Texas Department of Transportation Commission Meeting

Commission Room
Dewitt C. Greer Building
125 East 11th Street
Austin, Texas 78701-2483

9:00 a.m. Thursday, December 19, 2002

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

JOHN W. JOHNSON, Chairman
ROBERT L. NICHOLS
RIC WILLIAMSON

STAFF:

MICHAEL W. BEHRENS, Executive Director
RICHARD MONROE, General Counsel
CHERYL WILLIAMS, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director

P R O C E E D I N G S

MR. JOHNSON: Good morning. It's 9:11 a.m. and I would like to call this meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission to order. Welcome to our final meeting for this calendar year; it's a pleasure to have you here today.

I will note for the record that public notice of this meeting, containing all items of the agenda, was filed with the Office of the Secretary of State at 1:28 p.m. on December 11, 2002.

Before we begin, I would like to thank my colleague Robert Nichols for pinch-hitting for me last month.

Robert, I appreciate that. And I understand also that the meeting finished in record time, and Ric, I understand that my absence was the reason for that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We gave you credit for it.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: So we're going to institute a new rule today that any comments from the dais have to be limited to either three sentences or 30 words, whichever is more.

At this time I'd like to ask Robert and Ric if they have any comments or observations that they would like to make.

MR. NICHOLS: I would just like to welcome everybody here. I look forward to the comments. It's the holiday season so have a merry set of holidays and be careful out there; a lot of dangerous things can occur. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Ric?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Merry Christmas -- that's it.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, you certainly stayed within your limit.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I just wonder if that limit would be adjusted for, like the areas we come from. You know, you're from a more congested area so do you get like six sentences and 50 words, and Robert's from a really rural area, does he get only one sentence and 15 words?

MR. JOHNSON: I think it's inversely proportional. This is somewhat like NOX in emissions: the more nonattainment issues you have to deal with, the fewer things that can come out of your mouth -- air emissions, you know.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's not like dividing the pie but rather measuring the pollution.

(General laughter.)

PUBLIC HEARING

The Texas Transportation Commission's Public Hearing on

TxDOT's Project Selection Process

MR. JOHNSON: We will begin this morning with a public hearing regarding our project selection process and I'd like to call on Jim Randall, our director of Transportation Planning and Programming to present this item. Jim.

MR. RANDALL: Thank you, sir. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Jim Randall, director of Transportation Planning and Programming for the Texas Department of Transportation.

Notice for this public hearing was filed with the Secretary of State on November 6, 2002 and published in the Texas Register on November 15, 2002. I'm pleased to make this presentation on behalf of the commission.

This public hearing is conducted annually in accordance with the Texas Transportation Code Sections 201.602 and 222.034. Section 201.602 prescribes that the Texas Transportation Commission is to hold annual hearings concerning its project selection process and the relative importance of the various criteria on which the commission bases its project selection decisions. The commission will receive data, comments, views and/or testimony from any persons, organization or group and their representatives.

Section 222.034 states that the federal aid for transportation purposes administered by the commission shall be distributed to the various parts of the state for a funding cycle through the selection of highway projects in the state and in a manner that is consistent with federal formulas that determine the amount of federal aid for transportation purposes received by the state. The distribution under this section of the Texas Transportation Code does not include deductions made for the State Infrastructure Bank or other federal funds reallocated by the federal government. The commission may vary from the distribution procedure provided it issues a ruling or a minute order identifying the variance and providing particular justification for the variance.

The commission will consider comments made at this hearing and written comments following this hearing until February 3, 2003. You can send written comments to the address or e-mail shown. A minute order describing the commission's decisions relating to the project selection process and distribution of federal aid funding will be made at a subsequent public commission meeting. I will show these addresses again at the end of the presentation.

In August 2001, Chairman Johnson published a report to Governor Rick Perry, the members of the Texas Legislature and all Texans, entitled "Texas Transportation Partnerships." That report established five goals to assist the department in building a new vision for Texas transportation. These goals were to provide: reliable mobility, improve safety, responsible systems preservation, streamline project delivery, and economic vitality. Upon these goals, the 2003 through 2007 Strategic Plan was developed. In an effort to streamline agency processes and make them easily understood by the public, simplified budget strategies, outputs and efficiency measures were proposed to the Legislative Budget Board. These strategies include: plan it, build it, maintain it, maximize it, and manage it.

The transportation programs and the project selection criteria we'll present here today provide the structure to achieve many of the goals and output measures brought forward in the Texas Transportation Partnerships and the Strategic Plan.

Please note that you can refer to the public hearing document that was made available to those who requested it and follow along during my presentation. If anyone in the audience did not get a copy, they're available in the foyer.

TxDOT is multimodal and relies on the following modes of transportation to address the needs of the public including: transit programs, aviation programs, highway programs, rail and water transportation. I'd like to point out here that programs for rail and water transportation will be developed in the future as TxDOT becomes more involved with these modes. I'd like to further discuss transit, aviation and highway programs; I'll start with transit.

TxDOT does not now own or operate transit services in Texas; it does, however, have a financial interest in most public systems through the allocation of federal and state funds. Funds are allocated to: urbanized areas, those areas of 50,000 or greater population not served by a transit authority; nonurbanized and rural areas; and transportation for the elderly and disabled.

