aug26tran - texas department of...

TEXAS TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION

COMMISSION MEETING

Thursday, August 25, 2005Commission Room

Dewitt Greer Building 125 East 11th Street

Austin, Texas 78701-2483

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

Ric Williamson, ChairmanJohn W. Johnson

Hope AndradeTed Houghton, Jr.

STAFF:

Michael W. Behrens, P.E., Executive DirectorSteve Simmons, Deputy Executive DirectorRichard Monroe, General CounselRoger Polson, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Executive DirectorDee Hernandez, Chief Minute Clerk

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ON THE RECORD REPORTING 8/25/2005(512) 450-0342

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I N D E X

AGENDA ITEM PAGE

1. RESOLUTIONSa. Resolution to recognize Luis Ramirez,

Laredo District Engineer, upon hisretirement after almost 28 years with the Texas Department of Transportation 17

b. Resolution to recognize Jerry Dike, Vehicle Titles and Registration Division Director, upon his retirement after morethan 37 years with the Texas Departmentof Transportation 23

2. Approval of Minutes of the July 28, 2005, regular meeting of the Texas TransportationCommission 36

3. Aviation 35a. Various Counties - Approve funding for

airport improvement projects at variouslocations (MO) 37

b. Various Counties - Approve funding for Routine Airport Maintenance Program atvarious locations (MO) 37

4. Public Transportationa. Appoint two new members to the Public

Transportation Advisory Committee (MO) --

b. Hays, Travis and Williamson Counties - Award STP funds through the '5311 grantprogram to the Capital Area RuralTransportation System for the purchaseof two commuter buses (MO) 64

5. Discussion Item Possible rule amendments concerning theapproval of the connection of another entity=stolled or non-tolled highway to the statehighway system 68

6. Report Report on US 59 corridor improvements in Bee,Goliad, and Live Oak counties 90


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7. Promulgation of Administrative Rulesa. Proposed Adoption Under Title 43, Texas

Administrative Code, and the AdministrativeProcedure Act, Government Code, Chapter 2001:(to be published in the Texas Register for public comment)

(1) Chapter 1 - Managementa. Amendments to '1.1, Texas

Transportation Commission, and '1.2, Texas Department of Transportation (Organization andResponsibilities), and Amendmentsto '1.5, Public Hearings (PublicMeetings and Hearings (MO) 120

b. Amendments to '1.82, Statutory Advisory Committee Operations andProcedures, '1.84, Statutory Advisory Committees, and '1.85, Department Advisory Committees(Advisory Committees) (MO) 120

(2) Chapter 9 - Contract Management (MO) Amendments to '9.1, Claims for PurchaseContracts (General) 124

(3) Chapter 9 - Contract Management (MO) Amendments to '9.15, Acceptance,Rejection, and Reading of Proposals,'9.17, Award of Contract, and '9.18,After Contract Award (HighwayImprovement Contracts), and Amendmentsto '9.106, Sanctions (ContractorSanctions) 125

(4) Chapter 25 - Traffic Operations (MO) Repeal of ''25.400-25.409, SubchapterG, Specific Information Logo Sign Program, and New ''25.400-25.409, Subchapter G, Information Logo Sign and Tourist-Oriented Directional (TOD) SignProgram, and Repeal of ''25.700-25.708, Subchapter K, Major AgriculturalInterest Sign Program 127

(5) Chapter 29 - Maintenance (MO) Repeal of '29.48 and New '29.48,concerning Boarding Priorities (for theGalveston/Port Bolivar and Port AransasFerries) 132


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b. Proposed Adoption Under Title 1, TexasAdministrative Code, and the AdministrativeProcedure Act, Government Code, Chapter 2001:(to be published in the Texas Register forpublic comment)Part 9, State Aircraft Pooling Board Chapter 181 - General Provisions andChapter 183 - Rulemaking Procedure (MO)Repeal of ''181.1-181.9, ''181.11-181.13,and '181.15; and Repeal of ''183.1-183.4 150

8. Discussion Item Discuss the proposed Texas Rail System Plan 152

9. Transportation Planninga. Approve of the 2006-2008 Statewide

Transportation Improvement Program (MO) 168

b. Approve adjustments to participation ratios for projects located in economicallydisadvantaged counties (MO) 170

c. Appoint members to the Texas Department of Transportation=s Bicycle Advisory Committee(MO) 171

d. Authorize a feasibility study for La Entrada al Pacifico Trade Corridor (MO) 174

e. Dallas County - Authorize CONSTRUCT authority for a bridge replacement projecton FM 1382 at Draw Creek, in Category 6,Structures Replacement and Rehabilitation,of the 2006 Statewide Preservation Program(MO) 179

f. Webb County - Authorize projects in Category 3, Urban Area Corridor Projects, of the 2005Statewide Mobility Program (MO) 181

10. Toll Projectsa. Approval of the apparent best value proposal

to plan, develop, acquire, design, construct,and maintain an Open-Road Toll CollectionSystem for district toll projectimplementation support (MO) 183

b. Travis County - Authorize the executive director to negotiate and develop an agreement with the Central Texas RegionalMobility Authority (CTRMA) for the planning,financing, design, construction, operation,


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and maintenance of US 290 East from US 183to east of SH 130, including the license ofstate-owned right of way to the CTRMA forthe purpose of developing a CTRMA turnpikeproject in the median of US 290 (MO) 189

11. Financea. Adoption of FY 2006 Operating Budget (MO) 204

b. Adoption of the annual operating budget; annual maintenance budget; and annualcapital budgets for the 2002 Project ofthe Central Texas Turnpike System (MO) 210

12. Pass-Through Tollsa. Jefferson County - City of Port Arthur -

Authorize the executive director to execute a pass-through toll agreement withthe City of Port Arthur for improvementsto FM 365 from Spur 93 to US 69 (MO) 211

b. Kaufman County - City of Forney - Authorize the executive director to negotiate apass-through toll agreement with the Cityof Forney for improvements to various highway projects in the city (MO) 216

13. State Infrastructure Bank Dallas County - City of Mesquite - Considergranting final approval of an application fromthe City of Mesquite to borrow $5,615,287 fromthe State Infrastructure Bank to pay for improvements to I-635 from Town East Boulevardto US 80 (MO) 221

14. Contractsa. Award or Reject Highway Improvement Contracts

(1) Maintenance (see attached itemized list) (MO) 224

(2) Highway and Building Construction (see attached itemized list) (MO) 226

b. Establish statewide annual participation goals for the Historically UnderutilizedBusiness Program (MO) 234

c. Establish statewide annual participation goals for the Small Business EnterpriseProgram (MO) 239


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d. Contract Claims(1) Navarro County - Project CPM 92-13-16,

etc. - Approve a claim settlement withViking Construction, Inc. for additionalcompensation (MO) 241

(2) Webb County - Project NH 99(462), etc. Approve a claim settlement with DeaversConstruction, L.P. for additionalcompensation (MO) 242

15. Exempt Position Compensation Pursuant to '9-3.06(d), of the General Appropriations Act, House Bill No. 1, 79th Legislature, Regular Session, 2005, approval of compensation adjustment for the executive directorof the Texas Department of Transportation (MO) 245

16. Routine Minute Orders 248a. Donations to the Department

(1) Amarillo District - Consider a donation from the U.S. Department of Justice for a department employee=s travel expenses to participate in the AMBER Alert Regional Work Session to be held in Austin from August 31 through September 1, 2005 (MO)

(2) Amarillo District - Consider a donation from the International Highway Engineering Exchange Program (HEEP) fora department employee=s travel expenses to give a presentation at the International HEEP Conference that will be held in Bismarck, North Dakota fromSeptember 10-16, 2005 (MO)

(3) Bridge Division - Consider a donationfrom the University of Buffalo in NewYork, Multidisciplinary Center forEarthquake Engineering Research for adepartment employee=s travel expensesto give a presentation at the Designand Construction of Prefabricated Bridges in Seismic Regions Conferencethat will be held on September 16,2005 in Buffalo, New York (MO)

(4) Falls County - Consider a donationfrom Texas Pneumatic Tools, Inc. forfunds associated with adding

landscaping, to include lighting and


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entry markers, to a rehabilitation project along SH 6 in the community of Reagan (MO)

(5) Leon County - Consider a donation fromTexas Westmoreland Coal Company forsufficient funding, property, andservices to provide for land acquisitionand exchange of right of way, utilityrelocation, environmental assessments,schematics, plans, specifications andestimates, and construction andconstruction engineering necessary forrelocation of an approximately 3.55-mile length of FM 39 to a 4-mile lengthparcel of property that will then beredesignated as FM 39 (MO)

b. Eminent Domain Proceedings (1) Johnson, Tarrant and Williamson Counties

controlled access toll projects -(see attached itemized list) (MO)

(2) Various Counties - noncontrolled andcontrolled access highways(see attached itemized list) (MO)

c. Highway Designation Liberty County - Extend the designation ofSH 105 along a new location and redesignatethe former location as a business route inand around the city of Cleveland (MO)

d. Load Postings Refugio County - Revise load restrictionson a bridge on FM 1684 (MO)

e. Right of Way Disposition and Donations (1) Ellis County - US 287 Business at

FM 875 in Waxahachie - Consider the release of a surplus right of way easement (MO)

(2) Tarrant County - Ammo Dump Road(Clifford Street), east of AcademyBoulevard in Fort Worth - Considerthe sale of surplus right of way (MO)

(3) Tarrant County - I-30, east of MainStreet in Fort Worth - Consider thesale of surplus right of way (MO)


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f. Speed Zones Various Counties - Establish or alterregulatory and construction speed zones onvarious sections of highways in the state(MO)

17. Appointment of two (2) persons to represent the department in discussions with the State of NewMexico regarding possible relocation of railfacilities from El Paso, Texas to a location inNew Mexico (MO) 250

18 Executive Session Pursuant to Government Code, Chapter 551 a. Section 551.071 - Consultation with and

advice from legal counsel. b. Section 551.072 - Discussion of real property

purchase, exchange, lease, donationsc. Section 551.074 - Discuss the evaluation,

designation, reassignment, and duties of department personnel, including districtengineers, division directors, and officedirectors 276

OPEN COMMENT PERIOD 11

ADJOURN 277


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P R O C E E D I N G S

MR. WILLIAMSON: Good morning.

THE AUDIENCE: Good morning.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's 9:04 a.m. and I call

the August 2005 meeting of the Texas Transportation

Commission to order.

It's a pleasure to have all of you here this

morning, particularly those of you who have traveled

from the far reaches of our great state to attend the

meeting and either participate or listen. We

appreciate your interest in transportation. We are a

great state because so many people are interested in

the future of transportation, in part.

Please note for the record that public

notice of this meeting, containing all of the items on

the agenda, was filed with the Office of Secretary of

State at 2:07 p.m. on August 17.

Before we start our meeting today, as we

always do, please take a moment to find your cell

phone, pager, blackberry, or any other electronic

device that might make a sound, and join with me --

this is like the beginning of a Methodist Sunday

morning -- please join with me in putting it on the


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silent mode. I thank you very much.

It is our custom, when we open our meetings,

to begin with comments from each commission member. We

note the reduction in the number of chairs at the

podium. Our colleague Mr. Nichols is off to bigger and

better things, so maybe our comments will be less

colorful than maybe in the past.

Ted Houghton from El Paso will start.

MR. HOUGHTON: Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to Austin, Texas, and thanks for traveling. I

think we have a full agenda, a lot of interesting

topics we're going to see here today. And not to trump

anything the chairman said, but we've got some people

deciding they want to leave this august agency and look

forward to talking to you all about that shortly.

Again, good morning and welcome.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hope?

MS. ANDRADE: Good morning, and welcome to

all of you that have joined us at our August meeting.

I thank you for your interest, also, in transportation,

and I'm looking forward to a busy agenda. We've got a

lot of great things to discuss, and I'm especially

interested in hearing about our rail discussion.


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So thank you all for being here.

MR. WILLIAMSON: John?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I'll echo the good

morning portion. And I noticed when I got to my room

last night there was a little card telling the forecast

for today, and I'll relay it to you: the high will be

101 degrees -- which seems to be pretty warm, but the

dog days of August are upon us.

I would like to thank everyone who attended

and everyone who had anything to do with the function

last night. Most of you know that we had a dinner

honoring Robert Nichols and his eight years of service

to the state as a member of this commission. And

Robert, it's difficult to describe in plain terms his

contributions because they were anything but plain, but

it was a very special evening.

Lastly, I want to note, I think early in the

agenda we're honoring three people who have devoted

their adult working careers to this agency and to the

state, and as I look at them, I think: Golly, you look

young for having put in the years that you have.

And to Diane and Jerry and Luis, I want to

give you my personal thanks for what you have done for


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this agency and the state, and it's been a joy working

with you. And as they say, don't be a stranger.

Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, John.

Let me remind everyone if you wish to

address the commission today during the day's meeting,

please complete a speaker's card which you can find at

the registration table to your right in the lobby.

If you're going to comment on an item that's

on our posted agenda, we ask that you complete the

yellow card and identify the agenda item you wish to

comment upon. If it's not an agenda item, you want to

talk in the open comment period, we ask that you fill

out a blue card.

And -- unless, of course, you're a

legislator and you can take all the time you want -- we

would ask that you hold your comments to three minutes

in order to let everybody have the opportunity to

comment.

Mr. Behrens, I believe we have a few special

resolutions this morning.

MR. BEHRENS: Yes, we do. Like Commissioner

Johnson stated, we have three long-time employees of


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the TxDOT family that are leaving us at the end of this

month, and we have resolutions from the commission, and

first we'll ask Diane Burkett to come to the podium.

The resolution so reads:

AWhereas, Diane Burkett has associated

herself with the Texas Department of Transportation for

36 years, most recently as the executive secretary for

the Texas Transportation Commission, having been

appointed in October 2000;

AAnd whereas, she began her career with the

department in 1969, working in the Building Services

Section of the Equipment and Procurement Division;

AAnd whereas, she was appointed in 1998 as

administrative assistant to the assistant executive

director for Support Operations, and earlier in that

year as executive secretary to the assistant executive

director for Engineering Operations, and in 1989 as

executive secretary to the assistant executive

director;

AAnd whereas, she has also worked in the

Human Resources Division, the Planning and Policy

Division, the Multimodal Transportation Division, and

in the Audit Office;


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AAnd whereas, she has held many positions of

trust and competence in service to several TxDOT

executives, all the while working her entire career

within the Greer Building in downtown Austin;

AAnd whereas, she possesses unsurpassed

loyalty to the department, an incredibly easygoing

demeanor and ability to get along with just about

everybody all of the time;

AAnd whereas, since coming to TxDOT she has

become a wife, mother and a grandmother;

ANow, therefore, be it resolved that the

Texas Transportation Commission, observing the occasion

of her retirement, effective August 31, 2005, does

hereby extend appreciation and the sincerest best

wishes to Diane Burkett for her service to the people

of Texas.

APresented by the Texas Transportation

Commission on this day, the 25th of August 2005.@

And signed by all four commissioners.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And Diane, here in a moment

we're going to step down and give this to you and take

a few pictures and we're going to give you a round of

applause you so richly deserve, but before that


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happens, we're going to give each of the commissioners

the opportunity to comment personally on this occasion

of your departure.

Mr. Houghton?

MR. HOUGHTON: It's a been a year and a

half, a little over a year and a half I've had the

opportunity of working with you, and I'm a little slow

on the uptake sometimes but I've figured it out, that

if Ted Houghton wanted to get from El Paso to Austin or

Houston, it was Diane that made those things happen.

Now, depending upon how you treated Diane

was how fast you got there, or how delayed you were, or

what airport you sat in for six hours.

(General laughter.)

MR. HOUGHTON: I affectionately call her,

depending upon how you want to look at it, either the

Den Mother or Mother Superior, but I'm going to miss

you. I think you're an outstanding person and going on

to bigger and better things. Congratulations, Diane.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Ms. Andrade?

MS. ANDRADE: Diane, we're going to miss

you. Thank you so much for everything you did for us.

It was always a pleasure to work with you.


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And I must have treated her very nice

because I never had a problem.

(General laughter.)

MS. ANDRADE: But we're going to miss you,

and thank you, thank you so much.


MR. JOHNSON: Well, Diane, I'm going to

repeat I guess what I've said in the preamble, but one

of the words, I believe, in the resolution talks about

demeanor, and the brightness of your smile and your

demeanor brings cheer to everyone who comes in contact

with you. And that's such a great addition in value to

the second floor, and candidly, it's going to be

difficult to replace, but I'm going to come looking

around your desk and hopefully you've imparted a little

bit of it there.

Thank you so much for all you've done. Ted

omitted that you also take care of reimbursements for

expenses, and you kind of control the purse strings

that way.

So it's been great and we will miss you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We're all having a little

bit of fun with Diane. Luis, we won't treat you or


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Jerry quite like this. We're having a little fun with

Diane because Diane really didn't want to come get this

recognition, and it speaks volumes about her and her

contribution to the department that she would prefer to

give the time and the attention to someone else.

And because that's her style, we sort of

insisted that she not do that, because we are all

extremely grateful for the time that you have given to

the State of Texas.

One of the things I always remind myself

about is we are no better or no worse than our best or

worse employee, and you would definitely be

characterized as one of the best. So we congratulate

you on your retirement.

Now we can clap.

(Applause.)

MS. BURKETT: Just that it's been an honor

to serve as the commission's secretary, and thank you

for bearing with me.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Here in a minute we'll take

some pictures.

MR. BEHRENS: At this time I'd ask Luis

Ramirez to come forward.


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MR. RAMIREZ: Good morning.

MR. BEHRENS: Good morning, Luis. I'd like

to read this resolution for you.

AWhereas, the Texas Transportation

Commission recognizes Luis A. Ramirez, P.E., who has

served with the Texas Department of Transportation for

nearly three decades, and most recently as the first

and only Laredo District Engineer;

AAnd whereas, Mr. Ramirez developed the

action plan establishing the Laredo District and was

appointed in 1991 as the district's first chief

administrator;

AAnd whereas, Mr. Ramirez supervising a wide

area of Texas transportation facilities, oversaw

planning, designing, constructing, operating and

maintaining transportation infrastructure in eight

Texas counties;

AAnd whereas, all of TxDOT joins with Mr.

Ramirez in taking pride in the official establishment

in September 1993 of Laredo as the department's 25th

district which was the first created within the

department since 1932;

AAnd whereas, Mr. Ramirez, who was born in


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Laredo, earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering

from Texas A&I University in Kingsville in 1977, and as

he joined TxDOT in January 1978, to work in a variety

of posts such as George West, Karnes City, Alice, and

Corpus Christi, as his career developed;

AAnd now, therefore, be it resolved that the

Texas Transportation Commission does hereby extend the

sincerest best wishes to Luis A. Ramirez in recognition

of his professional achievements and a career of loyal

service on behalf of the State of Texas and its

citizens.

APresented this Thursday, the 25th of August

2005.@ And it's signed by all of the commissioners.

Luis, congratulations.

MR. RAMIREZ: Thank you, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Ted?

MR. HOUGHTON: Well, I haven't had a

tremendous amount of interaction with you, Luis, but

I've had a few meetings and they have been very

delightful.

But there is one thing that Luis has the

distinction of that probably no one in this room could

guess, but he is the first district engineer to have a


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toll road owned by TxDOT, Camino Colombia -- the first

district engineer. So there is a first in your

district and a first in the state of Texas.

And I haven't been down to Laredo during

your tenure, but I'm not letting you escape, I'm coming

Tuesday. So you thought you were going to waltz out of

there.

But I'm looking forward to coming to see

you, Luis, and congratulations on the next venture.

MR. RAMIREZ: Thank you, sir. I appreciate

that.


MS. ANDRADE: Luis, it's been truly a

pleasure to work with you. I have had the pleasure of

working closely with you and have been totally

impressed with what you've done in Laredo that plays

such an important role in our state.

It wasn't until you took me to the bridge

and had me sit in your Suburban watching all the trucks

pass by that I realized what Laredo is for the state of

Texas.

You've had many challenges, you've

undertaken them greatly, you've led your staff proudly,


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and I think you should walk away feeling very proud of

all your accomplishments.

I wish you the best. I hope that you are

not a stranger. You have so many assets that you'll

give to someone else, and I just wish you the best and

know that you'll have a great life after TxDOT. Thank

you.

MR. RAMIREZ: Thank you, Commissioner.

MR. JOHNSON: Luis, I'm glad that

Commissioner Andrade mentioned the word Atruck@

because my first visit to the Laredo District, you and

I were driving around and I had never seen that many

trucks.

And I asked Luis, Is this every truck in the

world here? And he assured me that it wasn't, but it

was most of the trucks in the world.

Anyway, that was a wonderful visit and my

repeat visits you've been a great host.

Laredo, as we all know, is a district that's

an interesting one, it's complex, there are a lot of

moving parts and different opinions, and you've

survived that environment. In fact, you've grown and

succeeded in a very complex environment, and I salute


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you.

We'll miss you. You're going to be very

difficult to replace because of your experience, having

been there as long as you have and knowing all the

various parts.

I wish you the best. You've contributed

most of your working career to this agency and this

state, and we're better for it. Thanks.


MR. WILLIAMSON: I echo what John says,

Luis. Laredo is a complex district and you've walked

the minefield well, defending the department's

processes in philosophy while doing the best you could

to balance the competing viewpoints of how problems

should be solved.

And that's probably the highest compliment

the commission could pay is the job you've done in kind

of keeping the lid on until we worked through some

difficult issues. And you've done it with great

professionalism, you've always been a great host to me,

I've always enjoyed my visits to Laredo, and you're

leaving is the department's loss, but we wish you the

best.


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(Applause.)

MR. RAMIREZ: If I may, I'd like to address

the commission?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Please.

MR. RAMIREZ: I can recall in 1971 -- and

you mentioned, Mike, in 1991 when I went back to

Laredo -- in 1971, right out of high school, I had no

idea that I would be going back to my hometown. I

started off in, as you said, George West. I did not

even know where George West was, I honestly didn't. I

knew where Kingsville and Laredo was, and that's about

it, because that's where I went to school and that's

where I grew up.

But I got to work in a lot of different

capacities throughout the years. I'm honored to say I

got to work on the interstate highway system. Not many

people, I guess, can say that, Mike, and I learned a

lot and I had a lot of people that taught me a lot.

From our maintenance employees to our super

techs -- you recall there were super techs -- and just,

you know, really honest people, high integrity, taught

me how to go about my business. Even though my parents


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taught me a lot about integrity and most of my

integrity, I learned a lot about TxDOT and employees --

they're just awesome employees.

Going back to Laredo, like I said, in 1991

has been just a dream come true for me. All the

commissions that I've worked for, all the

administrations that I've worked for have helped us

tremendously in Laredo.

We have good folks down in Laredo, they do a

lot of good work, but we know that you are the ones

that get us the money. We can't lobby and you are the

ones that lobby for us. And I'm not just talking about

construction dollars, I'm talking about you lobbying

for our employees for raises that you go across the

street. You don't get paid much of anything to do this

work for us, and we are proud of the work that you do

and my employees are proud of the work that you do.

So I want to thank you all and turn this

back around to you all, and thank you, thank my

employees for the memories. Appreciate it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You're too kind. Hang

around, we'll take a picture in a minute.

MR. BEHRENS: Jerry Dike, will you please


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come forward?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Why don't you just go back

to your office?

MR. DIKE: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I talked you into that

once.

(General laughter.)

MR. BEHRENS: Jerry, let me read this

resolution for you.

AWhereas, the Texas Transportation

Commission takes great pride in recognizing Jerry L.

Dike, who has served with the Texas Department of

Transportation through four decades, most recently as

director of the Vehicle Titles and Registration

Division;

AAnd whereas, Mr. Dike was named director of

the Vehicle Titles and Registration Division in April

1992 and has served in that role during a period of

explosive population growth in Texas, as he

administered the division's work in the registration

and titling of motor vehicles, in regulating salvage

yards, and in preventing automobile thefts;

AAnd whereas, Mr. Dike, who was born in


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Palestine, began his career with the department in 1965

as a summer employee in the Tyler District, beginning

full-time work with the department's Automation

Division in 1969, later holding a variety of other

technical and managerial jobs as his career developed;

AAnd whereas, Mr. Dike, in 1995 received the

Raymond E. Stotzer, Jr., Award from the Texas

Transportation Institute for outstanding leadership,

dedication and service to the state in the field of

transportation;

AAnd whereas, Mr. Dike, while a TxDOT

employee, earned a master's degree from the University

of Texas at Austin in business administration in 1987,

and received the George Kozmetsky and Dean's Academic

awards;

AAnd whereas, Mr. Dike has served as a

leader of his professional communities, particularly

the American Association of Motor Vehicle

Administrators where he was chair of the group's

international board of directors;

AAnd now, therefore, be it resolved that the

Texas Transportation Commission does hereby extend the

sincerest best wishes to Jerry L. Dike in recognition


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of his professional achievements in a career of loyal

service on behalf of the State of Texas and its

citizens.

APresented this Thursday, the 25th of August

2005.@ And it's signed by the members of the

commission.

Congratulations, Jerry.

MR. DIKE: Thank you, sir.


MR. HOUGHTON: Well, I have had the

opportunity of working with you, Jerry, and on some

things that were quite interesting to me, that

obviously we can't discuss right here in the open, but

very, very interesting.

And you're going to be missed, but there's

somebody else who is going to miss you even more so out

in El Paso, an associate of mine that is on your Auto

Theft Prevention Board, Denise.

MR. DIKE: I will miss her.

MR. HOUGHTON: She extends this too, and I

know you've heard from her.

But congratulations and good luck to you in

the future.


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MS. ANDRADE: Jerry, thank you.

Congratulations on all your accomplishments with TxDOT.

You've had an incredible career, and I wish you the

best in your life after TxDOT.

MR. DIKE: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Jerry, I'm going to apologize

for being a pest the last six-plus years. I seem to

always call upon you for some mundane things, but

you've always been a champion to respond to them very

quickly.

Especially I want to thank you for working

on some of the special plate issues and how they relate

and fund some of our programs, especially Safe Rides to

School. You've championed that effort and the growth

of those plates continues and it's encouraging to see,

and I know your personal attention was very much a

reason that that has occurred.

I'm going to miss seeing that tie. I know

you have a great domain -- is it 270-plus different

plates?

MR. DIKE: Yes, sir.


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MR. JOHNSON: It's a very complicated

situation, it would be simple to just have one or two

and we've got 270-plus, or whatever the number is.

You've had a long and distinguished career

and during that career I noted that you achieved an MBA

which shows the fiber and fabric that you're made of.


MR. JOHNSON: Your particular division and

this agency are much stronger because of the

contributions that you've made. I personally am

grateful and I know everybody in this room is.

MR. DIKE: Thank you, Commissioner.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have the pleasure of

taking credit for extending Jerry's career at TxDOT --

that's why I told him to go back to his office a while

ago.

Two years ago he was near making his

decision -- I think that's the first time you chewed on

me; when I talked him out of retiring, then you chewed

on me.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think his economic

opportunity plateaued, as it does in state employment,


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and he had the opportunity to think about retiring and

he was on his way to doing it, but I knew that the next

session or the years and the session leading up to

would be pretty demanding for his division, and so I

kind of leaned on him. I said, Man, you can't do that,

we're fixing to have a lot of fun; who's going to solve

all the problems?

And I looked up and he withdrew his papers,

he decided not to retire. So we had him for two years,

and I take credit for that because we've benefitted

from not just that two years but from your entire

career.


MR. WILLIAMSON: There are several retirees

in the audience that I've hopped on a few times for

leaving too quick.

Organizations need new blood, but they

succeed on the backs of experience and wisdom gained in

the job. So it's always a loss when experienced

people, such as yourself, Diane, Luis, leave the

organization. We regret it but we do wish you the

best.

We hope that you learn how to be Ron Jackson


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without having to take a few strokes every day. Ronnie

has to quit giving you those strokes.

MR. DIKE: I hope to do that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Tell Ron I said hello.

MR. DIKE: I will do that, yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Jerry Dike.

(Applause.)

MR. DIKE: May I address the commission?


MR. DIKE: Thank you.

Commissioner Williamson, thank you, and you

did and you're the reason, and I appreciate that.

Thank you for your wisdom.

And past Commissioner Johnson, they were not

mundane matters, and you're the father of our very

popular AGod Bless America and God Bless Texas@ plate.

And future Commissioners Andrade and

Houghton and our Senator-to-be Nichols that's not here,

Mr. Behrens, thank you very much for that resolution,

and Steve and Amadeo and Ed.

I mean, like Luis said, we have an

administration and commission that we're so proud of

and we appreciate what you do for TxDOT and for


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transportation.

Mike may have said, my dad started working

for the Highway Department in 1927 and he retired the

month that I started, and we're a TxDOT family. My

daughter was born a month after I started working here,

and my kids grew up in the department. I worked third

shift in ISD, graveyard shift for three years, worked

nights and weekends, and my daughter's first

recollection of the department -- back then we were all

punch cards on the computer -- it was the computer

confetti. She made cascarones out of it and threw it

everywhere, but that's her first recollection of the

department.

Then a few years later I was a computer

programmer for a number of years and I also worked

nights and weekends then, like a lot of programmers

have to do, and my kids used to come up to work because

the department is such a family-friendly environment,

and they were wonderful for single parents -- I was a

single parent for many years.

And coming up to the department, they would

play, so they would play with toys. When I was packing

my office a couple of weeks ago, this is one of the


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toys that they played with, it's over 30 years old.

