BIKE: Securing Toll Road Bonds

[Patrick Goetz]

floating to work in the sea of south side land boats seems to have made 
me a bit jumpy; as the send button was activated before I was done with 
the previous message.

TOLL ROADS

Toll road enthusiast and Travis County commissioner Karen Sonleitner 
posted the following letter to last week's Chronicle:

      The Feb. 11 letter from Dolores Leyba and Jim McDermitt claims, 
"The formation of
      the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, as a new toll road 
authority in
      Central Texas, causes Travis County to commit the full faith and 
credit to the RMA
      bonds, obligating Travis County to raise taxes to pay for
      the bonds if the toll fees do not cover the cost of the bonds" 
[“Postmarks”].

      Not true. Here are the facts. The bond documents, including the 
bonds themselves,
      contain language stating that neither the state of Texas nor any 
other political
      subdivision of the state of Texas, other than the CTRMA, is 
obligated to pay
      the bonds. Further, there is no pledge of taxes from any entity to 
the payment
      of the bonds, and the bonds will state that the CTRMA has no 
taxing power.

Can this possibly be true?  Why on earth would anyone invest in 
speculative, unsecured junk bonds like this?  There must be a catch, and 
I'm wondering if anyone is in the know on what the scam is.  Astute list 
participants will recall that Karen Sonleitner is the person who had a 
$1500 a plate fundraiser attended by 30-50 individuals from companies 
which stand to profit directly from the toll road plan; i.e. anything 
she says about this issue should be taken with 2 salt mines and a 
majority stake in the Morton corporation.