For urbanized areas, these agencies apply directly to the Federal Transit Administration for federal funds. State funds support capital, administrative and operating expenses. Ninety percent of the state funds are distributed as directed by statute or the Texas Transportation Code, while 10 percent are distributed at the commission's discretion.

For nonurbanized and rural areas, funds support capital, planning, administrative and operating expenses with federal and state funds flowing through TxDOT. Ninety percent of the federal and state funds are distributed by statute or the Texas Transportation Code and 10 percent are distributed at the commission's discretion.

Transportation funds for the elderly and disabled support capital purchases, purchases of service, and preventive maintenance. Federal funds flow through TxDOT and are allocated to the metropolitan planning organizations as directed by Title 43, Texas Administrative Code. Projects are selected by TxDOT in consultation or cooperation with the metropolitan planning organization and local officials. No state funds are provided for this program.

TxDOT is not involved in the federal grant process for metropolitan transit authorities, or MTAs, in Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. These authorities are not eligible to receive state funds and must rely on dedicated local sales taxes to support their activities.

TxDOT addresses the needs of general aviation through the Aviation Facilities Development Program. This program provides assistance to public entities for the purpose of establishing, constructing, reconstructing, enlarging or repairing airport, airstrips or navigation facilities.

The planning process which is documented in the Texas Airport Systems Plan, or TASP, identifies those airports and projects that will best support the attainment of airport systems' planned objectives. The primary of TASP is to develop a statewide system of domestic airports that meets the goals of providing adequate access to the population and economic centers of Texas.

Adequate access is expressed in terms of driving time between activity centers and appropriate airport facilities: scheduled air carrier service should be within a 60-minute drive of virtually all Texas residents; business jet aircraft access should be within a 30-minute drive of significant population centers or mineral resource centers; light piston-engine aircraft access should be within a 30-minute drive of agricultural centers.

Criteria for project selection is based on: the identified need related to the TASP objectives; the amount of sponsor commitment; the system priorities that are identified in the TASP; and the availability of state and federal funds.

The following programs make up the majority of the transportation programs TxDOT develops. These are the programs most familiar to the citizens of Texas.

I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about the changes in the project selection process for our highway programs. As you recall, the process changes first took shape after the Texas Transportation Institute, also known as TTI, performed a survey of our district staff members and many of our transportation partners including the metropolitan planning organizations, staff and county judges. TTI compiled the survey results and listed recommendations were used to improve the project selection process.

In addition, Governor Rick Perry requested the commission simplify the project planning process and deliver highway improvements in continuous and complete corridors, thereby increasing efficiency and decreasing inconvenience to the highway users.

The primary focus for the change is to:

First, reduce the number of highway funding categories from 34 down to 12. These 11 categories are aligned more with highway improvement strategies rather than federal or state funding sources and their restrictions. Three of the mobility categories are structured to deliver highway mobility improvements in continuous and complete corridors. We are currently in the second year of this transition process.

Second, better educate and train our district staffs and MPO staffs, as well as reaching out to the public informing them of our process. The education and training will have a different focus and be directed to our district planning and programming staffs and the MPO officials and their staffs. Also, a video and brochure will be developed for the use of the MPO policy board members, elected and appointed officials, other groups and the public. The video and brochure should provide an overview of the process, the roles and responsibilities of the various agencies, and how different groups can be involved. The education outreach is scheduled after the category reduction transition process is complete.

The department is collaborating with the MPO staffs and others to provide recommendations to the commission regarding allocation formulas and corridor prioritization for these five categories. These working groups will provide reports of their recommendations to the commission concurrently next calendar year.

To address the goals set forth in Texas Transportation Partnerships and output measures in the Strategic Plan, the department proposes to replace the Unified Transportation Program with two new documents: the Statewide Preservation Program and the Statewide Mobility Program. These documents will clearly distinguish between the preservation and enhancements of the state's transportation network.

The Statewide Preservation Program, or SPP, will contain information on two highway construction programs: Category 1, Preventive Maintenance and Rehabilitation; and Category 6, Structures Replacement and Rehabilitation. It will also contain information on two highway maintenance funding strategies which are often overlooked when identifying the department's efforts in protecting the taxpayers' investment: routine maintenance and contracted routine maintenance.

The Statewide Mobility Program, or SMP, will contain information on the other highway construction programs which are not part of the SPP. These programs represent important transportation improvements other than preservation and maintaining the existing transportation system. The commission is considering including aviation and transit projects in both the SPP and SMP in the near future.

The programs contained in the SPP and the SMP are financed primarily through federal aid and state funds. Both these revenue sources are sponsored in large by the motor fuel tax. The federal portion of the taxes collected in Texas flow back to the state with restrictions on their spending, but because of some of the very important propositions approved by Texas voters, these are not the only funding mechanisms available. Later in the presentation I'll address future concepts in transportation and funding and discuss some exciting new funding tools for the department.