And it's my pleasure to introduce my son,

Kelly Dike is here, and I'm just mad at him because he

didn't bring my grandson William with him. Kelly,

would you stand up? But we would have needed

Commissioner Nichols then so he could kiss the baby.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Good to see you, Kelly.

MR. DIKE: And they grew up in the

department and they grew up with computers and they're

both in the high-tech industry ever since. Kelly has

been at Apple Computers for ten years.

I'd like to introduce my key staff, and it's

not I have key staff because all of them are key staff.

Like Luis said, our people do our work. What I've

accomplished in the department is not me, it's the

people that work for us. And I'd like to introduce

them, you may not know all of them.

Harry Morgan is our director of field

operations. He has about 200 of our department

employees in the 17 regional offices, 18 cities. He's

really got a mini-district, and he does a wonderful job

supporting all 254 challenging, independently-elected


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tax collectors and a lot of partners and customers.

Next is Bobby Johnson, our director of

headquarter operations. Bobby, would you stand up?

Director of headquarter operations, and he's

responsible for all registration and titling policy and

procedure, our correspondence, and chief of titles and

chief of registration work for him.

Scott Renouard is our director of

administrative operations, and Commissioner Johnson, he

has the special plates branch and is in charge of

logistics, getting the millions of things to the tax

collectors and all the businesses that do that work.

Mr. Bob Tanner, director of technical

operations, and Bob is leader of the registration and

titling system, the first and only computer system to

be in all 254 counties and does a wonderful job

managing that and managing the changes, along with the

excellent work that ISD does. And it collects,

efficiently and effectively, $4 billion in 30 million

customer transactions, and Bob is instrumental in that.

And Susan Sampson -- if she's able to

stand -- is director of the Automobile Theft Prevention

Authority. She recently broke her leg. And she so


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wonderfully supports Mac Tristan, chair of ATPA board,

and the other governor-appointed board members. Susan,

thank you for the job you do.

And Mike Craig, our VTR deputy director, and

he does a wonderful job at leading our division. Mike

Craig, thank you.

And I've been blessed, like Mike said, I've

been in six different areas of the department and I

love all the areas of the department, but in VTR it

just fortuitously ended up that I ended up there, and I

appreciate that.

In VTR we do have 18 million customers and

254 tax collectors to please, and we try to please most

all of them all the time. And if we do mess up, it

does appear on the front page or it appears in the

Austin American Statesman in an editorial, or the

Austin Chronicle cartoon, or on the Sammy and Bob Show.

And I vividly remember several years ago

when Darrel Hunt and I -- our past deputy director --

sat in a conference room, he and I, and we talked about

this RTS registration sticker. And we said, Let's just

do something simple, we've got a receipt here that has

this information, let's also print the windshield


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sticker and we'll print a license plate sticker if it

needs it, and it's got a license plate number and VIN

and county up here, so let's do that.

And so it ended up being an enormous IT

project and it was very successful, very successful.

But we definitely had some manufacturing problems and

some other problems, and we heard from hundreds of our

constituents.

There have been over 10 million of those

stickers issued, and of course, the manufacturing

problems have been corrected and there will be some

more improvements in the future, but to us and these

folks that do such a wonderful job, it showed the

impact we have on the public.

We would like to be 100 percent perfect all

the time, and it's kind of like the Highway Department,

every highway and transportation project we build, we

want it to be 100 percent safe for the public. Well,

we would like 100 percent perfection in every license

plate and sticker, and if we satisfy 99.9 percent of

the public, we've got 18,000 disgruntled people out

there, and we heard from about a fourth of them on this

point of sale sticker.


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But we appreciate the job that we do and we

work very closely with the county tax collectors that

do a wonderful job. I deeply respect the work they do

for their counties and for their customers.

I became very close to Carl Smith in Houston

and Harris County. He was in office over 50 years and

he had 16 percent of the public down there, and when

Carl spoke, it was kind of like E.F. Hutton: when he

said something, Jerry, this may not work, I listened

very carefully.

And now we've got Paul Bettencourt that has

that same excellent sense of what the public and the

customers want that Carl had, and Carl does love and

sees all the benefits in point of sale stickers.

I think we're all blessed to be working at

the state and working at TxDOT under your leadership,

and I'm so pleased the legislature gave 4 percent and 3

percent raises for all of our state employees the next

two years. And I've enjoyed everything I've done at

TxDOT and almost these four decades, but I know it's

time for me to go, but Commissioner, I do appreciate

being here these past two years.

And commissioners, I wish that the entire


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public could listen to you and work with you on the

matters of transportation for Texas because, like Luis

said, what you do for so little has so much impact on

TxDOT and transportation in Texas and the public and

the governor, and we appreciate what you do.

Steve Simmons told me a couple of weeks ago,

he said, Jerry, you're a TxDOT cheerleader. And yes, I

am, and I will stay that way.

But I think my quote might be, as I leave

the department, the harder you work and the longer you

work with the wonderful people like we have here at

TxDOT, the harder it is to retire.

Thank you, Ric, thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Jerry. Great

remarks, Jerry.

(Applause.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Those of you who wish to

take a break, please do so. It's going to take us

about ten minutes to take some pictures and do some

organizational stuff, but it won't take us any longer

than ten if you don't want to miss anything.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I wish to thank everyone in


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the audience who allowed us with your patience. We

place a high value on recognizing our departing

employees.

Our next order of business is the approval

of the minutes from the July 28 meeting which was held

in Brownwood.

Members, the meeting minutes are included in

your briefing package. Is there a motion to approve

the meeting minutes?

MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.

MS. ANDRADE: Second.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a

second. All those in favor of the motion will signify

by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Mike, I turn back the

agenda to you, please, sir.

MR. BEHRENS: Thank you. We'll move to

agenda item number 3, our aviation minute orders for

the month of August, one dealing with airport

improvement projects and the other dealing with our


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routine airport maintenance program. Dave?

MR. FULTON: Thank you, Mike.

Commissioners, for the record, my name is

David Fulton, director of TxDOT Aviation Division.

Item 3(a) is a minute order containing a

request for grant funding approval for 52 airport

improvement projects. The total estimated cost of all

requests, as shown in Exhibit A, is approximately $16-

1/2 million, $10.8 million federal, $3.6 million state,

and approximately $2 million in local funding.

A public hearing was held on July 22 of this

year. The only comment received was a statement of

support for the grant request for the Collin County

Regional Airport.

We would recommend approval of this minute

order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard Mr.

Fulton's layout and you've got information in your

pack. Do you have any questions of Mr. Fulton?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have one question, Dave,

it's the question I ask every time -- actually I have

two this time -- but the first one is a question I ask


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every time. To your knowledge, do any members of the

commission directly benefit from any of these

improvements?

MR. FULTON: I'm sorry, sir, could you

repeat that?

MR. WILLIAMSON: To your knowledge, do any

members of the commission directly benefit from any of

these improvements?

MR. FULTON: Not to my knowledge, no, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think Robert is the only

one who has his own plane -- or had his own plane.

We're in the clear on these airport deals.

And I see that we are going to have, and

we're glad to have, comments. Where's Cynthia?

Cynthia, are you here?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's remarkable. I don't

have a second question. I was going to ask you to get

all the McKinney stuff done, but I don't guess I have

to do that.

Well, if you'll take a seat, Dave, we're

going to hear from the public.

If I mispronounce your name, I apologize in


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advance. Lin Libecap?

MS. LIBECAP: Yes. I'm Lin Libecap, Collin

County resident and on behalf of the Citizens for

Responsible Economic Development -- again Responsible

Economic Development. I'd like to thank you for

allowing me to speak here today.

I might go a tad over, I'm not used to doing

this, but I'll try to keep it succinct.

Up front, what we're asking is for you today

either to reject or to table indefinitely the AIP

funding and project request by the City of McKinney for

the Collin County Regional Airport, the CCRA.

As you know, the federal government assigned

oversight responsibilities to TxDOT via the Aviation

Block Grant Program, and at the February '05 TxDOT

Commission meeting, we requested tabling AIP funding

for McKinney until rule, regulation, and legal

infractions at the CCRA were eliminated.

While the promised meeting with us was held,

it proved to be more or less a token gesture. We were

given 60 minutes, had to stick to it, to examine

decades of eligibility and compliance infractions.

Little or no attempt was made by the officials present


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to work with us in finding solutions.

One of the most often quoted words was Ait's

your opinion, it's your opinion@ and do have facts

documented to back up what we have to say.

In previous documents we provided to the

commission, there are infractions against the Aviation

Block Grant Program that include funding McKinney's

Part 150 study, even though funding Part 150 studies is

expressly prohibited under the Block Grant Program.

As of June 27, '05, the ALP developed for

McKinney's new airport master plan had not been

accepted officially by the FAA, yet projects and

funding have been and continue to be approved based on

the unaccepted document. It was unknown if or when

approval would be given.

On June 25, '05, the McKinney City Council

approved a request for approximately half a million AIP

dollars for Taxiway F. This taxiway, up for approval

and funding today, is on neither the current nor the

proposed ALP, although it can be found on a few non-ALP

conceptual suggestion drawings.

At the June 27 meeting, CCRA director Kevin

Wiegand stated that McKinney was using the new


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unaccepted ALP on which to develop and expand. He

justified this by saying, as per the official

transcript, AWe don't think that there's much on there

that's going to be found wrong or that anyone is going

to contest.@

When Mr. Don Keithly questioned why projects

not on the official accepted ALP from '98 were being

approved and funded, Mr. Wiegand admonished him, saying

of the new unaccepted ALP: AWe're using that as a

guide, let's not twist words.@

Remember, Taxiway F is not on either the old

'98 ALP or the new proposed ALP from 2004, nor have we

seen a 7460-1 request for changing the ALP to

accommodate this project.

Based on previous CCRA projects that were

green-lighted without 7460-1, this begs the question:

Does a 7460-1 exist for Taxiway F, or is it yet another

project being forwarded by TxDOT Aviation based on the

new as yet unaccepted ALP -- which would be in

violation of the FAA rules.

I only have two more paragraphs. Of

paramount importance is the fact that the federal

government is not in the business of financial


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speculation. To approve funding Taxiway F at this time

will support speculative development. There's no

existing or demonstrated need at CCRA at this time for

Taxiway F.

On a similar note, the June '05 request for

a perimeter road that TxDOT Aviation will oversee is

also not on the current ALP. Seeking approval for

piecemeal expansion projects that the FAA has not

officially accepted, that's deja vu all over again,

folks.

Furthermore, McKinney may claim that this

perimeter road is necessary to keep vehicular traffic

off of Taxiway A, but aerial photographs of the airport

clearly show that there is alternative airport access

to the fuel farm other than Taxiway A.

To conclude, we're asking you today to do

two things, folks. Reject or table McKinney's

requested AIP funding. Again, table, it still can go

through. And two, use the authority given to you by

the Block Grant agreement to force eligibility,

including full regulatory compliance, at CCRA before

any projects are approved.

And I was going to add this as a post


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script, if this goes through, it's going to penalize

the other airport facilities that have been playing by

the rules.

Thank you. I have some documentation to

hand in also at this time.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hang on a second. Members,

you can dialogue with the witness if you wish, or you

can ask Dave to respond to anything she said. What's

your pleasure, Ted? Hope? John?

MR. JOHNSON: I have a question. Lin, do

you and your group -- this is the big picture issue --

do you believe or not believe that the McKinney Airport

is a tool for responsible economic development?

MS. LIBECAP: Is being used as a tool for

responsible economic development?

MR. JOHNSON: Is it a tool for responsible

economic development?

MS. LIBECAP: It can be. It's been losing

money, though, and it's projected to lose money through

2012, but it can be, if done right.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Dave, as we've discussed

before multiple times, the commission's role in this


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matter is generally as a conduit or as an

administrative agency. Characteristically, when

someone disagrees with a recommendation staff is going

to make, the disagreement includes some allegations

that this department has not followed the law or is

ignoring the facts.

And I don't wish to engage in things that

may become subject to litigation here, but it is the

role of the chair to defend the integrity of the

department. So the witness has made some statements

which give me some concern. Do you have anything to

say about that?

MR. FULTON: Yes, I would like to address

the two issues she raised, and then I would also like

to point out, with your approval, Mr. Mike Nicely, with

FAA, who is responsible for all airport grants in the

state of Texas is here, and I'm sure he would be a good

resource as well.

But I'd first like to address the issues

about the airport layout plan, and I'll be very brief.

The City of McKinney has an approved airport layout

plan dated 1997. The current ALP in review is an

update of the 1997 ALP. Application for federal funds


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can occur at any time whether or not there is an

approved ALP. Each project undergoes environmental

review and airspace review by FAA before it can go

forward. The ALP is a planning document, and as such,

can be revised at any time.

The second item she mentioned was the form

for the taxiway. I have a copy and I'll be happy to

hand it to her after the meeting. It was filed with

FAA.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What is that box that lady

just put next to that wall?

(Inaudible response from audience.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's okay. I'm just not

very comfortable when people bring boxes in and set

them down and leave.

MR. FULTON: I think the major issue all

along has been compliance, whether we are following the

rules, and I would respectfully request you ask Mr.

Nicely if that is the case. I think that might be

helpful and he'd be glad to address that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, do you have any

questions you wish to direct to Dave at this time?

You'll have other chances if you wish to defer; if not,


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ask.

MR. JOHNSON: I have one.


MR. JOHNSON: Dave, will you briefly review

for me, and hopefully my colleagues, the process by

which these grants and whose responsibility is it to

review them that everything is in compliance so the

particular issue or request can move forward.

MR. FULTON: The way the program works in

Texas, we are a Block Grant state. For the majority of

the airport development grants, the FAA gives us an

allocation each year.

Our staff, upon request normally from an

airport owner, goes out and makes a scoping visit to

determine whether the project is warranted, what type

of project is needed. We do a lot of consultation with

them, we do some in-house engineering, and then if we

feel that it is a worthy project that meets FAA

eligibility guidelines, we develop a cost estimate, we

talk to the airport owner to see if they are totally

committed.

If they are, they then pass a local

resolution committing both to the project and to


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funding. And during this process an environmental

analysis is made to see what impact, if any, it will

have on the community.

And when all the procedural things are done

and during that time it goes into our three-year

capital improvement program. When we reach that year

in the program, we bring it to you for your

consideration.

That's a very brief overview of how we

administer the program.

MR. JOHNSON: At any time in that process

does the FAA review the application to make sure it's

in compliance with all the applicable FAA rules,

regulations, et cetera?

MR. FULTON: Only if there's an allegation

of something wrong, and that has been done a couple of

instances which I think it's called a Part 16 -- and

Mike can verify that. It goes to Washington to be

reviewed by headquarters when a Part 16 allegation has

been made. But normally we handle all those issues,

environmental issues and all the other review issues

within TxDOT.

MR. JOHNSON: In this particular instance,


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has the FAA reviewed?

MR. FULTON: In one case they did and we did

a project -- on this project or a previous project?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, this one. The witness

referred to a couple of FAA regulations that she felt

were not in compliance.

MR. FULTON: Yes, sir. Every project

requires something called an airspace review, and

that's the 7460 form that was filed with the FAA that I

have in my hand.

MR. JOHNSON: Does the FAA approve that or

sign off on it?

MR. FULTON: They did, right.

MR. JOHNSON: Okay, thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Dave, why don't you take a

seat for a moment.

Mike Nicely? And Mike, we view the federal

government as our partner, and we appreciate any time

someone from the federal government is available to us.

I don't wish to put you on the spot, but we have to

consider the comments the lady made.

MR. NICELY: That's fine. I appreciate the

opportunity to be here today to speak with you,


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commissioners, Mr. Behrens.

First of all, I'd just like to take the

opportunity to compliment you, the Aviation Division of

the department, on the manner in which they do

administer the Block Grant Program. Dave and his staff

do a great job.

I'm the manager of the Texas Airport

Development Office and we administer the Airport

Improvement Program for the state of Texas, that's

about $225 million. For a highway department like

yours, that's not much, but for an aviation department,

that is big, and Dave and his staff administer about

$50 million of that money and they do an outstanding

job.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But we wouldn't want you to

think that we don't think $225 million is a lot of

money. We respect that amount of money.

(General laughter.)

MR. NICELY: I have trouble putting it in

perspective when you talk about billions of dollars

that you do on a highway program. But anyway, it is

significant.

I'd like to just comment a little bit about


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the Collin County Regional Airport. It's something

that I think just about every commission meeting you

have to address when there's a project there.

Let me just say this about the Collin County

Regional Airport, it is a very important airport in the

Dallas-Fort Worth airport system. It's a general

aviation reliever airport, it is a place where general

aviation aircraft -- that's anywhere from small single-

engine aircrafts to business jets -- can go and stay

out of the airspace and the airports at Dallas-Fort

Worth International Airport, Dallas Love Field. That

gives those airports the opportunity to serve the

commercial passenger jets.

I just wanted to make that clear: the

Collin County Airport is an important airport.

It seems like that there's frequently

discussions about whether the City of McKinney is in

compliance with their grant assurances, grant

obligations. There is a formal process for someone to

file a complaint with the FAA alleging violations of

those grant obligations. Dave referred to it, it's 14

Code of Federal Regulations, Part 16.

And that's a formal process, there's


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guidelines on the documentation that's submitted. It

goes to our headquarters office; then our headquarters

performs the investigation to determine whether the

sponsor is or is not in violation of their grant

obligations.

Over the past couple of years there have

been two Part 16 complaints filed with the FAA

regarding the City of McKinney and the Collin County

Regional Airport.

There was one filed in early 1994 (2004).

It alleged that they were in violation of the grant

assurances for missing milestones for closing the

landfill, that they had failed to comply with the

wildlife management program, that they had failed to

consider the local interest of the community, and that

they allowed a recycling facility to be built near the

airport.

The FAA dismissed those allegations. The

FAA did a thorough investigation, it was done in

headquarters. The FAA issued a determination in

October of 2004 indicating that the airport was not in

violation of any of their grant assurances.

Again in 2004, there was a Part 16 complaint


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filed by the Town of Fairview which is a neighboring

community to McKinney. They filed a formal complaint

under Part 16 with the FAA.

The allegations there were that they were in

violation of the grant assurances relating to seeking

local involvement, consistent with local plans, and

there was also allegations that they were in violation

of the assurance regarding operation and maintenance of

the airport and the assurance relating to hazard

removal and mitigation. This was again regarding the

closure of the landfill. The FAA dismissed those

allegations.

There was one other allegation in there that

the city had removed a voluntary noise abatement

procedure, and there was a complaint about that. The

FAA completed our investigation on that and issued a

determination on June 28 of 2005 and found that

McKinney was not in violation of their grant

assurances.

So there is a formal process that someone

would go through to have the FAA investigate whether an

airport or a community is in violation of their grant

assurances, and that's available to people to use. I


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don't think that it's something that you all, the

State, TxDOT can't determine that, that's something

that only the federal government can determine.

With that, I'm available if you have any

questions.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, Mike Nicely

questions?

I want to thank you again for being willing

to be here today. We try to, as I say, keep our

federal partners out of the line of fire, and we

appreciate it.

MR. HOUGHTON: Ric, may I?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Sure.

MR. HOUGHTON: So you're saying that after

all of this, McKinney is -- I don't want to put words

in your mouth -- a well-run airport, needed airport?

MR. NICELY: Yes, it's a very needed

airport.

MR. HOUGHTON: Operationally meets the

statutes and falls into compliance?

MR. NICELY: Yes.

MR. HOUGHTON: Okay, thanks.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Mike, very much.


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Jack Yates? Now, why does Castroville care

about McKinney?

MR. YATES: We care about Castroville; we're

here for Castroville.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, okay.

MR. YATES: Chairman and commissioners,

Mayor Jesse Byers is out of the state today, but he

wanted me to come and speak to you on this matter

before you. We're one of the projects.

First and foremost, he said he wanted to

thank you for the funding before you today for the

Castroville Airport. These projects were all proposed

to the city council and a full support resolution for

funding and support was passed by the council.

Our airport is a valuable asset to our city

and to Medina County. At least 70 aircraft are based

at our airport and more than 20,000 operations occur

there each year. We also support agricultural aviation

and San Antonio Air Life operations from the west

heading to San Antonio.

The total economic impact of our airport on

the regional economy was determined to be $5.4 million

in the TxDOT study most recently done.


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I strongly believe that we need to continue

to support the maintenance and growth needs of this

airport. By doing so, we guarantee that this airport

remains financially self-supporting, and we've done

that within the past four years in part because of $1.1

million to our airport.

I believe you have or will have the letter

from Mayor Byers. I'll depart from it slightly to say

we had what we call the Aperfect storm@ come through.

We had a tornado or straight wind about as wide as this

room that affected our terminal to the point of where

our insurance kicked and fortunately TxDOT kicked in

and donations added to it, and we now have about a

3,500 square foot new terminal, and partially out of

that also came a new hangar that helped self-support

the airport. So that was a major issue for us, but

TxDOT helped us and we helped ourselves.

We are self-supporting and that's really a

source of pride for the community considering the

history of the airport through the past many years.

We want to thank the commission for

considering our improvements, and Dave Fulton also,

director of Aviation, for his help to our airport.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: That's kind of you. We do

have the letter from the mayor, it's in front of us.

Questions, members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you very much. We

appreciate you showing up and offering your

observations.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think we'll let the city

manager of McKinney go and then we'll let the Collin

County Regional Airport fellow go. So Larry Robinson?

MR. ROBINSON: Thank you. I assure you mine

will be brief, especially since I heard the comments

from FAA.

But first, let me say, Mr. Behrens, Mr.

Chairman, members of the commission, it's always a

pleasure and an honor to come before you and speak, and

more importantly to be available for comments and

questions that you might have of us.

Let me say that each time I come and each

time we have to address these issues, we kind of focus

different, and what I like about this one is how

important is this airport. And you've heard that this

airport is very important, it's vital to economic


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development, and I'm not just saying for McKinney.

McKinney itself receives the fruits of some

of that importance, but if you look at some of our

corporate clients there, TI, EDS, and numerous others,

international flights are conducted from that airport.

One of those entities I named can fly to Beijing

nonstop, conduct their business and come back, and we

have Customs there for that reason. So there is a

great business economic focus that we have there and

all benefit.

And by the way, the tax revenues, when you

take a look at all the revenues from that airport, we

don't lose money. In fact, the biggest recipient is

MISD, and when we say MISD, that's a school district.

We're partners. The way we look at it in

McKinney, if that airport can do something and bring

back in tax dollars to pay for teachers and students,

et cetera, we do that. So we do make money at that

airport.

The other thing that I would address, and I

could address a lot more negative things, but I really

just want to address is there a conspiracy between Mr.

Fulton and myself or any of my staff, and I'd say


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absolutely not.

If you believe there's a conspiracy there --

in other words, to get things pushed through and for

you guys not to really see this, you'd have to believe

that it starts with the city council. One of my

council members, Pete Huff, is here if you want to talk

to the council, or Mike Massey who represents a board

of volunteers that serve on the airport board.

But you'd have to believe that the

conspiracy starts there, it goes to 60-some-odd members

from the community that put together a year-and-a-half

plan to build this airport. You'd also have to believe

that it does go all the way to Austin and that there's

a conspiracy with Dave Fulton, who, by the way, makes

me cross every t, dot every i, walk every step slowly,

et cetera.

And if that's not enough, you'd have to

believe that a conspiracy goes to Fort Worth, to FAA

region in Fort Worth with that staff over there. Then

it also goes to Mr. Bennett and I could name others in

FAA Washington, by the way, with whom we have several

meetings through the years.

I've spent the last five years -- in other


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words, this airport reports directly to me, not another

executive director or an assistant, but directly to me,

and we've spent quite a number of years in dealing with

the FAA all the way from Washington to the Austin

office.

But you'd have to believe that this

conspiracy to not comply with the rules and standards

goes all the way to FAA in Washington. And again,

we've met with Mr. Bennett, we've met with the

compliance manager of the entire FAA organization, and

legal counsel on several occasions.

And in fact, I've also been able and

fortunate to have an interview with Secretary of

Transportation Mineta, so you'd also have to include

the Secretary of Transportation in on this alleged

conspiracy to not follow the rules, not comply, et

cetera.

So I say that and I said it would be short.

We're in compliance, we are a very vital, important

airport, and again, it's also a safe airport.

And I would end up by saying we want to take

a little bit of credit for Tiger Woods coming out of a

slump. He's won five tournaments. Part of that --


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it's no secret -- he lands his jet at CCRA, our

airport. His golf coach is Hank Haney in McKinney.

If you have any questions, I'll answer them.

It's very vital. So if you need some help,

Mr. Johnson, we'll take care of that.

MR. JOHNSON: The next time he comes in,

would you let me know, give me some advance warning.

MR. ROBINSON: I'll try to get a game out at

our TPC course.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions, members, of Mr.

Robinson?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Larry. It's

always a pleasure to have you here.

MR. ROBINSON: Thank you, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We'll finish up the

testimony with Ken Wiegand.

MR. WIEGAND: Good morning, Mr. Chairman,

Mr. Behrens, and commission members. I'm Ken Wiegand.

I'm the airport director at Collin County Regional

Airport.

And Mr. Houghton, I can guarantee you the


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airport is professional managed. I've been in the

business for about 20 years; I retired twice, tried to

retire, but this was just too good an opportunity to

pass up -- I'm talking about Collin County Regional

Airport. It is the epitome of general aviation

reliever airports in the entire national system.

What I wanted to do this morning is just

thank you for your support in the past and especially

for your support today.

The funding that Mr. Fulton has requested

this morning will be used to construct the third of

three taxi lanes that have opened up more than 100

acres of airport property that are presently in demand

by the private sector of aeronautical businesses.

These are businesses that will broaden our tax base and

employ people.

This taxiway, as a matter of fact, is going

to encourage an international company, internationally

renowned company that employs 80 people on the

airport -- they're an aircraft refurbishing company.

Out of those 80 people, 30 percent are minorities.

They bring millions of dollars in tax benefit to our

community.


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The second business is a second fixed-base

operation. It's like a retail service station for

aircraft. It will provide us with competition for the

very first time which will bring our prices down.

That's good for our tenants and for our economy. And

they are going to employ 12 people and bring $31

million in tax value to our airport and to Collin

County.

So with that, I'd just like to thank you for

your support in helping us make this happen. We've got

some other projects we're paying for on our nickel

because they're not eligible for federal funding, and

let's see, I think that they cost around $1.3 million.

We're paying for that on our nickel; we know how

important it is to get those things done.

And so anyway, thank you very much for your

support and we're looking forward to your continued

support in the future. And I thank you for allowing me

to speak, Mr. Chairman.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions for this witness,

members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you. It's good to


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see you again.

Dave, do you want to summarize?

MR. FULTON: Thank you, Chairman Williamson.

It is an important airport, as we feel are

all the airports on the Exhibit A, and we would

recommend approval of the projects that are listed on

Exhibit A for item 3(a).

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard

staff's recommendations, you've heard witnesses and

their viewpoints, and you have the staff's

recommendation in the form of a minute order. Do I

have a motion?

MR. JOHNSON: So moved.

MR. HOUGHTON: Second.



by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.

Let me say, madam, other than toll roads,

we've probably talked about the airport in McKinney,


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Texas more than any other single topic.

MS. LIBECAP: (From audience.) It's a very

important airport.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I know it is. And I would

not want and I think the commission would not want you

to leave here thinking that we don't listen to Cynthia

and yourself and the others who have passionately

argued the position.

The challenge, the charge the commission

faces is administering the law and developing

transportation policy as we understand the governor and

the legislature have instructed us to do. Sometimes

they instruct us to do things we don't like and we do

them anyway, just like sometimes we make decisions that

individuals in the public don't like but we have to

make the decisions anyway.

There is not a unanimous viewpoint of the

best solution for transportation problems in every part

of the state and in every community in the state. We

just trust that you'll go back home knowing that we

really do pay attention, we try to listen to all sides,

and we spent a lot of time looking at this problem

before you ever get here, just like we think about our


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toll policy and we think about our CDA policy and the

other things that advance transportation.

We appreciate you being here and we hope the

day comes when the neighbors around the airport will

say, You know, this is a model economic development

center and we like it. We hope that will happen

someday.

Thank you, Dave.

MR. FULTON: Going to item 3(b), Mike?

MR. BEHRENS: Go ahead.

MR. FULTON: Thank you.

Item 3(b), this minute order is for the

purpose of continuation of the Routine Airport

Maintenance Program for Fiscal Year 2006. This program

allows the department to match local funds for airport

maintenance and small capital improvement work items on

a 50/50 basis, up to a maximum of $30,000 in state

funds per eligible airport. No changes in the program

from Fiscal Year 2005 are proposed.

We would recommend approval of this minute

order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you heard the

staff presentation and the staff recommendation. Do I


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have a motion?


MR. JOHNSON: Second.



by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. FULTON: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll move then to agenda item

number 4 under Public Transportation. Agenda item 4(a)

is going to be deferred. We'll then go to agenda item

4(b) which will be the recommendation to award STP

funds through the 5311 program to capital Area Rural

Transportation System. Making this presentation will

be Eric Gleason, our new Public Transportation

director.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, good morning.

Welcome.

MR. GLEASON: It's good go be here.

MR. HOUGHTON: You're from where, Seattle?


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MR. GLEASON: Seattle, Washington, yes.

MR. HOUGHTON: How do you like the weather

down here?

MR. GLEASON: So far it's hot. This is a

hard time of year to leave the Northwest.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a friend that lives

in an apartment complex where I keep a place down here,

and he came over last night and we were visiting and he

said, Man, I just left Seattle; it was 75, dry and

everything was green. I started laughing and I said,

We just hired a guy away from Seattle that probably

wishes he was back there.

