental hurdles, we've received
permitting by the Corps of Engineers, the community of San
Patricio County and Nueces have endorsed the project so
that we have uniform stakeholder support. And we've even
spoken to GLO about some innovative financing tools that
may enable us to sell the land and lease it back.
So there's various financing tools, and we're
very confident we're going to have a private equity
partner here in less than 30 days.
MR. HOUGHTON: Is there a demand by the
manufacturers/shippers for a container port here?
MR. BONILLA: We believe there is. For
example, as a result of CAFTA, we're seeing new
opportunities in Central America. We have just announced
the importation of melons for the first time into Corpus
Christi from Honduras via shipping interests in Colombia.
Just this week we had a Colombia vessel bring in imported
meats.
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As Judy was explaining, the idea is that we
develop alternatives to the congestion on the West Coast.
We don't have the labor problems that exist on the West
Coast and we don't have the congestion that exists on the
West Coast. And while the West Coast, Long Beach and LA
may bring in 12 to 13 million containers a year, China is
building new ports almost every six months that are
generating 15 million containers per port, so the
congestion is only going to increase. And what Asian
shipping lines are looking at is an alternative, and that
alternative, one alternative, other than the Panama Canal
and on into La Quinta, would be coming to the West Coast
ports of Mexico, Lazaro Cardenas, specifically.
And there was a slide earlier -- we might bring
it up -- linking Lazaro Cardenas with Laredo and then on
into the Port of Corpus Christi, and that underscores the
importance of that freight corridor.
Kansas City Southern, you may recall, bought
out TexMex and TFM, and so now Kansas City Southern has
seamless transportation link from Kansas City right to
Lazaro Cardenas. There needs to be some rehab on some of
the rail in Mexico, but it's going to happen. And so La
Quinta, as it develops, we believe, is going to be an
ideal location and will not in any way be in a competitive
environment with the Port of Houston.
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Lastly, we're looking for a major retailer that
will set up a distribution hub. That has to be a Wal-
Mart, could be a Target, could be a Toys R Us, a Lowe's,
and once that distribution center is set up at La Quinta,
then we believe that the shipping lines will come
automatically because they're going to follow the cargo.
We have already a 500,000-square-foot cotton
compress warehouse facility at La Quinta, so we already
have an agricultural hub, so ultimately we will not only
have a general cargo distribution center but also be a
magnet and a distribution export center for cotton
worldwide.
MS. HAWLEY: Ruben, just to follow up on what
you said, in some of our conversations with some of the
major retailers, we have learned -- this is anecdotal --
that had we already had La Quinta operational, that would
have affected/impacted their decisions on where to locate
their distribution centers. So it's the chicken-and-egg
thing.
So we know that there's huge interest, it's
just when they needed to the access, they need it now, and
we're still three years away from having something
operational. So that's one.
And the other thing -- and Hope knows this --
in the interchange with Kelly Field and Toyota, there's a
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lot of interest in getting our container terminal.
There's a lot of drive there because the cost of shipping
containers to them is exponentially less. So we're
getting some demand from that direction just because of
our location.
MR. JOHNSON: I probably shouldn't say this
because I might not be able to return home, but don't be
apologetic about being competitive to the Port of Houston.
If nobody is going to challenge them, they're not going to
get bigger and they're not going to get better. I believe
very firmly that the only way we improve is that somebody
is challenging us, whether that's in your business or what
you're trying to provide, you know, it's the people of
this area and the people of the state. So don't be
apologetic, please.
MR. BONILLA: Well, an example of that,
Commissioner, is the strategic military designation. I
really welcome and appreciate your comments because when
that opportunity arose in the mid-'90s , not too many
ports wanted it. You know, we were at peacetime, relative
peace, and the Port of Corpus Christi, under the
leadership of Frank Brogan and Alice Faber, sought it
aggressively. Port of Houston did not express any
interest, the Port of Beaumont had an interest.
So now these two ports, Beaumont and Corpus
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Christi, provide almost 50 percent of all cargo that's
being shipped to Iraq in defense of our freedom, so it's a
great story and I think it underscores the importance of
your declaration. So thank you.
MS. ANDRADE: Mr. Chairman, I have a question.
First of all, for the record, I'd like to thank you for
all the support that you've given this corridor from
Laredo to Corpus Christi. I want to thank you for
arranging the meeting a couple of months ago where
Commissioner Houghton and I were present. I truly think
that was a historical moment when we got two communities
together to support this, so thank you.
But my question on La Quinta is if all
negotiations move forward with the potential partner that
you may have, when do you think you will hang a sign "Open
for Business"?
MR. BONILLA: I'll let Frank Brogan answer that
one.
MR. BROGAN: Three years is, I think, a very
realistic time frame, and if possible, we may be able to
cut some time off that. But I think three years is the
target I would set.
MS. ANDRADE: Thank you.
MR. BONILLA: And I might add that -- without,
I guess, violating the public trust here -- we have
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already scheduled meetings between senior staff and the
private party, so it's gone beyond the policy level, and
that's in anticipation of refining the MOU and having
strategic timetables about construction.
MS. ANDRADE: That's great. I still remember
when I came here, it was your dream and your vision, so
congratulations.
MR. BONILLA: Thank you. We look forward to
working with you as that project unfolds.
MS. ANDRADE: We do too.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I want to echo something John
said. Don't be apologetic about Houston. I mean, we're
going to invest in Houston. The state is going to invest
in Houston, its going to invest in Brownsville, it's going
to invest in Corpus Christi. The state is going to invest
wherever there's an economic opportunity to be increased
for its citizens, and if that's Corpus Christi, that's
fine, and we believe our partners in Houston understand.
We know in the past there's been some perhaps
sibling rivalry in our state between ports, but we hope
the governor has kind of made clear to everybody those
days are over, no more whining, no more begging. You
know, we need to get ready for 35 years from now, 30 years
from now, and that includes an aggressive deep water port
in Corpus Christi, without a doubt.
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MR. BONILLA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Using a
sports analogy, we don't expect to strike out. As a
matter of fact, Houston needs us because our Hooks are
hitters.
MS. HAWLEY: We'd better sit down.
(General laughter.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Was Mr. Noe coming back up, or
is he done with his piece?
MR. BONILLA: He's done.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Let me just comment right
quick about you made a couple of points in your
presentation about some projects you're going to be
working with us on.
We don't want to be scary but we do believe in
being direct about where we're headed. We will
increasingly tell our employees in the districts and they
will increasingly tell their contacts in the communities,
we're going to ask the question how does this project
reduce congestion or increase safety or improve air
quality or offer economic opportunity or conserve and
improve the value of our asset, because that's the key
question.
That question popped into my head when you were
talking about the spur and helping Texas A&M Corpus
Christi. The first thing I thought about was: Well,
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where does the state benefit from that.
And so we're trying to look at things like is
this a local road and are we primarily addressing a local
issue and is it local congestion, local air quality or
whatever, or is this a regional road and are we addressing
a regional issue, or is this a statewide road and are we
addressing a statewide issue.
You know, by inference, things that are more
local and less regional and state that don't reduce
congestion or improve air quality or advance economic
opportunity or improve the safety or improve the value of
our assets are going to be less attractive for state
partnering than regional roads or state roads that do meet
those qualifications.
So the governor's instructions were clear, he
didn't want Texans to have to beg for their own money. He
wanted a process in place where every Texan, whether it
was a Texan from Brownsville or Texarkana or Amarillo or
El Paso, knew what the criteria was for hoping to have the
state as a partner in these projects. And I would just
emphasize that to you on your work with the locals.
We're going to be very aggressive in helping,
but we have filters we have to use to keep from building
the road to nowhere for no reason.
MR. NOE: And we certainly understand that. In
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our application there's areas of transportation congestion
and arguments for our proposal, and it's in the
application
MR. WILLIAMSON: And maybe I shouldn't have
focused on this. That one just happened to catch my eye.
I mean, it's any of them, really. Like helping with the
rail in the yard, that meets the highest check mark
qualifications for everywhere we want to go. That's why
the governor was so quick to tell us to do that, because
it meets his criteria.
So I don't want to like throw cold water on
your project, but we are looking at things a little bit
differently across the state so that we can honestly tell
the citizens, you know, your money is being leveraged with
the private sector and partnered with local and regional
government on a rational basis that will produce clear
results.
MR. NOE: And we appreciate that.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Did you ever find your
business, Craig?
MR. CLARK: What's that?
MR. WILLIAMSON: Weren't you looking for your
CD or something?
MR. CLARK: That was the CD.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I thought we were looking for
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a new CD.
MR. CLARK: No. It's all the same one, and I
appreciate your indulgence while we obviously go into
extra innings.
MR. WILLIAMSON: And Johnson is sent to the
showers. It's a long walk down the dugout.
(General laughter.)
MR. HOUGHTON: I did notice one thing on the
presentation that I should have pointed out real early,
the campus of Texas A&M -- I don't know if you can pull
that slide back up. I'm helping John kill some time here.
It's slide number 7, page 7. Now go and enlarge that.
Do you notice anything there, Ric? Did you
have a private beach at your university? Did you notice
that private beach sitting there?
MR. CLARK: It is a research site.
(General laughter.)
MR. HOUGHTON: We've got a lot of beach out in
El Paso but we don't have any water.
MR. WILLIAMSON: We didn't have a private beach
but we did have a football team that could score a
touchdown. It's okay, it's been a few years since we
could say that, though.
MR. HOUGHTON: I was just curious. That is
quite interesting, a private beach. Very nice.
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MR. WILLIAMSON: How are you going to enlarge
the campus? Are you going to go across the water or are
you going to recover, or what are you going to do?
MR. NOE: The university is in a long-range
planning process. There are number of things that are
currently focused on campus that can be located out in the
community, the nursing program and a number of others.
They're also looking for another second campus site that
can serve as a point for a much larger campus.
MR. HOUGHTON: Are they capped out on
enrollment?
MR. NOE: There's not a cap. They're growing
at significant rates and will be at 10,000 probably in the
next two years.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, the problem that is
unfortunate is that -- and the legislative members aren't
here -- the problem the state faces -- our focus is
transportation and we will stay focused on our business,
but the problem the state faces is if your population is
going to 50 million, the implication is you've got to have
more universities, you've got to have more medical
schools, you've got to have more law schools, you have to
have more public schools, and we have been for so long a
state of -- and I think should remain -- a state of
limited service, limited taxation and limited regulation.
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It is sometimes hard for us to kind of get a
grasp on the fact that there's a reason why these college
guys go beg for more money because they've got more
students to educate. And if we wanted to put colleges on
100 percent toll collection and make the students pay for
everything, they wouldn't come ask us for money. It's a
dilemma for the state to figure out how to deal with this
stuff. But it's a good dilemma, it means we're tight-
fisted and we watch the people's money carefully.
John is back. I didn't know they let people
return in the pros, I thought once you were out, you were
out.
MR. JOHNSON: So does that mean I'm supposed to
leave?
MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm like Ted, I'm just trying
to buy some time.
(General laughter.)
MR. CLARK: As a district, we welcome you to
the Corpus Christi District, an area where thousands of
people come every year seeking sun, the beach, fish and
birds, our rich history, and every 30 years or so a white
Christmas.
Located along the Gulf Coast between San
Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley, we include ten counties
covering 7,806 square miles. There are just over 550,000
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people and 440,000 registered vehicles. We have 2,800
centerline miles and almost 6,900 lane miles of highway.
Truly multimodal, the Corpus Christi District
includes a port, a ferry system, the Gulf Intracoastal
Waterway, an international airport, 14 general aviation
airports, a regional public transportation system, and a
rural public transportation system.
As you have seen in the previous presentations
from Corpus Christi, the port, and the MPO, we have many
transportation challenges. We have emerging congestion,
arterials clogged by commercial development, high growth
areas needing commuter connections, and corridor
transportation limitations that impede commercial and
industrial growth.
But we have a plan and we have new tools, and
when we combine these tools with willing local partners
and combine with conventional resources, we can meet these
challenges.
Transportation planning in a coastal area
requires consideration of hurricane evacuation. The
Corpus Christi District has several projects coming to
completion to enhance our evacuation.
Two projects totaling $18.4 million provided
signs and paving that allowed for reconfiguration of 83.5
miles of the northbound lanes of Interstate 37 to convert
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a 10-foot shoulder to a 13-foot hurricane lane that can be
opened to provide added capacity. This allows for the
existing three-lane urban section to operate as four lanes
and the existing two-lane rural section to operate as
three lanes. Our friends in the San Antonio District have
a project currently under construction that will continue
this section all the way to Pleasanton.
We also have raised the JFK Causeway eight
feet, increasing the available evacuation window for a
growing island population. We widened northbound Graham
from SH 358 to Interstate 37 to allow for a two-lane
connection and enhanced operation in an evacuation. We
raised and added capacity to US 181 from the Nueces Bay
Causeway to Portland, and we are constructing a grade
separation in Gregory that will allow for continuous
traffic flow.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita threatened us early
and allowed us to test our evacuation plans. We also got
the chance to view evacuation experiences from other areas
and apply them to our situation. We intend to collect a
wide variety of lessons learned and improve our plans,
infrastructure and public information efforts.
Our three-year transportation improvement plan,
developed through our MPO in the metro area and through
regional rural TIP meetings in the rural area, includes
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115 projects totaling nearly $380 million.
Our district allocation under the UTP provides
almost $800 million over a ten-year period in the
Statewide Mobility Program fund and $360 million in
Statewide Preservation funds, and this provides the base
funding to plan for our needs and leverage or use in
equity for plans that we develop with our local partners
to deliver transportation infrastructure with new funding
tools.
The increased demands for transportation in
Texas requires that we plan in terms of corridor needs.
The improvement along the US 181 corridor is needed to
meet the demands of expanding industrial activities, to
provide critical hurricane evacuation capacity for growing
populations, as well as allow access to tourists at
recreation areas east of I-37.
As was indicated in the port and MPO
presentations, the Harbor Bridge presents a significant
mobility impediment for US 181. It's a 46-year-old steel
structure over saltwater, squeezing six lanes with no
shoulders that cross 60,000 vehicles a day. With a steep
vertical grade and sharp horizontal curves on each end,
the bridge presents a safety risk. With high truck
volumes and many petrochemical cargos moving through
population areas, there's also a public safety issue as
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well.
The US 59 corridor is a rural trunk system
corridor that provides east-west connectivity from Laredo
to Victoria, then Houston. This corridor was the subject
of a report to the commission in August by the Tri-County
Coalition. We are interested in working with our counties
along this vital corridor to look for ways to advance
capacity and add operational improvements.
The US 77 corridor provides a vital commercial
route from the Rio Grande Valley Border areas to Corpus
Christi and on to Victoria and Houston. We have a couple
of active projects adding controlled access highway
sections in Corpus Christi and Kingsville. We have a $6.5
million earmark in the Federal Highway Bill to be used to
help fund the continuation of a controlled access section
of highway through Robstown. We will continue to look for
opportunities to enhance mobility along this critical
corridor.
The Port-to-Port project envisions a truck
tollway that would provide high-speed and extra weight
traffic east and west from the ports of entry at Laredo to
the Port of Corpus Christi and other Gulf Coast ports. We
are studying the market forces and potential that would
allow this corridor to provide enhancements needed to meet
growing international trade and economic development.
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SAFETEA-LU also provides a $5 million earmark
to study a site near Robstown for a trade-processing and
inland center. We've expanded our Port-to-Port study area
to include this location and explore the effect of this
combination to improve and enhance trade and
transportation.