The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, or TEA-21, is the current federal transportation bill that authorizes the development and construction of federal aid projects. TEA-21 was passed by Congress and signed into law by the president on June 9, 1998. This bill spells out the current restrictions on federal aid funds. This Act expires in fiscal year 2003 but by all indications the next Act will have relatively small changes in the programs I will present to you today.

Several major federal aid programs are allocated to Texas based on quantifiable data which compares Texas to other states and commonwealths within the United States. These major federal aid highway funding categories allocated to individual states include: the Interstate Maintenance Program, the National Highway System Program, the Surface Transportation Program, Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, and the Highway Bridge Program.

First I'd like to discuss the Interstate Maintenance Program. The Interstate Maintenance Program funds are allocated to the state based on the following weighted percentages: 33-1/3 percent based on the lane miles of interstate system within the state; 33-1/3 percent based on the vehicle miles traveled on the interstate system within the state, and 33-1/3 percent based on the state's contributions to the Highway Trust Fund due to commercial vehicles.

TxDOT proposes to use the IM Program funds toward four specific TxDOT categories: Category 1, Preventive Maintenance and Rehabilitation; Category 2, Metropolitan Area (TMA) Corridor Projects; Category 3, Urban Area (Non-TMA) Corridor Projects; Category 4, Statewide Connectivity Corridor Projects.

The reasons for the variance from the federal formula are as follows: individual TxDOT district or regional contributions to the Highway Trust Fund cannot be quantified; the federal formula does not account for pavement distress; the federal formula does not account for the volume of commercial truck traffic; the federal formula does not account for the region's need to build new interstate or add capacity to the existing system.

The National Highway System Program, or NHS, funds are allocated to Texas based on the following: 25 percent based on lane miles of principal arterial routes within the state; 35 percent based on the vehicle miles traveled on the principal arterials; 30 percent based on the amount of diesel fuel used within the state; and 10 percent on the quotient obtained by dividing the total lane miles on the principal arterial highways by the population.

TxDOT proposes to use its NHS Program funds to fund the following five specific categories: Category 1, Preventive Maintenance and Rehabilitation; Category 2, Metropolitan Area (TMA) Corridor Projects; Category 3, Urban Area (Non-TMA) Corridor Projects; Category 4, Statewide Connectivity Corridor Projects; and Category 12, Strategic Priority.

The reasons for the variance from the Federal NHS Program formula are as follows: individual TxDOT district or regional usage of commercial diesel fuel cannot be quantified; the federal formula does not account for pavement distress; the federal formula does not address TxDOT's strategy of system development and preservation; the federal formula does not address specific TxDOT district or regional needs such as congestion relief, improved operations, and pavement rehabilitation needs.

The Surface Transportation Program, or STP, funds are allocated to Texas based on the following criteria: 25 percent based on the total miles of highways within the state that qualify for federal aid funds; 40 percent based on the vehicle miles traveled on highways within the state that qualify for federal aid funds; and 35 percent based on tax payments from within the state into the Highway Trust Fund.

TxDOT proposes to use the STP funding in the following six categories: Category 1, Preventive Maintenance and Rehabilitation; Category 6, Structures Replacement and Rehabilitation; Category 7, STP Metropolitan Mobility Rehabilitation; Category 8, STP Safety; Category 9, STP Transportation Enhancements; and Category 11, District Discretionary. Categories 7, 8, and 9 are required suballocations of the STP Program funds.

The reasons for the variance from the federal formula is because TEA-21 requires TxDOT to suballocate the funds in a manner that differs from the federal distribution formula.

And finally the Highway Bridge Program. The Highway Bridge Program funds are allocated to Texas based on the relative share of the total cost of deficient bridges as compared to the totals of the other states. TxDOT proposes to use the Highway Bridge formula funds on projects in Category 6, Structures Replacement and Rehabilitation Program. The ranking and selection criteria for this category can be found on page 14 of the public hearing document.

The reasons for the variance are as follows: the federal allocation formula does not address the selection of the most functionally obsolete and structurally deficient bridges; and the federal allocation formula does not assure achievement of a minimum funding level for off-system bridges as required by TEA-21.

An important factor in the project selection process is the amount of funds available to build projects. In order for TxDOT's project development process to maintain its efficiency, projects must be selected several years in advance of their actual funding. TxDOT uses funding forecasts to predict future revenues from federal and state sources, and programs or selects projects corresponding to the anticipated funds. When the dollars become available, the programmed projects are then funded and constructed. In other words, programming is a commitment to construct a project when the forecasted funds become available.

TxDOT's proposed programming levels for fiscal year 2007 can be found on page 17 of the public hearing document. These are programming levels for highway programs and the two maintenance strategies only. The values are subject to change as the funding forecasts are further refined.

The public hearing document is available in the foyer. Besides the proposed funding levels, this document contains information regarding each proposed construction category. The summary of categories includes: the TxDOT category name and number; the entity responsible for project selection; the usual funding type; the type of program management; the allocation or ranking formula that's involved; and a brief summary of the type of work the program addresses.

As I mentioned earlier, TxDOT now has some new proactive transportation funding tools and I'd like to take this opportunity to outline them to you.