MR. GLEASON: Yes, this is a tough time of

year to leave there. The other nine-ten months would

be easy.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We're glad you're here,

we're glad you're in Texas.

MR. GLEASON: Well, I'm glad to be here.

Mr. Chair, members of the commission, Mr.

Behrens. The minute order in front of you today awards

$480,000 of federal funds, administered through the

FTA, for the non-urbanized program, otherwise known as


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the 5311 Program, to Capital Area Rural Transportation

Services, or CARTS, for the purchase of two commuter

buses. CARTS is the designated sub-recipient for 5311

program funds in the Austin area.

These buses will allow for the expansion of

service levels in the Austin-San Marcos corridor.

CARTS will procure the two buses and then enter into an

interlocal agreement with Texas State University for

the operation and maintenance of the two vehicles.

This will allow service in the corridor to be expanded

from six round trips a day up to ten trips a day.

So I recommend your approval of the minute

order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you heard staff's

explanation and staff's recommendation. Is there

discussion, questions?

MR. JOHNSON: Question. Eric, welcome.

We're delighted you're here. And it will get a little

cooler sometime, so I know you have that to look

forward to.

MR. GLEASON: That's what I'm told.

MR. JOHNSON: CARTS is, in my mind, pretty

responsible in terms of alternatively-fueled vehicles.


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Is there any requirement in 5311 or any of the chapters

like that that require consideration for alternatively-

fueled vehicles, and are these two -- I believe they're

going to Texas State University in San Marcos -- are

they alternatively-fueled?

MR. GLEASON: It's my understanding that

they will use the ultra-low-sulphur diesel fuel, so

they will qualify as an alternatively-fueled vehicle,

yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: What about a requirement?

MR. GLEASON: I'll have to say I'm not

familiar enough with the details of the 5311 program to

know if it's a federal requirement. I do know that as

a matter of policy that we do seek to procure

alternatively-fueled vehicles here in Texas.

MR. JOHNSON: You referred to the diesel.

Is this bio-diesel?

MR. GLEASON: I'm sorry, pardon me?

MR. JOHNSON: You referred to the fuel, the

diesel. Is this bio-diesel fuel?

MR. GLEASON: No. It's an ultra-low-sulphur

diesel fuel. The bio-diesel fuel is different than

that.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: I think some research out

of Lamar University indicates that it actually is less

polluting than natural gas which, of course, I find

frightening.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Other questions or comments

directed to our new leader?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: You've heard the

presentation and the proposal. Is there a motion?





by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MS. ANDRADE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make

a comment. Welcome, Eric, and I certainly look forward

to working with you.

MR. GLEASON: I look forward as well.


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MS. ANDRADE: I've been waiting for you.

MR. GLEASON: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We're always glad to have

new Texans.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 5 will be a

discussion item where we will be talking about possible

rule amendments concerning the approval of connection

of another entity's tolled or non-tolled highway to our

state highway system. Amadeo will make that

presentation.

MR. SAENZ: Good morning, commissioners, Mr.

Behrens, Roger. For the record, Amadeo Saenz,

assistant executive director for Engineering

Operations.

And as Mr. Behrens said, this discussion

item is to get some feedback from the commission as we

begin to develop the proposed rules dealing with

approval of connections to the state highway system

from roads that are constructed by other entities.

And of course, a little bit of history is

prior to 1980, the department was the only governmental

entity with the authority and means to construct,

maintain and operate major high-speed regionally


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significant highway facilities. Of course, over the

years more and more entities have been granted such

powers. Typically these entities must first receive

approval from the department for constructing the

facility.

Some of the entities that now have authority

to construct, operate and maintain toll facilities

include, of course, cities and counties in the

international bridges, regional mobility authorities.

A limited number of private toll road corporations also

have authority to construct toll roads; county toll

road authorities have that same authority; regional

tollway authorities, and of course, this past session

we have a number of special districts.

Most of these entities, by law or by rule,

must first seek approval of the Texas Transportation

Commission. For example, international bridges, the

city or the county must first gain approval from the

commission prior to construction of any new

international bridge.

Regional mobility authorities, by statute

they must receive commission approval prior to any

project that will connect to the state highway system


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or a TxDOT rail.

Private toll road corporations must also

receive commission approval before construction; county

toll road authorities, by law, unless it is waived by

the commission.

A county toll project becomes part of the

state highway system when the debt is paid off. So a

county toll road authority builds a facility; once the

debt is paid off, it then becomes part of the state

highway system, unless prior to that project being

constructed, by law, the commission would have said

that will not become part of the state highway system.

Separate state statutes require the

commission also to approve any toll road that will

become part of the state highway system. This statute

catches all county toll road authorities. Harris

County, however, is exempt from this statute and does

not need to gain any commission approval for projects.

Regional tollway authorities don't need to

gain commission approval for their projects. But our

only regional tollway authority in existence today

which is NTTA, their past practice has been to

recognize the prudence of working together with the


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department closely and with Federal Highway

Administration, and they have voluntarily agreed to

design and construct their facilities to TxDOT

standards and to follow the environmental review

process and public involvement procedures.

Harris County Toll Road Authority has

demonstrated a little bit more independence. One of

the things that we need to look at is that they could

be building a highway that would not be part of -- or

any entities could be building a highway that would not

be part of a transportation improvement program that

could possibly lead into some federal sanctions and

basically shut down the federal program for TxDOT.

We do have rules governing the connection to

the state highway system, however, these rules do not

give the department the ability to deny the connections

based on design and construction or compliance with the

federal requirements. So we're in the process of

putting together rules that would ensure that we have

compliance with federal laws, the major highway

facilities are properly designed and constructed, and

proper statewide planning is included.

And of course, what we'd like to hear from


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you, I've got a series of questions that I'd kind of

like to pose to you to get your feel and your direction

so that we can use that to develop the rules.

Once we have this, we will come back at a

later month and propose the rules so that they can be

there for public comment, and then finalize the rules

at a later date.

Yes, sir?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Stop a moment, Amadeo. A

couple of things need to be noted here for the record.

Not to correct your testimony, but I think what you

meant to say was if given direction from the

commission, you'll bring proposed rules.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir, that's correct.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I do this from time to

time, members, and invariably the person I single out

isn't happy about it, but I have to do it.

James McCarley is a friend of transportation

in this state, and four years ago when I came on the

commission, he paid a courtesy call and he made just a

passing comment about: My observation about the

commission is that you frequently begin making

decisions without giving those of us in the regions and


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the local government fair warning, enough discussion,

enough public hearing, or whatever.

I think Wes Heald at that time, and Mike and

all the staff, I think, legitimately would say we don't

agree with that, we think we do give fair warning. But

the fact that someone like James and others after him

would have that feeling kind of led this commission

towards trying to figure out a way to dialogue with the

public such that no one could ever say they didn't have

fair warning, and from that came the notion of public

discussion, of discussion items.

So James, I give you credit for starting us

down the path of doing business this way.

And I also take this time to sort of educate

everyone that at my request we're going to start

approaching it a little bit differently.

When staff asks me to put discussion items

on the agenda, I'm going to always make them prepare

questions for us so that they're going to lay out what

they think we ought to talk about and then they're

going to submit questions to us. We don't have to

answer them today, but they're basically using this

forum to tell us and the affected public: These are


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the questions we think you, the commission members,

need to be thinking about answering because we perceive

these as the rough spots in this discussion item.

Would that be a fair summary, Amadeo?

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir, that's correct.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So the questions are not

meant to put us on the spot so much as they're meant to

inform us that this is staff's view of what Jim

McCarley is going to say we need to be prepared to

answer in San Antonio, Houston, El Paso, Dallas, and

all points in between.

Please continue, Amadeo.

MR. SAENZ: Okay. Like I said, these are

some of the ideas that we are looking into and some of

the areas that we're looking into. For example, should

the commission or the department staff approve major

connections to the state highway system?

Like I said, we approve them, we have

approval requirements right now for regional mobility

authorities, we have approval requirements for private

toll road authorities. But do we want to make this a

blanket for any toll road that's being developed,

should that be a requirement that that be connected.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: But what if it weren't a

toll road, what if it were a pass-through toll road?

MR. SAENZ: The pass-through toll is on the

state highway system so that project is already on the

state highway system, so we already have the approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm sorry. Go ahead.

MR. SAENZ: Another question that we have

is, of course, if another entity wishes to connect a

regionally significant highway, a major highway in an

area that could be subject to the federal air quality

requirements, it could be subject to other federal

requirements, they want to connect that highway to the

state highway system, would we also want to require

that that highway be part of a conforming TIP for a

metropolitan planning organization.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have another question

about that. Let me give you a for example. The county

judge in Grayson County talks Ross Perot, Jr., into

going up to Grayson County and making that old Army Air

facility a relief feeder for Alliance Airport. He

needs a road that goes from Point A to Point B where no

road exists now and he's willing to pay for it all.

Does your question address that completely


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privately-built road as well as any road built by a

quasi-public entity?

MR. SAENZ: It could be both. Any

regionally significant highway facility.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So your view is we have to

figure out do we want to enforce all highway

construction having to conform to the TIP.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir, that it be included in

that area's metropolitan transportation plan and their

TIP, especially in the areas of non-attainment where

you could get into problems. By adding a facility that

is not in the current TIP, you could get them out of

conformity, and thus impacting the entire area.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, continue.

MR. SAENZ: The third question is, of

course, if another entity wishes to connect a

regionally significant highway to the state highway

system, do we want to require the connection -- for

example, the interchange where we go from their road to

our road -- to be designed and constructed to our

standards.

We do this for regional mobility

authorities. Do we have that requirement and do we


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allow a potential for them to request an exception that

could be granted by the department? We do this for

regional mobility authorities also.

And should there be some TxDOT oversight

over the design and the construction of that facility

that is being constructed that would connect to us?

That's another thing that we need to look at and would

like to get some feedback from you all.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Amadeo, if we were to

require TxDOT standards, would that imply that we had

to be responsible for the environmental process?

MR. SAENZ: No, sir. They would still be

responsible for the environmental process. The

standards I was talking more about is basically the

geometric standards and such.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Not the pre-planning or

pre-design, pre-engineering.

MR. SAENZ: Right. The pre-planning will

come in a little bit. Of course, by the same token,

the project connects to our project, and I think in

looking at it, that interchange is really a project

that is basically owned by both of us.

Do we want to be involved in the approvals


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and the review for the entire project? And that's

another question that we'd like you all to kind of give

us some feedback on. Should we have, basically, on the

rest of the project approval and oversight for how

they're going to develop and approve that project?

MR. WILLIAMSON: That will raise some blood

pressure.

MR. SAENZ: It will.

And of course, one of the major questions --

and we've touched base on it a little bit -- is if the

entity wishes to construct that regionally significant

highway project that connects to the state highway

system, should the entity show evidence of compliance

with the state statutory requirements to provide public

involvement and also to conduct an environmental

review.

This basically applies to an RMA, but do we

want to require it of the other entities that are

constructing toll roads?

We remember when we were in Houston there

was a lot of public input concerning the environmental

process, and the people there, the constituency there

liked the department's environmental process because


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they knew it was set and we were pretty structured, and

you could have different entities that have different

processes.

So should we require them to comply with

TxDOT environmental and public involvement processes

for these projects that are of regional significance

that connect to the state highway system.

And of course, any other regulation or any

requirement that you all think we need to look at, we'd

like to get some feedback so that we can see if we need

to make changes to our proposed rules and then propose

it neatly.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, staff has laid

out -- they've identified a problem for public

discussion which they believe deserves our attention.

They've made some broad recommendations and they've put

to us questions that we have to think about in the next

month or so.

We do have one member of the public who

wishes to comment on this public discussion item, and

we're happy to have him. Do you want to question

Amadeo now or would you rather hear from Allan Rutter

first?


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[Inaudible response.]

MR. WILLIAMSON: Allan, old friend, Allan --

or longtime friend, maybe I should say.

MR. RUTTER: No, I'm getting old.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to

appear this morning.

One of the things we get is we get these

legislative clipping services and that keeps us from

having to recycle too many newspapers, but we've been

reading that there have been some uncharitable

adjectives used to describe what happens in this room

and in this building from around the state, and that is

not our experience with either you or our district

folks in both Fort Worth and Dallas.

And I say that not just to suck up --

although there's part of that -- but it also is to

acknowledge that I have evidence of that, and that is

that we were told that this was going to happen today,

before today. Several weeks ago your staff called us

to apprise us of this discussion.

And frankly, one of the reasons I wanted to

be here is to tell you how much we appreciate the

collaboration and sense of partnership that we have


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with the department, both here and in Dallas and Fort

Worth. Saying that we owe our success to your support

is not just stating the obvious, it's a gross

understatement.

I'm sure that these rules that you're

contemplating come from a really good idea in general.

TxDOT has a really obvious and central interest in the

manner in which other people's roads connect to your

system, but we hope, on behalf of my board of directors

at the NTTA and our staff, that you not take a one-

size-fits-all approach to this issue, particularly in

light of the wide array of toll authorities that are or

will be operating in the state.

I've got two reasons for our request. One

is legal -- isn't everything -- and the other more

important one is practical.

First, from a legal standpoint it's

important to recognize that the NTTA's enabling

legislation addresses the issue of connecting to the

state highway system in a very different manner from

the way that issue is addressed in the enabling statute

for other toll authorities -- particularly RMAs -- and

for other entities connecting onto or as part of the


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state highway system.

Our enabling statute doesn't require as much

TxDOT oversight over as many issues when the NTTA

wishes to connect our projects to your system. There's

probably a reason for that distinction in our

legislation. At the time the NTTA was created in 1997,

our statutory predecessor, the former Texas Turnpike

Authority, had been building and operating turnpikes

for over 40 years and had demonstrated its ability to

connect to your roadways in a manner that met your

admittedly and reasonably high standards and

expectations.

So we're urging that your proposed access

rules for the NTTA be different from your rules for

other toll providers for the simple reason that our law

is different. But frankly, the most important reason

for why those rules should be different is not legal,

it's practical.

As I mentioned before, we're an established

toll road authority, now with over 50 years' experience

of building turnpikes. Our projects connect to several

of those roadways, and in every one of those instances,

our staff, working with yours, has been able to


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structure an agreement to effect that connection

tailored to the specific circumstances of each one of

those interchanges.

We believe that the flexibility has been

enormously beneficial to both our organizations, we

sincerely hope that it not be constrained or eliminated

by rules that attempt to regulate our 50-year-old

authority in the same way as a startup. However we

accomplish that distinction in the rules is something

we can work out.

We prefer to be omitted from those rules and

to allow the terms of our statute and the specific

tailored features of each individual ILA with you to

control. Maybe the rules would, instead, provide

exceptions for experienced toll authorities.

But however it's accomplished, the NTTA

hopes that nothing changes in these rules that in turn

compels our organizations to change the way we've

successfully addressed this issue up to now at your

State Highway 121, State Highway 78, US 75 and twice at

both Interstate 35 and Interstate 635.

Maintaining that flexibility will allow for

the best use of TxDOT's resources and ensures that our


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successful approach to this issue will continue.

I really, really appreciate the opportunity

for us to be able to express our views on this before

you do the rulemaking. Thanks.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, you're always

articulate in expressing a logical viewpoint of the

department.

Members, any questions of Allan, discussion

with Allan?

MR. JOHNSON: It's good to see you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Always good to see you,

Allan.

MS. ANDRADE: It's good to see you. I have

a question, and thank you for working so closely with

us. Has that impaired or has that delayed any of your

projects?

MR. RUTTER: No. Part of that is due to the

attentiveness that we've received from both district

offices, and I think that's always been good.

The extent to which the department is now

getting into the toll business now provides them with

the same kind of impetus that we've always experienced

which is we've got to get these roads built and start


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collecting money because that's what our bondholders

expect of us.

But our past has been distinguished by a

real cooperation that our being able to build a

facility enables people who are using the state highway

facility to use that. The better we make that

interchange, the better we construct it, the more we

make sure it meets your expectations and standards, the

longer it's going to stand up there and the longer it's

going to serve the user of the state highway system

whose gas taxes have been used to build it.

MS. ANDRADE: Thank you.

MR. HOUGHTON: Wouldn't you think, though,

Allan, that the standard that you've all agreed to with

TxDOT should be a benchmark for the state and then you

can start from that point?

MR. RUTTER: Well, I appreciate Amadeo

saying that we've chosen to use your standards. We

design to the AASHTO guidelines; we want to do so

because we want to make sure that our customers have a

safe road to drive on.

We construct our roads to TxDOT's

specifications in large part because contractors know


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what that is. That helps us get a road built faster

and cheaper instead of coming up with our set of

specifications.

I guess my only question would be that it be

specific to the interchange or the project that you're

building, that there be enough flexibility that you

give to your district engineers to deal with whatever

they have on the ground there.

A number of the things that you talked

about, making sure that something is in the TIP, we

require that of any of our projects. Before a local

government wants us to build something, it has to be in

the TIP, both from a regional priority standpoint and

from the air quality standpoint.

And making sure that some of those standards

and specifications are met, that may not be a high

hurdle for us. We just want to caution as those rules

are being developed that they build in enough

flexibility for your DEs to deal with changing

circumstances down on the ground.

MR. HOUGHTON: And I can ask Amadeo, do we

build in enough with our DEs to have that kind of

latitude?


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MR. SAENZ: Again, for the record, Amadeo

Saenz. And we have, to some extent, because most of

our rules require that you meet TxDOT or AASHTO

standards or you can request for a design exception,

and that would be kind of like the special

circumstance: you want to do something different

that's not exactly tied to that standard. So that

flexibility can be incorporated.

MR. HOUGHTON: And the DE has that

authority?

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir, or it would be done at

a higher level, even up to Mr. Behrens, if it needs to

be.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions, members,

comments?

MR. JOHNSON: I have an observation, I

guess. Allan, a lot of what you brought, I concur

with.

I'm going to put this in two perspectives.

First of all, whatever we do, we cannot run the risk of

losing federal funding. I think that's a given that

all parties would agree with. On the other end of

that, I want to put what I'll refer to as our


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partners -- and that's collectively -- all the

entities, both public and private, that can do

facilities that they would want to have access to the

state highway system.

My thought is that we cannot run the risk of

making the requirements so onerous that it discourages

the development of transportation assets, nor should

they be so onerous that they delay project delivery.

And there is a wide area in between those two

requirements, the loss of federal funds and the

discouragement of so many or so onerous requirements

that we impede the development of transportation assets

and throw in requirements that delay project delivery.

I think there's ground in there. I think in

golf parlance it's the rough on one side and the rough

on the other side of the fairway, and there's the

fairway in between.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I think you, and to a

certain extent Ted, make the case for the limited

regulation or no regulation approach, which

philosophically I share. But I think the difficulty,

when staff asked to bring this forward as a public

discussion item, we see a lot on the inside that isn't


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yet in the public's eye -- will be but isn't yet -- and

what we see, particularly what staff sees, is an

explosion of transportation authorities of different

types soon to be approved and in operation.

And while we will strive to be, as Jerry

Dike said earlier, 100 percent perfect, we know that

ultimately some of these authorities, private sector

initiatives are not going to succeed, and that we

intentionally plan for the day that we'll have to take

one back or take one over.

And I think staff's concern is how do you

pick the one that's going to succeed or not succeed, or

how do you prepare for the day that one of them is not

going to, and we don't want to have handed back to us

an asset collapsing around our heads that people have

been injured on that we have to take gasoline tax money

from the motorists in Cameron County to go repair. I

think that's where they're trying to go with it. So

that's kind of the slice and the hook rough of that

problem.

And we hear what you're saying now and we

appreciate what you're saying, and I'm not sure how far

we're going to ask staff to move forward with this


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initiative, and if we do, we will answer these

questions for them, and we'll have lots of public

hearings.

I appreciate your comments about public

hearings. I don't mind being criticized for my

decisions, but it really caught me off guard when

somebody said we don't listen to the public. That's

pretty silly.

MR. RUTTER: Well, that's not been our

experience, and we look forward to working with your

staff on this and other issues. Thanks.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thanks, Allan.

Amadeo, do you want to sum up?

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. I think from what I

heard -- and of course, we will be visiting with you

all a little bit more during the next couple of

weeks -- basically we need to have some flexibility,

that we also need to make sure that we don't jeopardize

any of the federal funding. So we're kind of working

between the two roughs and hopefully we can hit a

straight drive.

MR. HOUGHTON: We don't compromise quality

and safety.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: We're trying to develop an

entrepreneurial transportation world. We don't want to

sit on entrepreneurs, we don't want to sacrifice

integrity or quality at the same time.

I suggest you make sure commission

administrative assistants have the questions so that

they'll ask us to confront what I think our answers

are, and let's dialogue with the commission one-on-one

through the next couple of weeks before we go to the

next step.

MR. SAENZ: We will do that. And we

understand the different entities have the different

levels of expertise and experience, and I think we

could probably learn from our past experience in

developing projects and putting in place something that

will work for all of us. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: Commissioners, our next agenda

item is in the form of a report on the US 59 corridor

in Bee, Goliad, and Live Oak counties between George

West and Victoria. I'd like to introduce Bee County

Judge Jimmy Martinez, who will open this report, and

then he will introduce the other speakers.


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Judge Martinez, welcome.

JUDGE MARTINEZ: Thank you. Good morning,

Mr. Chairman.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Judge, thank you for being

so patient with us this morning.

JUDGE MARTINEZ: Thank you. We understand,

and thank you very much for having us this morning.

My name is Jimmy Martinez and I'm county

judge for Bee County, and we're here today to give you

a report and update on what has transpired with the

Tri-County Coalition.

First of all, I'd like to tell you that the

Tri-County Coalition was formed in 2003 and consists of

the county judges from Bee County, Goliad County, and

Live Oak County. It also consists of the mayors of

those counties, and also included in the coalition is

our Bee County Commissioner Susan Stasny and David

Flores who is doing work for us in trying to put all

this together for us.

In 2003, the Tri-County Coalition was

successful in securing $10 million from the Texas

Department of Transportation -- thank you for that --

so that we could expand Highway 59 from a two-lane


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highway to a super-two highway. We are very grateful

to TxDOT for the upgrade for a super-two highway in our

region.

However, we have also become concerned with

rapidly changing events that have occurred within our

region. The coalition has come to a consensus that

circumstances within the Tri-County Coalition have

dramatically changed within the last 12 months, and the

coalition is seeking now to expand our super-two

highway to a four-lane highway.

At the forefront of this decision is:

safety; a memorandum of understanding, an MOU, between

the Port of Houston and the Port of Victoria; Chase

Field has now opened the airport and is a public

airport and Goliad County has opened up their public

airport also; the Central American Free Trade

Agreement; and the new HR-3, Safe, Accountable,

Flexible, Efficient Transportation Act.

While we realize that the I-69 corridor will

relieve the barriers in commerce, experts predict that

the completion of the I-69 corridor is 10 to 50 years

away. Our presentation today does not in any way

oppose the I-69 corridor. I, as an active member of


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the I-69 Alliance, support TxDOT in its efforts with

the I-69 corridor project. However, the issues that

exist on US Highway 59 are in the here and now.

We simply would request that you, as TxDOT

members and commissioners, would consider our issues,

our potential contribution to state revenues, and our

petition.

At this time I'd like to introduce our next

speaker who is county commissioner from Bee County,

Susan Stasny.

Thank you so much, and I do appreciate the

work you do for Texas. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Judge.

MS. STASNY: Hello. I'm Susan Stasny. Mr.

Chairman, commissioners, Mr. Behrens, we want to thank

you for the help that you've given us in the past, and

we're honored to be here before you today. I've been

here numerous times since I was first elected in 1986.

We come today to discuss the progress that

has been made on US 59 in the past few years. The Tri-

County Coalition is pleased that TxDOT has scheduled

the construction of a four-lane highway on US 59 from

Victoria to Goliad. That 23-mile stretch of highway


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has been long overdue for expansion.

It is the prayer and the dream of our

citizens in Bee County that the expansion of US 59

would continue south for another 47 miles to I-37 in

Live Oak County. We support and anticipate the I-69

corridor, but I must echo the concerns voiced by County

Judge Jimmy Martinez that we are seeing the increased

traffic now and we have the safety issues now.

We believe the solutions that we present

today are in the best interest of the state of Texas,

TxDOT and the Tri-County region. We ask that you

consider our presentation favorably.

For our part, the coalition will proceed

with its plan to seek a foreign trade zone for NAS

Chase Field that was a former air station, to promote

the flow of foreign commerce, in addition to seeking

four lanes for US 59 to accommodate the increased NAFTA

and CAFTA trade.

At this time I'd like to introduce County

Judge Jim Huff, Live Oak County.

JUDGE HUFF: Thank you, Commissioner.

Mr. Chairman, honorable members of this

commission. I want to first of all begin by thanking


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you for hearing us today on an issue that we feel is of

tremendous importance, not only to our region but to

the state as well.

Live Oak County is very proud to be a part

of the Tri-County Coalition. Our county seat is George

West, it is the hub for traffic coming from the Valley

on US 281 and for traffic coming from Laredo on US 59.

Live Oak County's major industries include

petroleum and refining with Valero Energy, and tourism

and recreation on Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon

Reservoir.

Because our lake levels have been at

capacity for the last few years, we have seen a drastic

increase on tourism traffic on the US 59 corridor.

This, coupled with the use of heavy oil and gas

vehicles on US 59 has caused our accident rate to

quadruple since 2000.

A study done in 1999 revealed that

approximately eight out of ten vehicles using the

western half of US 59 in our counties were heavy

trucks.

A point of concern, a focus of mine also

involves the IH 37/US 59 interchange. It remains a


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high accident area and increased traffic perpetuates

the problem of bottlenecking.

Live Oak County wants to thank the Texas

Department of Transportation for upgrading US Highway

59 to a super-two highway, but as you will see, we

believe that the time has come for US 59 to realize its

full potential and be converted into a four-lane

highway.

At this time I would like to introduce Mr.

David Flores, our knowledgeable consultant for the Tri-

County Coalition project.

MR. FLORES: Good morning, Mr. Chairman,

commissioners. Thank you for having me. Mr. Behrens,

thank you.

Before I proceed with the presentation, I'd

like to acknowledge the presence of Nelson Salinas. He

is the chief of staff for State Representative Yvonne

Toureilles. His assistance and guidance has been of a

tremendous help to us and we thank the state rep as

well.

Also present was a member of Senator

Zaffirini's staff who was called away, though, on

urgent business, and we anticipate his return.


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The Tri-County Coalition is located in south

Texas on US 59. The Department of Public Safety from

our region had indicated that accidents on US 59 in

some regions quadrupled between 2000 and 2003.

Contributing factors to the safety issues on

US 59, we believe, are the increase in border traffic

from both personal and commercial vehicles. Laredo

alone, total northbound vehicle crossings have steadily

increased to the current 2005 level of 7 million

vehicles per year. Commercial truck traffic accounts

for approximately 1.5 million of the 7 million vehicles

crossing annually at the border.

Surface trade from NAFTA increased 8.9

percent from May 2004 to May 2005. In a July 28, 2005

report, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics

reported that surface trade from NAFTA had increased

8.9 percent. The report further indicated that Texas

led all states in surface trade with Mexico in May with

$6.5 million. Texas has always led the nation as far

as doing business with Mexico, one, because of its

proximity, and two, because of the trucks coming at 1.5

million every year.

The other issue that has contributed to our


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accidents is the memorandum of understanding between

the Port of Houston and the Port of Victoria. As we

know, in an effort to reduce vehicle air emission in

and around the Houston area, the Port of Houston signed

a memorandum with the Port of Victoria that would

divert some ships from Houston to Victoria. Houston is

hoping that some of that traffic would also follow the

ships.

The result is that more trucks leaving

Laredo previously bound for Houston are now using US 59

to reach the Port of Victoria.

A crisis on US 59. Again, this is an

example of what DPS has given us. These red stars

indicate the fatalities on US 59 between 2000 and 2004.

You have one blue dot there; those are the rest of the

blue dots. Those indicate injury and non-injury

accidents on US 59. We're talking about a 30-mile

stretch of highway.

As I mentioned, there was a crisis on US 59,

and the symbol for crisis in Chinese is composed of two

words: Danger and Opportunity. While the Tri-County

Coalition recognizes the dangers on our highway, we

choose to push toward the opportunity that lies before


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us, and our opportunity is our resources. While our

resources are vast, no one county can prosper without

the resources of the other two.

Bee County currently is in possession of

Chase Field Airport with three 8,000-foot runways.

Those are approximately two-mile runways.

Goliad County is in possession of two 8,000-

foot runways. Any plane in the world that exists today

can land at our airports.

Live Oak County, as Judge Huff mentioned,

contains I-37, US 281, Valero Refinery, is a hub for

traffic from the Valley and from Laredo, and is a major

tourist area.

We believe opportunity is calling. This is

a picture of Chase Field Airport. The Tri-County

Coalition has moved to secure agreements between the

Port of Victoria, to promote international trade

through the use of foreign trade zones at both Goliad

County Airport and Chase Field Airport.

The coalition believes that securing foreign

trade zone statuses at our airports could create

tremendous revenue potentials for Texas and our region.

The opportunity of location. We believe the


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coalition is centrally located. We're 19 miles west of

the Port of Victoria, 60 miles north of the Port of

Corpus Christi, 80 miles south of the Toyota plant

which is scheduled to come on line in 2006, 160 miles

west of the Port of Houston, and 160 miles east of the

Laredo border.

The opportunity of alternatives. With the

West Coast ports in so much trouble, the global market

is looking for alternatives. West Coast port labor

strikes last year cost the global market over a billion

dollars.