The Corpus Christi District lies in the
crossroads of the TTC I-35 and I-69 TTC segments of the
Trans-Texas Corridor. Thirty-one public meetings have
been held in the Corpus Christi District on the Trans-
Texas Corridor, and many in our area are keenly aware of
the huge economic advantages available from this proximity
to these super corridors.
In the BUILD IT component of our business, we
have a robust current construction program of 59 projects
across the district totaling $464 million. We have
several active projects adding controlled access highway
sections. We have several projects that provide
operational improvements that mitigate congestion and
delay. There are a number of projects around the district
that provide added capacity and operational improvements
on clogged local arterials.
In our USE IT business category, we start with
our ferry operations. Currently we have six 20-car boats
in operation with four sets of landings. This system
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carries well over 2 million vehicles per year. We can see
rapid resort and residential development and ever-
increasing peak demands that will exceed our existing
capacity. We have a fifth set of landings under
construction and SAFETEA-LU included an earmark of
$320,000 for the design of a larger 28-car ferry boat.
We held a public hearing in Port Aransas on
September 19, 2005, regarding the rules for establishing
fees for priority boarding. There was good attendance and
great interest in how this would apply to our ferry
operations.
There was also legislation passed last session,
Senate Bill 1131, that would allow Port Aransas direct
access to many of the new funding tools and apply them to
ferry operations.
We're excited about the implementation of our
ITS system here in Corpus Christi. Besides the ability to
improve traffic operations and safety on our urban
expressways, we are looking forward to applying the
technology to our hurricane evacuations and exploring
applications to enhance trade and freight movements.
As I mentioned before, we have 14 general
aviation airports in the district and many of them have
made good use of TxDOT programs for maintenance and
capital improvements.
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We have three active rural public
transportation providers serving our rural populations.
Our district is active in TxDOT traffic safety
activities. We have great cooperation from our local law
enforcement, local media, and local groups interested in
traffic safety. We are convinced that our efforts have a
positive effect on driver behaviors and improve safety and
save lives.
We very much appreciated the great help and
cooperation we received from the new Whataburger Stadium
and the Corpus Christi Hooks on our Click-it or Ticket
event, so much so that I was led to showcase my services
on the mound. I offered to work into the rotation, but so
far the Hooks have not called me.
(General laughter.)
MR. CLARK: In our MAINTAIN IT category our
area presents some great challenges to highway
maintenance. Much of our district is low elevation with
large flat flood plains and active clay soils. Besides
the coastal climate and geological challenges, we have a
mix of marine, petrochemical and agricultural traffic.
This brings a lot of routine wide and heavy loads,
sometimes super-heavy loads.
The load shown is a Texas record that moved
through the Corpus Christi District and weighed in at
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nearly 2 million pounds.
These conditions, combined with a large volume
of narrow pavements, create many problems for our
maintenance forces. As you can see, over 50 percent of
the FM mileage in our district is deficient. We are
fortunate to have dedicated personnel in our maintenance
operations that are innovative in finding solutions to
preserve a quality transportation system.
Besides our Harbor Bridge, Corpus Christi has
over 1,200 bridges on this on-system of many types and
eras, from the first segmental bridge built in Texas to 28
steel-timber structures. Our current three-year TIP
includes 15 on-system bridge replacements totaling over
$16 million. Our three-year off-system bridge plans to
replace 19 bridges totaling over $7 million.
To manage these challenges and the many areas,
I am blessed with an outstanding district organization,
comprised of dedicated and talented people. We maintain
our personnel numbers to stay close to our FTE allocation
of 437 and maintain a staff-to-supervision ratio of nearly
12.5 to one.
We have a relatively young but highly
experienced management group. Our directors average 19
years with TxDOT; my area engineers average 20 with TxDOT.
Across the organization, over 70 percent have more than
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five years' experience.
To help us meet these many challenges, we're
fortunate to have a good local pool of consultant
engineers available with a wide variety of disciplines and
experience.
As I wrap up our district report, I am showing
a slide from the time when the Harbor Bridge was new and
our challenges were different but our dedication to the
task was still the same.
I would like to end by allowing the Honorable
Glenn Guillory, our Aransas County judge, to come up and
address the commission. He has requested an opportunity
to thank the commission for the work that TxDOT has done
in Aransas County.
JUDGE GUILLORY: Mr. Chairman, members, thank
you very much for the opportunity to address this body.
We're talking a project that we recently completed in
Aransas County. By some standards it's a piddling little
contract, it only cost about $20 million, but the
importance of it will be made up in a minute.
I know you want me to be brief --
MR. WILLIAMSON: No. Take your time.
JUDGE GUILLORY: Thank you, sir. I'm a
Louisiana Cajun by birth and a Texas politician by
occupation, so I've got two strikes against me.
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(General laughter.)
JUDGE GUILLORY: About a decade ago, there was
a four-lane, divided highway with access roads and
overpasses designed to replace the Highway 35 between the
San Patricio County line and Rockport. Unfortunately, due
to budget constraints, a two-lane highway was built.
In the first year of operation of that highway,
we lost 16 people, the next year we lost people at the
average of about one a month. To put that in perspective,
if we opened the Houston-Galveston highway, just on a
census basis, the first year they would have lost 500
people. If you would have extended that by distance that
they have four times as much highway as we do, it would
have been 2,000 people. Of course, that wasn't
acceptable.
So we put together a delegation -- San
Antonio -- with about 2,000 signatures on a petition which
is about 10 percent of the people in the county. When we
got to San Antonio to make our presentation, we found that
we were behind Houston asking for $200 million and San
Antonio asking for about $150 million. So we figured by
the time they got to our $20 million we had about a chance
of a snowball in hell of getting funded, we thought the
commission would probably be out robbing banks to try to
fund those projects.
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Well, we were wrong. The project was funded,
the commission in the meeting made a commitment to try to
fund that project, and in fact it was. They scratched
around and found bits here and there, they went ahead and
redesigned the project, and over the next five-year
period, that project was built.
As Judy mentioned -- and Judy was at the
delegation, she was a representative then, and Gene Seaman
was as well -- there were three managers during the term
of that project: Billy Parks who has subsequently retired
and gone over to the dark side --
MR. WILLIAMSON: Absolutely.
(General laughter.)
JUDGE GUILLORY: -- and of course, David and
Craig. And there's been an amazing amount of consistency
over those three managers during the project, but that's
not the amazing part either, although I would be probably
remiss in not mentioning one more name, and that's Bill
Wrightman who was the engineer for the entire project.
He's your engineer out of Sinton and he did a wonderful
job.
It's a marvelous project, and the marvelous
thing about the project is that 4-1/2 years, with all the
heavy equipment running up and down that highway, the
amount of work that was done, over a million cubic yards
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of dirt moved over a five-year period, there were two
deaths, and that's just amazing.
It shows you can get things done if you try
hard enough, and it's a credit to your predecessors and
yourselves, and of course, the work that TxDOT did to make
that project come together the way it did that really
strikes us to the heart. And we want to thank you very
much and your predecessors very much. If you ever sit up
here and think that the time you spend may be spent
better, don't, because there's no higher project result
than to save lives.
So on behalf of myself, the commissioners court
and the citizens of Aransas County, we thank you and TxDOT
very much.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, you're very kind to say
that.
(Applause.)
MR. CLARK: And that would conclude our
marathon report.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions, members?
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Craig, I've just got a couple.
You touched on the corridor and the chairman touched upon
the importance of the Laredo-Corpus Christi-Lower Rio
Grande Valley triangle. I guess we're all kind of dancing
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around and touching around 281/77, which is it, which
should it be and so forth, and that's what the public
hearings are attempting to do. We're smart enough to not,
if we even have a preference, to indicate what that would
be publicly while the hearing process is going on.
I would just, I think, encourage you to
encourage your business community and your civic community
to be thinking logically about where's the logical path of
an international corridor to be, and to begin to talk to
those who would be impacted by that path and see if you
can't begin to create if not partnerships, at least least-
resistance decisions kind of ahead of time.
We understand how difficult it is, probably
more than most people, to sell these wide corridor
concepts. We're also totally convinced this is the
correct thing for the future but we understand that it may
not be so important right now.
But it will be very important four years from
now when we have an excess of electric generation we need
to ship to Mexico in exchange for other natural resources
not yet processed that can be brought back into Texas and
processed by high-quality Texas labor. We understand that
if someone were thinking about that in the year 2005,
someone in the year 2025 will say thank you for figuring
that out 20 years earlier.
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So we do understand the difficulty in this. We
also understand it's the correct thing to do and we
encourage you and Judy, the port, the city and county to
be talking. We know you're talking west but if you're
thinking south, then you need to start talking south as
well. The more talking that can be done, the better, I
think.
Members, anything else before we take a quick
break?
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, you did a good job and
you thoroughly educated us about your operation and the
Corpus Christi area. It's our custom, members of the
audience, to take a break at this time and give everybody
a chance to relax, and we'll do so and return to the
state's business, and we hope you come back to watch us
work. About 15 minutes, please.
(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: We are going to return from
our brief recess and take up the regular order of
business. And the first order of business, members, is
the approval of the minutes from last month's meeting. Do
I have a motion?
MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.
MS. ANDRADE: Second.
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MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
Michael?
MR. BEHRENS: Going to agenda item number 2,
under Public Transportation we'll have a minute order
looking to award Rural Transportation Assistance Program
funds to El Paso County. Eric?
MR. GLEASON: Good morning, members of the
commission, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Behrens.
The minute order before you awards $145,000 of
federal funds under the Rural Transit Assistance Program
to El Paso County Rural Transit District in support of
development of a public transportation system there in El
Paso County. This award is actually part of a much larger
project in El Paso County that is not only looking at ITS
development to assist in coordination of services and
efficiencies in customer service improvements, but it's
also one that includes the introduction of a new vehicle
in service in El Paso County, one that does have the
latest technology in natural gas engine technology, and
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includes with it something called hydraulic line assist
which helps in the fuel consumption by assisting the
vehicle in initial acceleration. So that when it consumes
quite a bit of fuel, it assists that phase of the
acceleration thereby reducing fuel consumption, and
coupled with the natural gas technology, it improves air
quality as a part of that.
The Intelligent Transportation System portion
of the project of which these funds are a portion, again,
a larger overall effort, looks specifically at researching
and then assessing the feasibility and developing the
software applications to address issues of automatic
vehicle location programs, systems to allow the operator
to know exactly where its vehicles are, to help with
communication between the central dispatch center and
those operators in the field, to ultimately allow for the
introduction of automated fare payment or smart car
technology as a part of the operation, as well as
passenger information, real-time passenger information on
the service.
What these $145,000 will do specifically is
that initial assessment of technology and its application
in the El Paso County area. In addition to our funds, as
a part of that there is a significant CMAQ contribution
which, as I understand, is up for approval tomorrow. That
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actually constitutes about 80 percent of the ITS
investment, our share is about 20 percent.
This project intends then to have, by the fall
of 2007, 17 vehicles operating in El Paso County that are
equipped with an automated dispatch system radio, the
technology to allow for communication, and will begin to
assess some of the benefits of that application to the
extent of improving the coordination of our services, and
the significance of that improvement with respect to
overall statewide to coordinate our systems better. It
will allow us to examine the impact of fuel technologies
on fuel economy and fuel consumption.
So I recommend your approval of this award
today and will be glad to answer any questions you might
have.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
explanation. Do you have questions?
MS. ANDRADE: Mr. Chairman, I have a question.
Eric, will you keep us posted as to how well
it's doing?
MR. GLEASON: Absolutely. I had a conversation
yesterday with the project manager where one of the things
that we talked a lot about was making sure that we had
both some up-front work around the outcomes and what we
would expect to happen and then the ability throughout the
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project to measure the results with respect to those
anticipated outcomes, not so much in the context of
success or failure but in the context of learning what we
can learn from this for other applications throughout the
state.
MS. ANDRADE: And we've invested $145,000, and
what's the price of the total project?
MR. GLEASON: The total cost of the ITS
development portion of the project is $725,000; the
balance of the funds are coming from the CMAQ area.
MS. ANDRADE: Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Any other questions or
comments, members? Do I have a motion?
MR. JOHNSON: My sense is this is a tremendous
project, first of its kind and certainly worth doing and
following it to see how it does.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Absolutely. Okay, do I have a
motion?
MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.
MS. ANDRADE: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Opposed, no.
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(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
Eric, how are you finding Texas, buddy?
MR. GLEASON: I'm finding it fascinating. It
is a real challenge. It is a very different environment
than I'm used to working in. I'm enjoying it
tremendously.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, by all accounts, you're
doing a good job. Everybody is very complimentary.
MR. GLEASON: Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, sir.
MR. BEHRENS: Commissioners, agenda item number
3 is a discussion item where Mike Craig of our VTR
Division will talk about our public outreach and our
marketing efforts in order to try to increase vehicle
registration in Texas. Mike?
MR. CRAIG: Thank you very much. Good morning.
We've got quite a few projects underway, four of which we
feel like have enough visibility or interest either on the
legislative side or enough impact statewide that we wanted
to bring them to you and let you kind of get some idea
what's going on so if you're starting to hear things about
it, you're aware.
The first one is the marketing and sales of
special license plates. This is one that has legislative
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interest. It was presented in two forms, one in the 78th
Legislature and again in the 79th Legislature, and it
changed at that point.
As you can see, it was not mandatory in the
78th, it was optional, it was permitted if we wanted to
pursue it. Definitely we had a lot of projects going and
that was one that definitely wasn't a priority.
It's an unprecedented type of program in the
United States, there's no other state that has this, so we
feel like there was a high risk involved with it until we
had time to do more analysis. So we did not move out
initially with it.
MR. WILLIAMSON: But we weren't afraid to be
the first one to do it?
MR. CRAIG: We're never afraid to be the first.
As long as we can make money and help people in the public
move goods and products.
MR. WILLIAMSON: We don't ever want to be
afraid of taking risks.
MR. CRAIG: We're not afraid to take risks at
all.
So in the 79th they changed that up quite a
bit. Came back to us, required us, in effect, to
implement this program, but in so doing, they also gave us
some benefits associated with that. In the prior bill
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they had not provided funding up front. We shared that
risk with whichever vendor was the successful one that we
were to select. So in that respect, we benefitted from
it.
We have moved out on that and as you can see
there, there's certain things that it provides for:
personalized plates, organizational plates, collegiate
plates. Those are all involved in this process, plus they
can bring new plates to us as well, new plate designs. It
does specify that we recover all costs, but under this
provision, as we'll see later in the slide, those costs
ultimately would be paid back off the revenue generated
from the sale of these plates -- which we'll get into a
little pricing scheme as well later on.
Our goal is to increase revenue to the state.
We've had two bidders on this project, both feel that they
can do a really good job marketing and selling plates and
getting us an increased revenue from them.
As I mentioned earlier, the cost-sharing, the
risk-sharing, if you will, $632,000 was estimated by us to
start this project. Out of that, half of that would be
paid up front by this vendor. So they feel it's a very
viable project, we feel it's viable, and we're both going
to put money into it to prove it truly is a viable
project.
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To give you some idea of the timelines, we
initiated the initial RFP based on prior legislation in
February of 2005. This rocked along during the 79th
Legislature. At that point, it appeared that new
amendments to that law were going to be passed. We went
ahead and published the RFP as it was, based on the prior
legislation, and then provided through interviews and
negotiations with the two bidders, that we would work in
those new provisions and they would agree to it, and then
they would base their bids on that. So that's where we
are today.
