Thread: Campaign seizes on 'super-state' highway

Perry is another globalist, greedy elite. "Perry's administration has gone to court to prevent the disclosure of what it says is proprietary information." This little paragraph speaks volumes!




http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51185
THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
Campaign seizes on 'super-state' highway
Opponents of Texas governor point to plan's foreign control

Posted: July 22, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com


Texas Gov. Rick Perry (Tyler Morning Telegraph)
Challengers to incumbent Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry are seizing on the planned Trans-Texas Corridor as a major campaign issue.

The 600-mile mega-highway from the Oklahoma border to Mexico is one section of a larger transportation network seen by some critics as part of a movement to integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

The exact route of the highway has not been set, but it is expected to cut a quarter-mile wide swath through the state, employing as many as six lanes for cars and four for trucks, the Associated Press reports. It also will include railroad tracks, oil and gas pipelines, water and other utility lines, and broadband cables.

The stretch through Texas, running parallel to Interstate 35, would be the first link in a 4,000-mile, $184 billion network. Supporters say the corridors are needed to handle the expected NAFTA-driven boom in the flow of goods to and from Mexico.

But as WND has reported, opposition is mounting to a little-publicized effort by the Bush administration to push North America into a European Union-style merger.

The contractors building the Trans-Texas Corridor have made large contributions to the campaigns of Texas politicians, including Perry.

The transportation plan, proposed by Perry in 2002, has been a major focus of the campaign as rivals – including Democrat Chris Bell and independents Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman – call it a "$184 billion boondoggle" and a "land grab" of historic proportions, the AP said.

Strayhorn calls the plan the "Trans-Texas Catastrophe" and has dubbed Perry's appointees on the transportation commission "highway henchmen."

"Texans want the Texas Department of Transportation, not the European Department of Transportation," she says to enthusiastic response on the campaign trail, according to the AP.

Perry's spokesman, Robert Black, says his opponents are spreading bad information.

"The governor recognizes the concerns that rural Texans have. Remember, he's from rural Texas," Black said.

Some opponents, including many Texas farmers are concerned about property rights, but many point to the project's foreign control. It's being built and operated by a U.S.-Spanish consortium, Cintra-Zachry. Opponents also point out part of the contract with the firm is secret.

A state attorney general has ruled the Cintra-Zachry contract be made public, but Perry's administration has gone to court to prevent the disclosure of what is says is proprietary information.

Perry is also pushing a bill in the TX legislature to make toll roads
out of many existing highways in TX that have already been paid for by
taxpayers, plus “sell” some existing TX highways to foreign countries
and companies. That is after taxpayers paid to build them and then he
wants to sell them off. Incredible.

I got this the other day and I need to look up the bill.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...o/4060720.html
July 20, 2006, 2:49PM
Farmers furious at Texas governor over proposed superhighway


By KELLEY SHANNON
Associated Press

HILLSBORO, Texas — Leroy Walters has survived many a threat on the farm that has been in his family for 120 years — droughts, hailstorms, tornadoes, grasshopper attacks.

But now he sees a manmade danger on the horizon: a colossal, 600-mile superhighway that will plow clear across the state of Texas, perhaps cutting through Walters' sorghum and corn fields, obliterating the family's houses and robbing his grandchildren of their land.

"I don't think they're going to want to pay a toll to go across this land," he said. "They want to enjoy it free, as Texans should enjoy it."

That kind of fear and anger among farmers and other landowners across the Texas countryside could become a political problem for Republican Gov. Rick Perry as he runs for re-election in November.

It was Perry who proposed the Trans Texas Corridor in 2002, envisioning a combined toll road and rail system that would whisk traffic along a megahighway stretching from the Oklahoma line to Mexico.

The Oklahoma-to-Mexico stretch would be just the first link in a 4,000-mile, $184 billion network. The corridors would be up to a quarter-mile across, consisting of as many as six lanes for cars and four for trucks, plus railroad tracks, oil and gas pipelines, water and other utility lines, and broadband cables.

The exact route for the cross-Texas corridor has not yet been drawn up, though it will probably be somewhere within a 10-mile-wide swath running parallel to Interstate 35. Whatever course it takes, it is clear many farmers and property owners will lose their land, though they will be compensated by the state. Construction could begin by 2010.

The opposition comes in several forms: Some see it as an assault on private property rights; some object to putting the project in foreign hands (it will be built and operated by a U.S.-Spanish consortium); and some see the project as an affront to open government because part of the contract with Cintra-Zachry is secret.

Of Perry's major opponents — Democrat Chris Bell and independents Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman — Strayhorn has stirred the most fury.

At campaign stops she calls the plan the "Trans Texas Catastrophe," a "$184 billion boondoggle" and a "land grab" of historic proportions. She refers to Perry's appointees on the transportation commission as "highway henchmen." She lets loose with Texas-twanged jabs at the contract with the "foreign" Cintra-Zachry.

"Texans want the Texas Department of Transportation, not the European Department of Transportation," she says, often to loud applause, whoops and hollers.

Cintra-Zachry is paying $7.2 billion to develop the first segment. For that, it will get to operate the road and collect tolls for years to come. It is part of a growing privatization trend in the United States.

A week ago, Strayhorn picked up a $6,500 campaign donation and endorsement from the Blackland Coalition, a group of anti-corridor farmers who work the rich black soil of central Texas.

Coalition chairman Chris Hammel said Texas needs a new governor who will halt the corridor project, start over and do it right. "One man started it with a pen. One person with a different pen could stop it," he said.

Perry's spokesman, Robert Black, dismissed suggestions that the toll road will hurt the governor's re-election campaign.

"The governor recognizes the concerns that rural Texans have. Remember, he's from rural Texas," Black said. "But he also believes that you have people out there who are spreading bad information."

Supporters say the corridors are needed to handle the expected NAFTA-driven boom in the flow of goods to and from Mexico and handle Texas' growing population.

Despite a state attorney general's ruling that the Cintra-Zachry contract be made public, the Perry administration has gone to court to prevent the disclosure of what is says is proprietary information.

"We don't know for sure whether this is a concept that we can endorse or not because we have not seen it," complained Mayor Will Lowrance of Hillsboro, a town of 8,200 people 55 miles south of Dallas. "I happen to still believe in the open records law in Texas."

Hill County Judge Kenneth Davis, who like Lowrance is a conservative Democrat supporting Strayhorn, agreed with Lowrance and added: "If we're going to build a highway in Texas, let's build it with Texas money, not a foreign company's money."

Both local leaders dislike the rural location under consideration for the corridor route because it bypasses Hillsboro.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Someone recomended these sites. I have not had time to look at them.

http://www.texastollparty.com/looters_c ... ooters.php Texans
against this looting of our highways and property.

http://www.corridorwatch.org/ttc/cw-corridor.htm Great data on price,
location, environmental and tax impact on Texans.

http://www.txfb.org/TexasAgriculture/20 ... Cpart3.htm TX
ranchers against boondoggle.

Thank you both for the posts. It is very important information and another puzzle piece.

I for one think it is time to start making a list that extends beyond congress to include governors as well as city managers who are against this nation

Am I mssing something here? How can all these officials be in favor of someting that is so obviously destructive to this nation unless they feel our nation is already gone. Be nice if they told someone.

Toll roads from roads already paid for? Has ownership changed hands from Texas unbeknownst to the citizens? Sounds like jolly old England when peasants paid to acess the roads of the king.