And this is a statement from Jim McKenna,

the Pacific Maritime Association president:

Overcrowding at Southern California's

largest ports and rising fuel costs are creating

logistic nightmares. West Coast ports are running out

of available land for terminal expansion, creating the

necessity for increased productivity on every existing

acre.

Over the next ten years, cargo volume from

Asia is expected to be double today's levels.

According to the Wall Street Journal, West Coast ports

lag far behind their counterpart in the world. The


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Port of Hong Kong, for example, handles more than four

times the volume of cargo per acre as the most

productive ports on the West Coast.

In Singapore, trucks wait less than a minute

to pick up their cargo; in Long Beach, California, the

wait averages 2-1/2 hours. The West Coast waterfront

is becoming a costly bottleneck in the global supply

chain. The inefficient use of available technologies

and work practices that reduce productivity in the West

Coast container yards costs the maritime industry as

much as a billion dollars annually.

With 4 billion jobs nationwide depending on

the West Coast and with that trade expected to double

in the next ten years, it is essential that we find

ways to fix this bottleneck in the global supply chain.

This morning, commissioners, we'd like to

introduce to you the concept of the AirMaquila Project

which we believe will greatly benefit Texas. The Tri-

County Coalition believes the maquiladora system could

be used to our advantage to create AirMaquila.

Making use of the five 8,000-foot runways,

manufacturers in the U.S. could barge their product

from the Port of Houston to the Port of Victoria, then


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air cargo their product from our runways to China, then

return the finished product to the U.S. for

distribution. Export and assembly and distribution

times using the AirMaquila system would be equal to or

better than the traditional maquiladora system.

A more enticing aspect of the AirMaquila

method is that the average rate of pay for an assembly

parts person in China averages 60 cents an hour

compared to Mexico's $2.50 to $3.00 per hour wage.

Air cargo flights will reduce imports and

export arrival times to a matter of days. Ships bound

for the West Coast ports could be delayed for up to six

weeks. Now, four of those weeks are traveling, the

other two they're usually waiting to dock so that they

can disembark their cargo.

Opportunity of trend. Air freight is the

fastest growing segment of U.S. cargo economy. That's

according to the Bureau of Transportation in 2004. As

you know, HR-3 hopefully will give the State of Texas

the tremendous revenue boost and we could use that to

help complete the four-lane construction on US 59.

We anticipate, also, an increased trade with

Central America with the CAFTA agreement. And of


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course, the San Antonio Toyota manufacturing plant is

scheduled to come on line. We believe there that

Toyota can air cargo their parts to Bee County or

Goliad County and then transport them to San Antonio --

it's, again, 80 miles -- as opposed to using the ships.

Benefits of capitalizing on opportunity.

Perhaps the greatest for the state is the reduction of

air emissions for Houston. This provides Houston with

another plan of action for air emissions with the

federal government. It opens the Eastern global market

to Texas. Airports would also serve the three

seaports, Corpus Christi, Victoria, and Houston, would

serve the Laredo border, and of course, San Antonio.

The utilization of these resources could

also promote I-69 in Washington. We believe that with

the influx of commerce in that region, the revenues

created would be recognized in Washington and they

would continue or increase efforts to fund that

highway.

It promotes economic growth for all of

Texas. Farmers, ranchers, fishermen, virtually all

industries in Texas could air export their products to

anywhere in the world within 24 hours.


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One of the examples I use is between

Victoria County and Goliad County, there's a ranch

called the O'Connor Ranch and they had a tremendous

problem with the wild pigs or wild hogs. They began to

slaughter them and found that in Europe the Europeans

loved wild pigs.

So they began exporting them and found that

that was a niche no one else had, so it's a totally new

industry for them. Their biggest issue was getting it

to Europe in a timely manner, and within 24 hours now

they can slaughter a hog and get it to the Europeans.

Impediment to the opportunity and commerce.

Well, obviously lack of a sound highway infrastructure

to accommodate current and prospective usage. Here we

see pictures on US 59 where trucks pass one another in

spite of a no passing zone, and the result of that is

what we see here, all too common on US 59.

Again, 232 accidents from 2000 to 2004.

We believe the solutions to the impediment

of commerce are the construction of a four-lane highway

on US 59 from Victoria to I-37 at Live Oak County.

Now, we're really just talking about a 47-mile stretch

of highway because the approval for a four-lane


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construction from Victoria to Goliad is already there,

so we're talking 47 miles.

The Tri-County Coalition will also study the

feasibility of an RMA, or regional mobility authority.

In rural Texas those are a little difficult and people

in rural Texas don't like the idea of paying a toll. I

travel to Houston quite a bit, I love it because it

cuts my time down. But we believe we'd be paid in

lead, and it's not nickels but bullets.

TxDOT and the Tri-County Coalition could

work together toward the construction of a four-lane

highway on US 59 using HR-53, and we believe if we

partner that it would be beneficial for everyone in the

state of Texas, not just our region.

In conclusion, the utilization and the

benefit of the resources that the Tri-County Coalition

possesses can greatly commercially benefit not only our

region but all of Texas. The utilization and benefit

of the resources can only be realized if US 59 is

converted into a four-lane highway along the Tri-County

region.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've seen the

presentation. Do you have questions of this witness?


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MR. HOUGHTON: The truck count in that 30-

mile corridor, do you have an accurate truck count?

MR. FLORES: We don't have an accurate truck

count on that. I know when they do the traffic counts,

we can't distinguish between the two. So we have just

visually seen an increase in the trucks.

MR. HOUGHTON: So the trucks leaving Laredo

are going up through 59?

MR. FLORES: Not all of them.

MR. HOUGHTON: Well, I mean some of them.

MR. FLORES: The traditional route when

they're going to Houston is I-35 to I-10 in Houston.

That is a 71-mile route longer than taking US 59. If

you drew a straight line from Laredo to Houston, the

Tri-County region would be right there, and that's 71

miles shorter but it's two lanes.

We believe with the increase of fuel costs

and, of course, the MOU, trucks have begun using our

route more.

MR. JOHNSON: Did you say that the

alternative route to Houston from Laredo is 35 to 10?

MR. FLORES: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: And it's 71 miles farther.


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MR. FLORES: Right.

MS. ANDRADE: First of all, I want to thank

you all for coming and I want to congratulate you all

for working together. It's great to see the coalition

being formed, it's great to hear that you're

considering an RMA. I understand tolls are not easy to

sell in your area.

But I have a question for Craig, our DE.

MR. CLARK: Good morning, commissioners, Mr.

Behrens. For the record, my name is Craig Clark and I'm

district engineer in the Corpus Christi District.

MS. ANDRADE: Craig, what size of a project

are we talking about regarding money?

MR. CLARK: For the gap to upgrade it

from --

MS. ANDRADE: Two to four.

MR. CLARK: To the four-lane would probably

increase $113 million for the whole thing.

MS. ANDRADE: Did we have this project get

any safety project money?

MR. CLARK: No, it wasn't considered in the

safety bond.

MS. ANDRADE: Did we submit it?


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MR. CLARK: No, it wasn't included in that.

It didn't fit the categories that we had to look at

that.


MR. JOHNSON: Craig, there's one gap, is

there not, in there that's two-lane between two

sections of four-lane?

MR. CLARK: Yes. Actually it's two gap

sections between Beeville, on either side of Beeville.

From Beeville to 37 we have a two-lane highway existing

with a proposed -- well, actually with a super-two

section under construction. And then from Beeville to

Goliad, that section is currently two-lane and we have

a proposed super-two application for that section.

MR. JOHNSON: The conversion from a super-

two to a four-lane divided, is that complex and

expensive or are doing the planning such that we can

make that conversion as economically and as efficiently

as possible?

MR. CLARK: We haven't really done a whole

lot of planning in a conversion from the super-two.

The decision was made some time ago to apply the super-

two to these two-lane sections to address the safety in


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that area, to improve the operation and particularly

the passing criticality at that traffic volume, and

make this a safety enhancement that would not take any

right of way or require any environmental clearance

because there would be no added capacity. The

conversion from a two-lane to a super-two doesn't add

capacity for that purpose, for the environmental

purpose.

There hasn't really been much study for what

you would do with a super-two to take it to a four-lane

or four-lane divided.

MR. HOUGHTON: Craig, do you have traffic

counts on this?

MR. CLARK: Yes.

MR. BEHRENS: Commissioner Houghton, if

you'll look in your briefing book.

MR. HOUGHTON: I'm like Johnny, I have not

gone through it.

MR. BEHRENS: You haven't looked at it?

MR. JOHNSON: No, that was David Laney.

(General laughter.)

MR. BEHRENS: We have the current traffic

counts, projected traffic counts through 2025.


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MR. HOUGHTON: I see the counts.

MR. BEHRENS: And if you look at the bottom

figure, there is a percentage of trucks on those

particular points along that corridor.

MR. HOUGHTON: So around 22 percent is your

truck traffic.

MR. SAENZ: For the record, Amadeo Saenz. I

think, Commissioner, if you look at it on the average,

in 2005 the current traffic is somewhere around a

little bit over 7,000 vehicles per day.

MR. HOUGHTON: And 20 percent, 22 percent.

MR. SAENZ: And 20 percent, so about 1,400-

1,500 of those are trucks.

MR. HOUGHTON: A day.

MR. SAENZ: I'm sorry?

MR. HOUGHTON: How many?

MR. SAENZ: About 1,400-1,500. 20 percent

of those. You have your average daily traffic varies

from 8,400 to 7,200, and then about 20-22 percent of

those are trucks.

MR. HOUGHTON: On a daily basis?

MR. SAENZ: On a daily basis, yes, sir.

MS. ANDRADE: So these numbers are daily?


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MR. SAENZ: This is your average daily

traffic for 2005. And of course, the three numbers

that you had in your book, the first number was 2003,

then 2005, and our projected 2025 numbers.

MR. HOUGHTON: You're talking about $100

million project to go to a four-divided? What's the

feasibility of a toll facility on that or a truck toll

facility on that if you're doing 1,400-1,500 trucks a

day, if you offer trucks a faster way to get to market?

MR. CLARK: With exclusive truck lanes

separated?

MR. HOUGHTON: Yes.

MR. CLARK: It's probably very viable, and

that's in consideration as part of the TTC element in

TTC I-69 would be the truck lane component of that

facility, and I believe it's considered to be quite

viable.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Amadeo, is this part of the

59 footprint within the study parameters of TTC-69?

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir, that's correct. As

part of the TTC I-69, the study area encompasses all of

what was the old Corridor 18, Corridor 20 which was US

59, all of those are there. We are moving forward with


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our environmental study, our tier one of that, and

hopefully by the end of the year, the first part of

next year we will have the TTC-69 corridor identified.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm just curious, and I'm

not using this as a reflection of how I view the

report, but how do our partners at the I-69 Coalition

view this request? Wouldn't want to speak for them?

MR. SAENZ: I wouldn't want to speak for

them.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That speaks volumes.

Is Coby Chase in the room? May I speak with

you on the record, Mr. Chase?

MR. CHASE: For the record, my name is Coby

Chase, director of the Government and Enterprises

Division.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Have we had any contact

from our I-69 partners about this particular report?

MR. CHASE: No, not that I'm aware of.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do we have any reason to

believe under SAFTEA LU, is any of I-69 or TTC-69

financed for construction?

MR. CHASE: No.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Will it ever be financed by


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the federal government?

MR. CHASE: Never.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, thank you.

Amadeo, back to you. Do we have private

sector entities interested in building TTC-69?

MR. SAENZ: I have not had anyone come talk

to me directly about TTC-69, but we have a lot of

private sector companies that are looking at a lot of

our facilities. I would imagine that there are some.

There has been some talk about I-69 with respect to

connecting the Port of Corpus Christi to the Port of

Laredo.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is Phil Russell in the

audience?

MR. BEHRENS: I don't see him right now.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm kind of curious, in

processing this request, what would be the impact on a

private sector proposal from Laredo to Corpus Christi

if this facility were a tax road in the middle of the

proposed -- there's Phil. Do you think he's been

watching CSPAN or been watching us? Think he knows

what we're talking about?

MR. SAENZ: Of course, any capacity that you


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add on 59 will have an impact on the TTC-69 corridor in

that these two corridors, if they're not one and the

same, that the environmental study determines that,

will be in competition for the traffic that goes up and

down that area.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Phil, have you been keeping

up with what we're talking about, this particular US 59

report from these three counties?

MR. RUSSELL: For the record, Phillip

Russell with the Turnpike Division.

A little bit. The bottom line, whatever the

boss said was exactly right. But if you could restate

that question, I will confirm that.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, these good citizens

have presented a report on their particular safety and

transportation problems on US 59, and the conclusion of

the report is that the department needs to commit from

$100- to $125 million in resources to make it a four-

lane divided road from a Point A to a Point B.

Now, my question to Amadeo was is the

current 59 footprint in these three counties part of

the TTC-69 study.


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MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And my next question was

will I-69 ever be funded by the federal government, and

Coby Chase, correctly I think, said no, nor would TTC-

69 ever be funded by the federal government.

So then my last question was what would be

the impact on any private sector proposer if this

facility were enlarged a year or two or three years

before they proposed and kept open as a tax road. What

would be the probable impact on the proposals the state

would receive for the larger corridor?

MR. RUSSELL: And I think that's probably

where I walked in where the boss was talking about the

potential for competition or to the extent that it

might affect those private sector proposals.

And I think that something, Chairman,

obviously you always have to look at. Any private

sector proposal would always look at all the options,

whether it's improving the existing 59 footprint or

expanding off location. I mean, that's part of that

environmental process that we're looking at right now.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, let's say that we

decided to build TTC-69 not as a private sector asset


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but as a public sector asset.

MR. RUSSELL: As a toll road?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Right. How would the

existence of that traffic lane as a tax road affect our

ability to borrow money to build the parallel toll

road?

MR. RUSSELL: I think, Chairman, it would

probably detract from that standpoint.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It would lower our ability

to borrow money?


MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Phil.

I would be interested, Amadeo or Craig, in

knowing how the I-69 Coalition views this, because

they've been our partner steady and strong for the last

four years, and that would have an effect on at least

my thinking. I can't speak for the other

commissioners.

MR. SAENZ: I will make contact with them.

I know that they have been very supportive of the

entire I-69 corridor and have been with us side-by-side

in supporting our moving forward with the development

of the I-69 corridor throughout the state of Texas.


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But I will call and verify that and get something to

you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm sorry. Members, other

questions?

MR. JOHNSON: Amadeo, is it accurate to say

that the designation or delineation of the I-69

corridor has been a factor in the development of this

segment of US 59? In other words, we're trying to not

do something there and then have to do something else

later on after the I-69 corridor is developed?

MR. SAENZ: That's correct, sir. But as we

move forward, there's no money for I-69. If you go out

and expand a facility that will be in competition with

I-69, you lose the potential for some private

partnership, you also lose potential in the public

market to go out there and secure funding from the

public to be able to build a facility like I-69.

MR. JOHNSON: We talk about competition, but

it occurs to me that the I-69 corridor, at least one of

its abilities or intentions is to get traffic not only

from Laredo but McAllen and Brownsville. Let's assume

for a moment that the US 77 corridor becomes the main

component of I-69. We still have the issue of how you


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get traffic from Laredo to that main element and also

from McAllen to that main element.

And the same thing could be said if we use

281, you still have the Laredo component and you have

the Brownsville component, and the same thing for 59,

you've still got to get the Valley traffic up there.

MR. SAENZ: All of those are being addressed

as part of the 69-TTC study is how do you make the

connections and how do you address the connection from

Laredo towards Houston, let's say for example, and from

the Rio Grande Valley towards Houston, and all of that

will be resolved.

Of course, another component is the 35-TTC

corridor that we're developing and that has an access

to Laredo, so how do those all combine and you convert

it into a chicken leg or is it a two-legged chicken or

is a three-legged chicken or is it a five-legged

chicken. We'll have to find out.

(General laughter.)

MR. SAENZ: The environmental study will let

us determine that and we're within probably a year of

being able to know kind of how the main connections

will connect.


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The direction that we chose to go on 59,

because we recognized that there was traffic and there

was a need, is we went to the super-two. The super-two

was developed as part of our research program to be

able to allow us to address very quickly areas where

you had a lot of traffic, a rolling terrain where you

needed to have a method to allow people to pass without

having to go into the opposite lane, and it's proven to

work very well across the state.

And that's why we chose to go this way, we

could very easily super-two this thing in a very short

time frame without having to go out there and acquire

additional right of way and with minimal -- meeting the

required environmental process but it would not take us

as much because it's much simpler to do.

I think your question earlier, moving

forward to develop this facility from a two-lane to a

four-lane will require an extensive environmental

process. We think that what we're doing on the 69-TTC

will also address the environmental process that we

need to do for this that will determine the route, and

if later on something needs to be done to 59, we will

have a lot of the data that will allow us to move


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forward.

But the 69-TTC environmental study is going

to be our key to allow us to determine the direction

that we need to go finally.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, it occurs to me that

regardless of which leg of the chicken becomes the main

leg of I-69 that this element is going to either become

the Laredo element to connect into I-69, or if that is

selected as the main I-69 corridor, it becomes then

built to interstate standards. So either way at some

point in time it's going to be done, it's just a matter

of how and when.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And maybe as importantly, a

matter of how to pay for it and when.

Hope, Ted, anything else?

MS. ANDRADE: I just have one other

question. Judge and commissioners, have you been

briefed on what we're talking about on the TTC? So you

know? I just want to make sure that you understand

what we're trying to accomplish and why it's important

that we understand what you're trying to accomplish.

MR. FLORES: Yes, Commissioner, we have been


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briefed on that, and as Judge Martinez had mentioned,

though, in the briefings we received, the projected

completion dates for the corridor were 10 to 50 years

away, and as he said, the issues are now.

And you saw the accidents on there, they're

going to continue to happen, so when our citizens cry

out to us that something needs to be done, of course,

we come to you and say something needs to be done.

MS. ANDRADE: Well, I'm in your area often

so maybe Craig and I could sit down with you all and

visit and see how we can continue working together.

MR. FLORES: And on that same note, we would

like to thank Mr. Clark and his staff. They've been

tremendous for us, helping us put the presentation

together and anything we've asked for, he's given us.

He's given us things that we didn't know to ask for

that have been of tremendous help. And that's a

reflection, of course, of the commission itself, so

thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you and thank you for

your time and sharing with us.

MS. ANDRADE: One more thing.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hope.


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MS. ANDRADE: Yes, Craig is great, I'd like

to echo that. And Judge from Live Oak, I'd like to say

that you do have a very protected community. Since I

drive through there often, I'm stopped quite often, so

I am contributing to your county.

JUDGE HUFF: I'm going to give you my card.

MR. WILLIAMSON: She's in line to succeed

Robert Nichols as a speed verifier.

MR. JOHNSON: Are you trying to get one of

those letters from the DPS?

MS. ANDRADE: Well, one evening you stopped

me a couple of times, so thanks very much for reminding

me to get home safely.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: We thank you for your time

in making us aware of this situation. As I'm sure you

know, we don't make decisions like that immediately and

from the podium, but we appreciate and will carefully

consider what you've shown us today. Thank you very

much.

Mike, let's push through.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll then go to agenda item

number 7 which is our proposed rules for the month of


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August, rules for proposed adoption. Our first one

will be 7(a)(1)(a), and that will be presented by

Richard Monroe, and also 7(a)(1)(b). Richard?

MR. MONROE: Thank you, Mr. Behrens. Good

morning. My name is Richard Monroe and I'm general

counsel of the department.

Since I'm going to do three of these in a

row, I will take this opportunity and be quick about

it. Under the law that applies to these, it is

necessary for the commission to vote to put these out

for consideration by the public. We don't just bring

these to you to fill up your day or anything like that,

it is according to the requirements of the

Administrative Procedures Act.

The first minute order before you will allow

the department to publish for public comment certain

revisions to 43 TAC Section 1.1 which comes under the

general heading of the Management of the department.

As we all know, the Motor Vehicle Board no longer

exists; therefore, we need certain revisions of the

rule to take that into account.

And also, there was one very old provision

in the rules which allowed the commission to toll a


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section of highway if it would contribute to congestion

relief. Quite frankly, that was done pursuant to a law

that was considered by many people to be of dubious

legality, given the constitutional prohibitions at the

time. Certainly now with the expanded powers of the

commission, it's time to get that out of there.

And if you concur in the minute order, we

will publish these changes for public comment, and then

come back to you later after that public comment to see

if you would like to approve them for incorporation

into the Texas Administrative Code.

I would recommend approval of the minute

order.

MR. JOHNSON: Are there any questions of Mr.

Monroe, commissioners?

MR. HOUGHTON: No. Move to approve.


MR. JOHNSON: There's a motion and a second

to move approval and have these published in the Texas

Register for public comment. All those in favor of the

motion signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Those opposed, no.


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(No response.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. MONROE: Thank you. The next minute

order will approve, once again for publication in the

Texas Register for public comment, amendments to our

rules 1.82, 1.84, 1.85 concerning Advisory Committees.

This is due in part to recent legislation

from the latest legislature. A Border Trade Advisory

Committee was promulgated for the department. This

will give us the appropriate rules regarding that.

Also, it will provide formally for a Bicycle Advisory

Committee, again as required by the 79th Legislature in

recent legislation.

And finally, I think we all know that it has

been something of an imposition to our advisory

committee members that according to law we could not

pay their expenses. Well, now we can, we just have to

jump through a couple of hoops: we have to get

approval by the governor and the Legislative Budget

Board. And the amendments to these rules will allow us

the authority to process that paperwork and see if we

can get them paid.

I would recommend approval of this minute


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order.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions or comments?

MS. ANDRADE: I have one question, Richard.

Did you say to all advisory groups or just these

particular ones?

MR. MONROE: All advisory committees.

MS. ANDRADE: All advisory committees.

MR. MONROE: Yes, ma'am.

MR. HOUGHTON: So the Bicycle Committee can

forego riding their bikes down here and saving money.

MR. MONROE: If they so desire, I suppose

so, yes, sir.

MS. ANDRADE: That includes Public Transit?

MR. MONROE: Yes, ma'am.

MR. HOUGHTON: All of them. So moved.


MR. JOHNSON: Richard, one question before I

call for a vote.

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Do you anticipate that we

would make that request on a blanket basis or on a

case-by-case basis for these advisory groups?

MR. MONROE: I would anticipate we will try


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to run a couple through on a case-by-case basis and see

how that goes. If we are favorably received, of

course, I believe we should treat all advisory

committees exactly the same, and we would seek

compensation for all of them.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. There is a motion

and a second to approve the publication of these rules

in the Texas Register. All those in favor signify by

saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Those opposed, no.

(No response.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion passes.

MR. MONROE: Thank you.

The final minute order before you will, once

again, approve for publication in the Texas Register

for public comment amendments to 9.1 of our rules.

This does two things: it recognizes the fact that what

used to be the Contract Services Office has been

transferred to be part of my office, as the Contract

Services Section of the Office of General Counsel; it

also changes an amount of time, as required by the

recent legislation, in which the executive director is


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to begin negotiations with the vendor to resolve a

claim.

We had been pretty efficient, we thought, in

60 days but now the legislature says we have 120 days

to do that. So that change has been made also, once

again pursuant to the requirements of new legislation.

I would recommend approval of the minute

order.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions, comments?

(No response.)

MR. JOHNSON: I'll entertain a motion.



MR. JOHNSON: All in favor of the motion

signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.


MR. JOHNSON: Richard, thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: We have agenda item 7(a)(3)

which is additional proposed rules under Contract

Management dealing with the contract process. Thomas?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Good morning, commissioners.


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My name is Thomas Bohuslav. I'm director of the

Construction Division.

Item 7(a)(3) is a minute order for proposed

adoption that will amend Sections 9.15 through 9.18

concerning highway improvement contracts. There are

four changes in these amendments, two of which are

statutory from the past 79th regular session.

The first change is Section 9.15(b)(1)(h) is

revised to make it clear that the HUB plan must be

fully complete to consider a bid to be responsive. The

second change we have is 9.17(d) is revised to increase

the maximum amount for award to a second bidder when

the low bidder does not execute the contract from

$100,000 to $300,000. That's a statutory change from

this past session.

The third change is 9.18(c) is revised to

add payment bond to the current performance bond

allowance whereby we can use a lesser amount when we

have a contract for work where a contractor takes care

of a section of roadway.

And the last change we have is Section

9.106. We need to clarify our sanction rules in there

that if a contractor fails to execute a contract and


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they fail to honor their bid guarantee that we could

sanction them for that reason.

Staff recommends approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the

staff presentation and staff's recommendation. You

have the information in your packet. Are there

questions directed at Thomas, discussion?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: May I have a motion?





by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 7(a)(4) is

proposed rules under Traffic Operations concerning

changes to our Logo Sign Program. Carlos?

MR. LOPEZ: Good morning, commissioners,

Mike, Roger. My name is Carlos Lopez and I'm director


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of the Traffic Operations Division.

The minute order before you provides for the

proposed adoption of rules to implement Senate Bill

1137 and House Bill 2453 of the 79th Legislature.

The rules will allow for implementation of a

Tourist-Oriented Directional Sign Program for wineries,

agri-tourism facilities and other tourist-oriented

businesses; allow 24-hour pharmacies to participate in

the Logo Sign Program; repeal the Major Agricultural

Interest Sign Program; and amend the existing Logo Sign

rules to improve readability and remove provisions that

are no longer needed.

We believe these rules will provide the

necessary framework to implement the program mandated

by Senate Bill 1137.

We recommend approval of this minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, we have several

witnesses appearing. Do you wish to talk to Carlos

first or do you want to hear witnesses?

MR. HOUGHTON: Is this statutory, Carlos,

that we do this?

MR. LOPEZ: Yes.

MR. HOUGHTON: Okay.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: We'll hear witnesses.

We've got a variety here: we've got for, on, and

refuses to say. So I guess we'll take the Afor@

first. Edward Manigold.

And Carlos, might I say it's good to see you

back.

MR. LOPEZ: I never left.

(General laughter.)

MR. MANIGOLD: Members of the commission,

thank you for this opportunity to speak in favor of the

adoption of rules that would implement the law to give

signage for wineries and others.

I want to thank, first of all, Senator Frank

Madla for shepherding this legislation through and

getting it done, and representing him today here with

us -- I don't believe she was going to speak unless you

had questions -- Sharon Muller from Senator Frank

Madla's office.

We also have others represented here who may

want to speak and if you have questions of them. We

have June Ritterbusch from Salado Winery -- didn't know

there was a winery in Salado -- and Gill Bledsoe from

Pillar Bluff Winery which is located near Lampasas but


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it's actually in Burnet County.

And my name, of course, is Ed Manigold. I'm

from Spicewood Vineyards located just across the county

line in Burnet County.

We started off in Texas with about 46

wineries in 1999 or earlier; we have 92 in 2004; there

will probably be over 200 in 2007, that's the

projection. These signs, although it's a small item,

mean a great economic difference in the success because

most of these wineries are small wineries owned and

operated by families. They're not big corporate; of

these 100 wineries, probably 90 percent of them are

very small.

The signage is vital to their economic

impact, to their economic success, but also not only to

them but to the rural areas. As you know, the

vineyards are located in rural areas, therefore, that's

probably where the winery is going to be, and small

communities benefit greatly from having the tourism

resulting from these.

There's been kind of an understanding among

the public, as they drive down the TxDOT highways and

others, that if they don't see a winery sign there must


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not be one there, because there are some for some and

not for others.

So we thank you for this opportunity and we

urge the adoption of these rules that would facilitate

it and make a great deal of difference in the economic

life of this beginning industry.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And we thank you, Mr.

Manigold. Questions of this witness?

MR. JOHNSON: I have one. Do all these

wineries that will be identified by these signs conduct

tours?

MR. MANIGOLD: Yes, as far as I know.

MR. JOHNSON: So in essence, the benefit to

the wineries is to get people to stop in and take a

tour of the winery.

MR. MANIGOLD: Yes, sir.

MR. HOUGHTON: Do you have tasting?

MR. MANIGOLD: Yes.

MR. HOUGHTON: Do you breathalyze them when

they leave the wineries?

MR. MANIGOLD: Do we what?

MR. HOUGHTON: Breathalyze them.

MR. MANIGOLD: No, but we have strict rules


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about the amount that people consume in tastings. We

have to give the wine away, you know.

MR. HOUGHTON: Right.

MR. JOHNSON: On any of these tours, do

wineries charge for them?

MR. MANIGOLD: Yes, many do, some don't. We

do.

MR. WILLIAMSON: A tour and a taste. Thank

you, Mr. Manigold.

Now we have on the bill June Ritterbusch.

Do you care to speak?


MR. WILLIAMSON: Then we have unidentified,

Gil Bledsoe.


MR. WILLIAMSON: You have been there in the

second row very attentive all meeting long, and we

always appreciate that. We hope you've learned some

things about the transportation system, and we

appreciate you driving down here to be a part of this.

Members, do you have other questions of

Carlos?

MR. JOHNSON: Move approval.


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by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. LOPEZ: Thank you, commissioners.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 7(a)(5) is

proposed rules under Maintenance concerning boarding

for our ferries at Port Aransas and Port Bolivar.

Zane?

MR. WEBB: Good morning, commissioners. I'm

Zane Webb, director of the Maintenance Division.

The minute order you have before you

proposes a repeal of 29.48 and a new 29.48 substitute

which governs the priority boardings on our TxDOT ferry

systems.

The minute order would adopt a system by

which we would sell a ticket or a sticker, affix it to

a windshield, and that would allow the vehicle that had

the sticker on it to go in the front of the line, get


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on the ferry first, up until the time that the ferry

was loaded with 50 percent priority boarding, and at

that point be open to regular boarders.