We show there that October 27 is when we were
wanting to announce this winning bidder. We actually, at
this point, because of legislative interest, we knew even
prior to this that we wanted to brief those legislators
who did have interest, or their staff, as to where we were
on this, what we did, how we got to where we are, and why
we made the selection that we had, so that's going to
happen actually on November 2, next week. As soon as we
can brief those folks up on that, then we'll announce the
winning bidder.
Any questions on that? I've got four here so
I'll break at each one.
MR. JOHNSON: Mike, what sort of steps are they
going to take and venues are they going to use or outlets
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to market specialty plates that, you know, we don't sort
of already do internally? How are they going to increase
outreach, I guess is my question.
MR. CRAIG: Correct. We don't really market
specialty plates, currently we don't have that capability,
we don't dedicate funds for that. Organizations who come
in, if there's an organizational plate, they do it
possibly, as well as the colleges if they want to. We
don't do that; this provides us that mechanism.
They'll go into dealerships where there's an
opportunity at that point where they're buying the
vehicle, hey, would you like a special plate with that?
Obviously we can put it in other venues as well, similar
to another project that we'll be talking about which you
and I have met with the press earlier on.
MR. JOHNSON: I think since the chairman is not
here that we should appoint him a committee of one. His
alma mater, I think, has moved to number three in terms of
the number of college license plates, and we should make
him the chairman and sole member of the committee to get
them back up, especially proportionate to their population
of graduates and interested parties.
MR. CRAIG: As we deal with our new vendor,
we'll certainly make that one a priority.
MR. JOHNSON: Well, volunteer his services.
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(General laughter.)
MR. CRAIG: Any other questions?
(No response.)
MR. CRAIG: Let me move on. The next project
we have that you would like to know about is the vehicle
registration compliance and public awareness campaign.
This is one that we've had going in a grassroots method
for the last number of months, and basically what we found
out, for a little background, Texas residents, as we all
know, need to title and register vehicles before they're
operated on the highways of our state.
We've got about 18.7 million vehicles
currently, and obviously as we get our toll roads and our
infrastructure in place and provide more opportunities for
industry, we're going to have more vehicles coming in.
And that brings in about $1.3 billion a year total; out of
that, a third goes to local government, to the local
county for their road and bridge funds, so it helps them
maintain their roads as well.
As we went through this bid process, there were
five bidders. We selected one bidder, obviously, named
Think Street. They've done a very good job, very creative
in the way they're going to market this campaign
statewide. We've had some public outreach already on
these things and I'll get into that just a little later,
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but so far we've been very pleased with what they've done
to this point.
The project scope, we didn't want to go into it
with a negative, you know, we want to beat you over the
head because you haven't registered your vehicle, we
wanted to make it positive to the public who may or may
not be aware what the requirements are associated with the
registration of vehicles and where that money actually
goes.
So what we tried to do is we have a very
diverse population, we're putting this out not only in
English but Spanish as well, to get it to everybody who
may have a vehicle that's operating. We're rolling it
out, as I said, with a positive message. It's basically
to remind current Texans and any newcomers who are coming
into the state because any newcomers who are in here that
are operating off the previous state's registration, they
have six months, eight months, ten months left on that and
they don't know that once they've established residency,
they've got to register their vehicle and title it in
Texas. Many of these people are going to want to comply
and if we just get the information out there to them, we
think they will.
Within 18 months we're seeking to reduce
registration noncompliance by a minimum of half a percent,
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and half a percent of what, I think, begs the question.
We have done ten years of public parking lot surveys, and
through that period of time we've consistently found of
Texas-plated vehicles, 4.5 percent are not currently
registered. So that's our base. From that we're trying
to reduce that by half a percent.
What that equates to is through that analysis
of that 4.5 percent, it comes to about 720,000 vehicles a
year that are not registered for the entire year.
Extrapolate from that $60 in registration, it comes to
$43.2 million of just the Texas vehicles. We can't
quantify those that are coming in with out-of-state
plates, out-of-country plates, we don't know if they're
truly Texas residents or not. That's where the
information, the public awareness will be targeted.
If we can reduce that by half a percent, we
bring in $43.2 million. Well, overall if we did all 4.5,
this half percent, we basically get $5.6 million.
We benchmarked this, we've gone through and
modeled the program that we currently have in progress.
We take that data on, we'll extrapolate from that later on
to developing our improvement. We're going to follow up
with research again in 2005 into 2007 to gauge the
effectiveness of this campaign. We really encourage
Texans, let's go out and do the right thing. And Texans,
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if we know about it, all tend to do the right thing, and I
believe that we find that to be true with Hurricane
Katrina, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Wilma, everybody steps
up and tries to help. In this case, you've got a product
that you're paying for that you're actually going to
benefit from because you're putting that much back into
it.
The cost of the project is $2.5 million over a
two-year period. Again, if you think back to what I just
mentioned, if we can drop it by half a percent, we can
more than pay for the project within 18 months, and we
feel like we can beat that.
As I mentioned earlier, the out-of-state/out-
of-country registrations that are running on our highways,
if those in fact turn out to be Texas residents and they
will come in and register their vehicles, we think there's
more money to be had than the $43.2 million. So we think
this will make some real inroads on that.
Actions to date and timeline. We have done
posters; we have done phone calls. We found that one-
fifth of Texans think that registration is a source of
revenue-building to maintain Texas highways, only one-
fifth. Eighty percent don't; they weren't aware of it.
When told where the money goes, they are much more
supportive, much more inclined to come in on time to
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register their vehicles.
We did telephone calls. More than 95 percent
of these folks agreed that liability insurance -- which is
another area I'll touch on a little bit later in another
presentation -- is very important, and obviously we all
want our vehicles that are out there to have current
insurance. Almost three-fourths believe that individuals
who drive without vehicle registration are also less
likely to have that insurance, so there's a connection.
The target audience was identified, strangely
enough, as the 18 to 34 group which that's in my rearview
mirror, but there certainly is a large contingent out
there of those folks and we're trying to touch that
particular group.
We're doing a statewide radio campaign that
began in September and it's going to run through December
of this year. Public relations grassroots efforts is
being conducted in three pilot markets, and that's
underway right now. Those three were in Longview, El Paso
and Houston.
Commissioner Johnson and Commissioner Houghton
were nice enough to come out and meet with us, we had
press conferences there, we think they went very well, and
we think that this is certainly a process where as we see
changes may need to be made of what we're presenting to
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the public, but I think we're very positive on how that's
going to work for us. And that's going to go through the
end of this year.
We've got special promotional events underway.
We've already done one at the Astros game, prior to the
end of the season, obviously, that we were actually in the
booth with the announcers and they were discussing this
with us. That's going to continue on with the Houston
Texans games. Hopefully they'll score some touchdowns and
more people will be watching. But that's going to
continue as well.
As I said, we've got bilingual available print
material and you'll see some of those things in the press
package you got. We've got rack brochures, bumper
stickers, posters, we've got all kinds of things. We're
going to style this somewhat along the lines, hopefully as
successful, as the Don't Mess With Texas campaign. We
hope to get to that level of success.
Statewide kickoff. As we finish these
grassroots, we're going to move to a statewide
implementation in '06 in January. You're going to see a
whole lot of heavy television and radio spots on this,
you're going to be seeing more and more of it. You'll
also notice in your package you got CDs that have musical
jingles and they really are catchy. Put them in your cars
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as you drive around and I think you'll find them very
interesting.
Outdoor advertising obviously is another area
that we're going to really focus on to try to get the
information out there.
As said, we're going to try to get this into
the driver's education curriculum in the schools too. We
think that if the young child is aware of it and they
notice their parent's windshield is not displaying a
current registration that they may place a little pressure
on them. It's not a punitive issue; it's one of
encouragement by their child.
Any questions on that particular campaign?
MS. ANDRADE: I have one. I have to say that I
really like the Spanish one, and [speaks in Spanish] is
very catchy, but do you have a bumper sticker in Spanish?
MR. CRAIG: Yes, we do. All those are going to
be bilingual.
MS. ANDRADE: Great.
MR. CRAIG: This campaign they have three
registered trademarks. What they're focusing on is Put
Texas In Your Corner.
MS. ANDRADE: I really like that.
MR. CRAIG: That's the one. They also have
Registered Texan, and Check the Date and Love your State.
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We feel like we can get the folks, when they step in their
car every day and put the key in and look over at their
windshield, if they will do that and check that date, even
if we don't get them a renewal notice -- which
occasionally we don't -- it will prompt them for coming in
and registering their vehicles. This will certainly be
daily prompt for them if they will just get in the habit.
MS. ANDRADE: Thank you.
MR. JOHNSON: Mike, how are we progressing on
the issue of the sticker itself and unbundling that from
its paper container when you receive it in the mail and
making it either childproof or genius-proof, pick your
poison?
MR. CRAIG: Well, what you're asking about is
our current point of sale sticker that we've just
implemented and had some issues with. I'll steal a quote
I recently heard, without attribution, we've got a
problem, we've got a plan and we're moving up to correct
that.
(General laughter.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: That's the best way to deal
with it.
MR. CRAIG: That's where we're going. We're
working with our partners which are the tax assessor-
collectors, they're giving us good input from the
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customers. Obviously we're getting direct input from the
customers as well.
The process itself, the system itself is
flawless, the automated system has been perfect. We're
working, right as we speak, to improve that project, the
actual functional portion of that project to get something
out. It's going to take three months to simulate actual
usage through our lab with Thomas Bohuslav and
Construction, but once we get that new design in and make
sure it works as it should under laboratory conditions,
but we're also going to look at the practical application
as well to make sure that we don't slow down the customer
and cause any inconvenience.
MR. JOHNSON: Well, laboratory conditions are
fine but field trials might even be better.
MR. CRAIG: And in truth, we had field trials.
We piloted this in numerous counties and never had a
problem with it. The problems really came up where we've
got the larger counties and we do more volume, and they're
more vocal.
MR. JOHNSON: So the larger volume created an
inconsistency in the way people received their
registration stickers and how do you unbundle the
registration sticker from its contents?
MR. CRAIG: I think they're more vocal about
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it.
MR. JOHNSON: Or the larger areas just more
bumblers and fumblers like I am and can't separate it.
MR. CRAIG: It seems like where you have a more
rural group, and we were in the smaller counties or less
metropolitan counties, smaller metropolitan counties, they
had more direct contact and conversation with those
customers and were able to explain it better to them, or
they would physically show them how that works, and so
there was less dissatisfaction.
Then we had actually defective forms. It was a
little complex on how you did it anyway, and then you
factor in the defective forms as well, then you have some
real problems, and we are addressing those.
MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: John, whenever you move out to
Old Washington, you'll find that those of us who live in
the country have a little more time to do things.
MR. JOHNSON: Well, I look forward to that day.
(General laughter.)
MR. CRAIG: Any other questions on this?
(No response.)
MR. CRAIG: The next one we had is the vehicle
registration renewal outsourcing. This is a brand new
bill that was introduced last session, a new statute.
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Previously we had not had the capability to advertise in
our renewal notices that we send out each year to 18-
something million of our customers. This provides that
under House Bill 2702.
What it provides is -- and the commission does
have involvement here because they are the ones who
authorized us to proceed with this -- a contract with a
vendor for not only the insertion of the advertising in
the renewal, but we're looking potentially at having them
do the whole process for us, we'd like to outsource it
all, if possible. That would be the printing, the
inserting, the envelopes. If they feel like it's
advantageous to them to change the size of the envelopes,
the style of the renewal, they'd pick up all the costs of
that.
There is precedent for this one, as opposed to
the special plate marketing that I spoke of earlier. We
checked and there are two other states currently doing
this, there's New York and Florida. And they've realized
benefits from it, it seems to have worked well for them to
this point. We talked to both jurisdictions and they
fully support it.
The project scope, as I mentioned earlier, they
will produce these inserts, they will coordinate these
with any, like General Motors or Ford Motor Company, any
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of the larger corporations who would like to advertise,
and they'd use that revenue to offset any additional costs
associated with this.
It's a cost-sharing project. We'll pay for
basically what we have done in the past, but if they add
weight to that mail package, it goes above an ounce,
they're going to pay the cost of that. As I said earlier,
they're going to pay for any programming associated with
this and any changes that are associated with the
envelopes or the renewal notices themselves.
And basically it's a possible bonus. We would
see this as a potential bonus of about a million dollars a
year for the department.
Our goals, again, reduce costs associated with
the mailing of approximately 1.5 million -- that's 18
million a year, that's 1.5- monthly, and then there's no
computer program costs associated, they pick up all the
costs.
Where we are now, we've got our timeline
developed for it, we've got our RFP being developed, we're
going to try to get this out on the street by January
2006, and basically do the things that I spoke about,
their redesign, all those things would be part of our
discussions with that vendor as to how we're going to
proceed.
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Any questions on that?
(No response.)
MR. CRAIG: Okay. Last but not least is our
financial responsibility verification program. This is a
subject that's been tackled by the legislature for a
number of years without resolution. It was also at one
point given to the Texas Department of Public Safety to
address. They came out with a report recommending a
delay, if you will.
In the last session under Senate Bill 1670 it
was given to the Texas Department of Insurance to lead but
partnering with TxDOT, with DIR, Department of Information
Resources, and also with the DPS, to sit down and try to
work out a program that will provide a means to reduce,
obviously, noncompliance, those that don't have current
insurance to come in and register their car or get their
driver's license or get their vehicle inspected, to have
that in place when they do come in.
And in addition to that, it's not just an
event-based process, so when you come in and register your
vehicle and you walk out and you go cancel your insurance
and nobody knows about it. What we want to do is provide
a means that we have ongoing verification so when you walk
out the door and you cancel that insurance, we know about
it, and we get back to that person to bring him back into
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compliance or we flag their record in some way to cause
them to provide more evidence the next time they come in
as to what their current status is.
So we're trying to fulfill the goals of 1670,
we're trying to decrease the number of uninsured motorists
in Texas, we want to enhance the goals to validate proof
of insurance and we want to provide ability to law
enforcement to identify insurance coverage on vehicles
involved in accidents. And we feel like we're moving
ahead quickly on this.
The cost. We have a $6 million appropriation
for this to spend on this. That money is in actually
TxDOT's Fund 6 budget. From that the TDI, as they sort of
pay for this development or whatever costs associated with
it, the implementation and maintenance will start to build
out of that fund.
Actions to date, the project charter has been
approved. I have noted there a request for proposal.
It's actually an invitation to negotiate. I found out
after we did this kind of what the difference is, but it's
similar, I would think. Those responses are due back. We
have a pretty strict timeline on this. By law the vendor
is supposed to be on board by December, so the window is
closing rapidly to get that done.
And implementation of the system is due, and
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again mandated by the legislation, for the end of 2006.
What we really foresee at this point is a phased
implementation, doing the passenger vehicles first and
commercial vehicles last. So that's the status on that.
We really do feel like this program and the
level of interest of all the departments involved and the
agencies, along with the insurance industry -- that
obviously has a high interest in how this is going to be
structured -- that we're going to come out with a very
good product.
Any questions?
MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions, members?
MR. HOUGHTON: Good show.
MR. WILLIAMSON: We like what you're doing.
MR. CRAIG: We'll keep you posted as things
move along.
MR. HOUGHTON: Remember the committee that
Chairman Williamson is a member of one.