Regional Mobility Authorities, or RMAs. The Texas Transportation Commission has the option to approve the establishment of an RMA for the construction of a toll facility. The commission may exercise this option when: an area demonstrates sufficient public support; the RMA approval will result in direct benefits to the state, local governments and the traveling public; and improve the efficiency of the state's transportation system.

Toll Equity. The commission now has the authority to contribute transportation revenues directly toward toll projects. The commission will consider direct participation in potential toll projects on a project-by-project basis. The commission used toll equity toward the Central Texas Turnpike; the commission's $700 million commitment of funds produced over $2 billion in bond sale proceeds toward the construction of this project.

Exclusive Development Agreements, or EDAs. The commission may consider solicited and unsolicited proposals of EDAs for the construction of potential toll-viable facilities. TxDOT will evaluate each proposal and make a recommendation to the commission.

The Texas Mobility Fund. The legislature passed legislation and Texas voters approved the establishment of the Texas Mobility Fund. No revenue stream has been provided to support the fund at this time. If the legislature provides a revenue stream for the Texas Mobility Fund during the upcoming legislative session, TxDOT will work with the legislature to develop a selection process for projects to be constructed with revenue from the Texas Mobility Fund.

The Trans Texas Corridor is an all-Texas transportation network of corridors up to 1,200 feet wide. The proposed 4,000-mile corridor will include separate highway lanes for passenger vehicles and trucks, high-speed passenger, commuter and freight rail. The corridor will have a dedicated utility zone for transportation and telecommunications, water, and petrochemicals. The Trans Texas Corridor will allow for faster and safer transportation of people and freight; it will relieve congestion on Texas roadways. It will also keep hazardous materials away from populated areas, improve air quality by reducing emissions, provide a safer, more reliable utility transmission system. The development of the Trans Texas Corridor can use any or all of the funding concepts discussed on the previous slides.

As promised, here are the addresses to send written comments. The deadline is February 3, 2003.

On behalf of the commission, I'd like to thank you for listening to this important information. This concludes my presentation.

MR. JOHNSON: Before I invite comments from Commissioners Nichols and Williamson, we have one person who has signed up to speak on this presentation. Michael Smith, who is the executive director of the Senate Committee on Veteran Affairs and Military Installations. General Smith, welcome. We're delighted that you're here.

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. I'm actually filling in this morning for Acting Chair, Senator Eliot Shapleigh from El Paso. The last time I saw Senator Shapleigh was about eight o'clock last night running through DFW Airport trying to catch his airplane, so I don't know whether he's in the snowstorm in El Paso this morning or whether he's still trying to get out of Dallas-Fort Worth, but thank you for allowing me to address the commission this morning.

My name is Michael B. Smith; I am the executive director of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs and Military Installations. I will be providing testimony this morning on behalf of Acting Chair, Senator Eliot Shapleigh. My testimony will be directed toward the establishment of the categories of transportation projects as you've identified in your announcement.

Currently the Texas Department of Transportation has designated 12 categories for which it has established a ranking index, or formula, to be used in determining projects that will receive funding. These are found on pages 13 through 16 of today's hearing announcement. It is the request of my committee that an additional category be added to your list entitled Strategic Military Mobilization Routes. I offer the following comments in support of this request.

While your categories do not refer to specific industrial segments, we believe that the state's military establishment is of such importance that it does deserve such a unique recognition.

The Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs and Military Installations has been given six interim charges by the lieutenant governor. The first of these you see up here on the screen, and that is to monitor issues related to BRAC. If you'll go ahead and run through the other six, they address issues relating to monitoring, evaluation, assessment of military and state's veterans issues. Today we will specifically address number one which is the issues related to BRAC, or the Base Re-alignment and Closure actions.

Let me explain the relationship of this charge to our request. As you know, the Department of Defense is looking for bill payers for the skyrocketing cost of high tech weapons systems and for Homeland Defense. Accordingly, the secretary of Defense has announced his intention to close some 25 percent of our nation's military installations in this next round of BRAC. Texas' 18 military installations are clearly prime candidates for this action.

This slide depicts the statewide distribution of those installations, and I think it's important that we note those. I think many of our Texans are not as familiar with where our installations are located and the extensive contribution they make to our economy. Let me address this.

Why is this issue so critical to Texans? Because there are 18 installations that represent one of the largest single generators of state revenue. They provide an economic stimulus of some $43 billion annually. Now, that was a 2001 figure; the statistics received from the Office of Defense Affairs gave us about $49.3 billion. The $5.9 billion reduction you see was largely the result of the closure of Bergstrom Air Force Base and Kelly Air Force Base and some reductions during that period in federal contracts, but I point to the single year's difference in figures largely as a result of the 1995 BRAC action, so the potential is there.

Our installations employ over a quarter of a million of our Texas citizens. That figure is down slightly because of the recent rounds of BRAC; we don't have those adjusted figures yet but we've anticipated they've gone down somewhere between 8- to 9,000 employees; however, we have added some employees back on the payrolls through the Redevelopment Authority actions.