The proposed rule sets the amount of money

that we would charge for this. It's on a sliding scale

from $400 to $800, depending on the size of the

vehicle. It would also stipulate that any funds that

we got from the sale of these stickers would go back

into Fund 6.

Now, by way of background, priority boarding

has long been part of the rules for TxDOT ferry system.

We've been able to priority board things like

ambulances, fire engines, police officers, or anyone

that needed humanitarian reasons like they were sick

and going to the doctor. The captain or the manager of

the ferry system could, at their discretion, board

these people in a priority manner.

These rules will give TxDOT the ability to

sell a sticker and allow, by permit, priority boarders.

I guess at that point I'd kind of ask you if

you've got any questions. That's substantially what

the changes in the priority boarding rules are.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Zane, I'm going to have


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some questions and it's possible the other commission

members will have some questions as well. But members,

we do have two witnesses. What's your pleasure:

questions now or hear witnesses first?

Okay, then we'll hear first from Ann Bracher

Vaughn.

MS. VAUGHN: Commissioners, director, thank

you very much for allowing us to be here today and to

speak to you.

As you are aware, Port Aransas is exploding,

and it's one of the premier destinations on the Texas

Coast, and we just appreciate the fact that you're

allowing us to have another alternative option to get

not only tourists but residents and particularly our

service personnel to and from the island with better

access.

I would like to commend Howard Gillespie,

our ferry manager, and Craig Clark, our district

engineer, and cannot go without saying that David

Casteel, who was the prior district engineer, also

facilitated the very improved operation of our ferry

system over what it was several years ago, and they do

a tremendous job.


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And it would not be without your great extra

funding that you gave us that allowed that efficient

operation, and we appreciate that very much.

You know, we move over 2-1/2 million

vehicles on those ferries every year to and from the

island, and not only is that tourists but service

personnel and many employees who either work off the

island or travel to and from since there's many things

you can't buy on the island.

I guess I have a little bit of a question

about the cost of what's been proposed, and my question

would be is this a cap at that level or would the fee

be raised at some point in time. I know the language

addresses the fact that it can fluctuate depending on

the number of applications that are received. So I

guess I just have a question and would like a little

bit of clarification for that.

But anyway, we appreciate the fact that

you're going to hopefully be putting this in the Texas

Register and then having a public comment period in

Port Aransas in September. And thank you very much,

appreciate it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, questions of this


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witness?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, thank you, Ann.

Georgia Neblett, Mayor.

MAYOR NEBLETT: Commissioners, Mr. Behrens,

Ann said it very well so I won't spend time

reiterating.

I do want to thank you very much, although

not timely, for sending us David Casteel, who in his

wisdom hired Howard Gillespie, and for his successor,

Craig Clark.

I also wanted to let you know that the City

of Port Aransas will try to do its fair share to

leverage funds from Washington, D.C. for the ferry

operation. We were successful in getting $320,000 in

this year's appropriation, and I'll be back in

September with my hand out for the money to build the

ferry now that we have money to design it.

So I very much appreciate the work you do in

Port Aransas and the work you do throughout the state,

and I know the issues are tough, and we appreciate your

attention to making Texas the great state it is. Thank

you.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you. Members,

questions of this witness? Hope?

MS. ANDRADE: Mayor, I just want to thank

you for your leadership in Port Aransas.

MAYOR NEBLETT: Thank you, Commissioner. We

certainly appreciate your attention.

MS. ANDRADE: Well, thank you. And you're

comfortable with the $400?

MAYOR NEBLETT: I think there will be, any

time you introduce change or something new. I think

that the public hearings will be very instrumental in

telling us how poorly that will be received or how

favorably that will be received. I know there's a very

fine line between setting it high enough so that it is

a priority boarding and is not so low that it does not

serve the function that it is.

I think probably some of the issues that

will be raised the way it's written, it's going to be

affixed to a windshield, for some of our service people

in some of the condominiums that may want to buy a

sticker to get their people to and from, if the

employee leaves, can you get the sticker, I think there

will be questions like that. And I think that's the


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purpose of a public hearing is to be able to address

those issues.

So I think we'll just have to see, but I

think it is reasonable considering the traffic that we

have on the ferry today.


MR. JOHNSON: I have a question.

MAYOR NEBLETT: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Are you related to any of the

Nebletts that I might know in Houston?

MAYOR NEBLETT: I don't know how to answer

that because I certainly would hope for a favorable

response from this commission, and if I said I was

related to Rob Neblett, that might or might not help

us.

MR. JOHNSON: And you would admit to that in

public?

MAYOR NEBLETT: Yes, sir, I would, but then

you would have to admit that you knew him as well.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I'll take that under

advisement.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Mayor and Ann,


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both. Thank you for driving such a long distance and

waiting so long to have your say. I appreciate it,

appreciate your patience.

I do have a couple of questions, Zane.

MR. WEBB: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The rule, as I understand

it, basically outlines the process which permits Texas

citizens to apply to the department and for the

department to issue a sticker for a vehicle that would

have the priority right to board up to the 50 percent

load factor. Is that correct?

MR. WEBB: That's correct, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What else will we have to

implement in the future in order to permit this kind of

unique, first time in Texas, toll system on ferries to

operate?

MR. WEBB: Chairman, I think that process

has already been begun through the districts, and

they're currently working on additional landings, and

presently a naval architect is designing a new ferry

for the Bolivar system, and planning, as the mayor just

said, has already started for a new ferry boat at the

Aransas system. So those processes in themselves are


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going to alleviate a few of the problems.

But they really need to be accomplished also

to enhance the priority boarding capabilities.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, how do you see the

process of how we recruit people, who we select and how

they get on the list, how do you see that working?

MR. WEBB: Well, to begin with, we're

holding two public hearings: one at Port Aransas and

one at Galveston. And I think during that process, of

course a lot of the information will come out through

the public and we'll talk to them then.

What we'd like to do at some point is start

taking applications for these stickers. I think when

we do that -- I'm not talking about taking money, I'm

just talking about taking applications, and if we do

that, we're going to get some idea about how many

stickers that we'll be able to sell. Now, if we get an

idea about how many stickers we'll be able to sell,

then we get an idea about how much of our cost that

we're going to recover.

I think at some point we've got to take into

consideration the operational cost of implementing

priority boarding because there's additional law


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enforcement, additional traffic control. And if there

are enough priority boarders, we're going to have to

talk about capital infrastructure improvements -- in

other words, widening of the roadways, putting in

additional places for priority boarders to park that

are separate from regular boarders, and that capital

improvement is somehow going to have to be recovered

over time.

And the only way we're going to find out how

much capital improvement we can do is by finding out

how many stickers we're going to sell.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, it's new, it's

innovative and it addresses some public concerns, and

I'm all for those kinds of things. I'm certainly all

for our good friends, Kyle Janek and Mike Jackson and

Craig Eiland being satisfied and Ken Armbrister, that

we're trying to address the problem. It's just that we

may find that there are a lot of people who say they

want this but when they're staring in the face of $400

a year or one-time only or whatever it ends up being,

we might be surprised that there aren't as many people

who want priority boarding as we first thought.

I try not to get into the department's


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administrative business but it just seems to me,

members, that we might ought to ask staff to do some

work on developing the process by which we would

recruit people and incorporate that into these rules

before we get too far down the road so that none of us

are caught off guard.

MR. WEBB: Chairman, are you asking us to

put a number in at which it's a break-even point?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Not necessarily. Just

better define the process of how you're going to

recruit these people, perhaps, and how they'll get

their sticker, that's all.

MR. HOUGHTON: Mr. Chairman, it's not a like

precedent, but on the international borders they have

sentry lanes for people that work in Mexico. They buy

a sticker.

Amadeo, do you know the numbers of people

that buy sentry lane passes on these international

bridges? They're paying about $300 to $400 a year to

get in a sentry lane and come past instead of sitting

in line, and I understand it's a huge success.

Now, that takes in, Zane, you've still got

to go through Customs, Immigration. Here you're just


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getting on, obviously, a boat. So they're willing to

pay, people are willing to pay to move fast, and I

would think we could learn some lessons from the sentry

lane folks on the international bridges.

I mean, when we're talking about 2.5 million

boardings, that's pretty healthy. If you get 20

percent, that's 500,000 people -- cars -- not people,

cars.

MR. JOHNSON: But you run the risk that if

you have too many your line in the fast lane is longer

than the line in the ordinary lane.

MR. HOUGHTON: Right. It's going to be a

price issue.

MR. JOHNSON: There's a balance there. We

all want this to be an extremely successful and

meaningful program, but you don't want to run the risk

that these people have paid a fee and their line takes

longer to move than the other line.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I guess what I'm saying,

Zane, is in developing the rules I think I just would

feel more comfortable if we had the process of how

we're going to receive the applications and how we're

going to provide for the permits, implement the program


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and do the roadway improvements. If we could reflect

those in the rules, I'd feel comfortable about it. I

think Senate and House members who are interested in

this would feel more comfortable, and probably the

citizens would actually feel a little bit more

comfortable about it.

MR. WEBB: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Zane, roughly the breakdown

between the crossings at Port Aransas and the crossings

at Bolivar, are they pretty equal?

MR. WEBB: Commissioner, they're

surprisingly close. We have a longer passage at

Bolivar, it takes a longer time to do it and you carry

more cars per ferry, but it's about 2-1/2 million

vehicle crossings per year at each one of them.

MR. HOUGHTON: Each one?

MR. WEBB: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: You mentioned the construction

of new ferries with an additional feature or expanded

capacity. What would each of those vessels cost in

excess of the vessels that we have in service now?

MR. WEBB: Other than escalation cost,

there's going to be some escalation on the one at Port


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Aransas because that's proposed to be a larger ferry.

It will go from 20 cars to 28 cars, so there will be

some escalation cost. And I can't tell you exactly

what that is at this point, although Craig Clark, the

district engineer, is with us today and he may be able

to.

Now, the cost of the one at Bolivar, it's

essentially the same type of ferry, a 70-car ferry

using a Voich Snider propulsion, so it's going to be

essentially, except for the increase in inflationary

cost, we'd have to say it's going to cost approximately

the same as we have in the past.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I heard the mayor say

that she was going to Washington to get the additional

funds, so I don't think we have anything to worry

about.

(General laughter.)

MR. WEBB: Amadeo wanted me to say that

these were already planned and are not part of any

growth because of priority boarding, so these were

already planned improvements, the landings and all

were. They're enhancements that will help the priority

boarding when we do it.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: Other questions, members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, you have heard the

layout, the discussion, the recommendation and

instructions to staff --

MR. MONROE: Richard Monroe, general counsel

of the department.

I don't like playing the Grinch but it seems

to be one of my roles in life. There is a case that

says the sort of general advice you gave about the

rules you're voting on gives we bureaucrats a little

too much power, and so if we could come up with some

wording here for you to vote on, and since these are

going to be somewhat controversial -- after all, we're

talking about taking people's money -- I wouldn't want

to run that risk, Mr. Chairman.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you have some suggested

wording?

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir. If you'll refer to

page 2 of 5, that would be the preamble, and in the

first full paragraph there, the one that starts off

ANew 29.48(a)(2)@ and we follow that down and the

sentence ends Acost amortized over a 10-year period.@


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Some possible language to insert in there

would be: AIn order to ensure that there is sufficient

demand for annual permits to justify the cost of

instituting the program, the department will not begin

issuing stickers for a ferry location until at least

400 applications are received for that location.@

I'm not firm on that number, if you would

prefer a higher number or a lower number, for that

matter, but it would give the staff a firm direction

from the commission rather than the discretion that

would be given by more general instructions.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What would happen, Richard,

if we published the rule at 400 and subsequent public

hearings indicated that we might want to reduce that to

300 or increase it to 500? Would that be all right?

MR. MONROE: You can do anything you want.

MR. JOHNSON: 500 would be covered, 300

would not.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But I'm saying if we

approve this minute order as amended to 400 and then we

go down and have public hearings and the public hearing

process dictates that staff comes back and says we need

to change that number, I just wanted to be sure that it


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was okay with Richard, and it's certainly okay with me.

Is there any objection -- there's never

objection to what a lawyer recommends.

MR. MONROE: Oh, you'd be surprised.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Let me rephrase that. I

never object to what Richard Monroe recommends.

Any other recommendations, Richard?

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir. If you could please

refer to Exhibit C, page 2 of 3. We start at the first

capital B there, the fee for an annual permit, and I

don't know if yours reads this way: for the Galveston-

Bolivar or Port Aransas ferry. Is that already in

there?

MR. JOHNSON: Is that an insertion?

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir. My recommendation

would be on that capital B: AThe fee for an annual

permit for the Galveston-Bolivar or Port Aransas ferry

is.@ It would make it definite.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay.

MR. MONROE: And finally, to go with the

preamble because that's not really the rule, it's an

explanation, on Exhibit C, page 3 of 3, I would like to


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stick in a new E and then re-letter accordingly, and

this would go with the preamble, and the suggested

language would be: AThe department will not issue

priority boarding stickers for a ferry location until

it has received at least 400 applications for that

location.@

Once again, after the public hearings, if

the commission wants to change that up or down, that

would certainly be within your discretion.

MR. JOHNSON: Does that mean that E becomes

F and F becomes G?

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir, they would be re-

lettered accordingly.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, any discussion

with Mr. Monroe on his recommendations?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Richard. We

appreciate your looking out for us.

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, Zane, are you

comfortable with your recommendation as amended?

MR. WEBB: I think I am, Chairman. The only

thing I would like to advise the commission is that if


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we proceed with selling the stickers at 400 vehicles at

$400 apiece, the expected operational costs from the

Houston District will exceed the income from the

stickers. So their expected operational cost are going

to exceed some $200,000 a year. If we only sell 400

stickers, we probably won't reach that, much less any

kind of capital improvements.

MR. JOHNSON: But 400 is a minimum here.

MR. WEBB: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Let's move through the

public hearing process. We might be surprised, we may

have 1,000 people who want to buy them.

MR. WEBB: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And even if we don't, you

know, we've talked a lot the last few years about the

common pool of transportation construction and this may

fall into that category.

Okay. We have a presentation, a

recommendation, we have an amendment before us. Do I

have a motion?

MS. ANDRADE: So moved.




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by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries as amended.

Thank you, Zane. Thank you, Richard.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 7(b),

another rule for proposed adoption concerning rule

changes that pertain to the State Aircraft Pooling

Board which will hopefully become Texas Aviation

Services. Dave?

MR. FULTON: Thank you. Again, my name, for

the record, is Dave Fulton, director of the TxDOT

Aviation Division.

This minute order is for the purpose of

repealing Title 1, Texas Administrative Code, Part 9,

Chapters 181 and 183, relating to the State Aircraft

Pooling Board. The 79th Legislature abolished the

State Aircraft Pooling Board and transferred those

duties and responsibilities to the Texas Department of

Transportation.

Therefore, we would recommend approval of


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this minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, I have to dialogue

with Dave and also each of you, just so none of us are

caught off guard in the future.

There is a great deal of disagreement in the

legislature about whether or not the Aircraft Pooling

Board assets and activities should continue.

I know all of us and I know the staff, we

attempt to address the concerns of each legislative

leader and each member of the legislature as best we

can, but in the end, we're appointees of the governor

and we're members of the executive branch.

The law that was passed presumes a transfer

of assets and a continuation of service under our

responsibility. It may be the case that the

legislature and the governor at some point in the

future come to an agreement about whether or not the

service should be continued and at what level.

The problem we face, while those gentlemen

and gentle ladies figure that out, is that we have the

legal responsibility for doing this and we need to

develop rules to assure the public and the state

employees of how the game is to be played.


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And I toyed with and thought a lot about

whether we should move forward with this, and it was my

decision, and my decision alone, to put it on the

agenda. You can certainly knock it off by expressing

to me that you would rather not, but it was my belief

that we should empower Dave to move forward with the

rules and begin our public hearings and start the

process whereby we incorporate this into our activity.

We can always stop and say the rules have changed if

we're given that direction.

I think that is the best thing for us to do.

But we're a four-member panel, and if you're not

comfortable with that, this would be the time to say

so.

You heard the layout and the recommendation.

Do I have a motion?




second. All those in favor of the motion, signify by

saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)



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(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. Thank you,

Dave.

MR. FULTON: Thank you, sir.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 8 is

another discussion item. This one will be to discuss

the proposed Texas Rail System Plan. Jim Randall.

MR. RANDALL: Good afternoon, commissioners.

My name is Jim Randall, director of the Transportation

Planning and Programming Division. We come here to

discuss about the proposed Texas Rail System Plan.

I'd like to first give you a little

background information on freight statistics, freight

projections, talk a little bit about what we anticipate

should be the major focus of the plan, go into a little

project delivery mechanisms due to the new tools we got

from the legislature, and then we had developed some

questions and answers and they were just based on what

we thought the general public might ask us.

We are now aware of we should be submitting

these type of questions to the commission and we will

in the future.

Over the next 20 years, Texas is


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anticipating a major increase in freight movements from

the Far East into the western United States ports and

also via NAFTA and the CAFTA traffic. As the state's

transportation agency, we recognize that no one motor

transportation can efficiently serve the freight needs

of Texas.

According to the Federal Highway

Administration's Freight Analysis Framework Study,

freight tonnage on Texas highways is projected to

increase from just over 1 billion tons in 1998 to

nearly 1.9 billion by the year 2020 which is about an

85 percent increase.

According to the same study, freight tonnage

on the Texas rail system is expected to increase from

282 million tons in 1998 to 473 million tons in 2020

which is about a 68 percent increase over the same

period.

Nationally, AASHTO's Freight Bottleneck

Study estimates that highway users' costs which are in

terms of travel time delays, operating and accidents

costs over the next 20 years, based on a no-growth

scenario of the national rail system, would be about

$492 billion. However, an aggressive investment in our


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nation's rail system could result in highway users'

savings of $397 billion in the same time period.

Based on projected increases, Texans will

need an intermodal transportation system capable of

adapting to various modal transportation demands. In

order to meet the demands associated with the expansion

of freight movements, the state needs to ensure the

development of a multimodal and intermodal

transportation system which will be able to support the

additional demands for each modal group.

The failure to do so will eventually lead to

an eventual freight shift from one mode to another. We

envision this shift would be from rail to highways.

This would cause significant impacts for our highway

system.

Also, the failure to meet freight demands

will have economic impacts on the state either by the

reduction of opportunities to create jobs or relocation

of jobs to other areas of the nation with a more robust

transportation system.

Now, the development of the Texas Rail

System Plan was initiated in response to increasing

involvement by the state of Texas in freight and


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passenger rail issues and to provide a baseline

analysis of the current rail system in the state.

The plan will serve to identify current and

proposed rail projects, determine infrastructure and

capacity needs on the system and to develop an

awareness of the issues and process by which to address

them.

Eventually the plan will be a document that

identifies rail improvements, provides the mechanism to

coordinate the development of such facilities. This

would include the determination of public benefits and

the programming of public funds for such improvements.

We anticipate that the plan will focus on

major rail relocations and improvements to the state's

rail system that could provide public benefits in the

following areas:

Improved safety by relocating hazardous

materials moved through metropolitan areas and by

reducing the number of grade crossings;

Reliable mobility by reducing grade crossing

delays;

Foster freight modal shift from highway to

rail by making new corridors available for highway


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roadway expansion and providing opportunities for the

establishment of new passenger rail systems;

Economic vitality by increasing

opportunities for attracting new business resulting

from improved and new transportation infrastructures

such as intermodal facilities and/or inland ports, and

providing land development opportunities from relocated

rail facilities with urban metropolitan areas;

Finally, system preservation by improving

freight efficiencies and intermodal utilization by the

enhancement of existing facilities, utilization of

abandoned rail corridors and modernization and

expansion of existing intermodal facilities.

Of course, the development of the Trans-

Texas Corridor will provide an opportunity to relocate

existing rail lines out of the metropolitan areas.

Current development activities along the TTC will be

included in the plan. These relocations will provide a

wide range of public benefits justifying possible

public-private partnerships with railroad companies.

Also, the department's current work with the

major rail companies to plan rail projects and the

possible development of public-private partnerships in


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accordance with MOUs signed by Governor Perry in the

Class 1 railroads will be addressed.

The plan will also include a discussion on

program delivery methods. The 79th Texas Legislature

passed bills enabling the expenditure of funds by TxDOT

for rail projects which would allow TxDOT to improve

statewide transportation safety and efficiency through

targeted improvements to the Texas rail system.

This new legislation will increase TxDOT's

involvement in rail projects and the further

development of the state's multimodal transportation

system.

As you know, TxDOT does not have express

authority to use state highway funds on rail projects.

Past projects have been completed with specific

legislative appropriations. Passage of HB 2702 and HB

1546 by the 79th Legislature has enabled the

expenditure of non-dedicated funds for state-owned rail

projects as well as funds from other sources such as

loans and grants.

HB 1546 creates the possibility of financing

reasonable rail relocation projects, pending voter

approval in November. HB 2702 allows TxDOT to enter


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into comprehensive development agreements for rail

projects and agreements with private entities to

establish pass-through fares for reimbursement of

facility expenses.

The companion piece of legislation, HB 1546

would create the Texas Rail Relocation Fund if a

constitutional amendment is approved by the voters.

The establishment and administration of the Railroad

Relocation and Improvement Fund will enable TxDOT to

plan, design, and implement passenger and freight rail

relocation and improvement projects that provide

multiple public benefits related to safety, mobility,

improved air quality, and economic development

opportunities.

Currently TxDOT has limited funding

availability for rail development and has employed

various strategies to address priority rail planning

issues in the state. The Rail Relocation Fund could

provide TxDOT with the resources necessary to implement

much needed statewide and regional rail projects.

These projects would benefit rail efficiencies which in

turn could benefit vehicle transportation and Texas

passenger rail.


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Overall, we propose developing a plan that

will focus on improvements which will make use of new

funding mechanisms, provide connectivity to future

systems such as the TTC, and utilize public-private

partnerships to provide long-term mutual beneficial

system improvements.

Some of the questions that we came up with

that the public might be interested in is: Why is the

rail plan necessary?

The development of the state rail plan is

the first step in developing a vision and initiating

public dialogue regarding rail project development.

The rail plan will better position the department to

utilize available funding for rail improvements. A

comprehensive, coordinated and continuous planning

process is necessary for the expenditure of funds for

all types of transportation improvements, including

rail.

Another question: What type of rail

projects are we dealing with?

The plan would include a wide range of rail

projects. As mentioned earlier, our focus will be on

rail relocation projects, however, other project types


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could develop sooner due to construction costs,

available funding sources, and qualified public

benefits. These projects may include the acquisition

of abandoned rail lines, improvements to state-owned

rail facilities, and intermodal facilities.

Another question could be: How would the

department fund large scale rail relocation projects?

No specific funding source at any level is

currently available to finance projects of this

magnitude. It will require funding from federal,

state, local and private levels to finance these

projects.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Jim, can I stop you on that

one?

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Now, you say no funding is

available but is it not the case we could go to the

Mobility Fund?

MR. RANDALL: For passenger rail, yes, sir.

We are currently analyzing SAFTEA LU to

determine the possibility of using the capital grants

for Rail Line Relocation Project Program. This is a

$350 million a year program nationally that just came


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out. Also Projects of National Significance is another

program we're looking into as far as utilization by the

state.

At the state level, the proposed Rail

Relocation and Improvement Fund could provide funding,

and of course, bond initiatives at the local level

could also provide funding, as well as private

investments by way of the CDAs.

Another question could be: How do we

propose to develop passenger rail?

We plan to conduct this incrementally.

Based on statistics provided earlier, our main concern

is the efficient movement of freight, both present and

projected. Any improvements to freight capacity on

lines shared by inner city passenger rail should also

benefit the operation of passenger rail service.

Also, the relocation of freight movement in

metropolitan areas will improve capacity, providing

opportunities for the development of commuter rail

service and enhanced inner city service on these

existing lines. Over time, with the expansion of

commuter rail systems in our metropolitan areas, the

demand for inner city passenger rail will increase,


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allowing for the development of high speed inner city

passenger rail within the TTC corridor.

And finally, you would ask: How would a

rail project help the mobility of our highway system

users?

Rail can improve mobility by providing the

following: reduction of vehicle delays at rail-highway

crossings; modal shifts of freight from highway to

rail, thus slowing the growth of freight movements on

the highway system; and finally, development of

passenger rail systems.

These are just a few of our thoughts as far

as what would be incorporated in the proposed plan, and

we're here to take any input from the commission or

answer any questions.

I also have Mr. Medina, who has rapidly

become the rail expert with the department, to back me

up on some of these questions.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We would like to think of

him as the rail expert of Texas.

MR. RANDALL: So be it.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, back to my first


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question, is that restriction also true inside the

corridor, Bob?

Amadeo, are you around?

Obviously we'll be focused on the Rail

Relocation Fund, but I'm curious about our rail plan in

the event that we don't have a Rail Relocation Fund or

funding source. Are there opportunities for us to use

traditional sources of funding to build freight rail if

we know that the construction of that rail relieves

congestion on our highways?

MR. SAENZ: We have a transportation

connection to the project where we need to put in a

public transportation or a highway project where a rail

line currently exists and that's one of the options,

and would require or necessitate the movement of the

rail, we can use our regular Fund 6.

Now, I think your question that you

mentioned about the corridor -- and Bob is here and

he'll probably jump if I say something wrong -- but the

concession fees that come in from, for example, a 35-

TTC could be a funding source to implement the rail

elements on the corridor. So that is one additional

funding source that's there, any concession fees we can


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use for rail.

MR. HOUGHTON: Can I interrupt? On that

corridor or can you transfer it to the TTC-69 corridor

or the I-10 transportation corridor, or all corridors?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Let's let Bob come up for a

second.

MR. JACKSON: Any corridor in the state.

MR. HOUGHTON: That we designate as a

corridor.

MR. JACKSON: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So if I can give you an

example, Bob -- and you know I'm not bashful, if I'm

asking a question I shouldn't and you need to stop me,

say stop. I'll give you an example. We begin building

TTC-35, we know that passenger rail can only occur

after the rail is down, we have a freight rail

opportunity that if pursued would lay the groundwork

for the passenger rail, where is the gray area in using

the funding? Are we still limited?

MR. JACKSON: You've got concession fees,

you've got surplus toll revenue, federal funds, revenue

bonds for rail, non-dedicated highway funds if they are

available.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, that is far enough,

that tells me what I need to know. Thank you.

So in other words, Jim, in developing our

plan, not only in perhaps developing solicited CDAs,

not only in developing regular transportation

programs, but in receiving unsolicited CDAs and

certainly in developing our plan, we should not limit

ourselves and our planning by the restrictions on

funding.


MR. WILLIAMSON: Our plans should assume

that one way or the other, a rational plan, we'll find

a way to fund that.


MR. WILLIAMSON: Because I'm most interested

in, I think the legislative leadership that have been

concerned about this, members, I don't think they were

ever concerned that we would spend money for UP or

BNSF, they were only concerned that we would do things

that would relieve congestion on the roads. That was

the primary concern of the legislative leaders.

I think if we keep that kind of uppermost in

our minds, we'll be okay. And that's what is uppermost


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in our minds, that's what we're trying to do.

I'm sorry. Questions, members?

MR. HOUGHTON: Does the same revenue issue

apply, Bob, to power and water if we charge a fee? If

there's a fee for power and water in the corridor, we

can use that for any type of capital project?

MR. JACKSON: We can issue toll revenue

bonds under the corridor statute, but I would interpret

that the revenue would be limited to the toll portion

of the corridor.

MR. HOUGHTON: So if we had a fee from a

power transmission line in the corridor, we cannot use

that for rail?

MR. JACKSON: Yes. Any income you make off

the corridor, you can spend on any mode within the

corridor anywhere.

MR. HOUGHTON: Okay.

MR. JOHNSON: The Rail Relocation Fund is an

appropriated fund. Is that correct?

MR. JACKSON: Not really. If the

legislature funds it, then by constitution it's already

appropriated.

MR. JOHNSON: Okay. My question is are


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there any restrictions on where those funds can be

appropriated from.

MR. JACKSON: As long as the funds aren't

already dedicated by the constitution.

MR. HOUGHTON: So if we come up with a fee

in our studies -- and I understand there are studies

that we're working on as to how to obtain certain fees

to fund a rail mobility fund -- then does that have to

be constituted by the legislature?

MR. JACKSON: Yes.

MR. HOUGHTON: Okay.


MS. ANDRADE: No questions.


MR. JOHNSON: I'm fine.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Bob.

Well, Jim, it's a good first step. Again,

by way of repeating for those who listen to us, we're

talking about this, it's here, it's what we're going to

do, so nobody needs to be caught off guard. We do

believe that rail is a component of a modern

transportation system.

MR. RANDALL: What we'd like to do is


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continue to receive input from the commission,

commission aides, go ahead and complete the report,

submit it to Mr. Behrens, and then at that time start

making arrangements for putting it out for public

input, public comment.

Part of the FRA regulations for a state rail

plan is that, based on your comment, you're required to

have a public hearing. We're going to go ahead and

have a public hearing anyway on the plan, so we're

probably looking -- I think originally we were trying

to talk about having it ready in September, it will

probably push that back to probably October, maybe as

late as November. So that's kind of our time frame

right now.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I think as the price

of gasoline per gallon goes higher, we would be well

advised to move as quickly as possible.

MR. RANDALL: Okay, sir. Very good.

MR. WILLIAMSON: There are going a lot of

people more interested, I think, in passenger rail in

the future than have been in the past.

Thank you, Jim.