MR. CRAIG: You weren't here, Mr. Chairman, but
you were volunteered in absentia.
MR. WILLIAMSON: As a committee of one?
MR. CRAIG: Yes, I think it was. I didn't see
any other hands go up.
(General laughter.)
MR. CRAIG: Okay, that's all I've got.
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MR. BEHRENS: Okay, Mike, you can just stay up
there.
We'll go then to agenda item number 4(a)(1)
where we're going into our proposed adoption of rules.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Mike, have you heard anything
from the automobile industry about any of this, from the
automobile dealers?
MR. CRAIG: About which?
MR. WILLIAMSON: About any of this.
MR. CRAIG: Well, let's see, there's really not
anything negative. The insurance issue is one that we've
already dealt with as far as the dollar fee that's
collected. Dealers are not required to verify insurance
by law, however, we do provide that they can collect a
dollar insurance fee. So as long as they're exempted from
that requirement to verify insurance, I doubt if we're
going to have an issue with it at all. I think that would
be the only one that would kind of lap over something they
might be concerned about.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay.
MR. BEHRENS: These rules pertain to some
corrections in rules that pertain to VTR.
MR. CRAIG: What I'm bringing to you today are
proposed amendments that we would like to obviously
present to you for an option and they're really clean-ups,
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there's not a lot to them. They were bringing forward
some statutory cite changes from the 78th Session, and
then we've got specific ones that are just non-
controversial legislation that was passed in the 79th.
I can walk through this with you real quickly,
if you'd like. Just for example, we're touching on cotton
vehicles and the ability of those to also transport chili
peppers, to use that same statute, which provides a little
broader width for operation of those modules on the
highways. Again, not controversial at all.
We've got classic travel trailers. Again,
these are older vehicles, 25 years old or older, that can
operate the vehicles without limitation. They pay an
additional $15 fee for registration of that vehicle.
All-terrain vehicles were also addressed the
last session of the legislature. Basically instead of
having only a three-wheel vehicle and only having a
saddle. they've also now provided for a multi-wheel
vehicle, a redefinition of that, and also a bench seat as
opposed to just a saddle. You can see these are not real
complex.
The last one that I can address for you was
salvage vehicles, they redefined that to less complex but
probably equally contentious at some point by the public
because it provides for totaling of vehicles by insurance
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companies that many people feel like older vehicles should
not be totaled, but by the value, pre-damage value. If
the damage itself is of such a dollar value, the insurance
company tends to total those out, and the upshot of that
is when they do that under current law -- used to you
could pay a total loss and the individual would keep that
vehicle and continue to operate the vehicle as if it were
not totaled out, now we have to be notified. We then flag
that record, they do become salvage vehicles, and that's
noted on their subsequent title which reduces the value of
it, and there's money associated with that process that
the customer has to pay.
But for this purpose, all we're doing is citing
that change to that definition of what a salvage vehicle
is.
So having said all that, I would recommend at
this time and propose that we adopt these amendments.
Any questions?
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
recommendation. Do you have questions or comments?
MR. JOHNSON: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
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(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 4(a)(2), these are
rules pertaining to right of way, and John Campbell will
present these for you.
MR. CAMPBELL: Good morning. For the record,
my name is John Campbell, director of the Right of Way
Division.
I'd like to present for your consideration this
morning Minute Order Number 4(a)(2) which provides for the
proposed adoption of new Section 21.801 and new Section
21.802 concerning acquisition and disposal of real
property from rail facilities.
Section 21.801 is a new section which adopts
essentially the same acquisition procedures that apply to
right of way to accommodate rail facilities. It describes
the requirements for those purposes, it provides for a
unique two-step process of review and approval by the
commission. So the commission will actually first approve
the investigation of the purchase of the property, and
then will come back to follow up with approval of the
actual acquisition. It also clarifies that the department
may use a right of way acquisition provider under a CDA to
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acquire real facility property.
Section 21.802 essentially adopts the same
procedures for existing real property, disposal for rail
facility property. It also creates a priority for
consideration of the sale of surplus rail property and
that also allows for a little bit more flexibility when we
have an exchange situation so that we can deal with a
party to an exchange.
It also authorizes the commission to consider
the cost of future maintenance as fair value consideration
for the transfer of property to another governmental
entity. It also directs the revenue from the sale of any
rail facility property be credited to the State Highway
Fund.
Staff recommends your approval of these
motions. Any questions?
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
explanation. Do you have any questions or comments?
MR. JOHNSON: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
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(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 4(a)(3) concerns
travel information and is to link community websites to
our rest areas and to our travel information centers.
Doris?
MS. HOWDESHELL: Good morning, commissioners.
For the record, my name is Doris Howdeshell and I'm the
director of the Travel Division.
The minute order before you today is for
proposed adoption of new 23.13 concerning links to
community websites from rest areas and travel information
centers. The purpose of this minute order is to outline
the policies and procedures that communities must follow
in order to make that link.
The purpose of the links is to provide
information to the traveling public when they are standing
in a rest area, for example, that has a Wi-Fi connection.
There are paragraphs in here that provide for how to get
approval for links and also removal if there are
complaints in regard to the link.
Staff recommends approval and I'll be glad to
answer any questions.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
explanation and recommendation. Do you have questions or
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comments?
MR. JOHNSON: Doris, you mentioned what would
be one of the reasons that there might be a removal?
MS. HOWDESHELL: If we get three complaints
from the traveling public, for example, if the information
on that community's website is outdated or inaccurate,
then we would work with that community to get the
information either updated or remove it from the link.
MR. JOHNSON: While I've got you in my sights,
I wanted to mention personally the terrific job the Travel
Division did on the film at the short course. I thought
it was exceptional. I made those comments but I didn't
get to see you and congratulate you.
And then more subtly, I want you, for mapping
purposes, to consider the difference between Yellowstone
National Park and Old Faithful, just a subtle difference
there.
MS. HOWDESHELL: Thank you very much. Thank
you for your comments.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you want to respond to that
Old Faithful-Yellowstone shot or just leave that lay.
MR. JOHNSON: No. That's another issue that
we've been discussing.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, do you have other
questions or comments for staff?
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MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.
MR. JOHNSON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 4(a)(4), these are
proposed rules for adoption concerning oversize and
overweight vehicles. Carol?
MS. DAVIS: Good morning. I'm Carol Davis,
director of TxDOT's Motor Carrier Division.
The minute order you have before you proposes
rule amendments to Chapter 18 concerning oversize and
overweight limits. These amendments are mostly clean-up:
they clarify motor carrier registration requirements for
permit applicants; they clarify escort vehicle
requirements; implement several bills that were passed
during the past session; they eliminate a requirement for
certain permit applicants to provide tax lien information;
and clarify reporting requirements for an extended
expiration date for Port of Brownsville permits.
We also have a new section, Subchapter 8, which
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implements provisions of House Bill 1044. This
establishes the Chambers County permitting program,
provides for the county to issue permits for the transfer
of overweight loads on FM 1405 and the frontage roads of
SH 99 and Cedar Crossing Business Park. And requirements
in these proposed rules were modeled after the Port of
Brownsville permitting program.
We are recommending approval of the minute
order.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
explanation and recommendation. Do we have questions or
comments?
MR. JOHNSON: Carol, again while I've got you
in my sights, I think few people realize or recognize the
amount of work that you and your team did in concert with
the districts as a result of Hurricane Rita and her visit
and the repercussions afterwards, and I appreciate what
everybody did and what you were able to do in response to
my call in terms of some of these overweight and oversized
residential moving of residences getting back into place.
MS. DAVIS: Thank you. I appreciate that.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Other questions or comments,
members?
MR. JOHNSON: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
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MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. BEHRENS: Moving to our rules for final
adoption, agenda item 4(b)(1) concerning rail facilities
and comprehensive development agreements. Doug?
MR. WOODALL: I'm Doug Woodall, TP&D for the
Turnpike Division. I'm here for Mr. Russell who is on a
well-deserved vacation.
MR. WILLIAMSON: He sure doesn't look like
Phil. Now, who determined well-deserved, his employees?
I mean, who was the well-deserved vacation? Did you need
a vacation from him?
MR. WOODALL: Yes, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: One thing about this
commission is we'll help you dig that hole just as deep as
you can.
(General laughter.)
MR. WOODALL: House Bill 2702 of the 79th
Legislature --
MR. WILLIAMSON: Is this your first appearance?
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MR. WOODALL: Pardon?
MR. WILLIAMSON: This is the first time you've
been in front of us?
MR. WOODALL: Yes, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, man, this is a free shot.
MR. HOUGHTON: There's no video record of this
either.
(General laughter.)
MR. WOODALL: House Bill 2702 authorized the
department to enter into comprehensive development
agreements for rail facilities or rail systems. This
minute order would adopt new Section 7.11 concerning
comprehensive development agreements for these facilities
or systems.
Rules implementing this were part of a new
Texas Administrative Code Chapter 7 entitled Rail
Facilities. The additions to the rules were posted in the
Texas Register, an opportunity for comments was offered
till 5:00 p.m. on September 12, 2005. We received no
comments.
Staff recommends your approval.
MR. WILLIAMSON: No comments?
MR. WOODALL: That's correct, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Everybody liked it?
MR. WOODALL: Pretty straightforward, a little
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bit over one page of rules that pretty much defer the
processes and procedures for rail facilities to Chapter 27
which is our established process for comprehensive
development agreements.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
explanation and the recommendation. Do we have questions
or comments?
MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.
MR. JOHNSON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. BEHRENS: Jim is going to talk about final
rules for adoption concerning our Unified Planning Work
Program.
MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir. Good afternoon,
commissioners. Jim Randall, director of the
Transportation Planning and Programming Division.
Item 4(b)(2), this minute order adopts
amendments to Title 43, Texas Administrative Code Section
15.4 relating to the Unified Planning Work Program.
Section 15.4 currently provides that travel outside the
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metropolitan area boundary by a metropolitan planning
organization staff and other agencies participating in the
MPO planning process shall be approved by the department
and funded from the Transportation Planning funds. The
amendment to Section 15.4 removes this requirement and
instead requires department approval of travel outside of
Texas.
The amendments further provide that the travel
through Arkansas by the Texarkana MPO staff and travel
through New Mexico by the El Paso MPO staff shall be
considered in-state travel.
The proposed rules were published in the August
12, 2005, issue of the Texas Register and comments were
received through September 12. One comment was received
from the Association of Texas Metropolitan Planning
Organizations, or TMPO. TMPO agrees with the amendments
to remove the requirement that the department approve
travel beyond metropolitan area boundaries but raised
other issues outside the scope of the proposed rules. The
department staff will consider TMPO's other comments for
possible future rule amendments.
Adopting these rules will reduce administrative
burdens on both the department and the MPO staffs. Staff
recommends approval of this minute order.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
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explanation and the recommendation. Do we have questions
or comments?
MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.
MR. JOHNSON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 4(b)(3) are rules for
final adoption concerning our Logo Sign Program. Carlos?
MR. LOPEZ: Good afternoon, commissioners. My
name is Carlos Lopez and I'm director of the Traffic
Operations Division.
The minute order before you provides for final
adoption of rules to implement Senate Bill 1137 and House
Bill 2453 of the last legislative session. The rules
allow for implementation of a tourist-oriented directional
sign program for wineries, agricultural interest
facilities, and other tourist-oriented businesses, allow
24-hour pharmacies to participate in the Logo Sign
Program, and repeal the Major Agricultural Interest Sign
Program.
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The proposed rules were published in the Texas
Register on September 9, 2005, and we received two
comments. The Railroad Commission of Texas has requested
that propane retailers be allowed to participate in the
Tourist-Oriented Directional Sign Program. The department
declined to accept this comment since propane retailers do
not represent a significant or unique tourist attraction,
however, these proposed rules would allow gas stations
that have propane-refueling capabilities to have a propane
legend added to their logo sign.
A private citizen requested that the proposed
rules be amended to allow the use of an RV-friendly symbol
on the logos of those businesses that meet certain
requirements for the parking and movement of recreational
vehicles on their property. The department agreed with
this comment and has incorporated in it the new language.
We recommend approval of this minute order.
MR. WILLIAMSON: So now we can drink and get
plenty of propane on our way, those signs tell us where to
do that.
MR. LOPEZ: Yes, that's exactly right.
MR. WILLIAMSON: This would be Frank Madla's
pet project.
Members, you've heard the explanation and
recommendation. Do we have questions or comments?
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MR. HOUGHTON: Move to approve.
MS. ANDRADE: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: You have some thoughts, John?
MR. JOHNSON: I don't have any comments, no.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 5 is our
Transportation Planning minute orders; there are three
minute orders and Jim Randall will present those to you.
MR. RANDALL: Again, good afternoon,
commissioners. Jim Randall, director of the
Transportation Planning and Programming Division.
Item 5(a), this minute order approves the 2006
Statewide Mobility Program of the Unified Transportation
Program, or UTP. The UTP is the basic transportation
planning document that guides and controls project
development and construction for the department.
In order to align the UTP with the simplified
budget strategies outlined in the Strategic Plan, the
department has divided the UTP into two documents: the
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Statewide Preservation Program and the Statewide Mobility
Program.
The Statewide Mobility Program is part of the
BUILD IT strategy and contains all the department's
categories which enhance the transportation system.
Additionally, the 2006-2008 Aviation Capital Improvement
Program, as recommended by the Aviation Advisory Committee
at its August 4, 2005, meeting, is being submitted with
the SMP for your consideration.
Also included in the SMP are public
transportation project listings and program information
for 2006 through 2009. Actual transit program allocations
and your grant recipients will be approved by future
minute orders.
The 2006 SMP will authorize over $12 billion in
transportation projects through Fiscal Year 2009. Along
with the major mobility categories, the SMP will allocate
$840 million in new programs for congestion mitigation and
air quality funding, STP mobility funding for our eight
largest metropolitan areas, district discretionary
funding, and other transportation programs for state
parks, railroad crossings and landscaping.
The 2006 SMP incorporates funding from the
recently passed federal transportation bill SAFETEA-LU.
As part of SAFETEA-LU, Congress authorized new
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congressional high-priority projects for Texas. In the
2006 SMP, we will ask the commission to authorize $660
million in new federal earmarks for project development
and construction.
Overall, SAFETEA-LU will provide an estimated
$14.5 billion for Texas through Fiscal Year 2009. This is
the third such increase over the last federal bill TEA-21.
A 30-day comment period regarding the draft
2006 SMP ended October 7 with no comments received. With
approval of this minute order, the department may continue
the project planning and development for Fiscal Year 2006
and beyond.
Staff recommends approval of this minute order.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Now, Jim, you said this would
result in what level, what dollar contract level in 2009?
MR. RANDALL: In 2009 we're probably looking at
at least $3 billion. This is $12 billion over the four-
year period, 2006 through 2009.
MR. WILLIAMSON: And how does that compare with
say the current year?
MR. RANDALL: I believe we're over that right
now as far as we're in the $3- to $4 billion, I believe,
as far as actual letting.
MR. WILLIAMSON: So by inference, the plan
itself doesn't anticipate what changes might occur at the
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local or regional level, nor what concessions the regions
might be executing.
Members, you've heard the explanation and the
recommendation. Do you have questions or comments?
MR. JOHNSON: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor will signify by saying aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. RANDALL: Thank you, sir.
