BIKE: How I had fun yesterday

[rcbaker]

Today I gentilely twisted the tail of a giant $5 billion a year bureaucracy, 
had fun doing it and made the TTC head 'ganzermacher' laugh 
(although Williamson is a Gov. Perry appointee and not a bureaucrat, 
according to how bureaucrats are sociologically defined).

So what I done was first to show up at 8 am to pass out leaflets to the 
"suits" going into the 9 am meeting. Leaflets that warned that their toll 
roads were going to default due to the rotten energy economics in a few 
years when world oil peaks, as indicated by current Saudi oil 
production. The great bulk of the leaflet was the long and significant 
Feb. 25 article on Saudi oil from the New Yawk Times.

Maybe half the suits took them (typical; having money and a high 
position does not kill human curiosity in response to a polite offering) 
along with a few brave rank and file TxDOT employees. Then I went 
into the main meeting. 

If you never been to a TTC meetings, it is conducted with the great 
ceremony and attention to decorum that befits an enormously rich but 
dying bureaucracy trying to retain something resembling the refined 
authority and dignity of the South after the Civil War. They are big on 
humor, of a certain sort. They LOVE to award honors to loyal TxDOT 
employees with great fanfare accompanied with their predictable 
humor. 

They then proceeded to do about four hours of that kind of extravagant 
praise and choreographed humor (seems to center on which college 
they or their children attend). But it is fascinating, really as sociology -- 
they take pride in choreographing the meeting to fit the loyal TxDOT 
insider culture. They are mostly all businessmen. They recently got 
expanded from three to five members, with one woman. Who knows 
enough to keep her mouth shut for now. 

So I finally get my turn to speak on the Texas Infrastructure Bank (not a 
perfect match topic-wise but it gave me a chance to talk about what I 
wanted). I pass out my same leaflets to everyone up on the long 
podium. It has the big headline about why their toll roads bonds will 
default and then the NYT article and the stuff about how the NY bond 
houses are souring on toll road bonds. I warn them that can't fritter 
away the SIB money on toll road muni revenue bonds -- instead of the 
more solid GO munis. This leads me to discuss "running out of oil" with 
TTC Commissioner Robert Nichols, who seems to me to be the nearest 
to being an intelligent policy wonk on the TTCommission (Rick 
Williamson is the head of the TTC).

The craziness of proposing to fund $180 billion of roads as future toll 
roads using forty year bonds was then discussed. Nichols opined that 
things like hybrid cars would keep the traffic flowing while charging by 
the mile would keep revenues up. I pointed out that the "Official 
Statement" on the SH 130 bonds says that the bonds are only seen as 
good investments so long as the long-range price of gasoline remains 
below $2.50 per gallon in current dollars. So Nichols says that even if 
the roads do default, it will be the bondholders and not TxDOT who 
loses the money. I further point out that if it hadn't been for large and 
expensive TxDOT guarantees, and a federal TAFIA and an insurance 
policy, these bonds would have been junk grade.

Then I point out that I have recently learned that the Texas Mobility 
Fund, which was established by the Lege last year only has $44 dollars 
even in its account. I say that in light of the fact that this account is 
being depended on to help supplement toll road bonds, to prop up their 
ratings above the junk level, that I am willing to donate ONE DOLLAR 
to their account -- thus strengthening the total Texas Mobility account 
account by more than 2 percent. So Rick Williamson laughs and tells 
the manager of this account, Mr. James Bass to come forward and 
accept the money. So I hand him the cash. 

There is further discussion on the TTC (don't remember exact details) 
and soon Mr. James Bass gets up again and says I was right about the 
bond ratings. I strive to think this was a favorable validation of my 
opinions as observed by the TTC. -- Roger

 ***********************************
[After the meeting yesterday, I posted what is above to a list of friends 
who happen to have some contacts and connections inside TxDOT and 
got the following responses. -- R]

Response #1

"Your description of this meeting is very much like
everyone of the public talks about future roadway engineering that I
attend here. good ol boy stuff. The TransTexas Corridor is perceived as
unrealistic by most engineers, but as they have got their own projects
that need funding, they are willing to look at any available source,
and the TTC machine is emerging right now thru TxDOT. If we replace
Perry with a democrat, the whole thing could be ditched with few
complaints. We need a wealthy group of investors to get interested in
high speed rail again. The Texas Triangle is a good idea, and it would
be received better by the public than a toll road, my opinion."

Response #2

"i'm sure you already know this but let me tell you
what they are passing down the back-channel 'pipeline'
to locals as a rationale.
 and a side note first about what is going on -
it's the civil engineers who will be out of work if
they don't keep building these mega roads, so they
have been tasked with 'carrying the ball' on spreading
the toll-concept gospel to local elected officials to
whose reelection campaigns they regularly contribute
*large* wads of money ...
 the locals then are expected to go out to their
local taxpayers and explain how they are "helping"
them by using an alternative to the ad valorem tax to
fund new local road projects in tejas.
 the funding mechanism for these local road
projects would be "payback" agreements that are
underpinned by issuing bonds.
 the mantra is "let the users pay for them."
 there won't be any local federal dollars
available, the high priests of design are explaining,
because all those available dollars need to go for
guvner goodhair's super corridor project - mega lanes
of concrete vehicle mover roads combined with rail,
pipelines and water and sewer capabilities all done in
a 1200-foot wide (minimum) right of way.
 this giant concrete quetzlcoatl will run back and
forth across the state to the main population centers.
new traffic-moving capabilities along existing
over-taxed roadways probably will be elevated structures
that will allow the collection of tolls.
***************
 this isn't a wild guess btw roger - one of the
king's "personal and confidential" dispatch cases fell
into the hands of a sympathizer who
got to see the strategy document(s) first hand.
****************
 the thing that has forced them into this corner is
their fear of a giant taxpayer rebellion at the polls
if they try to build their future transportation
projects on the already aching backs of the ad valorem
tax payers. and sales tax revenues won't turn the trick either,
since the school funding/education issue continues to
haunt their collective political futures."