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MR. BEHRENS: Okay, Jim, I think you get to

stay up here, and we're going to go to agenda item

number 9(a) through 9(f). If you will take us through

those minute orders.

MR. RANDALL: Again, I'm Jim Randall,

director of the Transportation Planning and Programming

Division.

Item 9(a), as a condition to securing

federal funds for transportation projects under either

Title 23 United States Code or the Federal Transit Act,

each designated metropolitan planning organization in

the state are required to develop a transportation

improvement program, or TIP.

According to federal requirements, the MPO

develops its TIP in cooperation with the state and

affected transit operators and must be updated at least

once every two years and approved by the governor.

The individual TIPs for each MPO, along with

the information on federally funded projects in those

areas of the state that are not included in any MPO

area, are incorporated into the Statewide

Transportation Improvement Program, or STIP.

By letter dated June 13, 2002, addressed to


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the Commission of Transportation, Governor Perry

delegated to the commission, or its designees, the

power and responsibility to approve the STIP.

On June 22, 2005, a public hearing notice to

receive comments on the proposed 2006-2008 STIP was

posted in the Texas Register. A copy of the proposed

FY 2006-2008 STIP was also available for review, at the

time that the notice of the hearing was published, at

each of the department's district offices, at the

Transportation Planning and Programming Division's

office, and on the department's website.

A public hearing on the STIP was held in

Austin on August 4, 2005, and comments were received

through August 15, 2005. One written comment was

received.

The MPO requested four additional projects

to be included in that STIP. Since this request was

received beyond the deadline for projects to be

included in the STIP posted for public comment, it will

be included in the November revision of the STIP.

The STIP is consisted with the Strategic

Plan and Unified Transportation Program and meets all

the requirements of Title 43 Texas Administrative Code,


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Sections 15.7 and 15.8, and corresponding federal rules

and regulations.

With your approval of this minute order, the

STIP will be adopted and forwarded to FHWA for their

approval. Also, the executive director will be

authorized to sign on the certifications required by

federal regulations.

We recommend your approval of this minute

order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions? Members, you

heard the presentation and the recommendation. Do you

have questions of Jim, discussion? Do I have a motion?





by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. RANDALL: Okay, sir. Item 9(b), we

bring to you the 4th quarter program from economically


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disadvantaged counties to adjust matching fund

requirements.

In your books is Exhibit A that lists the

projects and staff's recommended adjustments for each

of them. The adjustments are based on the equations

approved in earlier proposals. There are five projects

in three counties. The total reduction in

participation for these projects is $754,809.


MR. WILLIAMSON: Per the presentation and

recommendation, members, do you have questions?



MR. JACKSON: I have a motion and a second.

All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying

aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. RANDALL: Item 9(c), this minute order

appoints seven members to the Bicycle Advisory

Committee. Its primary mission is to advise the


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commission on bicycle issues and provide a forum for

communication among the department, bicyclists and the

public.

The committee functions under Title 43 TAC,

Section 1.85 concerning Advisory Committees.

Additionally, Senate Bill 602 of the 79th Texas

Legislature tasks the committee with advising and

making recommendations to the commission on the

development of bicycle tourism trails in the state.

When appointing members, the commission may consider

facts such as geographic desirability and occupational

diversity.

Upon your approval, the committee will be

appointed to staggered terms as follows: terms

expiring August 31, 2007, Don Rogers of Dripping

Springs, Robin Stallings of Austin, Michael Wyatt of El

Paso; for terms expiring August 31, 2008, Gretchen

Arnold of Corpus Christi, Tommy Eden of Austin, Regina

Garcia of Houston, and Annie Melton of Dallas.

These candidates are recommended for the

Bicycle Advisory Committee.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the

presentation and recommendation. I'll have one


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question. Do you have questions, discussion?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: We haven't seen Tommy Eden

in a year. What's the problem?

MR. RANDALL: I don't know, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: He used to come here every

quarter and say something.


MR. JOHNSON: Has he been participating in

the meetings?

MR. RANDALL: I believe it's been a while

since we had a meeting, so I don't know about that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, if you see Tommy when

he's reappointed, tell him we miss him.

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir. Now, let me back

up. We did contact Tommy and ask him if he did want to

serve another term, and he said yes, so that's why he's

on the committee.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'd like to see Tommy.

MR. RANDALL: Okay, sir. We'll relay the

message.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do I have a motion?



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by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. RANDALL: Okay, sir. Item 9(d), this

minute order authorizes $1.5 million to perform

feasibility and route studies relating to the 340-mile

La Entrada al Pacifico Corridor.

In 1997, the 75th Texas Legislature passed

House Bill 2115 designating certain highways as a

future route of the corridor. Minute Order 110048,

dated April 28, 2005, authorized projects for the

Fiscal Year 2005 Federal Discretionary Program.

This includes two projects related to the

corridor: one for a feasibility study, the other for a

route study. The projects were federally earmarked for

$500,000 each. In order to fully address the

feasibility and route analysis requirement for the

corridor, the department is contributing an additional


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$500,000 to the study.

Staff recommends approval of this minute

order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, we have one

witness. Do you wish to ask Jim questions first or

hear the witness first? We'll hear the witness then.

Robin Donnelly. How are you, Robin? Good to see you

again.

MR. DONNELLY: Good morning. I'm Robin

Donnelly. I'm chairman of the Midland-Odessa

Transportation Alliance, and we appreciate the

opportunity to speak with you this morning.

Before we get into the actual study and

where we want to be, I just want to say how much we

appreciate the support of TxDOT in our corridor

conference. The La Entrada al Pacifico Corridor

Conference held Monday and Tuesday of this week was

attended by over 200 attendees.

And this was a free conference and we were

really excited about it because we've got a lot of

people on limited budgets for travel and entertainment,

and the communities in west Texas are, as Commissioner

Houghton would say, the eastern west Texas portion, we


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all got together and it was really nice because the

counties and communities all got together.

We had a lot of people from Chihuahua,

Sinaloa and Durango that came in for the project, and I

think it was well worth the effort that TxDOT put

together and our sponsors were very generous, and we

had a really good conference. So we want to show our

appreciation to TxDOT on that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Now, wait a minute, Robin,

are you telling me that TxDOT, of all people,

participated in a conference? We actually went and

listened?

MR. DONNELLY: I tell you, the people from

our part of the world were so excited about seeing

TxDOT people out there, I think everybody came back and

had to get hearing aids because they had their ears

talked off.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Did TxDOT charge the city

or MOTRAN or anyone for setting up the conference?

MR. DONNELLY: No, sir. It was a free

conference.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Glory be, we do listen to

people.


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MR. DONNELLY: I think the number of

attendees and the people that came were quality folks,

and I think that there was a lot of communication that

was done at that point. It was great.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you for noting that.

I appreciate that very much.

MR. DONNELLY: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: You don't think there's any

relationship that they fed you very well about three

weeks prior to the conference, do you?

MR. WILLIAMSON: And they did, and you too,

I might add.

MR. JOHNSON: Oh, okay. I wasn't going to

mention that.

(General laughter.)

MR. DONNELLY: But we have had good support

from TxDOT on our program. This is our 14th year of

Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance.

MOTRAN has developed close relationships

with our states in Mexico, Chihuahua and Sinaloa, and

this feasibility study and the earmarks are programs

that TxDOT helped us get the earmarks in Washington,

and we think it's going to be worthwhile. From an


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earlier comment, you saw that our border needs relief

and we're trying to provide that infrastructure for

you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Not only relief, but we can

lay the groundwork for an economic boom that will last

100 years if we do it right.

MR. DONNELLY: True.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You've got to think long

term, medium term as well, you can't just think short

term, you've got to think about the long haul.

Members, questions of this witness?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Robin, I want to thank you

for appearing.

MR. HOUGHTON: I don't have a question but I

do have a comment that I was delighted to speak at

their conference out in Midland, and it was well

attended, enthusiastic. They had their Mexican

counterparts from a couple of the bordering states, all

the way down to Topolobampo, and it was well

integrated.

And I want to thank you all for having me.

I was impressed, and am looking forward to working with


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these folks to make this a reality.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So you were impressed with

them as hosts and our own staff as organizers.

MR. HOUGHTON: It was very well done, first

class.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Certainly worth the money.

MR. DONNELLY: Before I leave the podium,

since you were out there previously, and I know

Commissioner Andrade was scheduled to be there and we

know her heart was there with us when we had our

appreciation dinner for TxDOT, and I brought what we

call the La Entrada al Pacifico mile markers and we'd

like to present that to you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, thank you.

MS. ANDRADE: Thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: If I put this up in my

front yard, does that mean we can swing the La Entrada

around to Weatherford and back up?

MR. DONNELLY: Well, we'll certainly try to

figure that out.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thanks.

MR. DONNELLY: Thank you.


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MR. JOHNSON: Robin, great to see you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Jim, did we get a

recommendation?

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir. Recommend approval

of the minute order.


presentation and the witness, you read the material.

Do I have a motion?





by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. Let's get

that thing studied.

MR. RANDALL: Okay, sir.

Item 9(e), this minute order authorizes

CONSTRUCT authority for a bridge replacement project in

Dallas County on FM 1382 at Draw Creek in Category 6,

Structures Replacement and Rehabilitation Program, of


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the 2006 Statewide Preservation Program.

Currently the bridge is partially closed due

to halted construction. The project has previously

been let and construction started but was halted due to

a worsening soil condition not recognized in the

initial design criteria. This prevented completion of

the structure abutments or the walls supporting the end

of the bridge. Due to the need for a redesign, the

contract was terminated and the project was closed out.

The project needs to be re-let incorporating

the newly designed abutments. In order to provide

Dallas County citizens with a safe and efficient

transportation system, it is necessary to advance the

project to CONSTRUCT authority at an estimated cost of

$2,829,374.


MR. WILLIAMSON: Say, Jim, whenever we

completely rebuild a bridge like this, do we get to

name it?

MR. RANDALL: That's a good question.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Check into it, and if it

is, we'll name this the Grady Smithee Bridge.

MR. RANDALL: Okay, sir.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: This looks like it's really

close to his house.

MR. RANDALL: I think we'll check with OGC

on that.

MR. JOHNSON: It has to be recommended by

the city or the county.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Does it have to be? Can we

pass a rule to change that?

MR. JOHNSON: Statutorily.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, do you have

questions or comments regarding this matter?





by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. RANDALL: Okay, sir. Item 9(f), Minute

Order 109862, dated November 18, 2004, approved the

2005 Statewide Mobility Program. This minute order


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amends Category 3, Urban Area Corridor Projects, of the

2005 SMP to authorize additional project selections in

Laredo at a total estimated cost of $16.2 million, as

shown in the attached Exhibit A.

These projects were previously programmed in

the Category 11, District Discretionary. Due to

estimated cost increases and limited Category 11 funds,

the MPO requested that Category 3 be used in addition

to the Category 11 funds to address these needed

improvements.

The MPO and the district agree that these

proposed improvements are a high priority in addressing

local mobility needs and the Statewide Mobility Program

update will reflect the re-prioritization of Category 3

project funding and scheduling.

Staff recommends approval of this minute

order.


presentation. Do you have questions or is there

discussion?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion?

MS. ANDRADE: So moved.


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by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. RANDALL: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Jim. That's the

longest you've been up here.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 10

concerning Toll Projects. We have two minute orders,

the first dealing with an Open-Road Toll Collection

System, and the second dealing with an agreement with

the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority. Phil?

MR. RUSSELL: Thanks, Mike. And again, for

the record, I'm Phillip Russell and I'm the director of

the Turnpike Division.

The first minute order I bring to you

relates, as Mr. Behrens indicated, to an Open-Road Toll

Collection System. In December of last year, we issued

a request for qualifications for a statewide open toll


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road system. This is essentially the integrator or the

type of system that we've utilized in the past. The

toll integrators is the group that designs, constructs

and maintains an electronic toll collection system.

This CDA would be utilized for our TxDOT projects

statewide.

Through that process, we received five

qualification statements. We assembled a typical TxDOT

evaluation team. We were able to short-list those five

qualification statements to three proposers. Through

that evaluation process, we separated the technical

from the pricing components -- fairly standard

procedure for these CDAs -- we evaluated them

independently.

And through that evaluation process, it was

determined that Raytheon Corporation, the group led by

Raytheon, represents the best value to the State of

Texas. The Raytheon proposal exceeded the technical

qualifications and their pricing components were under

early TxDOT assessments.

And so the minute order before you would

award the CDA to Raytheon and would authorize Mr.

Behrens to negotiate and to execute the CDA.


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Staff would recommend approval, and I'll be

happy to address any questions you might have.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, I'll have some

questions; I'll yield to my members first. Questions

or discussion with Phillip?

MR. JOHNSON: My only question -- and I

don't know that there's a finite answer to this -- do

we have in mind the amount of money that we're going to

be expending on this project, ball-parkish?

MR. RUSSELL: Commissioner, really it comes

down to the duration of this type of CDA. On this one

it's a five-year duration to implement this. Looking

at the CDA projects that the districts are suggesting,

I would think a practical limit would be somewhere

between maybe $200- and $300 million worth of work.

MR. JOHNSON: Is this going to be broken

down project by project?

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir. Again, towards our

normal CDA process, to execute the CDA really doesn't

guarantee them anything, what really authorizes them is

when Mr. Behrens and the appropriate level of authority

approves these work authorizations for those individual

projects.


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MR. HOUGHTON: So there's no limit on this,

we haven't described a limit on this.

MR. RUSSELL: No, sir. And again,

Commissioner Houghton, when you look at whether it's

TTC-35 or any of the other type CDAs, typically the CDA

itself, the guts of it come out of those individual

work authorizations, what we call notices to proceed,

NTP. That's where we authorize that developer to move

forward, and all of those NTPs, those approvals fall

within the normal TxDOT approval process, whether it's

something Mr. Saenz or Mr. Behrens or the commission

would review those.

MR. HOUGHTON: We basically ended up with

one proposal because the other two for various reasons

did not get to the finish line on this.

MR. RUSSELL: One of the three short-listed

teams elected not to propose, and a second one did

propose but the team found that it was non-compliant.

Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Phillip, my question

concerns more about the end product, and I want to be

sure I'm not confused. Will this CDA cover the design

of the -- or the impact of the toll booths?


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MR. RUSSELL: It's an electronic toll

collection system.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So we're in no way, by

approving this, giving mixed signals that we're going

to have toll booths on any of our toll roads, other

than 130 because we have the financial commitment

there.

MR. RUSSELL: Absolutely not, and in fact,

it reinforces the notion that we are going towards an

electronic toll collection system.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Because I find, as I move

around the state -- and the other commissioners might

find this as well -- we continue to hear, I continue to

hear one of the objections to toll roads is having to

stop at a booth, and I just can't emphasize it too

much. Other than the situation on 130 where we had

made a financial promise before we thought about

electronics, we just don't need to have any toll booths

on any of the state toll roads.

It just needs to be all electronic and

controlled electronically, and it just needs to be that

way. People need to be permitted to go faster, not go

slower.


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MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir, we hear you loud and

clear.


MR. HOUGHTON: Are we constrained on 130 by

our bond covenants to put up toll booths?


MR. WILLIAMSON: We moved at a time when it

wasn't logical to think about just an all-electronic

system, and we had to have that in our covenant.

MR. RUSSELL: The practical reality,

Commissioner Houghton, is that, again, when you're

going to Wall Street and talking about your project, at

the time we did send signals towards an all-electronic,

and in fact, the 45 and Loop 1 components lent

themselves toward an all-electronic atmosphere, but in

an environment where we had no toll roads here in

Austin, we got a fair amount of push back from the bond

market and the insurers, so ultimately we elected to

have a cash component as well, and that gave a bit more

comfort to the lenders and to the rating agencies.

MS. ANDRADE: Phil, for how long do we have

that restriction to have toll booths on SH 130?

MR. RUSSELL: For the length of the


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indenture. To the extent that we elected to remove

those, we would have to show all those involved that

going to an all-electronic format was to the benefit of

those, at least it wouldn't impact that bond indenture

in a negative way.

And that's possible, Commissioner Andrade,

in the future. I think we're all very comfortable here

in the Austin area that people will be highly adaptive

to that mode of payment and we might be able to make

that case at a later date.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We're certainly going to

work on it.

MR. JOHNSON: Let's assume for a moment we

do that, would the fees or fines for violations go into

the pool of money that's used to amortize the

indebtedness of that facility?

MR. RUSSELL: I think that would be the

case, Commissioner Johnson. Certainly the vehicle

enforcement system and all that will be recouping some

of those monies, and I would assume it will come back

into that bank account. That's probably more of a

question for Mr. Behrens or perhaps James Bass.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Anything else, members?


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(No response.)


presentation and recommendation. Do I have a motion?

MR. JOHNSON: Move approval.




by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. Thank you.

MR. RUSSELL: The second minute order,

commissioners, approximately a year ago, a little more

than a year ago, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning

Organization amended their 2025 Transportation Plan to

identify several projects that might be potential toll

road projects in the future with certain conditions.

That's what's commonly called the Phase 2 projects.

In April I brought to you a minute order,

and you approved the minute order, whereby we

authorized and requested the Central Texas Regional

Mobility Authority to begin evaluating and analyzing


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those Phase 2 projects for future development as toll

roads.

Since that time, since April, the CTRMA has

been doing exactly what they were authorized and what

they were requested to do, and they analyzed those

Phase 2 projects.

And so today's minute order that I bring to

you reflects one of those Phase 2 projects, the US 290

project. The limits essentially are from 183 to State

Highway 130. As currently envisioned, the CTRMA is

looking to sign a license agreement with the department

whereby they could reconstruct that corridor from 183

to 130, they would ensure that the existing number of

non-tolled lanes would remain constant or might be

improved, and then they would build tolled express

lanes in the median, again connecting up 130 with 183.

By approving this minute order, you would

allow the executive director to begin the negotiations

and execute a license agreement with the CTRMA to move

forward with that further analysis.

The project is critical not only to the

Austin area, but it does provide an important link for

State Highway 130 back to the interstate.


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Staff would recommend approval of this

minute order, and again, I'll be happy to address any

questions you might have.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I will have one, members; I

yield to you first. Ted?

MR. HOUGHTON: What seat at the table do we

have in the analysis of all of this, where do we sit?

Do we turn this over to them carte blanche, or do we

participate in the analysis, the financials? When you

say a licensing agreement, do we get something out of

this licensing agreement other than they finance it?

MR. RUSSELL: I think, Commissioner

Houghton, that would be part of the negotiations that

the executive director would have to enter into exactly

what would be covered in that license agreement. A

license agreement obviously is different from a

leasehold estate or even from fee simple, it's a

license agreement.

I would envision that we would work very

cooperatively, very closely with the regional mobility

authority as they begin looking at the traffic numbers.

Obviously the land itself is still a TxDOT

project, so we have a vested interest in remaining


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involved in that process. And I think clearly the

discussions we've had to date with Mike Heiligenstein

and those guys at the RMA is very much envisioning that

cooperative discussion.

MR. HOUGHTON: Well, once you start a

precedent, you're going to start it all over the state,

so I would think that we would go carefully forward

into what we're looking forward to and what we expect

to get back as a product and participation. That's my

view.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Anything else?

MR. JOHNSON: Phil, roughly where does 130

cut 290?

MR. RUSSELL: Let's see. It's probably

three-four miles to the east of 183. I think that's

about the distance, four miles, somewhere in that

neighborhood.

MR. JOHNSON: So certainly you don't get to

Manor.

MR. RUSSELL: It's this side of Manor, yes,

sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Refresh my memory on the

development of commercial establishments. Do RMAs have


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the right to develop commercial establishments within

the right of way?


MR. JOHNSON: If I were a commercial

establishment and an purveyor of gasoline or a fast

food establishment and I had my business up and running

outside the state right of way, it would give me a lot

of heartburn if all of a sudden competition showed up

inside the right of way. I say that as a matter of

personal opinion, but I think we need to be very

careful there is what I'm saying.

MR. RUSSELL: Commissioner, under House Bill

2702 and Senate Bill 7, that issue obviously was

discussed. Those new bills I think now are being

analyzed, and to some extent it affects our ability,

both from a TxDOT standpoint as well as a regional

mobility standpoint, of building those service centers.

And clearly what you're suggesting, the

concern of competition between existing businesses and

what might be proposed is a sensitive issue.

I will say -- not speaking for the RMA, but

I would say that building a service center in a median,

or whatever the case may be, when you have existing


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businesses probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Typically service centers are developed to provide

convenience to the traveling toll-paying traffic, and

if you have those facilities there in place, it may not

make any sense.

Clearly, when we looked at our Central Texas

project on 45 and Loop 1, we never considered service

centers because all of those establishments were

readily available.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, my thought is that --

and I'll notice again when I leave this meeting

returning home on 290 -- that's a well developed

commercial corridor through there, and if competition

inside the right of way appears, it's going to put

those people at a disadvantage, and that gives me

heartburn.

MR. RUSSELL: Clearly, Commissioner Johnson,

what's being envisioned to discuss -- and again, yet to

be determined through those discussions -- is that the

non-tolled lanes, typically on the outside, would still

be a TxDOT-maintained, TxDOT-operated facility. When

you start talking about squeezing in express toll

lanes, you don't give yourself a whole lot of room for


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those sorts of operations.

And again, I think the folks that will be

involved will look at all those existing establishments

and try to make a determination whether that makes

sense from a driver's standpoint or not.

It's a fairly small stretch. The intent,

again, is to connect up the 130 traffic ultimately to

35, so I think all those things would be taken into

consideration.


MR. HOUGHTON: That begs the original

question as to a seat at the table as to Commissioner

Johnson's concerns are also my concerns, and beyond

that, from a revenue, financial and asset type of

concern.

MR. RUSSELL: Clearly, Commissioner

Houghton, from an informal standpoint, we're taking

copious notes and we certainly will utilize those as we

sit down with the RMA for these discussions. I'm

assuming you all could formally provide any sort of

guidance to the department on that as well.


MS. ANDRADE: I'm fine.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, my question is

actually at the opposite end of the spectrum, and I

wish that our buddy Patrick Driscoll was here, and

we're going to get around to hearing from Bob Tesch in

a moment.

My question is, is it entirely possible that

we -- well, let me ask it a different way. If we pass

this minute order today and tomorrow Doug Pitcock makes

a CDA proposal to the RMA to do this project, who will

analyze that proposal and make that decision?

MR. RUSSELL: That would probably be an

answer for Mr. Monroe. I think clearly the issue in

San Antonio is it was a TxDOT project. We'd been

moving forward. David Casteel's staff was doing the

detailed design work.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But what if they make the

proposal to Bob Tesch and not to us?

MR. RUSSELL: I think clearly this minute

order is trying to suggest that it will be a CTRMA

project. If it occurred tomorrow, Richard --

MR. HOUGHTON: I concur with where he's

going.

MR. RUSSELL: It could be that in-between


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until the license agreement is actually executed.

MR. MONROE: If they make a proposal to the

RMA, was that the question?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir.

MR. MONROE: The RMA would analyze it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And thank you. Because I

actually see this as an opportunity to telegraph to our

friends in San Antonio, as we've always said, we've

never been afraid to let the RMAs -- I mean, we want

the RMAs to do this stuff. We took the position we did

on the Cintra American proposal because we think that's

the law and they made the proposal to us. But by our

actions today, we could well be signaling to San

Antonio, to the Alamo RMA, here's proof of what our

intentions are.

Other questions?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: We would want to take note,

Mike and Bob, of the commissioners' concerns about not

using the RMA shell to go out and put people out of

business.

And with that, if you don't mind, Bob, we'll

hear from you now. Bob Tesch, a great volunteer Texan.


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MR. TESCH: Mr. Chairman, commissioners.

For the record, I'm Bob Tesch, chairman of the CTRMA.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak to

you today.

I am well supported by a great staff of

folks here today and I have three things to say,

really, three things to speak to.

I'd like to thank you for the confidence and

support that the commissioners and TxDOT has shown the

CTRMA as we have built our agency and advanced our

first project. I'd like to give you a brief update on

that project, and being sensitive to the time, make our

request for approval of this project today.

The relationship and cooperation between the

CTRMA and your great professional staff is just

unprecedented, and I think it's facilitated excellent

progress for mobility in Central Texas and it's allowed

the CTRMA to move forward with deliberate speed on our

first project, and it's allowed us to overcome

substantial diversities.

And Mr. Chairman, as you yourself commented

at our groundbreaking that this course of action is not

for the weak of heart; it's not for sissies.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: Not for girlie men?

MR. TESCH: Not for girlie men, not for

sissies, that's right. And we've dealt with a few of

those things, but it's a worthy cause and it's a

necessary cause, and the result with your support and

the great team that we've put together, we think, and

staying the course, and what we've learned over the

past 2-1/2 years has resulted in our first project, I'm

proud to say, being on budget and on schedule for

completion on March 7 of '07.

Through this process it's laid the

foundation for our advancing to the next phase of the

Central Texas Mobility Plan. And I reflect back nine

months ago I stood here on behalf of the CTRMA and

requested your equity participation to assist us in

qualifying for our bond financing on that first

project. You provided that and we have put it to good

use.

And because of that, western Williamson

County is now poised for improved economic development,

job growth, and enhanced quality of life. And I think

that we're a good example of what that partnership can

do and hopefully we're adhering to what we were formed


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for.

We're here today not to request funding but

to request approval of just moving forward with a

project. I'd like to emphasize that this project, 290

in eastern Travis County, where it's toll-free today,

it will remain toll-free, and only the new capacity

that we construct will be tolled.

And at the same time I'd like to state that

we are very sensitive to stakeholders and businesses

and the local community, and those things that you

mentioned, Commissioner Johnson, we'd be very, very

sensitive to. Putting people out of business is not

something that we want to be a party to, putting people

in business is something that we're more related to.

But we hear you loud and clearly on that.

And I think, finally, I would be remiss if I

didn't thank Governor Perry for recognizing the fact

that mobility is a key to prosperity, and the

alternative to mobility is a deterioration of economic

well-being and quality of life. And through providing

RMAs with the tools such as comprehensive development

agreements, CDAs, that the state leadership has given

us, we, I believe, are demonstrating that it's a win-


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win situation and that we're really contributing to

good economic growth and enhancement of quality of

life.

I remain confident that the CTRMA's ability

to meet and exceed our expectations in the future, as

in the past, will remain on target. We are keenly

aware of our charge and that is to set a high standard

for other regional mobility authorities. That's at the

forefront of our thinking in everything that we do.

And if you would indulge me another 60

seconds on a personal interest note, I'd like to say

that about two years ago the governor said to me, Bob,

it must feel pretty good being selected as chairman of

the state's first regional mobility authority. And I

said, Yes, sir, Governor, it does. And he said,

Because when you succeed, it's something you'll take

with you the rest of your life. And I said, Yes, sir.

And he leaned over and looked me in the eye and he

said, Of course, if you fail that's something you'll

take with you the rest of your life too. And I said,

Yes, sir.

(General laughter.)

MR. TESCH: And I want to tell you,


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commissioners, it's that thought that crosses my mind

every morning before my feet hit the floor.

And so we're keenly aware of the importance

of our success, and as I like to say over at the Texas

A&M campus every chance I get to speak over there, the

eyes of Texas are upon us and we know that and we're

trying to make Texas proud and we're trying to make you

proud.

So thank you not only for your support and

the support of your great staff and our partnering that

has grown to be as strong as it is, but also the CTRMA

would like to thank you for volunteering your time.

You are all volunteers too, and you give a great deal

and the state is better off for it, and we just want to

recognize that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's kind of you and we

appreciate those kind words.

Questions or discussion, members?

MS. ANDRADE: I'd just like to thank you,

Bob, for your leadership in this effort, and to tell

you how much I appreciate you asking for our continued

involvement. It's great that we're working that

relationship and keep building it. So thank you so


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much.

MR. TESCH: Thank you, Commissioner.

If I could just add that I couldn't -- I

have to emphasize again our great board of directors

made of seven volunteer community leaders is our real

strength, and the great staff and support we've put

together with our team is where the strength is.

MR. JOHNSON: Bob, do we anticipate that

this project will be done within the current right of

way?

MR. TESCH: Within the current right of way?

Mike, you may want to give me some help on that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Former county official Mike

Heiligenstein.

MR. HEILIGENSTEIN: Mr. Commissioner, we

anticipate acquiring additional right of way. In fact,

it will be quite expensive.

MR. JOHNSON: What additional width?

MR. HEILIGENSTEIN: We're looking at 400

through there.

MR. JOHNSON: 400 additional feet?

MR. HEILIGENSTEIN: No, I'm sorry. 200

additional.


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(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, thank you, Bob.

MR. TESCH: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Phillip, do you want to

close up? Do you want Mike to speak? Mike isn't

signed up.

MR. RUSSELL: Do you have anything else?

MR. HEILIGENSTEIN: I would only reinforce,

Mr. Chairman, what you said earlier. This will be an

all-electronic facility.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you. That's what we

need.

MR. RUSSELL: Chairman, you confused me when

you said Mike and then you looked at your executive

director.

Yes, staff would recommend approval of this

minute order.


staff's recommendation and the testimony, we've had

dialogue. Is there a recommendation, is there a

motion?



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MR. WILLIAMSON: There's a motion and a


by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. RUSSELL: Thank you, commissioners.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Phillip.

MR. BEHRENS: Moving on, our agenda item

number 11 concerning finance, James Bass will present

two minute orders concerning budget.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Good lord, those people

waited all this time for that. Should have put it at

the last, Mike. We could have held our audience.

MR. BASS: Good afternoon, commissioners.

I'm James Bass, director of Finance at TxDOT.