Item 5(b), this minute order approves the 2005
Texas Rail System Plan and plan summary. The purpose of
the plan is to identify current and proposed rail
projects, determine infrastructure and capacity needs on
the Texas rail system, and to develop an awareness of the
issues and processes by which to address transportation
needs by policy-makers around the state.
The plan focuses on major rail relocations and
improvements to the state's rail system that provide
public benefits related to improved safety, reliable
mobility, economic vitality and system preservation.
House Bill 3588 and House Bill 2702 passed by
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the 78th and 79th Texas legislatures, respectively,
broadened the department's responsibility concerning rail
facilities.
In an August 31, 2005, letter to the Federal
Railroad Administration, Governor Rick Perry designated
the department as the agency that will administer and
coordinate Texas's participation in rail-planning
activities and responsibilities as required by federal
regulations.
A public hearing notice was published in the
Texas Register on September 9, 2005, with comments
accepted through October 10, 2005. A public hearing on
the plan was held in Austin on September 23, 2005. Six
oral comments and 34 written comments were received, and a
summary of the comments and responses is shown as Exhibit
A.
I might also mention yesterday we received a
letter from Speaker Craddick also supporting the Rail
Plan.
Upon approval of this minute order, the 2005
Texas Rail System Plan will be submitted to the Federal
Railroad Administration through the Federal Highway
Division office.
Staff recommends your approval of this minute
order.
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MR. WILLIAMSON: I was just reading through
some of the comments. You didn't just print all the nice
ones, did you?
MR. RANDALL: Oh, no, sir. Go back to the
back.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, there's some in back? I
didn't get there yet.
MR. RANDALL: As far as the comments they were
basically that they were pleased that we have the plan,
they were encouraged with and wanted us to put a little
more emphasis on passenger rail, especially high-speed
passenger rail. And of course, we got various comments on
supporting various corridors around the state. They
encouraged safety, also encouraged us looking at new
technologies to implement in the future.
One of them recommended that we reroute
existing proposed corridor beyond the existing one. This
was, I believe, out in the Coupland area those folks would
like to see us go farther out to the east if we could,
consider maybe rerouting that area.
Also, we made two slight revisions in the
document itself. We had mistakenly included a designation
of major metropolitan districts, leaving out Corpus and
Lubbock, and they showed us the error of our ways, so we
removed that reference from the report and the map,
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corrected that. Also, some mistake over affiliations we
needed to update.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, members, you've heard
the explanation and recommendation. Do you have questions
or comments?
MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.
MS. ANDRADE: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. RANDALL: Item 5(c), this minute order
recommends the approval of five applications --
MR. WILLIAMSON: Isn't it amazing that we're
talking about rail? It's amazing. Six years ago, who'd
have thought we'd be talking about rail? It's amazing.
Go ahead.
MR. RANDALL: Okay, sir. We recommend the
approval of five applications seeking to deviate from
statutes on railroad safety that concern minimum clearance
distances between railroad tracks and structures.
On October 1, 2005, the department assumed all
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powers and duties of the Texas Railroad Commission that
relates to railroads and the regulation of railroads, and
with the new law established by House Bill 2702, the
department is authorized to perform any act and issues in
your rules in orders permitted by the Federal Railroad
Safety Act of 1970.
Five applications concerning railroad safety
were filed with the Railroad Commission that are now
pending before the department. The applicants have
provided information such as plans, site restrictions and
photographs to describe obstructions within clearance
zones and the relative locations of existing and proposed
rail facilities.
A summary of the applicant information and
their requested railroad clearance deviations is shown in
Exhibit A. Each applicant has requested a deviation from
requirements specifying the minimum clearance between
railroad tracks and structures.
All plans and sites have been requested and
reviewed by department rail safety inspectors. The claims
for deviation requests have been reviewed and are
recommended for approval with specific qualifying
conditions.
Department rail safety inspectors will conduct
follow-up site visits to ensure the qualifying conditions,
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such as warning signs, lighted signs and other safety
features are installed as outlined in their applications.
Inspectors will also ensure that the servicing railroad
companies are notified of the clearance deviations.
Your approval will allow for greater, more
cost-effective use of these rail facilities while ensuring
the safety of railroad employees and facilities.
Staff recommends approval of this minute order.
MR. WILLIAMSON: This includes the item the
governor wrote us about with regard to cement?
MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir. There were five
applications pending that came over to us effective
October 1.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Mike, how bad is the cement
shortage impacting us on our construction business?
MR. BEHRENS: I think it's somewhat better but
there still are some contracts where they're still having
to get in line to get some cement, but I don't think it's
as bad as it was several years ago. But I think it's
probably if you have a bigger concrete business like some
of our contractors, they probably have some priorities.
If you're a small person, it probably is more of an
impact. Say the individual that goes out, he might have
to wait in line while large pours are being made.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
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explanation and the recommendation. Do you have questions
or comments?
MR. HOUGHTON: Move to approve.
MR. JOHNSON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries
MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 6 concerns
toll projects. We'll have Doug come back up, and there's
three minute orders concerning Bexar County and the Alamo
Regional Mobility Authority, and then one concerning our
quarterly report concerning Travis and Williamson counties
on the Central Texas Turnpike System. Doug?
MR. WOODALL: Good afternoon again. My name is
Doug Woodall with the Turnpike Division.
Item 6(a), the minute order grants final
approval of a request by the Alamo RMA for financial
assistance in the amount of $1 million to enable them to
participate in the CDA procurement process on the US
281/Loop 1604 project, and also allow the RMA to obtain
engineering, financial and legal services for project
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development and developmental financial terms proposed by
the Alamo RMA for inclusion in the CDA.
This minute order also directs the executive
director to implement the actions authorized and required
by these provisions.
Staff recommends your approval.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Why?
MR. WOODALL: To allow for participation of the
Alamo RMA with the Department of Transportation on this
project.
MR. WILLIAMSON: You're good. He only skipped
one beat.
(General laughter.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: We have the Honorable Dr.
Thornton with us, but if you don't mind, we'll lay out all
three and then speak about all three after all three are
laid out, if that's okay with you.
Is that okay, Richard?
MR. MONROE: Yes, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Amadeo, can I talk with you a
moment, please? I'm sure the members have questions
besides myself, but I need to clarify something.
I'm keenly aware that when we do things we're
basically laying the groundwork to treat everybody the
same in the future, and I'm for all doing this, but I just
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want to be sure I understand.
MR. SAENZ: For the record, Amadeo Saenz,
assistant executive director for Engineering Operations.
What we're doing here is we're working closely
in partnership with the Alamo RMA in the evaluation of the
CDA proposals that were received for the toll system
project on US 281 and Loop 1604. These toll equity
requests for $1 million will be allowed so that the Alamo
RMA staff can have resources to help us in the evaluation.
We're treating this toll equity request as a
loan with the understanding that we will have a success
story. If we have a success story, then the money that we
have basically provided to the RMA for their evaluation
can be paid back to the department so that we can then
have that money to be used for the development of other
potential projects across the state.
MR. WILLIAMSON: So if you're the Nueces RMA
some day, or you're the Coastal Bend RMA, and you're in
the process of thinking about your first project and
Kiewit comes along and proposes a CDA, much the same way
as the Cintra or Zachry American did to Alamo, we're
basically saying to the Coastal Bend RMA we're sitting
here ready to advance you the money to help you analyze it
along with us.
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.
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MR. WILLIAMSON: By habit, we're not going to
treat one area different from another.
MR. SAENZ: No, sir. We're going to basically
treat every area the same. We will advance you the money
so that you have the resources to be able to evaluate,
whether you're evaluating as part of the team, both of us
together, or if the project team be you as an RMA that was
independent, it could have a toll equity request for doing
the evaluation, but then as you go to closing and you go
out there and either get a concession fee back to the RMA
or you go out there and do your bond issuance to finance
the project, and at that point then you would basically
reimburse the department so that we would basically have
that money to be used elsewhere across the state.
MR. WILLIAMSON: And how will your
recommendation as the lead staff person differ if Kiewit
makes that proposal to the Coastal Bend RMA, not to us?
MR. SAENZ: It will work the same way. If the
RMA had already selected the project and were moving
forward with the project and they needed assistance for
the preliminary development and selection of a potential
concession, they would be doing the work, they would be
taking the lead, they can still come back and ask for toll
equity and we would treat it exactly the same.
But when they finish and go through their
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process and do select someone to do the project, whether
they get a concession or they go through a bond issuance
where they get the resources to pay for the project as a
design-build project, and at that point that money could
be reimbursed back to the department. So it works the
same way, whether we're lead or they're lead.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
staff's explanation and recommendation and Amadeo has
answered my questions. Before I ask staff to lay out the
next one, do you want to ask questions about this, or do
you want to wait and hear them all?
MR. JOHNSON: Hear them all.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, thank you, Amadeo.
Mike, if you don't mind, let's go ahead and lay
all three of them out and let Dr. Thornton speak.
MR. WOODALL: Item 6(b), this minute order
grants preliminary approval for the executive director to
negotiate and develop an agreement with the Alamo RMA for
the planning, financing, and potential design,
construction, operation and maintenance of several
projects by the Alamo RMA.
This will also include a license of state-owned
right of way to the Alamo RMA for the purpose of
developing these potential projects. These projects are
Interstate 35 from the Bexar-Guadalupe County line down to
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Interstate 37 in the San Antonio Central Business
District, State Highway 16 west from Interstate Loop 410
to Loop 1604 north, and the US 281/Wurzbach Parkway
interchange.
This minute order also directs the executive
director to present the draft agreement to the commission
for its future consideration.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Again, members, want to
question and comment now or wait for the third? Okay, go
ahead.
MR. WOODALL: 6(c), this minute order will
grant preliminary approval of a request by the Alamo RMA
for financing in the amount of up to $7.5 million, also in
the form of a loan. The requested assistance will be
utilized for project-related work performed by the Alamo
RMA staff and administration, as well as legal, financial
and engineering consulting, for the purpose of developing
preliminary feasibility, environmental, public
involvement, schematics and preliminary financial plans.
The assistance may also include plans, specifications and
estimates, as needed.
The initial projects will include adding
capacity on the projects in the previous minute order:
Interstate 35, State Highway 16, and the US 281/Wurzbach
Parkway interchange.
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This minute order also directs the executive
director to implement the actions authorized and required
by those provisions.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you have questions?
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. We have as our witness
the Honorable Dr. Bill Thornton, who is the chair of the
Alamo Regional RMA. Bill, good morning, sir.
DR. THORNTON: Hi, Ric. How are you doing?
MR. WILLIAMSON: Fine. How are you?
DR. THORNTON: Hope, in all this misery of
athletic teams, you should remind them that San Antonio is
the home of the World Champion Spurs. We don't worry
about chalk and things like that.
(General laughter.)
DR. THORNTON: Let me say to Corpus Christi, as
a former mayor, former chairman of our chamber, the things
I heard this morning are very exciting, and I will tell
you clearly that those decision-makers in San Antonio, led
by primarily our Commissioner Hope Andrade, we look
forward to working with Corpus Christi and doing it in a
regional way, as you mentioned several times, to benefit
the people of Texas. It's very exciting what you're
doing. Congratulations.
Ric, I think we're seeing that vision you and I
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talked about once casually and the governor's plan to
involve local involvement in addressing congestion
problems. This action today is a major step forward in
accomplishing that and taking it to a reality, and I think
it will be an exemplary act that you take here, and we
will take this very seriously and do a very good job.
These three items are significant. I remember,
Commissioner, and you said this is going to be a
challenging task, and we know that it is, and we take that
very seriously. But it also then binds us more closely,
which I talked about at your meeting in Austin. What
we're recognizing, I think, even more as you take this
action today is our partnership, our proper relationship
with TxDOT, that being the RMA and TxDOT.
As we talked about, we'll be using your right
of ways, we're using your resources, we will fit into your
system, we will fit into the interoperability of these
toll projects around the state. You clearly are what
binds all of this together, yet you, I think, very wisely
and generously allow for local participation.
This partnership is developing now with people,
not just documents and dollars, and I will tell you that
our engineer -- I call him ours -- David Casteel and his
staff, have done an exceptional job in bringing us into
this. And also Amadeo Saenz which we've talked personally
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several times just simply to say thank you for the way
we're being managed, and this partnership is being
nurtured, I think, very, very well.
Let me say our community, since our meeting in
Austin last month when other polls were coming from other
communities, our community of those citizens who live
closest to this project are supporting these efforts at
the rate of 62 percent. That's a good estimate, and
that's before we've even started putting our message out
of the benefits of acceleration of these projects and
moving them along much quicker.
The task is before us. If you vote favorably
on this, you've given us an opportunity. We're here to
say thank you for that. The resources are tremendously
important for us. Every dollar we're spending is a loan
borrowed from the city and the county to this point and
then from TxDOT here.
Let me just add parenthetically, some way in
there, if there are ways to find some of our just day-to-
day, turning on the lights and paying the phone bills,
that would be helpful too, but clearly these are funds to
carry us through these major projects.
This nascent movement of RMAs, I promised you
several months ago we would become your favorite one and
that we would try to be a model for those who would
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follow, and we do share advice with other RMAs that call
us. We take this very seriously and we're saying thank
you.
I will also tell you this, first one -- and I
mentioned this to Amadeo -- that we're going through with
your leadership -- and this, Commissioner Houghton, goes
back to what you were talking about -- as we look at these
future three projects, we will not look for separation
from TxDOT but rather we will be looking for more
partnering with TxDOT as we do any of our functions in the
future. We recognize how closely tied we are.
So we hope for a favorable vote on these and we
promise to do some good work for you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I appreciate those kind words,
Bill. You've worked hard and I think we've all
demonstrated patience as we go through the rough spots.
Tell me, it appears to me -- it could be a good
friend of mine once said you tend to project to the public
that which you wish to occur, you have to be careful about
that -- but it appears to me that almost suddenly across
the state people have kind of blinked twice and said,
Well, you know what, we don't have any money, I guess we
really do have to do this. It doesn't seem to have near
the emotional negativism that I saw even a couple of
months ago. It's almost like overnight people have kind
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of opened their eyes and said, Look, it's either
congestion or pay for it; don't think it really matters,
gas tax or tolls, you've got to pay for it.
Are you seeing that in the San Antonio area?
DR. THORNTON: We are. Our polling shows and
our meetings with the citizens groups, if someone is
finally confronted with the truth of limitation of
funds -- and I point it out, I said, TxDOT is spending
money in San Antonio, 410 and I-10, 410 and 281, I-10 as
it comes into the downtown, hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of millions of dollars, TxDOT is spending in San
Antonio. Now, if you want further dollars spent, we're
going to have to bring new dollars for these projects to
be accelerated. And people understand that.
If they recognize an effort, a tremendous
effort is being made but if we want more, we're going to
have to bring new dollars. And if you give them the
choice: raise your taxes, isn't going to happen; raise
your gas tax, I don't believe will happen. And both of
those are not choices, they are impositions, and everybody
in Bexar County will pay those when you fill your car or
pay your taxes, as opposed to tolling which is a choice
and only those who benefit from the improvement will pay.
So I think the vision, the creation of what
you've done several years ago -- and that's why I say this
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nascent movement -- it's going to be received well if
people understand. And if we can get 62 percent of the
people before we send our message out, Commissioner
Andrade, already 62 percent, when we get the message out,
it's going to be much less volatile, it will be a welcome
approach to solving these problems in our cities.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, it just seems to me
like -- and I was talking with Mike last night -- I travel
the state a lot and just almost overnight it's changed,
it's been remarkable.