The potential action of this and what is at stake for Texas is a reduction of some $10 billion to the state economy and the loss of thousands of jobs in our defense communities. To deal with this vitally important issue, the committee is partnering with the Governor's Strategic Military Planning Committee and the House Committee on State, Federal and International Relations. We have collectively taken extensive testimony from across our 44 defense communities and have worked closely with our Washington Office of State and Federal Relations.

Although the formal BRAC selection criteria will not be released until later this year, the Pentagon has already released information which gives us strong indicators as to the areas of emphasis. Perhaps the most critical of these is the value of the installation to the national defense strategy and the cost to operate that installation compared to its relative military value.

Based upon our collective analysis of the existing BRAC criteria, this committee is proposing four bills this session to assist community installations and our veterans. Again, perhaps the most significant of these is our proposal to create the Texas Military Preparedness Act of 2003. While I will not go into all aspects of this bill -- and you can see the Act up there, number one in our group, and I won't go into all of that -- but I will call your attention to item number 4 in the Military Preparedness Act which is to direct state agencies to consider military -- now, that's an abbreviated form -- to require state's agencies which have responsibilities for military issues to give priority consideration to military installations.

The Secretary of Defense made it clear in his memorandum of November 15, 2002, that those installations which are of the greatest value to our national defense will score the most points in the BRAC selection process. Texas is blessed with large military installations that are heavily relied upon in times of conflict. Fort Bliss in El Paso and Fort Hood in the Temple-Killeen area are two of these and perhaps two of the largest. Fort Hood has the largest base population of any military base in the free world.

Critical to their future, however, is their ability to mobilize and deploy troops overland by rail and highway to points of debarkation at Beaumont on the coast. Fort Hood, who has the largest military population in the free world and which contributes almost $4 billion to the local and state economy, has asked for state and highway infrastructure assistance in getting Highway 190 repaired to provide a reliable deployment route to the coast. It also requires a rail spur to link its new international Killeen Gray Field Airport to the base rail yard. These are but two examples of many opportunities we have to make Fort Hood and our other military installations more valuable to our national defense effort and to Texas. It is this type of initiative that will show the Department of Defense that Texas is serious about its military and is willing to invest in its future.

Mr. Chair and members of the commission, thank you for allowing me to testify before you today. I will be happy to answer any questions that I can. We will prepare and provide a copy of our script testimony here this morning to your commission, and in addition, we will provide maps which identify the deployment routes that the military installations consider critical. Now, one of the reasons that we did not do the maps this morning is that I think you already have the maps, you have much of the information, and what we were attempting to do this morning is to make our case why we think it's critical that the military be specifically identified in this regard, but so there's no mistake about which routes we're talking about, we will provide that information to the commission so you will have that.

Are there any questions, sir?

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions or comments, Robert or Ric?

MR. NICHOLS: No, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: I have one observation, I think it goes without saying how important this commission and department view our military installations and our military as a whole. The challenge we have as we attempt to simplify our UTP is exactly that, is to simplify it and not make it too complex or have too many categories, and we are in fact reducing the number of categories.

Some of the specific items that you mentioned, I know that we are working very diligently on the expansion of State Highway 195 to deploy both troops, personnel and equipment to the Ports of Beaumont and Corpus Christi where they can come from Fort Hood, down to Interstate 35, and then distribute either to Beaumont or to Corpus Christi. We've also spent money on infrastructure to commercialize the portion of Robert Gray Airfield there at Killeen to make part of it commercial and of course part of it is still military. So these projects are extremely important to the commission and to the department and we want you to know that. We also want you to understand that we do face a challenge, we believe, in trying to simplify what we do and to add things might complicate the simplicity that we're trying to bring to our UTP.

We do appreciate your being here and look forward to receiving your testimony and also the data that you mentioned in your report.

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

MR. JOHNSON: Now I would open it up for Commissioners Nichols or Williamson as to the report that Jim Randall has brought.

Robert, do you have anything?

MR. NICHOLS: Actually, I have quite a bit but it's hard to squeeze into 30 words.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, you can ask for a waiver.

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: Nobody else is going to comment so that's it?

MR. JOHNSON: That's the only speaker signed up.

MR. NICHOLS: I'm going to ask a couple of questions and make a couple of comments. Some of these you and I went over together, so they'll be repetitive to you, but I want to make sure it's on the record for the record and for the administration.

First of all, I want to compliment your staff for the work that you've done in taking this huge project process and trying to simplify it. I know it has been an area of confusion for the public for years, very difficult to understand, and it's extremely important that people understand something before they can support it or they will be suspicious of it. I want to compliment you on that.

MR. RANDALL: Thank you, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: On the project selection process, I realize that posting is for the actual project selection process itself, but I know a lot of it has to do, from my vantage point, with the direction we're going as far as narrowing the categories down and stuff like that, so I had hoped we would get some comments because there are so many parties affected.

I know, also, it's a two-year transition. We're already through one year so hopefully this process will be completed at the end of the second year so everybody will know the results. The three categories that are in here -- and this is the second year we're going into -- of the metropolitan selection, urban and statewide, the ranking index or allocation formula says "To be determined."

MR. RANDALL: Yes.