Item 11(a) seeks your approval of the

department's Fiscal Year 2006 operating budget in the

amount of just over $7.7 billion. This operating

budget is in accordance with the appropriations bill

passed earlier this year by the legislature, and staff


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would recommend your approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, I have one

question; I yield to the members. Do any of you have

questions?

MR. JOHNSON: What happens if we don't pass

this?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I guess we can all go home

and rest.

MR. BASS: 15,000 angry people show up at

your house.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: James, I have one. I

didn't take the time to compare. There was a rider in

the appropriations bill that reserved certain amounts

related to SAFTEA LU or to the federal reauthorization.

I'm assuming that rider survived the Appropriations

Act?

MR. BASS: Not that I'm aware of. There are

several riders in the appropriations bill dealing with

the number of enhancement projects.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The estimated feature that


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LBB held out did not survive the bill?

MR. BASS: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Did you anticipate those

funds in this budget, or did you hold those funds out?

MR. BASS: They were anticipated within this

budget. They may not be the precise dollar amount but

the growth was anticipated.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So if for whatever reason

the Legislative Budget Board is not willing to release

those funds, this budget will have to be revised.

MR. BASS: It may not be to the exact dollar

amount of the final bill of SAFTEA LU that was passed,

but an approximate increase that finally passed was

built into the $7.7 billion.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I don't think he's

answering my question.

MR. BASS: I think the answer to your

question is no. We recently received an additional

$700 million in apportionment each year through the

SAFTEA LU.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Not each year.

MR. BASS: Each year.

MR. WILLIAMSON: An additional $700 million


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each year.

MR. BASS: We went from approximately $2.2

billion of apportionment to an average $2.9 billion.

MR. JOHNSON: Is that a four-year average?

MR. BASS: It's a six-year bill and it's a

six-year average, however, one of those years is

already elapsed, and so it will be implemented through

the final five years of the six-year bill.

MR. HOUGHTON: So that's in here.

MR. BASS: It may not be precisely $700

million. A significant portion was built within there

because in working with the Design Division and the

Transportation Planning and Programming Division --

they work with Finance Division in doing our broad

planning for the department -- they anticipated a

growth. It may not be precisely to the dollar amount,

but the majority of that increase is already built into

the $7.7 billion figure.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. What is the

practical impact of the rider in the state

appropriations bill which withholds from us the

authority to obligate a portion of that increase?

MR. BASS: Rather than operating and going


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through our normal planning and operation procedures,

we'll have to add one or two additional steps and

notify the Legislative Budget Board that through

whatever mechanism we anticipate receiving additional

money, and then we will have to wait for a response

from them approving our ability to go forward and spend

those dollars.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And so my question is, is

that amount withheld and not taken into consideration

in this budget, or do we assume in this budget that the

LBB will approve whatever we send them, or does it

matter for this year?

MR. BASS: For this year it does matter, and

let me see if I can attempt. Within this $7.7 billion

there is almost $3.8 billion of federal dollars in

there because it's different than apportionment, it's

the actual reimbursement.

If during the year we think we're going to

actually receive more in reimbursement than the $3.8

billion built into it, we would then have to go request

approval or permission from the Legislative Budget

Board to spend those additional reimbursements.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So the answer is no, it's


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not built into this.

MR. BASS: $3.7 billion of it is, but if

there's more than that, it's not built in there.

MR. HOUGHTON: I've got another question.

If early on --

MR. WILLIAMSON: The reason I asked that is

because we had some roughness in the regular session

over the Mobility Fund bonds, and I want to avoid that

roughness, I don't want to catch leadership by

surprise, and I don't want them or us to be put in an

uncomfortable position.

So if you're saying to the commission today,

approve this cash budget, and if this cash budget

assumes approval by the LBB at some point during the

year to be able to spend $7.731 billion, then we need

to start talking to them right now.

If it doesn't assume that and probably

doesn't have any impact till next year, then we'll take

it up next year.

MR. BASS: In order to spend the $7.7

billion, it requires no additional approval from the

Legislative Budget Board or any other office.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you see the point I'm


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getting at, Coby? I don't want the lieutenant

governor -- we're partners, we're not enemies.

Go ahead, Ted.

MR. HOUGHTON: James Randall, on his agenda

item 9(a), the Statewide Transportation Improvement

Plan, does that assume those new federal dollars in

there from '06 to '08?

MR. BASS: Yes, from the SAFTEA LU. And

keep in mind the appropriations request was delivered

almost 12 months ago, the bill just passed 12 days

ago, or was signed 12 days ago. So the precise figures

are not built into the $7.7- but I believe the

estimates we had through the Design Division and

Planning and Programming from 12 months ago are pretty

close or very close, but there may be some minor

adjustments to that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Further questions, members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. You've heard the

presentation and the recommendation. Do I have a

motion?




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by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. BASS: This next minute order, item

11(b), approves the Fiscal Year 2006 operating,

maintenance and capital budgets for the Central Texas

Turnpike System which initially consists of State

Highway 130, State Highway 45 North, and the Loop 1

extension, commonly referred to as the 2002 Project.

The indenture for the system requires that

on or before August 31, the commission adopt these

various budgets for the ensuing year, and staff

recommends your approval.

MR. HOUGHTON: Required by the indenture?

MR. BASS: Yes.






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by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 12, James

will present pass-through toll minute orders, one for

the City of Port Arthur to execute an agreement, and

the other one is to authorize us to negotiate a pass-

through toll agreement for the City of Forney.

MR. BASS: Item 12(a) is the final approval

or adoption of an agreement with the City of Port

Arthur for a pass-through toll.

Under the agreement, improvements to FM 365

would be constructed and initially financed by the

city. The department would then reimburse the city

over time based on actual traffic on the improved road

at a rate of 8 cents per vehicle mile, with a minimum

annual payment of just over $933,000 which would take

15 years for full reimbursement to the city, and a

maximum annual rate of $1.4 million which would take 10

years.

We would obviously continue these


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reimbursements until such time as the total of $14

million was received by the city, and staff recommends

your approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I will have questions,

members; I yield to the members. Questions?

MS. ANDRADE: I have a question. James, is

that the standard of reimbursement?

MR. BASS: There is not a defined standard.

I believe, this being the third one that the commission

has seen and hopefully will adopt today, one of them

was at 7 cents per vehicle mile, and the other I

believe was at 15 cents. And through the negotiations

and looking at other aspects of the project, I believe

Amadeo Saenz, working with the district and whoever the

applicant is, they're looking for a reimbursement

somewhere in the range of 10 to 15 years, and that

seems to be more of a primary factor than the specific

per-vehicle-mile rate.

MS. ANDRADE: Okay, thank you.

MR. HOUGHTON: It's becoming a very popular

tool, isn't it.

MR. BASS: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Sort of my line of thought. I


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think this is terrific, and I remember when actually

this delegation has come twice to present this project.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I was going to ask is this

the one they've come and talked to us about.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes. And you know, it's a

good way to solve some of these challenges.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you happen to know,

James, are they going to do all the work themselves or

are they going to ask us to do contract and design and

such?

MR. BASS: I believe they're going to do it

or hire a program manager to handle those

responsibilities for them.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So we get an improvement to

the system, we don't have to allocate much limited

resource to it right now.

MR. HOUGHTON: Who is the program manager?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I bet I could guess.

MR. HOUGHTON: Me too.

MR. SAENZ: Their consultant that had been

working with them -- for the record, Amadeo Saenz --

was Chica & Associates that was doing some of the work.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Really?


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MR. SAENZ: Right.

MR. JOHNSON: You know, those guys wrote us

a letter when we started on our engineering stuff and

told us we were exactly right. I've still got that

letter, I've never forgotten that.

MR. SAENZ: That was the consultant that had

been working with the City of Port Arthur for many

years as they came to the commission and prepared. In

fact, the City of Port Arthur, under this proposal and

based on their prior commitment, paid for the design at

their cost and were not seeking reimbursement for that

design because they said we committed to that.

MR. HOUGHTON: So who is the PM?

MR. SAENZ: They don't actually have a PM,

they had an engineer that was doing early work for

them. They may move forward and it could be Chica &

Associates, I'm not sure.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, a project like this does

conform to our specifications, it has to.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. This project is on

the state highway system. To be able to do pass-

through toll projects, the project must be on the state


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highway system, and it will comply with all the state

and federal requirements.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm just observing in an

era of limited resources internally that there was an

actual benefit I didn't think about when we were

shepherding this through through the years, and that is

it lets us continue to focus on our regular program --

if that's the right way to put it.

MR. SAENZ: It continues to let us focus on

our regular program, and we start paying based on the

actual usage of that asset at the time that it's opened

to traffic and with some limitations, both at the lower

level and at the top level.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Maybe we ought to send a

letter to the legislature and recommend they do public

education that way, you know, monitor kids' progress

and reimburse the school districts based on the

progress.

MR. HOUGHTON: I'll let you go sell that

one.

MR. JOHNSON: Running for the school board?

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Are there other questions,


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members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: You've heard the proposal

and recommendation. Do I have a motion?





by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. BASS: Agenda item 12(b) seeks your

authorization to begin negotiations with the City of

Forney on a pass-through toll agreement.

The committee submitted a pass-through toll

proposal providing for the improvements to FM 740 and

FM 741. In their proposal the city listed pass-through

tolls of just over $23 million to be repaid over time

based upon actual traffic on the project.

Your approval in no way would be an

agreement to the specific terms but would allow the


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department to begin serious negotiations with the city.

Once we arrived at mutually beneficial terms, we would

then bring that back to the commission for final

approval.

Staff recommends your approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, are there

questions?

MR. HOUGHTON: Is this three separate

features?

MR. BASS: I believe there's actually four

on there -- well, in four different colors. You're

correct, one of them is a continuous split into two

phases there.


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm going to have a

question of our witness, but our witness is going to

appear subsequent to our action, so do I have a motion?





by saying aye.


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(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. WILLIAMSON: David, is it Grooms?

MAYOR GROOMS: Darrell.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I've got to get some new

glasses.

MAYOR GROOMS: Actually I do have a brother

named David and a daddy named David that work for

TxDOT.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, Darrell, how are you?

MAYOR GROOMS: Fantastic, thank you. Maybe

I put the wrong name up there.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think you put your dad's

name down here.

MAYOR GROOMS: Well, I might want to

impersonate him, he's a good man.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hey, Darrell, you're on.

Mayor of the City of Forney.

MAYOR GROOMS: Yes, sir. Chairman

Williamson, members of the commission, Executive

Director Behrens, and staff, I'm Darrell Grooms, mayor


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of Forney. Forney is located in the Dallas District

with Bill Hale as their new engineer.

I just want to let you know that we

appreciate the opportunity to negotiate this pass-

through toll program. We know it's a new system but

we're very excited. Forney is growing. I've got my

numbers here, 680 percent is our projected growth by

2030. Just in the last year we've grown over 20

percent, we're building a school a year, we are just

booming.

We have five farm to market roads inside of

our small city limits. This is an opportunity for the

City of Forney, as well as TxDOT, to come together and

help the state out as well as help the city out.

One thing that we've also done and we're

negotiating in our contract with Mr. Saenz, is when we

met with him in March, we also made the proposal for

the next 20 years that the roads that we upgrade that

the city will take over the maintenance of those roads.

I believe we're the first ones to do that so far. So

that's hopefully a relief to you as well as to us. It

will give us an opportunity to where we can put it in

our budget, we can fund it, we can manage it, and kind


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of not be a thorn on your maintenance engineer's side.

And I'll entertain your questions.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Have you got questions of

this fella? I'm going to have one but I'm going to

wait. You go ahead.

MR. HOUGHTON: Who is your PM?

MAYOR GROOMS: Pate Engineers.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you recommend them or

don't? They know a little bit about TxDOT.

MR. HOUGHTON: Just a little.

MR. WILLIAMSON: They were also the first

ones to recognize the future.

MAYOR GROOMS: Yes. I tell you, we're very

excited. In the city of Forney, it's almost

frightening the growth that we're experiencing, and of

course, the whole North Texas area is growing, but our

town in particular is just booming, and this is an

opportunity.

The roads have served us good for a number

of years, and now it's time to just expand them, and

hopefully we can partner with you and get it done, and

save you some money and us some money, and expedite the

project is the key.


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(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have one question.

MAYOR GROOMS: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Does that fella still teach

fast pitch softball to girls in Forney?

MAYOR GROOMS: Who is it, do you know?

MR. WILLIAMSON: What's his name?

MAYOR GROOMS: Our girls have been going to

state the last two or three years, so I would imagine

so.

MR. WILLIAMSON: A big old tall fella, used

to teach every pitcher in North Texas.

MAYOR GROOMS: He probably still does then.

Although we did go up to 4-A last year and we kind of

slid back a little bit.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's okay. You've just

got to keep trying.

MAYOR GROOMS: We will and it's going to

continue. The rate we're growing, we're getting some

new players and good players.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You had the minute order

pass for you, so good luck, go to it.


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MAYOR GROOMS: Thank you very much for all

your help.


MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 13 is our

State Infrastructure Bank minute order for the City of

Mesquite.

MR. BASS: Item 13 seeks final approval of a

loan to the City of Mesquite in the amount of just over

$5.6 million to pay for the cost of improvements which

include reconstruction of the Interstate 635 main

lanes.

Interest will accrue from the date funds are

transferred from the SIB at a rate of 4.1 percent with

payments being made over a period of 15 years.

Staff recommends your approval.


questions?

MR. HOUGHTON: I've got one. What is the

balance in the SIB unencumbered?

MR. BASS: The unencumbered right now is $17

million.

MR. JOHNSON: Is that before or after this?

MR. BASS: That would be after this -- I'm


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sorry -- before this. We have $23 million in pending

applications, but the key is the $17 million is the

cash balance today, next month we'll receive loan

repayments from some of the various 52 loans that we've

made prior, so it's all timing and cash flow at this

point.

MR. JOHNSON: What is the Town Center TIF

whose revenues is securing this indebtedness?

MR. BASS: It is the Tax Increment Financing

district around the Town Center, I believe it's a mall.

MR. WILLIAMSON: One of their high schools

is just across the street. I think it's right in

between Town Crossing Boulevard and 635, one of the

Mesquite high schools.

Other questions?

MR. BASS: My apologies. I think I mis-

spoke in my remarks. It's 12 years at 4.1 percent.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, that changes my mind,

I'm against it.

MR. BASS: I thought that it might so I

better point it out.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is there a motion?


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second. All in favor of the motion will signify by

saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. BASS: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 14, our

contracts for the month of August, our maintenance

contracts and our highway and building contracts.

Thomas?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Good afternoon,

commissioners. My name is Thomas Bohuslav, I'm

director of the Construction Division.

Item 14(a)(1) is for consideration of award

or rejection of highway maintenance contracts let on

August 9 and 10, 2005.

We have 12 projects, an average of 2.8

bidders per project. Staff recommends award of all

projects. Questions?


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MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm going to have a

question. Any questions, members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thomas, familiarize me a

little bit more with your bidding processes. Do you go

through and estimate what the probable bid should be or

the probable low bid should be for a maintenance

contract?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes, sir. Those are done by

the districts and they may or may not be reviewed, I'm

not sure, Zane is not here. But generally the

districts develop those estimates.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And how do we notify the

prospective bidders? Do they pull it off our website,

do we send them a letter, all, none, public notice?

How does it work?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Prior to the bid? In the

public notice we include the estimate of the project,

we have the estimate on the public notice. We don't

have a breakdown of the estimate but we have the total

amount shown on the estimate.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So you tell the public we

have this maintenance project and we think it ought to


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be about $700,000.

MR. BOHUSLAV: I say it's public notice.

It's a notice to contractors that we send out to all

the contractors.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We're saying we invite you

to bid on this.

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And we think it ought to be

about $700,000.

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes, sir. It's not rounded

to any round number, it's calculated and extended all

the way out.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. Other questions,

members?

(No response.)


presentation and the request of staff. Do I have a

motion?





by saying aye.


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(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. BOHUSLAV: Item 14(a)(2) is for

consideration of award or rejection of highway

construction and building contracts let on August 9 and

10, 2005. We have 116 projects, average of 3.7 bidders

per project. We do have a 14-1/2 percent overrun this

month, very similar to last month.

We have six projects we recommend for

rejection. The first one is in Jefferson County, it's

project number 3059. It was 167 percent over, one

bidder. This is for some repair work on some steel

beams on State Highway 87 around Port Arthur.

We'd like to get some more bidders and see

if we can get a better price for that work. We also

want to add some more detail in the plans. There was

some work that was Aas directed@ and we'd like to add

some more detail so the contractors know better what's

required of that work so they can get a better estimate

on their work and bid it better.

The next project recommended for rejection


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is in Walker County, it's project number 3262. It was

44 percent over, had one bidder on this project. This

is for conversion of some frontage roads to one way and

rebuilding ramps and rebuilding the frontage roads on

IH 45. Again, this bid was too high and we'd like to

also solicit some more competition for it.


is in Walker County again, project number 3402. It was

61 percent over, we had four bidders. It's a rest area

on IH 45, an enhancement project, of course. Again,

the bid was too high and we want to go back and try to

re-bid that and see if we can get better prices for

that work.


is 3220 in Nueces County, 34 percent over, we had one

bidder. It's landscape work on US 181 and State

Highway 358. We'd like to get more bidders on this

project, get more competition and re-bid it again.

Next project recommended for rejection again

is in Midland County, 3403. It is 82 percent over, six

bidders on this project. This is an enhancement

project for the Confederate Air Force Museum, and of

course, the city there is the sponsor of that. They


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would have to fund any of the overruns on the project

and the bid was about $5,332,000. We'd like to go back

and redesign and see if they can save some of the

costs, they can't afford that amount of overrun.

MR. HOUGHTON: This is their money?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Part of it is. It's

Enhancement funds with their money participating, and

there's a maximum amount of Enhancement money that goes

into the project and they fund anything over that, so a

significant amount of the overrun, probably most of it,

would be their part.

The last project recommended for rejection

is project number 3216 in Cameron County. It's 36

percent over, had two bidders. This is for a hike and

bike trail in Brownsville, another enhancement project

bid at $4.2 million. We'd like to go back and see if

they can split that up into two parts and see if they

can save some money that way and get better

competition, better prices for the work.

Staff recommends award of all projects with

the exceptions noted.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'll have one question,

members. Do you have questions?


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MR. HOUGHTON: The airport museums qualify

for enhancement projects? That's a question.

MR. BOHUSLAV: Could you repeat that?

MR. HOUGHTON: Airport museums qualify for

enhancement?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes.

MR. JOHNSON: Is it now not the

Commemorative Air Force Museum?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Maybe that's what it is, yes.

MR. JOHNSON: $548 million, if you multiply

that times 12, that's in excess of $6 billion in total

letting. Off the top of your head, what were the total

lettings for fiscal year ending in four days or five

days?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Amadeo, is it $4.5-?

MR. SAENZ: $4.5 billion.

MR. HOUGHTON: Is that another record?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Total record, yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's working.

MR. JOHNSON: Excellent.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's working, we're doing

the right things, even if we don't listen to the public

enough.


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(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: My one question, Thomas, is

again, educate me on the bidding process. How do you

ask for bids on these major construction projects?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Every contractor has to be

either pre-qualified or bidder's questionnaire.

Bidder's questionnaire is a lower qualification

requirement they submit and they register with us so we

know who to send proposals to. And pre-qualified

contractors, there is a financial pre-qualification

requirement to see if they have capacity to bid these

larger projects.

So we maintain a list of all contractors

that are qualified in some manner, and every month --

and this is not just for statewide lettings but also

for local lettings -- we send out a notice to them of

all the projects that are going to be let in that

month. And they in turn respond to us, either by fax

or by mail or they can actually do it by internet now,

whereby they can request proposals. And we in turn

send them bidding proposals to be able to bid the

projects. And then, of course, they submit those for

the letting, for the bid opening.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: And those proposals include

the amounts of money we associate with that proposal?

MR. BOHUSLAV: The proposals do not include

the estimate of the project, they include what they

bid, they include in their proposal their bid prices.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do we tell them, for

example, that we think project C310-1-36 ought to be

about $1.5 million?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes, we tell them in the

notice, yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So they've got an idea of

how we're going to be scoring them.

MR. BOHUSLAV: They have an idea about what

we estimated it at, yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Same as the maintenance

contracts.

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Are there other questions,

members?

(No response.)





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second. All in favor of the motion will signify by

saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


And now, Amadeo, answer -- is this yours,

this next one?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes, sir, the next two.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Take a break just a second.

Amadeo, I don't want to be repetitive of

earlier in the year, but I've just got to reinforce

something. When you want to request a professional

services contract for an engineering firm for a

specific design a bridge that Thomas is going to

eventually ask for a bid on, when you send out that

notice of interest -- is it called?

MR. SAENZ: Notice of intent.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Notice of intent, do you

tell the engineering community we expect to pay about

$5 million for this work?

MR. SAENZ: Let me ask Mark because I have


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not seen a notice of intent.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I know we can't, under the

law, use the price as part of the consideration for

decision.

MR. SAENZ: I don't believe that we put in

the notice of intent what we estimate the fee for the

service is going to be. Now, what we do for the

indefinite deliverable contracts, we do say we are

going to solicit proposals for two indefinite

deliverable contracts not to exceed $2 million, but

those, each individual work order is worked out

separately.

Where we do know how much we estimate the

fee for that particular service is going to cost is

when the districts submit now their scope of services

for the work, they estimate what that fee is going to

cost and over what period of time they're going to pay

it out. That's so that we can just keep the budget.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But I'm just curious when

engineers receive our notice -- it's called notice of

intent?

MR. SAENZ: Notice of intent.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do they receive warning,


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like contractors do, of about what we expect it to

cost?

MR. SAENZ: No, sir, not in the case of a

specific contract.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is there any reason why we

can't do that? I'm just curious.

MR. SAENZ: I don't see any reason why not.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, thank you. Now,

Thomas.

MR. BOHUSLAV: I believe we're on item

14(b). Is that right, Mike?

MR. BEHRENS: We're going to agenda item

14(b) and (c), both of them dealing with participation

goals for Historically Underutilized Business Program

and also Small Business Enterprise Program.

MR. BOHUSLAV: Thank you. Item 14(b) is a

minute order for the adoption of the HUB goals for

Fiscal Year 2006. Those HUB goals are as follows:

building construction is 26.1 percent, special trade is

57.2 percent, professional services is 20 percent,

other services is 33 percent, commodities are 12.6

percent.

Commissioners, I think I may have mentioned


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up here before that currently TBPC is working toward

re-establishing these goals, revising these goals.

They have a consultant onboard now to do that, with

several other sub consultants to that consultant.

Mason Tillman is the consultant out of California.

So we've discussed revising our goals and we

felt like it would be more appropriate to let TBPC run

the course and perform their analysis. They're going

to do a very detailed analysis. In fact, our staff and

our divisions, GSD, Design and our division are working

with TBPC to develop a database to see what

availability is out there right now. So we're waiting

on that to go back and look and revise these goals.

So you're aware that these are the same

goals that TBPC uses right now and we are proposing to

adopt those.

MR. JOHNSON: When do you expect to have

that information or that report?

MR. BOHUSLAV: There is a schedule. I think

they probably will have the report by the end of next

spring. By the time they gather all their data and go

through the process to evaluate it, I think it's going

to be next spring, maybe early spring. And then it


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would take about six months for TBPC to adopt those,

and so we're looking at maybe September-October before

they actually adopt those as the statewide goals.

MR. JOHNSON: So there's a possibility that

in Fiscal Year '07 that we might -- if things move

along a little more quickly than you expressed, that we

might be able to utilize the results of the study.

MR. BOHUSLAV: We could possibly move out

ahead of TBPC if we see the results and go look at

those. We do have some ability to go ahead and

establish the goals on our own.

MR. JOHNSON: Are these the same as are

currently utilized in Fiscal Year '05?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: How have we done in meeting

the goals that we've set?

MR. BOHUSLAV: In the different categories,

generally in building construction, depending on the

year -- and that has a lot to do with how many projects

we let -- there are some years we do very well in

building construction, some years we don't do well.

I've got some numbers I can give you.

In special trade, those are things such as


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plumbers and those types of services, and we've not

done very well in that area, it's a very high goal, 57

percent, but we've not done very well in that area.

MR. JOHNSON: And by not very well?

MR. BOHUSLAV: In the range of --

MR. HOUGHTON: Is the number in brackets

what we're doing? Is it 22 percent? So 57 percent is

our goal and we're at 22-23 percent?

MR. BOHUSLAV: I'm not sure I know what

you're looking at.

MR. HOUGHTON: I'm looking at my notes.

MR. BOHUSLAV: I don't have a copy of that.

I'll tell you what we've done. In the

area of building, for instance in 2004 we did 31.7

percent, our goal is 26.7 percent, I believe -- or

26.1 percent. This year we haven't got all the data

in for this year, for 2005, but halfway through the

year we're looking at about 14 percent.

Special trade, the goal is 57 percent, we're

doing this year thus far about 22.7, but that's about

as good as we've done in special trade, and this is a

small purchasing area, by the way.

Professional services, our goal has been 20


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percent; we meet our goal. In 2004 we did 27.9 percent

and in 2005 to date, and that's through half the year,

we were about 19.7 percent, but we expect to exceed the

20 percent goal.

MR. HOUGHTON: Let me ask you, when you say

20 percent, 20 percent of all contracts?

MR. BOHUSLAV: No, 20 percent of payments.

It includes subcontractors as well, so if a prime is a

HUB, then we would include them as a part of those

payments.

MR. HOUGHTON: If it's the prime.

MR. BOHUSLAV: If it's the prime, or if it's

a subcontractor to a prime that's not a HUB, we include

those as well.

MR. HOUGHTON: It's the payment they

receive.

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes. Well, in the case of

HUBs, J.D. are you in here? Are we doing awards or are

we doing payments? We're doing payments for HUBs.

And then in the area of other services,

other services are things such as real estate

appraisals and surveying, our goal is 33 percent and

we've ranged in the 18 to 23 percent area there.


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In commodity purchasing our goal is 12.6

percent. We've ranged from 7 and last year we did

about 8.8 percent, this year thus far about 10.8

percent.


MS. ANDRADE: So we're working on outreach,

we continue to work on that?

MR. BOHUSLAV: We continue a very extensive

effort in outreach, yes, ma'am.

MR. WILLIAMSON: May I have a motion?





by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. BEHRENS: Thomas, I think we're going to

have to have a vote on those two minute orders

individually.

MR. BOHUSLAV: I always want to get off this


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podium before it's time, so I've got one more to do

here.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We don't want you to leave.

(General laughter.)

MR. BOHUSLAV: 14(c) is a minute order that

establishes the department's SBE goal for Fiscal Year

2006 for highway construction and maintenance

contracts. The proposed goal is 23 percent, and our

achievements in that area have been between 18 and I

think 21 percent or so in past years.


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, to clear the

record, we acted on item 14(b) previously, we're now

acting on item 14(c). Do I have a motion?




second. All those in favor will signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. Thank you,


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Thomas.

MR. BOHUSLAV: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Wait, Thomas, don't leave.

(General laughter.)

MR. HOUGHTON: Amadeo, when will we see the

results of the I want to call it an edict in May by the

executive director, by yourself as to the professional

services procurement, the redesign, spreading the

wealth, we call it?

MR. SAENZ: I will get with Mark. We've

started the process a couple of months ago and we've

been implementing, and I need to find out where we're

at with the contracts and give you a status report on

how we're doing there. I'll just prepare a report and

send them individually to the commissioners.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm interested in that as

well. That's why I asked the question earlier.

MR. SAENZ: That process of going through

the selection is not the normal that we can do

everything in one month, it usually takes an extended

period of time, two to three months, so we may not have

a lot of change just yet. But we will get you an

update as to what we've implemented and what results we


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have to date.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll now go to agenda item

14(d), our contract claims, and Amadeo will present two

claims that were acted on.

MR. SAENZ: Good afternoon, commissioners,

Mr. Behrens, Roger. For the record, again, I'm Amadeo

Saenz, assistant executive director for engineering

operations, also chair of the Contract Claims

Committee.

For item 14(d)(1), the minute order before

you approves a claim settlement for a contract by

Viking Construction, Inc. for Project CPM 92-13-16, et

cetera, in Navarro County in the Dallas District.

On July 19, TxDOT's Contract Claims

Committee considered this claim and made a

recommendation for settlement to the contractor, and

the contractor has accepted. The committee considers

this to be a fair and reasonable settlement of the

claim and recommends your approval.

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions, members?




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by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. SAENZ: Thank you. For item 14(d)(2),

the minute order before you approves a claim settlement

for a contract by Deavers Construction, L.P. for

project NH 99(462), et cetera in Webb County in the

Laredo District.

On June 23, TxDOT's Contract Claims

Committee considered this claim and made a

recommendation for settlement to the contractor. The

contractor has accepted. The committee considers this

to be a fair and reasonable settlement of the claim and

also recommends your approval.

I'll be happy to answer any questions on

this one.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions, members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Amadeo, a couple of


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questions about this one. This is a large amount of

money for a contractor to agree to. Are we sure that

this a fair deal?

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. Looking at this

project, this was a major project that had some delays

and inefficiencies. We went through and did a

comprehensive report from staff as well and the

committee looked, and we felt that this was fair and

equitable and the contractor did agree to it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is this company still in

business?

MR. SAENZ: This company is no longer in

business, it has been taken over by a different

company.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So who will the payment be

made to?

MR. SAENZ: The contract was transferred

over so the payment will be made to the company that is

finishing the job right now, who are the ones that

filed the claim.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Why would we do that?