DR. THORNTON: You have served in elected
office. There are always those who say no, there are
always those who say no.
MR. WILLIAMSON: The easy way out, grabbing the
Road Fairy.
DR. THORNTON: But I will tell you, this effort
that you are giving us an opportunity to participate in
addresses these problems, I think, very fairly and very
effectively, and you involve local participation. It's a
very creative, farsighted way to do it.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, we've got three
minute orders before us, and you've heard staff's
explanation and recommendation and the witness speaks on
all three. Are there questions or comments of the
witness?
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MS. ANDRADE: I'd like to make a comment.
Chairman Thornton, it's great to see these agenda items,
and I'm pleased at what we finally have arrived, and I
know that we've been through some rocky roads together,
but at the end I knew I was confident that it would all
work out. I think it was just the infancy of the RMA, and
as a parent, I think that we still wanted to make sure
that it was going to be okay.
And as a parent also, I'll tell you that you
are my favorite RMA, but we parents have a way of showing
that all of our children are our favorites, so Cameron
County is also our favorite RMA and so forth.
But thank you for your leadership, thank you
for hanging in there with us, and I'm glad that we're
going to make this loan, and I think it proves our
commitment to keep you involved in the decision making.
So thank you for your patience in all this.
MR. THORNTON: I'm not an engineer, but any
great road that's going to last a long time is going to
have to have some dirt moved and some disruption of
people's lives to get a foundation. We established a firm
foundation to build something that will last long beyond
my time. I tell people all the time: we will not see the
benefits of RMAs and their ability to address problems in
the future, but it's on a firm, firm foundation.
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Thank you to you, Hope, and Mr. Chairman, to
you.
MS. ANDRADE: Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Ted, did you have anything?
MR. HOUGHTON: The message that I've been
preaching -- it sounds like I'm preaching -- across the
state is One Texas, and Mr. Chairman, that message I've
taken to Houston Monday that we are One Texas, as Houston
goes, goes the state, as Dallas goes, goes the state, and
no one is bigger than the state of Texas. And I look
forward to working with the Alamo RMA as well as all the
other RMAs, and this is a dynamic state, it's incredible
what we've got going. And when we look at as the whole,
the whole is bigger than the pieces, if the pieces start
falling apart, we're in trouble.
So with that said, it's going to be lot of fun.
There's a lot of heavy lifting but it's a lot of fun heavy
lifting. Look forward to working with you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: John?
MR. JOHNSON: I listened to a conversation
between a reporter and one of the members of the
commission, and I was under the impression this item was
going to be deferred.
MR. WILLIAMSON: We were just trying to pull
that reporter's leg.
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MR. JOHNSON: Oh, so I didn't hear that
accurately?
DR. THORNTON: That's not funny, sir.
(General laughter.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, you know, is this as big
as CTRMA, Bob, the initial projects at the Alamo, are they
bigger than the initial projects at CTRMA.
MR. DAIGH: Everything is always bigger in
Austin, sir.
DR. THORNTON: That's slow-pitch softball,
isn't it.
(General laughter.)
MR. DAIGH: This is substantially larger than
the CTRMA.
MR. WILLIAMSON: So this will be basically the
next step, this will be our largest RMA effort now.
MR. DAIGH: Yes, sir, but we'll be back.
(General laughter.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Bill, I want to thank you for
pointing out about the state's commitment in regular gas
tax dollars, because that does get lost in the background
noise. And I know Patrick and Ben in Austin and other
guys in North Texas, they've got to write about what
they've got to write about, but no one has stopped
investing gas tax money in Travis County, in Bexar County,
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in Harris County, in Dallas and Tarrant counties. I'm
thinking that we've let something like $400 million so far
in gas-tax-related construction projects in Bexar County.
We're going to keep on doing that, it's just a
question of no road, slow road, or the toll road. If you
want to get it faster and if you want the economic
opportunity, the congestion relief, the improvement of air
quality and safety that comes with it, then this is the
choices that we make.
DR. THORNTON: You are doing a lot of work in
San Antonio for which we're grateful.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Thanks for coming all the way
down here, we appreciate it, and we appreciate your
comments.
DR. THORNTON: Thank you, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, do we have questions
or comments to staff?
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, Mike, let's bring the
first one forward, please, sir. It's item what now?
MR. BEHRENS: 6(a).
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have item 6(a) before you,
members.
MS. ANDRADE: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
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MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. I have item
6(b) before you.
MS. ANDRADE: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All oppose, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. And now I
have item 6(c) before you.
MS. ANDRADE: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
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(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries all three times
on the very capable and strong back of Hope Andrade.
Thank you, guys. Let's go forward and build
some roads. Hey, the real fun is going to be when we
figure out how to move that railroad out of downtown San
Antonio and Austin. That's going to be fun. If we get
Proposition 1 passed, we'll get that done first.
MR. BEHRENS: Okay, Doug, let's go to 6(d).
MR. WOODALL: Item 6(d) seeks your acceptance
of the General Engineering Consultant's quarterly progress
report for the Central Texas Turnpike Project. The
project is on schedule; it's open to traffic with
construction completion on or before December 2007.
The estimated completion cost is currently $437
million lower than the original GEC's projections. The
current costs are estimated to be approximately $2.5
billion compared to approximately $2.9 billion in the
original GEC report.
Some progress items to mention since the last
report. On Sections 1 and 2 which is the MoPac North
extension, the southbound frontage roads and major utility
tie-ins are completed, and that frontage road facility is
open to traffic. On Section 8 which is east from the
Parmer Lane/620 interchange over 183, the westbound
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frontage road is completed and open to traffic. The
traffic switches allow mobility along the corridor while
facilitating completion of the main lanes, allowing more
room for completion of the main lanes.
On State Highway 130, some milestones on 130
with the opening of the State Highway 195 bridge over
Interstate 35. Also construction has begun on three main
lane toll plazas and eight ramp plazas. Substructural
work has being completed at three of the interchanges and
the largest utility relocation along the project in terms
of scope was completed, that's a reroute of the TXU
utility line along FM 685, and that has been completed
under this quarterly report.
As far as the right of way, a total of 411
parcels were required for construction; 329 of those
parcels are now available for construction; the remaining
82 parcels are primarily corner clips, slivers and minor
acquisitions. Segments 1, 2 and 3 of State Highway 130
are under construction and scheduled to be completed prior
to September of '07, and Segment 4 they're anticipating
initiating construction this December and will be
completed with that segment on or prior to December of
2007.
Staff recommends your approval of the quarterly
report.
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MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
explanation and recommendation. Do you have questions or
comments?
MR. JOHNSON: I have a question.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Mr. Johnson.
MR. JOHNSON: Doug, concerning the
interoperability of electronic tolling of our other toll
systems around the state, are we satisfied that we are
well advanced in making sure that all these systems are
interoperable, especially the CTTP?
MR. WOODALL: In discussions with Mr. David
Powell of the Turnpike Division, it's my understanding we
obviously have agreements with the existing toll
authorities and have numerous options available to us for
the advancing RMAs, their projects, and we feel confident
that we'll have interoperability on every system.
MR. JOHNSON: Well, you know, agreements are
one thing but the actual interoperability of the toll tags
and the readers and the toll plazas is another. We need
to make sure that everything works.
MR. WOODALL: Yes, sir. And the tags that we
have in place and I believe in August you approved the CDA
for systems integration, and that system that's proposed
under there would be interoperable with the existing
systems in place. So we think we're well on our way to
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achieving interoperability.
MR. JOHNSON: Good. Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Other questions or comments?
(No response.)
MR. JOHNSON: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. WOODALL: Thank you very much.
MR. WILLIAMSON: That wasn't too bad, was it?
MR. WOODALL: No, sir, not at all.
MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 7 under
Finance will be the Quarterly Investment Report for that
same Central Texas Turnpike System. James?
MR. WILLIAMSON: James, I'm glad you finally
decided to travel with us for once.
MR. BASS: Mr. Munoz was busy today.
For the record, I'm James Bass, director of
Finance at TxDOT.
Agenda item 7 presents the Quarterly Investment
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Report for the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2005 which
ended on August 31.
At the end of August, the balance of investment
funds for the 2002 project stood at $1-1/4 billion. The
detail of those investments have been provided to you in
the quarterly report.
Staff recommends your acceptance of the report
and will be glad to answer any questions you may have.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Did we buy natural gas futures
with some of that money?
MR. BASS: No. I don't believe you have
allowed that in our investment policy.
(General laughter.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, members, you've heard
the report and the recommendation. Do you have questions
or comments?
MR. JOHNSON: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
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MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 8 concerning
pass-through toll financing, we have two minute orders,
one requesting that we have the authority to negotiate an
agreement, and one to give us the authority to execute a
pass-through toll agreement. James?
MR. BASS: The first item seeks authorization
to begin negotiations with Galveston County on a pass-
through toll agreement. The county submitted a pass-
through toll proposal providing for improvements to Farm
to Market 646.
Your approval today would in no way be an
agreement to any specific terms but would simply allow the
department to begin negotiations with the county in hopes
that we would then be able to come back in a future month
and provide you with those specific terms for your final
consideration at that point.
Staff recommends your approval of this minute
order.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Amadeo? Is this a local road
or a regional road or a state road?
MR. SAENZ: This is a regional road in
Galveston County.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Is this solving primarily a
local problem, a regional problem, or a state problem?
MR. SAENZ: It's solving a regional problem,
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it's solving some safety issues and some mobility issues.
As we go through it and evaluate it further, we'll be able
to tell how much of each of those will gain benefit.
MR. WILLIAMSON: So it's primarily to reduce
congestion and improve safety project?
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. And this will lead to
some economic development in the area by being able to add
capacity to this corridor.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm sure it will assist in
economic development but will it provide any additional
economic opportunity?
MR. SAENZ: I think as we look forward that you
allow for this added capacity you will have some economic
opportunity for making some changes in the type of
development that will be there, for example, if we're
building residential there's some potential economic
opportunity in more commercial development that would
allow the possibility for having some facilities to move
into the area that will bring additional jobs.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
presentation and recommendation and heard Amadeo's
comments about this particular project. Do you wish to
authorize staff to negotiate on this matter?
MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.
MR. JOHNSON: Second.
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MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. Don't get too
far, Amadeo.
MR. BASS: Item 8(a)(2) seeks your
authorization to begin negotiations with Hays County on a
pass-through toll agreement. The county has submitted a
pass-through toll proposal providing for improvements to
US 290, Ranch to Market 12, Farm to Market 1626, and Farm
to Market 967.
Once again, your approval today would simply
give us the authority to begin negotiations and would not
be agreement to any specific terms.
Staff recommends your approval, and I would
like to bring to your attention that Hays County
Commissioner Will Conley is in the audience in case you
might have any questions for him.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Is he the one that is always
saying no toll roads under any circumstances?
MR. BASS: I'm not so advised.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I suspect that's from Comal
County, that's not from Hays County.
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Okay, Amadeo. I'm going to take you through
each one, one at a time.
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: 290, local, regional or state?
MR. SAENZ: 290 is a regional and state. In
this area where we're talking about here, it's a regional
area providing some added capacity and mobility
improvements on 290.
MR. WILLIAMSON: So as it's used now, this
section of 290 is thought to be a regional and a state
road?
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: And is this problem we seek to
solve a local, regional or state problem?
MR. SAENZ: A regional problem with some
statewide issues.
MR. WILLIAMSON: And is it primarily focused on
which of our five benefits?
MR. SAENZ: It will be focused on the reduced
congestion; it will focus in the Austin area because
they're near non-attainment and to some improvement of air
quality; it will be focused on safety that we're going
from a four-lane, undivided to a four-lane, divided
facility; it will be some congestion relief. So that's
four of the five, and of course, economic opportunity will
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also come as this corridor gets developed.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Farm to Market Road 1626?
MR. SAENZ: 1626 and 967 are a major commuter
route from the south to the northern part of Hays County
in Austin, parallel to 35, so it's a regional road. It
will solve a regional problem and allow, I guess, some
statewide benefits in that if you have this corridor you
could move some traffic off of 35 which is a statewide
corridor.
MR. WILLIAMSON: So it's primarily congestion
relief?
MR. SAENZ: It's congestion relief.
MR. WILLIAMSON: So would you anticipate an
improved level of service for both these roads?
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. Both these roads that
we're building and some slight level of service as traffic
moves off of 35 and into this facility that we could see
some improvements on 35.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Highway 12, the fourth
project?
MR. SAENZ: Highway 12 is a regional, more
local. It's from San Marcos going west and for traffic
that travels from the west to San Marcos, to access San
Marcos but also 35. So there is some local and some
regional, maybe leaning more towards the regional. This
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also will solve a safety issue in that it is through the
Hill Country area. It will also solve a congestion issue
and you have some benefits then for regular access to 35.
MR. WILLIAMSON: It's okay to solve a local
problem, but it's more a local problem we're solving.
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: On a regional road.
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, do you have questions
of Mr. Saenz?
MR. HOUGHTON: Amadeo, when are these projects
slated to be improved in the Unified Transportation Plan?
MR. SAENZ: These projects are not currently in
the Unified Transportation Plan.
MR. HOUGHTON: Not at all?
MR. SAENZ: No. Hays County, of course, is
part of the CAMPO area and they are not in their short-
range plan, they're somewhere in the middle- to the long-
range plans. Hays County is very aggressive and has done
bond elections and has some resources, and they'd like to
partner with us as they develop these projects, either
through some partnership money, or some of them, like 290,
as well as some pass-through toll opportunities on the
other projects.
MR. HOUGHTON: What's their total investment
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and our commitment? Obviously, ours is a payback over
time.
MR. SAENZ: Right. We have been in
communication with the county. $43 million is the total
cost of all the projects, of which they're asking for $33
million in pass-through tolls, so they're investing close
to $10 million in the proposal. And we will meet with
them and discuss the terms and conditions, applying the
benefits and the indexes to determine kind of what the
final number really is.
MR. HOUGHTON: So we don't have a real formal
index to analyze the road as to the state issues versus
regional issues versus local?
MR. SAENZ: No, sir. Some of these indexes
we're still in the process of developing to determine what
is the actual benefit to air quality. We know that as you
add capacity to the road, you add capacity so your volume
over capacity ratio improves. When you have a lower
volume over capacity ratio, you get an improvement in air
quality, so we know there's a benefit there.
We also know that if you add capacity to this
road and traffic moves to this road can have an impact to
the roads around it, both positive and negative, so that
could give you a regional or a very wide air quality
impact, and we're working to develop those.
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It's the same thing with some of our congestion
indexes and such and so forth.
MR. HOUGHTON: I can't see the future but I can
sure see what people are maybe starting to think is
solving local problems with pass-through financing which
may not be in our best interest. That's my view.
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. We will look into that.
I think one way to look into that is that as we go through
it, if the road is local and it's only local, maybe the
level of investment from the department and the level of
investment from the local entity that their shares maybe
need to change so that you have more of an equal, so that
you can have some kind of balanced level of input into the
project.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, it's a shame that we'd
be having this conversation in Corpus Christi and not in
Austin, but I hope we'll continue next month in Austin and
in December.
But you make a good point, Ted, and I think all
members have to start focusing on and project to the
public our concerns. I'm aware that the department has
approached TTI for some help on finalizing the measurement
indexes, and I think it's time for us to be talking about
them so that Bob Daigh and David Casteel and Craig Clark
all understand the criteria.