MR. NICHOLS: Now, those three different areas, as I understand it, we have had a task force for the metropolitan areas composed of representatives from their MPOs who worked all collectively with TxDOT to try to arrive at a formula or a methodology for the project selections in the metropolitan areas.

MR. RANDALL: That's correct.

MR. NICHOLS: Now, we're waiting, as I understand it, till we have all of them completed before we do this process, but there appears to be -- since we have so many metropolitan people here today -- a consensus from that report from the metropolitan areas.

MR. RANDALL: That's correct.

MR. NICHOLS: And as I understand it, the consensus was a formula -- rather than internally having a formula that spits out and picks rankings of segments of projects in metropolitan areas, it gets the MPO itself much more actively involved in completing projects in their own area by allocating a dollar amount over a period of years in each of the metropolitan areas.

MR. RANDALL: That's correct.

MR. NICHOLS: With a balance between them. I think that's very good and I want to, for the record, say I'm real supportive of that. I think that is an excellent thing. But I am concerned in that we're asking people for comments on the project selection process, yet that process is not really available for them to make comment on. Pretty basic stuff. I'm also a little concerned from our conversation that in the task force itself -- which was composed of people chosen by those MPOs -- that two or three of those members representing very large population centers actually did not vote on the process.

MR. RANDALL: That's correct.

MR. NICHOLS: Not that they were objectionable to it -- no stated objection to it -- appeared to be supportive of it. But for the record they did not vote on it.

MR. RANDALL: That's correct.

MR. NICHOLS: Which really greatly concerns me. I think it is important that whether we do it internally or through administration or one of the commission members or your staff, I think it is important that we contact each of those MPOs or those members representing them who did not vote, to have them as an MPO, express their support or some other idea on those. I think that is extremely important.

MR. RANDALL: Okay, sir. We'll follow up on that.

MR. NICHOLS: Because we're talking about big pieces of our state. And they may not have felt like they should vote because they're representing a body of elected officials. Anyway, I think that funding process appeared to be very good to me.

Secondly, in working with some of the other people in the metropolitan areas, I've had some of them express an interest in once we get through this -- assuming that's where we end up -- some of these projects that are currently in the works, either in the used-to-be-Priority 1 and Priority 2 and now it's CONSTRUCT and DEVELOP categories, they may have new projects now that actually they feel locally rank higher than projects that are already scheduled.

And there is a possibility that locally, assuming a project has not advanced too far, that they could open that process back up and re-evaluate it at a local area to see if they may want to advance some projects forward or not based on that dollar stream. And for the record, I would like to say I'm very supportive of that; I think that is extremely important.

MR. RANDALL: Okay, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: I think one of the things I did not see anywhere in this, I was hoping that we could see it, would be a concern for some areas that put in large amounts of money (whether it be from local contributions or from bondings from tolling or something of that nature) that in the process they may actually be penalized because if they take care of more of their own business, they may not appear to have as bad a problem. Therefore, they get penalized.

I know we have stated numerous times that we would like to see just the opposite occur. Instead of penalizing or putting it on an even keel, I would like to see us somewhere in this thing put in an incentive program that actually encourages areas that are doing these type things to accelerate the process and thereby helping everybody in the state quicker.

That being said, I was somewhat concerned after our conversation yesterday that two of these task forces, the Urban Task Force and the Statewide Connectivity, are having problems arriving at a consensus, and it is a very difficult thing.

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir. They're having to cover a lot of material.

MR. NICHOLS: But because they have not reached consensus, we have not completed this process and it can drag on and on and on, and I am very concerned that we not go from a two-year conversion to a three-year conversion. I mean, we are at a critical stage timing-wise and if those members of those task forces need to meet every month, if they need to meet every week, or if they need to meet every day till we get through this process, that's what they need to do. We have too many people in the state waiting for this, too many other steps in the process to occur. So I guess I'm directing this more to Mike than to you.

MR. RANDALL: Well, we'll take the message to the task force.

MR. NICHOLS: They need to get busy and finish this thing. I do not want to see us get past this time line.

Also, I know part of this charge in these formulas go back to Chairman Johnson's task force in the simplification of the process. What was the word? I wrote it down here somewhere. Build it, plan it, maintain it, manage it.

MR. RANDALL: The strategy.

MR. NICHOLS: The strategy. In the word "maintain it" -- he's here so he may can comment on it -- I interpreted that to be, when you say "maintain the system" that you don't want the system to deteriorate, which to me is a category that incorporates all items to keep that system at least from deteriorating.

Internally in our accounting process we have routine maintenance, contracted maintenance, preventive maintenance, we have rehabilitation -- kind of like a car engine that wears out, you've got to redo it every 30 or 40 years or something. Those are all categories to me it takes to maintain the system which is much more than just the maintenance category.

And I know internally and externally to the public it's extremely confusing and we need to have consistency all through our process, whether it be in our information centers, our conversations with our legislators, amongst ourselves and as we put our documents together. I think in this document the category of preserve the system in my opinion meets the task force requirement of "to maintain it." But he's the one that headed it up, so I'm looking forward -- within 30 words.

That's about it. Thanks.

MR. RANDALL: I'd like to say we've got a 45-day comment period and we welcome any comments, not only from the commission but from the public.