MR. SAENZ: The claim extended through both

companies.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: But it was the company

that's no longer in business that suffered the cost for

the claim of additional payment. Right?

MR. SAENZ: Well, the cost that they showed

basically carried through both contractors.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I know that the highway

construction business is nuanced, so I'll try to reduce

it to something I can understand. If I contract with

Harding Drilling to drill a well and they got to the

end of the job or even halfway down and we had a

disagreement over the cost of the drilling mud, we

would defer that disagreement till the end of the job,

but Harding would have lost that money right then.

They would have asked for an additional $10 million and

we would have gone to mediation.

If Harding had gone under or sold out to

someone else, I don't know that I would still be

dealing with the someone else.

MR. BOHUSLAV: This is really the same

company. It's a restructured company and part of the

ownership has changed, so our check still goes to the

same place for this thing, so we're effectively dealing

with the same company.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: My last question would be

are we honoring any court instructions about settlement

of assets in making this payment?

MR. BOHUSLAV: No. The restructuring was

done internally to the company.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So there's no

reorganization in the courts.

MR. BOHUSLAV: No, sir.

MR. HOUGHTON: Okay. That's all my

questions. Questions, members?

(No response.)




MR. WILLIAMSON: A motion and a second. All

those in favor of the motion will signify by saying

aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. SAENZ: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, it will be up to


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me to present item 15. This minute order approves the

annual salary for the executive director of the

department for Fiscal Year 2006 and 2007.

The General Appropriations Act for those two

fiscal years establishes salary groups for certain

executive level positions. The act establishes an

annual salary range from $106,692 to $189,000 for a

Salary Group 6 individual, and it also imposes some

maximum compensation rates on our appropriation. The

department's schedule of exempt positions limits the

annual salary of the executive director to $175,000.

This minute order, if approved by us, will

approve the determination of an annual salary of

$175,000 for our executive director as just and fair

compensation, considering other executive heads of

other agencies with comparable full-time equivalency

caps and other management requirements.

As your chairman, I wholeheartedly endorse

this decision and the minute order, if you approve it,

will raise that salary accordingly. Do I have a

motion?

MR. HOUGHTON: I have a question. The

question is how many exempt positions are there in the


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agency.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Assistant executive

director, or second, number two, whatever we call Steve

Simmons.

MR. SIMMONS: Mr. Chairman, commissioners.

For the record, my name is Steve Simmons, I'm deputy

executive director of the department. And we have one.

MR. HOUGHTON: We have one.

MR. SIMMONS: And this is it.

MR. HOUGHTON: And Steve, the max is $189-?

MR. SIMMONS: That is the salary group in

the director series for Salary Group 6, and that's

listed in the Appropriations Act under Article 11.

MR. HOUGHTON: We could go up to $189-?

MR. SIMMONS: No, sir. By the

appropriations bill, the maximum we can go is $175-.

MR. JOHNSON: I asked Mr. Bass if we didn't

approve the budget what would happen, and he said there

would be approximately 15,000 disturbed employees, and

so I'm assuming that if we don't approve this, there

will only be one employee.

MR. WILLIAMSON: No, but there will be two

really disturbed Texans, one employee and one spouse.


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(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: Having made that observation,

I'll so move to accept this recommendation.

MR. HOUGHTON: Second, with a hearty second.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and I have

actually three hearty seconds, a ringing endorsement of

our great leader, Mike Behrens. All those in favor of

the motion will signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. HOUGHTON: Are you buying lunch today?

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's where he went, he

went out to buy lunch. He wouldn't sit down there, he

said I'm going to go buy us lunch.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Can I return this to you?

This makes me nervous, I'm not used to this.

MR. BEHRENS: It makes me nervous too.

(General laughter.)

MR. BEHRENS: My comment is not for this

action but all of the work that you have done that has

helped all of our employees to move forward this


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session, and they deserve more, and that's all I can

say.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, we went over there

and worked hard for them, like you did, and we'll work

hard for them again in about 16 months.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 16 is our

routine minute orders. As always, they have been

posted, as required, on our posted agenda. I don't

know of any of them that affects any of the commission

members on any interest that you might hold. So I

recommend approval of the routine minute orders.

MR. WILLIAMSON: These are donations, right

of way things.

MR. BEHRENS: Eminent domain, load postings,

speed zones.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We're approving a few

billboards in the Harris County area, right, on one of

these things, over in the Riverside, next to one of the

private schools over there.

MR. JOHNSON: Where your grandchildren will

some day go to school.

(General laughter.)



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questions?

MS. ANDRADE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to know

where Crane County is because I can go drive 75 miles

per hour during the day.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Crane County?

MR. BEHRENS: West Texas.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That is oil country.

MR. HOUGHTON: East West Texas.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Southeast West Texas, maybe

even.

MR. JOHNSON: South and west of Midland.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's got the pungent odor

of money as you drive through it.


MR. HOUGHTON: That's east of El Paso.






(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


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MR. BEHRENS: Item number 17 is the

recommendation of appointment of two persons to serve

with the State of New Mexico regarding rail relocation

facilities in the El Paso area. Richard.

MR. MONROE: Thank you, Mr. Behrens. Once

again, for the record, my name is Richard Monroe,

general counsel to the department.

In SAFTEA LU the State of New Mexico was

awarded $14 million for the general purpose of

transferring certain rail facilities contemplated from

El Paso to New Mexico. By this minute order, this

commission will appoint the named individuals, Harold

Hahn and Tom Cardenas -- I hope I'm pronouncing those

correctly -- to represent the state in negotiations

that are anticipated under the terms of a memorandum of

understanding with the State of New Mexico to try to

see exactly what both states want to do to their mutual

advantage as to the general purposes mentioned in the

minute order itself.

The memorandum of understanding is currently

being negotiated. We think we have a final draft now,

we hope we do. And perhaps immodestly, perhaps


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Commissioner Houghton would be in a better position

than I to answer any detailed questions you might have,

but I will try.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'll have one for you but I

will let Mr. Houghton. Do you have questions of

Richard yourself, Ted, Hope?

MS. ANDRADE: No.


MR. JOHNSON: Ted, do you know these

individuals?

MR. HOUGHTON: Yes, I do.

MR. JOHNSON: Is that a ringing endorsement

or not?

MR. HOUGHTON: Great friends of the State of

Texas.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Richard, my question to you

is do you think we can somehow make a song out of Skip

to My Lou and SAFTEA LU and kind of make all that work?

MR. MONROE: Probably could. I think that's

a very unfortunate name for a piece of legislation.

MR. WILLIAMSON: SAFTEA LU, man.

MR. MONROE: It's not mine, Mr. Chairman, I

don't claim it.


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(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, members, you've heard

the recommendation and there is a motion.





(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)



MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Richard. And

congratulations to Mr. Hahn and Mr. Cardenas. They'll

do us well, I'm sure.

Michael, do we have open comment business?

MR. BEHRENS: Yes, we do.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, Jerry, bring that

disguised box.

MR. ROANE: I'm here with the Tri Track

project.

MR. BEHRENS: Jerry, you need to identify

yourself for the record.


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MR. ROANE: I'm Jerry Roane and I'm here

speaking about the Tri Track. And we were working

through the process and there's a new law, House Bill

2702, that authorizes Tri Track to be built by TxDOT.

House Bill 2702, in the very first few lines of the law

authorizing TxDOT to be has Tri Track defined. And

what we thought we had was that Tri Track was neither

road nor rail so it was undefined.

So Senator Barrientos was very kind in

entering this into the legislation, and now that we're

in legislation, we were about to propose the Tri Track

as a toll road in the Austin area, and we ran up

against the $20,000 fee that you guys require to study

proposals for toll roads, and we don't have $20,000 to

pass out right now because we spent it on this stuff,

$17,000 worth of tooling in this one, special tires,

wheels are coming from China, this is the shock

absorber that goes on the strut part of the car.

So we were in the process, we were rolling

forward, and then we got to the $20,000 hiccup, and

we're stopped. So what I think I'm asking for is that

the commissioners give Mr. Behrens the authority to

either waive the fee or ratio the fee based on value,


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because there's a Spanish company that won a $7 billion

project and I think they paid the $20,000, and my

project is about $10.4 million, and if you ratio that,

it's $29.71 that I would have to pay.

So if we keep it in some form of fairness,

then we would be willing to pay some fee to study the

system, but we can't pay the $20,000.

Just to clarify what this thing is, this is

the drive train for the Tri Track, the strut is the

piece on the bottom. It has end caps. The end caps

were in the machine shop when we got the notice that we

had to pay the $20,000, so those got stopped.

The benefit to the state is that the amount

of pollution is tremendously reduced by using the Tri

Track. It was mentioned earlier about buses and low

sulphur diesel. The amount of NOX pollution that's put

out by a bus per passenger is tremendously less on the

Tri Track, so low sulphur is good but it still doesn't

get you very clean. You have to have the catalytic

converter that goes with it in order for it to actually

function.

MR. HOUGHTON: How many passengers?

MR. ROANE: There's four.


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MR. HOUGHTON: Per vehicle?

MR. ROANE: Per vehicle. But we run them

very close together, so we have 9,000 passengers an

hour.

Senator Barrientos wrote a letter responding

to Mr. Behrens letter saying that we needed to pay the

$20,000, and he was concerned about the language in the

law, because I think in the law it says he may charge

the $20,000. And I think the legal opinion was it says

one place Amay@ and it says someplace else some

different language. So it's a little bit fuzzy, I

think, whether I have to pay the $20,000, or it's Mr.

Behrens prerogative whether I pay the $20,000. That's

up for the legal guys to figure out.

In the meantime, UT Austin has asked us to

build a guide way between their two campuses, between

the main campus and Pickle. This is a request proposed

to them. Right now they pay Cap Metro $155,000 a year

for that route. We would build it as a complete system

and NRE and 16.7 miles of track and 50 cars.

MR. JOHNSON: How long would the route be?

MR. ROANE: 16.7 mile loop, so 8 miles. And

50 cars, GPS limited to the campuses, and the toll


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would be collected, if there is a toll, by swiping your

student ID card or swiping your Visa card in the car,

so the electronic tolling would be part of the car.

MR. HOUGHTON: UT students are going to pay

a toll?

MR. ROANE: Well, that's why UT asked to pay

for it, they didn't want it to be a toll, so they would

be taking that from you guys, but there's more roads in

Texas to work on.

In the time we've been working on this

project, we also went out and talked to CalTrans so

they may be building a guide way. We're asking them to

build one between Santa Cruz and San Jose, basically.

And they asked that we form a California company and

propose it as a California company. So Shannon Wiener,

who was here with me last time, she's formed that

company, it will be a female-owned California company.

And so that's in the works.

And a little quick comment about pollution.

Somebody mentioned biodiesel earlier. The NOX

pollution is actually higher for biodiesel than regular

diesel, according to the Austin biodiesel guys.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Not ultra diesel,


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biodiesel.

MR. ROANE: Biodiesel, French fry grease.

And of course, we'll be showing at the

Renewal Energy Roundup and at the WEEC, and we'd love

to say that TxDOT is on our side and we're moving

forward. And I'm hoping that this is just a little

administrative hiccup and that we can work through how

to get something started with TxDOT.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Who do you want to talk to

next, Jerry?

MR. ROANE: Anybody that wants to, either

you or Mr. Behrens.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I know that we have

information from you, but if you would be sure -- Coby,

did you leave -- be sure and give Mr. Saenz numbers

where I can reach you and we'll have someone contact

you.

MR. ROANE: All right. I appreciate that.

MR. JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman, one thing that

Mr. Roane has requested is that we consider reducing or

waiving the $20,000.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, but we can't take that

action in open comment period.


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MR. ROANE: I understand that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But make sure that Amadeo

has information where I can get hold of you.

MR. ROANE: Okay. Great. I appreciate it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's always good to see

you.

MR. ROANE: This is the catastrophic crash

simulation. If a crane takes out the guide way, each

car is non-lethal G-force in this particular motion.

The G-force and the speed is on each dashboard of each

car. But that's more than $20,000 worth of effort that

you're looking at here, this little pittance, but we're

making our best effort.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We don't laugh at different

ideas.

MR. ROANE: Thanks.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. We now have, it

would appear, all from the city of San Juan, four

witnesses. First we have Marivel Romero. Thank you

for waiting so long.

MS. ROMERO: Thank you. My name is, like

you said, Marivel Romero. I'm not a politician, I

don't know the laws, and I don't bring statistics with


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me. I am a property owner in San Juan -- it's a city

compatible to Buda, I believe -- where a toll road is

being proposed. I'm here to talk to you about the

negative effects that this toll road would have in my

city.

I live approximately one-fourth away from

this proposed site. I know the area. Imagine an 80-

foot high rise road. That's how high this toll road

would be, 20 feet higher than the highest road we have

there in that area.

This road would run through one elementary

school and two middle schools, approximately 30 feet

away from Clover Elementary. How many of us would want

an 80-foot structure road carrying toxic chemicals 30

feet away from where our children go to school?

This road would run in the middle of newly

built subdivisions, and I'm not talking about a road

being proposed on a street, I'm in the middle of a

subdivision. Here's Cesar Chavez; here's Stewart Road.

This toll road would run in the middle of those two

roads where you see homes to your right, to your left.

This toll road would be approximately 20

feet away from back yards or front yards, depending


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where you live. Would you want a toll road next to

your home?

As we speak, other subdivisions are being

built, left and right, and people are going to be

buying there, 15 or 20 feet away there will be a toll

road, if it goes through. I wouldn't want to buy a

home there, not a $150,000 home.

Upon the construction of this toll road, the

city of San Juan would lose taxable income, and who is

going to pay for this lost income? Us, the citizens of

San Juan would. That's what I don't get.

Where is the benefit to our city upon the

construction of this road. I don't see it, nor 80 San

Juan citizens that I went personally knocking door to

door who signed a petition against the toll road.

Who is going to be there when foundations

start cracking, when walls start cracking, who is going

to pay for that?

The toll road is not for the city of San

Juan. Why should we, the citizens, have to pay for a

convenient method of transportation? I plea to all of

you if there's a problem, let's not seek a quick fix.

Ordinary people like me depend on your fairness, on


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your competence and rational judgment for the benefit

of all, including the citizens of San Juan.

Now, what I understand, how did this start.

We live next to where there is the bridge, the Pharr

International Bridge. They agreed to build this

bridge. Well, now they have a problem, they have

traffic. McAllen also has an international bridge,

they have all these semis going through. So how do

they want to fix this problem? Well, let's build a

toll road, not in our city, no, no; let's just do it in

our neighbor's city in San Juan. I don't see fairness

in that.

So I plead that you consider this. I really

don't think that the people who have proposed this toll

road know exactly where they want to do this road, and

as you have heard from me, it will affect us all.

Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Wait, wait. Questions of

this witness?

MS. ROMERO: Sure.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have one, Ms. Romero.

Would it matter if the road were a toll road or a tax

road, it doesn't matter, just the road being there?


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MS. ROMERO: Well, the road that I saw on a

map, it goes in between homes, goes next to schools.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So it wouldn't matter if it

was a tax road, open road, toll road, it wouldn't

matter.

MS. ROMERO: It would matter to me. Why do

you want to build a road with heavy traffic, as well as

a road where toxic chemicals could be carried, next to

a school, next to homes where my neighbors children

would be playing in and my children would be playing

in.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But it makes a difference

to me -- and I don't know about my fellow

commissioners -- your opposition and concern is not

that it's tolled but that there's any road at all.

MS. ROMERO: That is a concern, yes, but

more so if there was toll because, again, of those

toxic chemicals running through our neighborhoods.

Yes, it would be a concern per that question that you

asked, as well.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Because I think the answer

all of us would have to say yes, none of us want toxic

chemicals above our heads. But I just wanted to


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clarify it's not that it's a toll road, it's any road.

MS. ROMERO: Right, but there is a proposed

toll road there in that site.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I want to thank you for

coming all this way and waiting.

MS. ROMERO: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Jorge -- please, I

apologize in advance -- Arcante?

MR. ARCANTE: Mr. Chairman and

commissioners, I thank you for allowing us the

opportunity to provide you some input on Texas

transportation issues. My name is Jorge Arcante. I'm

the city manager for the City of San Juan.

You just heard some pretty heartfelt

testimony from Ms. Romero. We have a lot of people in

town that are quite concerned about the toll project.

Obviously we're here to speak to the pending RMA

application that Hidalgo County has. I believe you'll

probably hear that at your next meeting or soon

thereafter.

And you can hear some of the other impacts

from some of the other witnesses, but we are getting

ready, if this project goes through in San Juan, to


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give up some very valuable frontage road on a portion

of Expressway 83 that is just starting to build up

commercially for us after many years of dormancy.

So the kind of economic impact we're talking

about is not just giving up some valuable commercial

property but all the residential property that would be

lost in the taking of the right of way for the proposed

corridor.

Back to the RMA process, I think that one of

the reasons we have a lot of concern in the city is

that the way this particular project got started was a

little bit backwards. We had the county get out in

front on this and not really include the City of San

Juan in the planning process, in the preliminary

planning process.

There's been a lot of misunderstanding about

what the intent is. You have some very, very good

district engineers in our area, certainly the current

one. The immediate past one, Amadeo Saenz, was here in

the audience. We have enjoyed a very good working

relationship with TxDOT in years past. But this was

not their process to begin with and I think that's

where things got away from us right away.


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I think one of the things that the City of

San Juan missed is representation at the preliminary

design level, and I think that's what has hurt the

process to date. We had a very big turnout at the

county's required RMA public hearing, and you heard a

lot of testimony like the one that Ms. Romero just

gave.

Again, the city was not included, and for

that reason, we think that this particular application

deserves a lot more scrutiny. We know that there have

been some issues with representation on the RMA. We

understand the county has made some moves now to change

those, I believe at your prompting, and that's good.

But again, direct representation for an area that will

be so directly impacted by the project is in order.

I think it should be a requirement that an

economic impact study be done on projects of this size.

And as Ms. Romero mentioned, it's quite unfair that we

are taking the brunt of the heavy traffic for other

cities for their particular cases, in this case, the

City of Pharr with their bridge, without some means of

taking care of the needs of the City of San Juan.

There's no doubt that a major corridor like


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this will entail extra costs for the city. There is no

doubt that we are going to have some negative impact on

the potential of some future growth, commercial growth,

but as it stands now, the project has been pared down

so that there are no frontage roads, there are no

access ramps, and that means that there will be no

commercial development.

I think what Ms. Romero is trying to tell

you is that it wouldn't be so bad if it was a road that

we could use. As it stands now, it doesn't even look

like our citizens would be able to use it, and that

seems just a little unfair. I think that's what one of

the main problems is.

My last point, I need to tell you the mayor

actually made the trip with us here and actually got

hurt as she was trying to come into the building, and

that's why she's not here, and probably will not be

able to address you.

But I think she had some concerns about the

format of your meetings. I think when the item is on

the agenda, she would like to lead a larger delegation

here so that you can hear some more input from them.

I also wanted to thank Mr. Behrens for all


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the courtesies that he's extended us on this particular

occasion. You have a wonderful staff, as I've said.

We've had a very good working relationship with TxDOT

in the past, we would love to continue that.

Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We will be sure that you

have ample notification. I hope the mayor is okay.

MR. ARCANTE: I hope so too. We actually

don't know, so we're going to rush out of here and find

that out.


(No response.)


MR. ARCANTE: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Father Lasseigne? How

close was I?

FATHER LASSEIGNE: We pronounce it La-sang.

I'm actually from Louisiana; it's a French name.

MR. WILLIAMSON: La-sang?

FATHER LASSEIGNE: La-sang. Good afternoon.

I'm Father Dan Lasseigne. I'm the pastor of St. John

the Baptist Catholic Church in San Juan. It's the only

Catholic parish in the town which is a town of about 80


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percent Catholic residents.

I also took part in that hearing before our

county commissioners court, and we were repeatedly told

that before the commissioners was not a consideration

about toll road or not, but rather the consideration of

forming an RMA in Hidalgo County.

And all I can say is that we in San Juan are

doubtful about that statement and we were suspicious

that the formation of an RMA in Hidalgo County is just

one short step away from actually approving what we

call the San Juan Toll Road.

We know from the media that the State of

Texas is indeed promoting toll roads more than in the

past as a way of financing major highway construction

that perhaps the state doesn't have the money for now,

and we believe that other RMAs are also either

considering or have approved toll roads. So we don't

think that our thinking is that far removed from

reality.

Also, as Ms. Romero said, we have seen a

drawing and detailed plans for a very specific kind of

toll road which will indeed be very high with no

entrances or exits and will indeed carry toxic


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materials along it. So we've seen those plans. We

said, Okay, if the plans are so detailed and so already

worked out, again the formation of an RMA, in our

thinking, is just simply one very short step from the

approval of the toll road.

So we are suspicious of it. We don't see

this as simply being a neutral discussion about local

control of our highway construction, we see it as a

discussion of how quickly can we get this toll road

placed through the middle of San Juan.

Two other brief points. One is that San

Juan, if you look at it on a map, is long and narrow,

and if a very large road was built right through the

middle of it -- and it's going to actually run not far

from where I live either -- it's going to pretty much

divide the town in half.

Yes, Highway 83 divides the town in half,

but because it cuts east-west and not north-south, it's

less of a dividing line than I think this new road will

be.

And third, as the pastor of the Catholic

church in San Juan, I recognize, and I think most

people do, that the Basilica of San Juan, also known as


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the Shrine of our Lady of San Juan, is the major

attraction of the town. In fact, it's part of the

city's logo. I work in the church right behind the

basilica. The basilica is a large, very prominent

building. It is, you might say, the town of San Juan

is the heart of the Catholic Church in all of the

Valley.

And I'm concerned, again, this major

interchange connecting the new toll road with Highway

83 will also be close to the basilica. Whereas, 83

actually gave life to the basilica, has brought a lot

of people within a very short distance of it, I feel

like this major interchange could be a visual blight

and would not complement the image or the spirituality,

if you will, of the town.

One other brief point, you were commenting

would we consider something other than a toll road?

MR. WILLIAMSON: No. I just was curious if

her complaint was -- her card said toll road, and as I

listened to her concerns, it seemed to me the concerns

were any road; it didn't matter. Toll, tax, it didn't

matter. Which is okay, I just wanted to understand

where she was coming from.


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FATHER LASSEIGNE: Okay, very good. Thank

you. Any questions?


MR. HOUGHTON: I do. [Inaudible].

FATHER LASSEIGNE: Yes, it is.

MR. HOUGHTON: Tell him hello.

FATHER LASSEIGNE: I sure will. And your

last name is pronounced?

MR. HOUGHTON: How-ton.

FATHER LASSEIGNE: How-ton. And he would

know you in what capacity?

MR. HOUGHTON: [Inaudible].

FATHER LASSEIGNE: Okay, very good.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Any other questions?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I want to thank you, as I

thanked the others, for all the time you spent waiting.

I appreciate it.

FATHER LASSEIGNE: All right. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Mary Ruiz.

MS. RUIZ: Yes. God bless you for having us

here today.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I've got to tell you how


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impressed I am with anyone that says, I'm a U.S.

citizen and a Texan of San Juan.

MS. RUIZ: Yes, a very proud Texan.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's what I like to hear.

Texas really gets my soul. I like it when people say,

I'm a Texan.

MS. RUIZ: I did bring the map that Pastor

Dan was talking about.

My name is Mary Ruiz, and I happen to be a

resident of San Juan. This was brought to my attention

by our city leaders and elected officials that I highly

respect because I'm so grateful that they brought this

information to us, or else we would never have known

about it.

As you see right here, Cesar Chavez, in this

corner right here there happens to be a school, a

middle school right there. Over here on this other end

happens to be Austin Junior High, and traffic is

extremely heavy. We don't even bother to come through

this road because this area is full of cars picking up

their children. We have people there making sure they

cross the streets.

All of this is residential area. Right here


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is a proposed toll road. Right here down this stretch.

It goes all the way down here. Here is Pharr and this

is I Road. This is Alamo the next town, and this is

Cesar Chavez -- it used to be Morningside. Now, this

toll right here, there happens to be a high school, a

middle school and a high school on I road.

Now, the traffic is tremendous, there's so

much housing here. It is extremely tremendous because

we're in the middle of all these three schools right

there. Now we're having all this traffic coming down.

I happen to live in this area, it's a new

subdivision that I have moved into. Now, all of these

people were not even aware that we're going to have

this road in our backyard. That's why they're

protesting it because they were not informed, they were

not involved in the decision-making, they were not

regarded whatsoever. As voters and citizens of the

State of Texas, I feel we have that right.

Now, another thing, too -- that's the map

that we were discussing -- see how narrow San Juan is?

Something like this would just cut our city and

probably end up killing it because all these people

would move out, and our city would just not exist, it


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would not grow. And our aim as citizens is that our

children have a future here to stay.

Now, my concern is that I've been a

Christian for 23 years, I've traveled from Corpus

Christi to Laredo, and what I have found out is that in

Laredo when I was living there for seven years, the

same situation occurred with the Colombia Bridge. We

have that same problem.


MS. RUIZ: No, I don't have the map for the

Colombia Bridge.


MS. RUIZ: This is Military Road and it's

going to start from I Road right there, and Pharr has

the bridge.

Now, as I was saying, I was a resident in

Laredo for seven years. The city had a tremendous

headache over all the trucks in the city, so they went

ahead and they wanted a solution which they went ahead

and they received a toll road.

But the only thing is that truckers from

Mexico do not have the income, they suffer much more

than we down in the Valley do, they had so much trouble


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even trying to fix their trucks. Now, these trucks

came with very dangerous chemicals, gases, and they

were traveling through our city.

And I saw right there what that could do to

our city in San Juan because I was an eyewitness to it,

I saw them just not caring where they went through that

area. But when the toll road was brought up, it was a

$75 million failure because it just didn't work, nobody

took it, it just failed, and it's just an empty

structure by the outskirts of Laredo.

And when I saw that the trucks had no regard

for the public or anybody who gets in their way, I

realized now it's coming to our city where we're going

to have them avoiding the toll road and going through

our streets, through our schools, through our

community, in our neighborhoods.

And what I saw in Laredo was that they

damaged a lot of streets, they just damaged a lot of

cars, and there were a lot of teenage deaths at that

time. That was the biggest concern of the city, the

death rate and the accidents that were being caused.

So I thought, well, I left Laredo because I

saw not well leadership in the sense that they could


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have done something else to have avoided this whole

thing. Now Laredo, of course, suffers a lot, it's a

beautiful city, but now also it has trouble with its

bridges and the people crossing over, and there's a

problem, a very big problem there.

I really wouldn't like that to happen to San

Juan, having that problem that I saw come and growing

in our area.

And one thing I wanted to read was this

verse from Henry Hopkins. He was an advisor for

Franklin D. Roosevelt. He said, AI thank God that I

live in a country where dreams can come true, where

failure sometimes is a first step to success, and where

success is only another form of failure if we forget

what our priorities should be.@

I feel that Laredo had a failure with that

toll road that was there, and that's why I would like

for all of you to understand that economically-wise the

Valley cannot sustain a toll road.

And that's what I wanted to say, but I also

wanted to inform you that to be able to be a builder,

you have to have stability, you need to have the area

stable, and that's why I brought all of these articles


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here about how we are suffering in the Valley. We're

suffering because we're having trouble with our

schools, there's not enough financing. We have

problems with abuse. We have -- how can I say it? --

we have gang members in our area.

We have all these problems. This is just

from one month which is August, and look at the

subtitles that we have to read. We have police making

arrests; this one ATwo others die after Mexican

explosions.@ We don't want the problems from Mexico

coming to our city. Here is AWhich way to I-69?@

That's another concern.

A lot of gang members, and the thing is if

our community dies, that's what's going to be moved in.

We do not want all of these problems. Agencies

recovering stolen vehicles; our police departments are

stretched in keeping order; residents reeling from

sting at the pumps. If the residents can't pay the

gas, our truckers are surely not going to be able to

pay the tolls. Defendants in voting and scandals; the

Iraq War; pious border frustrations. We're dealing

with that with the Minute Maid problems too.

We have Edinburg massacre. This is where


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our county, our courthouses. We have pot smugglers.

This is what it can do to a community by destroying it.

Here again, gang members. And then we have local

builders fired on permit values.

We have all these dilemmas happening in our

city, and this is another dilemma in our city. And we

just pray that you can help us out. I know it's a big

decision and there's a lot of decisions made upon all

of you, but we just hope that you would consider and

help us for the residents of San Juan.

Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Are there questions of this

lady?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: As I said to the others, we

really appreciate your driving all the way up here and

your time and patience in waiting to have your say.

MS. RUIZ: Thank you so much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We'll take all of your

comments into consideration. We listen to everybody.

Thank you.

Mr. Behrens, is there any reason for an

executive session?


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MR. BEHRENS: No, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The most privileged motion

is in order, members.

MR. HOUGHTON: Motion to adjourn.

MR. JOHNSON: I would second because the

Chair put in the record that he is not bashful.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We have a motion and a

second to adjourn. All those in favor of the motion

will signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Opposed, no.

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: We stand adjourned at 2:40

p.m. Thank you.

(Whereupon, at 2:40 p.m., the meeting was

concluded.)


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C E R T I F I C A T E

MEETING OF: Texas Transportation Commission

LOCATION: Austin, Texas

DATE: August 25, 2005

I do hereby certify that the foregoing

pages, numbers 1 through 278 inclusive, are the true,

accurate, and complete transcript prepared from the

verbal recording made by electronic recording by Marian

Stasney before the Texas Department of Transportation.

8/29/05 (Transcriber) (Date)

On the Record Reporting, Inc. 3307 Northland, Suite 315

Austin, Texas 78731


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