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MR. HOUGHTON: The thing is these aren't on the
Unified Transportation Plan, they pop up as well, here, we
found a road that needs to be improved, where we have this
plan out here as major state and regional roads that are
sitting out here five or ten years from now and not being
brought forward, but we may be solving local issues with
state funds and that, in my opinion, may not be in our
best interest.
MR. WILLIAMSON: But it also might be in our
best interest.
MR. HOUGHTON: It might.
MR. WILLIAMSON: And I haven't asked you about
the timeline of solutions, I'll start asking you about
that next month. I need for you to be prepared, and in
turn, your employees need to be prepared to tell you just
straight up is this a local or a regional or a state road,
and is this a local problem, a regional problem or a state
problem. And next month I'm going to be asking is this
solution long-term, short-term, or mid-term, and then
we're going to know what the indexes are that measure the
impact of the investment.
That's the only way we can get to a point that
this program will be self-sustaining and is supportable by
the legislature.
MR. HOUGHTON: Are some of these communities
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abandoning these long-term projects or these short-term
fixes? I'm sorry, that's a loaded question.
MR. SAENZ: Well, I think every proposal is
different. These are certainly priorities, for example,
in Hays County, these are the priorities they've
identified. Unfortunately, through the resources that
they have, working through their normal traditional funds
that come through the MPO and such, they were not able to
fund these projects, so these projects kind of got left
behind.
MR. HOUGHTON: So they could be circumventing
the MPO.
MR. SAENZ: Right, and that's where we need to
evaluate to see what impact these projects have on the
system with respect to the indexes, and that will
determine the level of commitment or reimbursement that we
can maybe put into these projects to see what happens.
There was a time that these projects competed with all the
other projects at their level and they did not make that
list.
MR. HOUGHTON: Didn't make it.
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.
MR. HOUGHTON: And now some communities could
be, in fact, circumventing the MPO, they didn't get what
they want and they show up here.
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MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir, and that's the first
thing we check because there are some projects that we've
received that were in the plan but may have been in the
plan somewhere down the road, and so the community wants
to advance them because it's a huge project that solves
either a local problem or solves a regional problem, some
of them are statewide problems. But the area as a whole
did not see it as a highest priority so they put it on
down, but maybe the regional importance and the local
importance are such that the local community will now want
to spend money on that project and bring it forward, it's
important to them and we're all going to benefit because
that asset is put on the ground.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Again, not unlike Category 12
has been treated in the past, but hopefully towards a
little bit more self-control by requiring that the local
government put the cash up first and take a chance on
whether or not they're going to get their money back very
fast.
But it was time for us to start having this
conversation and we need to spend about three months
talking about it.
MR. SAENZ: That's why we set some standards as
to how much and at what rates we will pay back to make
sure that we are going to be paying back based on the
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usage. So if the traffic is there, then that repayment
will be fast.
MR. WILLIAMSON: That poor Hays County
commissioner is sitting back there saying, Holy crud, you
guys are fixing to bust my deal.
MS. ANDRADE: Amadeo, I have a question. And I
agree, I think I'd feel much more comfortable when we have
guidelines so that when we go into communities and we talk
about if it's a local road, this is what we have. But I
would ask you, at what point do we start reimbursing them
on these pass-throughs?
MR. SAENZ: We do not start reimbursing them
until the project is completed and open to traffic.
MS. ANDRADE: At the end of the year?
MR. SAENZ: Well, what we do, once we negotiate
it and we come back to you with the terms -- as you'll act
on the next item -- then we will execute an agreement.
The local entity will go out there and build a project and
in that agreement we'll decide whether we're going to
reimburse you every six months or once a year, and it's
all based on the traffic that uses the facility over that
period of time.
MS. ANDRADE: Okay, thank you.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Just one final question,
Amadeo, is this package --
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Or maybe you know, Mike -- is this wrapped up
in a previous deal we had with Hays County for them to do
something else and we wanted done?
MR. SAENZ: Yes.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I mean, this is a little bit
of us holding up our end of the deal?
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. This is one, as I
mentioned, we have been in communication with the county
judge, and one of the things that we had suggested to the
county is that if they went out there and they did certain
things, we would entertain a pass-through toll agreement.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Certain things on our
statewide long-term system.
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Seek a long-term solution to a
statewide problem on a statewide road.
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. So this is tied to that.
We will take that into consideration as we move forward.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Any other questions or
conversations with Amadeo, members?
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: You've heard the explanation
staff and the recommendation.
MR. JOHNSON: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
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MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. BASS: Item 8(b) would authorize the
department to enter into a pass-through toll agreement
with Williamson County. Under the agreement, the county
would initially finance the construction of various
improvements.
The department would reimburse the county over
time based upon the actual traffic on the improved roads
at a rate of 10 cents per vehicle mile, with a minimum of
just under $7.6 million per year which would lead to a 20-
year payback, and a maximum of just under $15.2 million
per year which would equate to a payback over a ten-year
period, until such time as just under $152 million is
reimbursed to the county.
There are a couple of things I'd like to point
out before moving to the staff recommendation. One of
those is a technical correction to the minute order you
have before you. The next to the last paragraph on the
first page, you will note on the second line it says,
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"Through tolls of $152,942,000." That should read
"$151,942,000."
MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, they won't mind giving us
another million; leave it like it is.
MR. BASS: No, this is what we pay them.
(General laughter.)
MR. BASS: The second thing I would like to
point out, from Williamson County with us today, Judge
John Doerfler and Commissioner Frankie Limmer are also
here in the audience, I believe.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, there they are over in the
hole. Hey, guys. Where's Krusee? I saw him last night.
He must be stuck out in the bay fishing.
MR. BASS: And staff would recommend your
approval.
MR. HOUGHTON: Is this the first one that gets
approved, executed?
MR. BASS: No. This would be the fourth one
that has received final approval with the terms from the
commission.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, Amadeo, step up and
let's go through it. We have done a lot of this already
about these projects, so I don't want to drag it out, I
just need to be sure that we go through the exercise.
Let's take, for example, item number 2 out to
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the right, project 2.
MR. SAENZ: Project 2?
MR. WILLIAMSON: That is clearly a regional
road.
MR. SAENZ: Item number 1 and number 2 are
regional roads but really with statewide implications. US
79 in Williamson County is a four-lane, undivided
facility.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Does it go all the way to A&M?
MR. SAENZ: I'm sorry.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Does it go to A&M or Hearne?
MR. JOHNSON: Jacksonville.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, is that the Robert Nichols
Express?
MR. JOHNSON: It will have a special toll lane
for him.
MR. WILLIAMSON: That's right, a high-speed
toll lane for Robert Nichols.
(General laughter.)
MR. SAENZ: As you go past into Milam County,
then it goes into a four-lane, divided highway with a
grass median, so this closes the gap.
For this project, like I said, it's regional
because it provides regional mobility but it also provides
statewide mobility. If you look at the traffic on those
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two projects, as you get closer into the Austin are,
they're operating at levels of service where you do have
congestion. As you get further away, they're operating at
a little bit higher level, Cs and Ds, A and B being very
good, C and D being fair to good, and E and F being
basically you're experiencing congestion.
By changing the facility from what I would call
a four-lane, undivided with no shoulders to a four-lane,
divided with crossovers and left-turn lanes where you
control the access to both sides of the highway, you
improve that level of service to C in the areas near
Austin and to A and B in the areas further away. So in
essence, you're improving that whole corridor from a
congestion perspective.
MR. WILLIAMSON: This has got to be a mid-term
to short-term solution, this can't be a long-term solution
for that area.
MR. SAENZ: This is a mid-term solution. I
think eventually the next solution would be the
possibility that you would expand and as traffic builds up
that this facility would be developed as a potential
controlled access facility expressway, with the
possibility of future main lanes to be managed lanes or
tolled lanes.
MR. WILLIAMSON: So has Williamson County done
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its traditional fine job of advance planning and acquired
enough right of way for those express lanes?
MR. SAENZ: This project will be acquiring
right of way. We will be working with Williamson County
with respect to the amount of right of way so that we do
have it.
One of the other projects that we'll talk
about, the 183 project, is regional for the projects we're
talking about, but the 183 also has very significant
statewide implications. But that project, what is simply
being done right now is getting the right of way, widen
out and build only the frontage so that in the future you
can expand the main lanes as tolled lanes, and it will tie
into the 183A system that is currently being developed by
the CTRMA.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I just want to be sure on that
with regard to particularly the 79 part, that we've either
negotiated with them to be sure and get the right of way
bigger or we ourselves are going to go out and buy bigger
right of way, because you can never buy it cheaper than
right now.
MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. The right of way is a
big expense on those projects, and we negotiated and I
will verify that, but I'm sure that we are buying enough
right of way to be able to address the future expansion.
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The other projects are more regional and local,
the project on 1660 and 2338. For example, the 1660
project, is the realignment of an existing farm to market
road, and this will allow for, in essence, almost a bypass
around Hutto that will improve safety, mobility, move
commercial traffic out of the downtown area of Hutto
because 1660 goes through Hutto. So it will improve
safety, it will improve mobility.
All these projects, as you add the capacity, as
I mentioned earlier, will have a positive impact on air
quality. I don't have what the measure is but that's
something that's being developed.
So all these projects will meet all of the
factors that we've been talking about and have a positive
impact for the whole area.
The 2338 is also a major arterial that's going
from a two-lane highway to a five-lane, curb-and-gutter
rural facility with left turns. It will improve mobility,
it will reduce congestion. That one, for example, is
currently operating at level F which is basically almost
gridlock. By expanding the extra lanes and putting in
your left-turn lane, you, in essence, improve that level
of service to B. So you have now a facility that will
operate. That is, like I said, a local-regional facility.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Let's let members ask
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questions, Amadeo.
Members, questions or comments for Amadeo?
MR. HOUGHTON: Mine is the same one, the
Unified Transportation Plan, were these in the plan or did
these just pop up because they were not approved?
MR. SAENZ: These projects were in the long-
range plan but were out in past the ten-year mark, more
into the longer term. And again, Williamson County has
gone through and they're willing to go out there and bring
these assets forward.
MR. HOUGHTON: So our investment is $151
million.
MR. SAENZ: Right, $151-. Their original
request was $174-, and we're at $151,942,000, $152-, and
we would pay it over a ten-year period, so we would
probably start paying in 2010, and if the traffic is such,
we would pay it in a minimum of ten years so we would pay
out by 2020, but if the traffic is not there, then it
really would be stretched out till 2030.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Krusee's original request was
like $600 million; this is pared way down.
MR. HOUGHTON: They're willing to vote for
bonds in Williamson County for $600 million?
MR. WILLIAMSON: Mike is an aggressive guy.
(General laughter.)
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MR. SAENZ: What James brought before you when
we presented the original submittal, it was presented with
a lot more projects, but working with Williamson County
and their folks, they decided to break it up into a Phase
1 and Phase 2.
MR. WILLIAMSON: And I might have been
overstating it. How close was it? It was much bigger
than this originally, was it not?
MR. SAENZ: It was like $272- or something like
that.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, $272-. $600- was what
he dreamed about. I like Krusee, he's not afraid of
anything.
Any other questions of Amadeo?
MR. SAENZ: Just a few more statistics with
respect to the safety index and looking at the crash rates
for these facilities. A four-lane, undivided facility,
for example, on 79, the crash rates on 79 which is the
number of accidents per 100 million vehicle miles, is
running about in the 100 to 110. If you look at the
statewide average for similar roads, that's pretty close
to the statewide average.
That piece of 79 that is towards the Milam
County line, between 1999 and 2001 had six fatalities.
Going to a four-lane, divided highway will certainly
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improve that because now you have, in essence, separated
the traffic. Right now you've got four lanes and no
shoulder, so if someone wants to turn left, they're
turning left just immediately next to the oncoming
traffic, and now you'll be able to control that with left-
turn lanes and crossovers.
So those projects, from the safety index, have
a great improvement in safety.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Any other questions of Amadeo,
members?
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: James is back up. James has
given you his explanation and his recommendation.
MR. BASS: With a minor revision.
MR. WILLIAMSON: As revised.
MR. JOHNSON: So moved.
MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. HOUGHTON: Don't leave, James. Can I ask
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you one more question back on 6(d), what out of the $2.9
billion for the project is equity from all parties?
MR. BASS: On which item?
MR. HOUGHTON: Texas 130.
MR. BASS: There was $700 million from the
state and $500 million from the local governments into the
project.
MR. HOUGHTON: Thanks.
MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 9, Traffic
Operations, this is a minute order to recommend some lane
use restrictions in Dallas County and Tarrant County and
Harris County.
MR. LOPEZ: Good afternoon, commissioners.
Again for the record, my name is Carlos Lopez, I'm
director of the Traffic Operations Division.
The minute order before you authorizes the
creation of a left-lane restriction for trucks on portions
of I-20 in Dallas County, I-10 and US 290 in Harris
County, and I-30 in Tarrant County.
This restriction will prohibit trucks from
operating in the left lane of these highways. Trucks
would be allowed to use these lanes to pass other vehicles
and to exit the highway. The department conducted traffic
studies and determined that these restrictions could be
beneficial for safety and mobility.
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The department published notices requesting
public comment on these restrictions in the August 19 and
August 26 editions of the Texas Register and also held a
series of public meetings. No comments were received.
We recommend approval of this minute order.
MR. HOUGHTON: Can you amend it for I-10 in
Harris and El Paso counties, Carlos?
(General laughter.)
MR. LOPEZ: I think Chuck is looking at I-10 in
El Paso.
MR. SAENZ: We're working on El Paso County on
I-10.
MR. LOPEZ: Yes, Amadeo is looking at that.
MR. JOHNSON: Carlos, I've been under the
impression that there are lane restrictions for trucks on
I-10 East in Harris County.
MR. LOPEZ: Yes. This is adding another about
nine miles to that, and it covers that same distance
because they're going to change it to a 24-7 operation
instead of a 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. operation. By the
way, all the ones in Houston will be 24-7.
MR. JOHNSON: And when will these go into place
as being enforced?
MR. LOPEZ: As soon as we can get signs up and
the cities pass ordinances.
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MR. JOHNSON: So we're waiting on the city in
this case.
MR. LOPEZ: This is the first step in making it
all happen. I think, in any case, our signs are already
getting fabricated, hoping that you will approve this
minute order and the ordinances will be passed.
MR. HOUGHTON: A leap of faith.
MR. LOPEZ: Trust.
MS. ANDRADE: Carlos, I have a question. Do we
work closely with that community to see if they can also
enforce it? I mean, it's okay we put the signs up, but if
they don't enforce it, it doesn't do us any good.
MR. LOPEZ: One of the first things we ask our
district engineers to do -- and they've been doing this --
is see if they get that commitment from enforcement,
because you're exactly right, a sign doesn't make it all
happen, you've got to have the enforcement in place also.
Up to now we've been very fortunate. I talked
to Houston before yesterday and they report a very high
compliance rate in Houston, that they just had a real good
focus on enforcing this in that area. They're not getting
complaints from the public or the trucking industry. The
public perceives them working well and they're asking for
more.
So this is something that started off with a
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letter that Commissioner Johnson sent back in 2000 and I
think it's starting to catch on around the state.
MS. ANDRADE: Sometimes the general public
doesn't know when it happens, so maybe we should have a
press conference or something to announce it, just not
hang up the sign and not do anything else.
MR. LOPEZ: I think in Dallas it might be more
kind of a big splash.