MR. NICHOLS: There was one other thing. When you finish these other two task forces and we will have at that point the recommendation for the project selection process in the metro, in the urban, in the statewide connectivity, and before we can do the UTP we're going to have to have, in my opinion, a public hearing on that process. So we're almost going to have to repeat at least a portion of that prior to that, so I kind of expect that the sooner we hustle up and finish that -- I know that's a legal question, but in my opinion we should have a public hearing process again once we reach that conclusion.

MR. RANDALL: We'll follow the direction of the commission.

MR. JOHNSON: Robert, are you counting these words? The task force goal in terms of the maintain it category that was meaningful and measurable was to create a minimum standard pavement score on all of our system and that minimum score was 80, and so my sense is that in all of our maintenance categories in the preservation area, whether it be routine maintenance or preventative maintenance, it all plays into the challenge of maintaining our system where the minimum distress pavement score is 80 or higher, so that's how we measure it. And I think Jim in his report talks about analyzing distress scores as being one of the criteria of project selection. So, I think they go arm in arm.

Ric, did you have anything?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir. Thank you.

If some of the words or some of the phrasing I might use in the next minute or so may seem critical, I don't intend it to be, I just sometimes don't know how to say what I want to say without being sharp-edged about it.

MR. RANDALL: We've got thick skin.

MR. WILLIAMSON: This document and the UTP it seems to me represents the department's and the commission's face to the world about how we intend to proceed over the next two, four, six, eight, ten years, and it seems to me -- and if I'm wrong, Mr. Chair, Mr. Nichols, you need to stop me if I am wrong. It seems to me that in the last two years the commission has asked the department through its statements from the dais, through its selection of its executive director and through its support of the department's employees, to begin to move away from programming dollars and towards planning a transportation system. I trust that we are continuing to do that as we construct these documents, that we're attempting to move away from just programming money and towards true transportation planning or transportation infrastructure planning.

And in that vein, Jim and Mike and my fellow commissioners, I can tell you it is very important for this department to, as quickly as possible, reduce its written words to a common format using common terminology and the same words for the same meanings. Whether it be Judge Harris or James McCarley or Florence Shapiro or Tommy the bike guy or Governor Perry or Senator Shapleigh or probably Chairman Heflin, it is real important that every document we print is consistent, uses the same words, has the same goals, the same strategies, the same tactics. Whether it's our legislative appropriation request, Coby, whether it's our federal lobbying effort, whether it's a report to Chairman Shapiro about a mobility fund, it doesn't matter; it has got to get in the system as quick as possible and it's got to be clear and understandable to the least of us.

One of the things we're trying to accomplish, I believe, Chairman, is to be able to walk across the street and drive to Dallas and drive to Houston and drive to Brownsville and speak from the same page using the same terms about the same goals, the same strategies and the same tactics in order to reinforce the notion that this is one state, one transportation system, one people, one set of goals, one set of strategies that we all understand.

I offer those words not as criticism but to be as blunt as I can be. I've been here a year and seven months now and I'm not complaining a whole lot, but sometimes I get a sense that change is hard. Well, change is hard, I understand that, so what? Life is hard, so what? We need to make these changes; we need to be about it.

Thank you, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Jim, my observation is somewhat similar to Ric's in the fact that I believe that everything we're trying to do, we're trying to condense and simplify what we put out so it is understandable. And I believe as we go through these processes, the evolution is that as we worry about what is omitted rather than what is in the document itself, and therefore, they become very voluminous. And in a lot of instances we lose readership because it becomes so large and complex that they just don't even care to go through the entire document.

So I'm on the issue that as we are attempting to simplify the UTP that we also simplify these reports, and the charge here is the document is to talk about our project selection and yet we've gone down a lot of different paths with project selection in mind. So my conclusion is we've gone down those paths because we're worried about not so much what's in there but what is not in the document. So I just think we need to use that as a watchword and let's address the charge and try to stay in that fairway as opposed to branching down and including a lot of things that might be peripheral or tangential but aren't really part of the project selection process.

That's my one observation. Any other comments, observations? If there are none, this public hearing is hereby closed and we will move into the business portion of our meeting.

(Whereupon, the public hearing was concluded.)

P R O C E E D I N G S (Resumed)

MR. JOHNSON: I would like to remind everyone in the audience that in order to address the commission, we would like for you to fill out a registration card at the table in the lobby, and to comment on an agenda item we would ask that you fill out a yellow card and identify the agenda item; if it is not an agenda item, we will take your comments during the open comment period at the end of the meeting, and for that we would ask that you fill out a blue card. And regardless of the color of the card, we would request that each speaker limit themselves to three minutes.

We will now begin with the approval of the minutes of our November commission meeting.

MR. NICHOLS: I so move.

MR. JOHNSON: And I will second. All in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

We will now hear a report from the Greater Houston- Dallas/Fort Worth Transportation Alliance, and I understand that Collin County Judge Ron Harris will lead.

Judge, we're delighted that you're here and welcome.

JUDGE HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and as you know, I can speed a meeting up, as I do my barber's chair, so we'll endeavor to stay within three minutes. Of course, you have much the same capacity.

