BIKE: Uh oh!/part 2

[Roger Baker]

[This story will be on  the front page of the Statesman tomorrow. -- R]



Strayhorn to audit mobility authority

Comptroller acts on requests from toll road critics Keel and McCracken

By Ben Wear

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Friday, October 01, 2004


Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, responding to a request from 
two dissidents in the ongoing fight over a Central Texas toll road 
plan, said she will audit the local agency that would run those 
tollways.

State Rep. Terry Keel, R-Austin, and Austin City Council Member 
Brewster McCracken, who voted for the toll road plan but has since had 
second thoughts, asked Strayhorn to "immediately begin a comprehensive 
audit of the expenditures and operations of the Central Texas Regional 
Mobility Authority."

Keel and McCracken, in a news conference Friday, said they asked for 
Strayhorn's intervention after reading that the authority board on 
Wednesday decided to spend up to $750,000 over the next two years on a 
marketing campaign for its coming tollways.

The authority, which through a contractor had previously authorized 
about $700,000 in public outreach contracts, will award that contract 
to a team led by Austin public relations firm TateAustin pending final 
negotiations.

"No one in the Legislature would expect that a toll authority that was 
just created would spend over a million dollars on public relations," 
Keel said. "It's incredible. It boggles the mind."

Mike Heiligenstein, executive director of the mobility authority, said 
the agency's books are already under scrutiny. He said the Texas 
Department of Transportation, which over a year ago made a $12.7 
million grant to the authority for initial work on the U.S. 183-A toll 
road, recently completed an audit of spending under that grant. The 
findings, Heiligenstein said, were two pages long and contained only 
"minor adjustments."

A second outside audit of the agency by Helin, Donovan, Trubee & 
Wilkinson, an Austin auditing firm, is currently under way, 
Heiligenstein said.

Bob Tesch, the authority's board chairman appointed by Gov. Rick Perry, 
hinted that Keel might be making hay to benefit Strayhorn.

A potential Perry challenger in the 2006 Republican primary, Strayhorn 
has clashed repeatedly with the governor over the past year. Most 
recently, she called for a slowdown in the toll road push that is a 
centerpiece of Perry's transportation policy.

"We don't want to get involved in any GOP primary politics, which is 
what I suspect that (call for an audit) amounts to," Tesch said. "But 
if the Legislature would like to amend the statute to require that all 
RMA's (regional mobility authorities) be audited by the comptroller's 
office, we would be supportive of that."

The mobility authority and the state Transportation Department in April 
released a $2.2 billion plan with nine toll roads, including seven that 
required approval by the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning 
Organization board.

That panel of mostly local elected officials, which includes Keel and 
McCracken, approved those seven roads for toll charges in July on a 
16-7 vote. Keel voted against the plan, McCracken for it. But McCracken 
has since called for amending the plan to take out roads that would be 
built exclusively with gasoline tax dollars.

The mobility authority, approaching its second birthday, was created by 
Travis and Williamson County commissioners under a 2001 state law. Each 
commissioners court has given the authority, which has no taxing 
authority and ultimately will be supported by toll revenue, more than 
$500,000 over the past two years for startup costs.

The grant from the state Transportation Department was given 
specifically for work on U.S. 183-A, the agency's first project, and 
administrative expenses related to that project.

The public outreach contracts were awarded — at the behest of the 
mobility authority — by the engineering contractor for the U.S. 183-A 
project even though some of the consultants worked on efforts related 
to the road plan approved in July.