BIKE: CTRMA: A-OK, According to the AA Statesman Editorial Board

[Patrick Goetz]

The running dogs of the AA Statesman Editorial Board continue to bat a 
perfect 1000.  Ancient and elephantine listites will recall that this 
was the same Editorial Board that called Bill Spelman to the mat for 
repealing the short-lived but extraordinarily divisive, destructive, and 
dangerous bicycle helmet law.  (Shame on Bill for objecting to a 35%+ 
drop in urban cycling once the helmet law was imposed and enforced, 
dozens of cyclists jailed and/or beaten by the police for not wearing a 
helmet, an INCREASE in bicycling fatalities while the helmet law was in 
place, etc.: the important thing was it helped keep those pesky 
bicyclists off the street and in the jails where they belonged.)

Here is their take on the State Comptroller's report regarding ethical 
problems with the CTRMA:

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No exit from politics in toll road report

EDITORIAL BOARD

Friday, March 11, 2005

State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn beat her drums and sounded her 
trumpets Wednesday as she issued her highly critical report on the 
Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, which will manage the $1.4 
billion toll road system in this part of Texas.

But the report itself didn't offer much new outrage that hadn't been 
already reported in this newspaper. And much of the report's criticism 
regarding toll roads is grounded in policy differences, not wrongdoing.

Perhaps because the comptroller's experts did not produce any clear-cut 
cases of personal profiteering by authority board members or officers, 
the report resorts to lurid but ambivalent sentences. "One of the most 
intriguing aspects of CTRMA's operations is the web of personal 
relationships among those responsible for its creation" goes one. Is 
this a government report or pulp fiction?

The report criticizes instances of what it calls "the appearance of 
favoritism and self-enrichment."

For example, Strayhorn calls for the resignation of two board members 
because of alleged conflicts of interest. One involves the authority's 
chairman, Robert Tesch, who — as this newspaper has already reported — 
owns valuable land near a future toll road, U.S. 183-A. However, the 
route of that road was chosen — and Tesch bought most of the land — 
before he was appointed to the authority's board.

Strayhorn also criticizes much about the way the Legislature and Gov. 
Rick Perry (though not by name) set up regional mobility authorities to 
build and manage toll roads. She complains, for example, that the 
regional authority boards are not directly accountable to voters 
(neither is the state highway department, for that matter), but 
appointed by county commissioners and the governor. OK — but that's a 
policy difference, not a scandal.

This report was issued as Strayhorn considers a 2006 GOP primary 
challenge to Perry, whose avid support for toll roads is deeply 
unpopular with voters.

We've been critical of toll roads, too, and have called on the 
Legislature and the governor to raise the gasoline tax to generate more 
money for highway construction. Certainly any public agency that will 
spend as much public money as the Central Texas Regional Mobility 
Authority merits close scrutiny, and many of Strayhorn's recommendations 
are good ones — as the authority's executive director, Mike 
Heilingestein, says himself.

But the fierce policy and political passions aroused over toll roads too 
often are tipping over into ungrounded accusations or implications that 
the other side is either breaking the law or cheating to get its way. 
Strayhorn, it should be noted, made no call for the district attorney to 
investigate.