MS. ANDRADE: Good.
MR. JOHNSON: Hope's point is a good one,
though, in terms of enforcement. My recollection is that
on I-10 East there in Harris County, the City of Houston
really did a bang-up job in enforcement and got people
recognizing the fact, and the traffic accident rates with
trucks involved were reduced 68 percent. So I mean, these
are meaningful ways to deal with the safety issue, as
long, as she points out, enforcement is there. If it's
not, people are going to take shortcuts and leeways.
MR. LOPEZ: Right, and I'll just point out
that's something that we'll continue to do is look at
these after a period of time to make sure they're doing
what we intend for them to do.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
explanation and the recommendation.
MR. JOHNSON: So moved.
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MR. HOUGHTON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. LOPEZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Carlos.
MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 10 is our
contracts for the month of October, maintenance contracts
and highway and building construction contracts. Thomas?
MR. BOHUSLAV: Good afternoon, commissioners.
My name is Thomas Bohuslav and I'm the director of the
Construction Division.
Item 10(a)(1) is for consideration of award or
rejection of highway maintenance contracts let on October
6 and 7, 2005, whose engineers' estimated costs are
$300,000. We had 20 projects, an average of 3.35 bidders
per project, total bid almost $10 million.
There's one project we recommend for rejection,
Project Number 4013 in Collin County. This is a sweeping
and debris removal contract that came in at 143 percent
over. It's a bit high and we want to go back and see if
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we can get better prices for that contract.
Staff recommends award of all projects with the
exception noted.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the
explanation and recommendation.
MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.
MR. JOHNSON: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
MR. BOHUSLAV: Item 10(a)(2) is for the
consideration of award or rejection of highway and
building construction projects let on October 6 and 7,
2005, and it also includes Cameron County Project Number
3208 which was deferred last month. We had 89 projects,
an average number of bidders of 3.45 per project, total
bid amount almost $410 million.
We have three projects to recommend for
rejection. The first project is Project Number 3227 in
Panola County. It was 40 percent over, we had two bidders
on the project that overbid about $5.8 million, for
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widening of about 50 miles of lane sections on FMs in
Panola County for some safety work.
We feel this price is too high and we'd like to
go back and relet it, and hopefully get additional
contractors to bid as well.
Another project recommended for rejection in
Terry County is Project Number 3214. It was 85 percent
over and two bidders on it, $2.9 million was the total
bid. This is for some safety work for end treatments over
a nine-county area, 16 separate project locations.
These prices are high, and again, we'd like to
go back and see if we can actually change a specification
requirement in there that might help us get more material
suppliers for concrete there and that they might supply
the product as well and get better prices for that reason.
The last project recommended for rejection is a
project in Grayson County, Project Number 3233. It's 45
percent over, we had two bidders, $2.7 million was the
total bid. It's reconstruction of some frontage roads
there, and we believe we can get better prices by going
back and reletting that one and hope to solicit more
competition for that one as well.
Staff recommends award with the exceptions
noted. Any questions?
MR. WILLIAMSON: Thomas, I want to ask you
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about one. You know, every month when I go through these
things, I look for the largest contracts and kind of put
my eagle eye on those and see what I know about them, and
I was reading through here and I think the largest single
low bid amount is this one in Goliad County on US 59.
Does that sound right to you? Corpus Christi District.
Do you want the controlling project number?
MR. BOHUSLAV: I see it there. It's sequence
number 3201.
MR. WILLIAMSON: That's the biggest one this
month, isn't it? I believe it is.
Now, the reason that I honed in on that was
because I had remembered receiving some letters or some
copies of some letters from a county judge about that
project, so I went back to my file, and then strangely
enough, I think yesterday -- and I can't be sure, but I
think yesterday that same county judge accosted me at a
public meeting about this project.
And I want to ask you a couple of questions
because this county judge wrote some pretty serious things
for the public record that bothered me quite a bit, and I
want to be sure we're not approving a contract that in the
end is going to cause more trouble than it's going to help
in Goliad County, because based on this fellow's words,
I'm not sure we want to move forward with this contract.
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And I didn't find his first letter, I just
found the second. He addressed this letter to the
Assistant Attorney General of all people, he doesn't
address it to the chairman of the commission or the
executive director, doesn't address it to his district
director, he addresses the letter to the Attorney General.
And he says: "Dear Mr. Click, We appreciate
your efforts" -- this is him saying this to Mr. Click; I
don't know what he's got to do with our highways -- "in
continuing our quest for a facility that by TxDOT's own
estimation will satisfy the traffic numbers anticipated
for another 40 to 50 years. Goliad County has been on
this quest for five years" -- this is the egregious
part -- "and when we became aware TxDOT was not
considering our input for this project from the results of
various public meetings, we decided" -- I guess we, there
must be more than one county judge involved in this -- "we
decided to make the attorney general, the comptroller" --
what in the heck has she got to do with anything? --
"members of the Highway Commission and the Board of
Professional Engineers aware of our frustrations.
"Our request today is obtain from the following
counties and other persons such correspondence and
graphics as they have in their files, Michael Behrens,
Craig Clark, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Comptroller, members
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of the Highway Commission," the three senior members
only -- sounds like an open records request.
"You began receiving our correspondence about
the same time Commissioner Andrade began receiving
duplicates of our submission. Time is of extreme
importance. We ask your immediate attention with complete
presentations for two pieces of correspondence. These are
necessitated by the news article appearing on August 19,
submitted by Turner Collie & Braden."
What's that all about? What do you know about
this, Thomas?
MR. BOHUSLAV: I'm not involved on those
aspects of planning for this project, but the DE is here,
he probably would be able to respond to this.
MR. HOUGHTON: I'd like to state one thing,
they said the three senior members, it's those three down
there.
(General laughter.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I mean, I see a copy of
this letter less than a month ago and this project pops up
now, we're approving it, it seems to me that we've got a
very angry county judge that doesn't like the way we're
doing business, why would we approve this project? I
think we need to stop and make sure we've got him
satisfied.
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MR. HOUGHTON: I'd like to ask a question.
Craig?
MR. WILLIAMSON: Craig, I'm just telling you, I
take great offense at people who write letters like this,
and I don't want to make him any madder than he obviously
already is.
MR. HOUGHTON: Can there be, I call it, bait-
and-switch? Can we award this project and then the county
judge or somebody intervene and want to change the design
of this project?
MR. CLARK: Not at the point that we would
award the project and proceed.
The difficulty with this judge and this project
predates me in this district, even predates my
predecessor, David Casteel. I think it began when Billy
Parks was district engineer here when they began a process
of public hearings and design development for this
expansion of this section of 59.
In the course of that public involvement, this
judge was particularly interested in some different design
approaches that would be made in this section of highway,
some different standards by which it would be built that
differed from the controls and the limitations that we had
associated with the trunk system program that this project
was being advanced under.
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Those discussions with my predecessors, myself,
and Commissioner Andrade were all made in terms of trying
to re-enfranchise this judge in our process and in the
ultimate facility that we were going to deliver. We have
been able to meet with him and bring some of the proposals
that they had into our design at the time that we were
advancing it, but we didn't completely satisfy him.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Should we carry forward with
this contract? I mean, this letter was dated September
13, that's less than two months ago. If we're going to
keep having him complain about what we're doing, why would
we spend $49 million, why don't we wait till we satisfy
his complaints and go spend this $49 million someplace
where people are satisfied?
MR. CLARK: I believe that the information he
tried to convey to you and mentioned to me, as late as
yesterday when we had the meeting hosted by the city, was
that he believed that this project should be approved and
awarded as it was let because of the need of his
constituents in that county for this facility and the
problems that it would address.
MR. HOUGHTON: Is there an election coming up?
MR. CLARK: Probably.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I mean, people ought not to
write letters they aren't serious about. Was this need
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not apparent as recently as two months ago?
MR. CLARK: I think that that letter and
previous letters were mainly to try to influence design
decisions in that project and change design decisions.
MR. WILLIAMSON: By writing the attorney
general of the state and the comptroller who doesn't know
anything about building roads?
MR. JOHNSON: Craig, are you including routing
decisions when you say design decisions? My recollection
was early on he wrote at least one and maybe more letters,
but it was a routing issue to the west of Goliad, 59 after
you cross the river.
MR. CLARK: And more of his routing was in
another section of 59 that we have yet to advance. The
section that we're talking about here, there was some
routing areas that they did not agree with the exact
alignments, but they weren't greatly different, and we
were able to, I think, address most of those with him.
MR. WILLIAMSON: What's his reference to this
Turner Collie & Braden news article of August 19? Do you
know anything about that?
MR. CLARK: That article, I believe, was part
of a press event in Victoria where they talked about a
variety of projects, this being one, and I think Turner
Collie & Braden was involved in some of the other
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projects, but because of Mr. Parks's knowledge of this
particular roadway segment, he made comments with respect
to it, and that's what they focused in on the article.
MS. ANDRADE: Mr. Chairman, let me add to
Craig's comments. I've had two personal visits, along
with Craig, to this judge. I've gone to Goliad and met
with him, and this has been an ongoing issue. In fact,
one of the challenges that I gave Craig was let's end this
because it's just been going on.
He's got a different view as to where he wants
this and we pulled the public hearings that were held and
that didn't prove that, because he kept saying that the
community wanted it also, and it did not prove that. This
is where he wants it. The choices that we gave him were:
this is where we have it funded; if you want it over there
and your constituents want it also, this is how much extra
it costs, if you're willing to pay for it, we'll put it
there. But he doesn't want to pay for it.
MR. WILLIAMSON: So it's your view that we're
not going to have someone unhappy even after we spend this
money. Oh, no, you're not saying that? You're just
saying we have to move forward.
MS. ANDRADE: I believe the community deserves
this. It's been going on for years and years, and it's
time that we get it done. It's just the way he, and I
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believe his brother also has worked with TxDOT before.
But we've given him the time.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, that got Monroe up.
MS. ANDRADE: Oh, I'm sorry. We've given him
the time and I think Craig spent a whole afternoon with
him when we did the second visit. So we've made every
effort to listen to him and made every effort to meet his
needs.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Don't let us go too far here,
Richard.
MR. MONROE: For the record, Richard Monroe,
general counsel of the department.
I believe this is one of at least two letters
I'm aware of that the judge has written. Grady Click has
referred both of those to me, and I wrote to the judge
saying these other people are not in a position to answer
your questions. Your questions and requests for
information should be addressed to this department.
However, I think if you will read that letter
carefully, it is difficult to find out what information he
is actually asking for. So in this letter of which I am
speaking back to the judge, I said you will need to be
specific and define for me what information you want and
then we will proceed accordingly under the provisions of
the Public Information Act.
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To my knowledge, he has never responded to my
letter, but if you'd like, I can check into that with the
people that actually handle the Public Information Act
requests. But usually a request from a person such as
this and with my prior involvement, I probably would have
been made aware if he had ever responded to my letter. As
I say, as far as I know, he has not.
MR. WILLIAMSON: But it's your feeling,
Commissioner Andrade, is we need to move forward no matter
what.
MS. ANDRADE: Yes. It's been a project there
for many years.
MR. JOHNSON: Is my recollection in the
ballpark as being accurate that we had a visit from that
three-county delegation, Bee, Goliad and Victoria, and the
Bee County judge was the spokesperson and they were
requesting improvements on 59, talking about safety
issues?
MR. CLARK: Yes. That was in August.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I think they were requesting
something different than this.
MR. JOHNSON: But basically it was 59, it
wasn't necessarily this specific, because it covered a
three-county area where 59 is quite prominent. In the
big-picture, small-picture sort of mentality, I'm
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confused.
MR. CLARK: The Tri-County Coalition, Goliad
being one of the tri-counties, was looking to update the
commission on the activities on the 59 corridor in total.
In some of the other segments of this 59 corridor, we have
projects that are operational changes, that being Super 2
construction of two-lane roadways, that would help the
safety but not necessarily adding capacity, and they were
trying to make a case with the commission that the
conditions have changed and the demands on the system may
require us to look again at the possibility of adding
capacity.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. Well, I was just caught
off guard, Mike, because I saw the county, I saw the
amount, a bell went off, I went back and looked at my
file, I found this letter, and I'm asking myself why we're
approving the contract when the county judge, an important
official in the county, this guy obviously is angry,
obviously doesn't like what we're doing, and we obviously
have a shortage of money everywhere, so why are we moving
forward with a contract that's just going to make somebody
madder when we can stop it and go do someplace else until
he gets calmed down and we've worked it out.
But are you saying it's not going to work out
and the citizens have been waiting many years and we need
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to move forward no matter whether this person is happy or
not?
MR. HOUGHTON: With that said, Ric, you and I
were the only ones at the event last night and he made it
a point to talk to me about this and said, I really would
appreciate your vote to approve it. And I said, Sure, be
glad to approve it. I was unaware of the letter since he
referred to the three senior members of the commission.
(General laughter.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, like I said, I take
things like this really serious.
MR. HOUGHTON: And I did threaten that I could
take the money out to El Paso, and he proceeded to tell me
I'll come find you. But he was very, very much proactive
in his remarks on approval.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. Well, you've heard the
explanation and recommendation and probably more than you
wanted to hear about one in particular about this minute
order. What's your pleasure?
MR. JOHNSON: I have one question of Thomas.
Where did you get them boots?
MR. BOHUSLAV: The tall man's store.
(General laughter.)
MR. JOHNSON: So moved.
MS. ANDRADE: Second.
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MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. Thank you,
Thomas.
MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 11 is our
routine minute orders, and they've all been duly posted as
required. I've looked at all the minute orders and I don't
think any of them have any impact on any of the
commissioners. I'll go through them if you'd like to;
otherwise, I recommend approval of the routine minute
orders.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I do have one question about
11(a)(4). Now read that sentence, the explanation.
MR. BEHRENS: "Consider a donation from Mr.
Bruce Harvey, a private landowner" --
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, stop. Now, if he wasn't
a private landowner, what else would he be? I kept
looking for the hidden trick in this deal. What's the
deal?
MR. HOUGHTON: Engineers don't have tricks.
(General laughter.)
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MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've had time to
look it over. What's your pleasure?
MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.
MS. ANDRADE: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.
Mr. Monroe, do we have reason to go to
executive session?
MR. MONROE: No, sir.
MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. Thank you, Mike, for a
job well done.
MR. BEHRENS: We have no open comments.
MR. WILLIAMSON: We have no open comments. We
thank Craig one more time for your hospitality, and
members, the most privileged motion is in order.
MR. JOHNSON: I don't have a World Series game
to go to, so I'm not going to make the motion.
MR. HOUGHTON: Move to adjourn.
MS. ANDRADE: Second.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second
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to adjourn. All in favor of the motion, signify by saying
aye.
(A chorus of ayes.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.
(No response.)
MR. WILLIAMSON: For the record, we stand
adjourned as of 1:48 p.m. Thank you, members.
(Whereupon, at 1:48 p.m., the meeting was
concluded.)
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C E R T I F I C A T E
MEETING OF: Texas Transportation Commission
LOCATION: Corpus Christi, Texas
DATE: October 27, 2005
I do hereby certify that the foregoing pages,
numbers 1 through 197 inclusive, are the true, accurate,
and complete transcript prepared from the verbal recording
made by electronic recording by Penny Bynum before the
Texas Department of Transportation.
10/31/05 (Transcriber) (Date)
On the Record Reporting, Inc. 3307 Northland, Suite 315
Austin, Texas 78731
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