The Greater Houston-North Texas Alliance has been put together to address the existing emergency of mobility needs in the urban areas of Texas, and with an eye obviously on the connectivity of those areas which plays much into what Commissioner Williamson was saying. We feel that we have demonstrated our cooperation in the past, although they're highly competitive areas of the state, through our Clean Air Working Group where we addressed our statewide and specifically nonattainment area air quality problems and have been very successful, and it's been through partnerships. And we're now trying to take this to the transportation area whereas we will compete on our own but we will work together with the goal really of being to raise the tide for everyone.

We won't be here today to ask you to take money from El Paso to add money to us -- it would be nice if you want to do that, but we won't ask you to do it -- but rather we want to work together and with you to find ways of additional funding so that truly the tide rises. This is in no way -- as it says in our write-up -- any criticism of past activities but rather an effort to continue to work in partnerships with the commission and indeed the entire state. And we have certainly our friends. Tom Griebel is here today from the San Antonio group that will be joining us most likely after this, as well as Austin. It will be kept primarily urban, but again, it's not an anti anything but rather trying to focus the needs on the state urban areas.

Following will be Michael Stevens from the Greater Houston Partnership, Jim Erwin from North Texas, and our friend Judge Robert Eckels from Houston and Harris County. And I'd also like to recognize our friend and partner, Margaret Kellahar, the new Dallas County Judge. I think her predecessor has already taken full credit for the win by the University of North Texas; it's his sportsman coaching on the sidelines that probably did it.

Anyway, we thank you for hearing us. This is a report to you, and we too wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Any questions?

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

(No response.)

JUDGE HARRIS: Thank you very much.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. STEVENS: Thank you, commissioners. Michael Stevens for the Greater Houston Partnership. First we'd like to thank you for all you do and your commitment to our state. I know it's a tough job and it doesn't pay very well, as other ones I end up taking generally don't.

We have joined with Dallas initially and really are focusing on these urban problems because we have common problems, and as we've had competition in the past, we have clearly identified that certain things exist that we need to focus on coming up with solutions for, and these solutions have not been available in the last decade. We've had a 23 percent increase in the population of the state, 24 percent increase in the number of registered vehicles in the state, 41 percent increase in the number of vehicle miles that are being traveled in the state, and a 3 percent increase in the number of lane miles that have been constructed. This is a common problem throughout the United States. I was with Don Young last week and we were talking about a lot of the statistics, and it's something that continues to be a problem really nationwide.

The problem is more acute, though, in the urban areas of the state. Dallas and Houston have, as you know, about half the population and about two-thirds of the gross domestic product of this state. That same percentage effectively is anticipated for almost each of the other urban areas where they have a disproportionate amount of gross domestic product because of the manufacturing and the other jobs that they create within those environments.

In the same decade we had this growth, Houston and Dallas had increases in their travel time indexes: 52 percent increase in Houston, a 73 percent increase in Dallas. The annual delay in person hours increased 132 percent in Houston and 136 percent in Dallas, very common percentages. The congestion cost went up about 193 percent in Houston and about 198 percent in Dallas. So if you look at the next 25 years where we're going to grow from 21 million in the state to 30 million, assuming we have one-half the migration we've had in the last decade; if we have the same migration, we'll go from 21 to 36 million. Our own demographers, Murdoch, says that 91 percent of that growth will occur in the major urban areas. Houston, Texas, will absorb in the next ten years a city the size of San Antonio, and we are already at a crisis mode in the increase in our congestion indexes in the city.

The question is what can we do about this. Transit only handles 2 to 3 percent of all the trips in the United States, it is a very small percentage. While Houston and Dallas can focus on their transit issues, they historically nowhere in the United States have handled significantly bigger percentages except for it if you take some of the bigger areas such as New York and trips to Manhattan or Chicago. It is unrealistic to assume they're going to solve our problem. Therefore, the problem really is going to be solved between TxDOT, the freight issues, rail, et cetera, and the local groups, the local communities. And what we need to do and what we've asked and what we've presented are some ideas that would help identify specific things that we can do because we would like to see this group commit to declaring urban mobility a Texas priority.

We believe that the failure of the urban areas, the urban communities to continue to have mobility will affect their ability to grow, their ability to grow affects the state's ability to grow, and the economy of the state will be dictated -- especially if 90 percent of that growth is anticipated to be in the urban areas -- will be dictated by our success or failure, of being able to solve the mobility problems within these major urban areas.

So what we're here to do is, one, align ourselves with the other urban areas to understand what our problems are; to hopefully get TxDOT to identify a person that would be acceptable where we could work together in a more extensive way with the commission, the idea being to come up with solutions and things that we can do to improve our working relationship to solve the mobility problems in the local areas, in these urban areas; and to improve efficiencies, to improve the way we handle and work together to maximize the solution and speed up those solutions where we can do them quickly.

The same issues you mentioned before, if we do business the same way we did in the last decade, i.e., with massive increases in our congestion indexes in the major cities, the next decade we'll have absolute chaos in our transportation programs in the urban areas.

So we're here to ask that we focus on it, that you agree with us that it's a critical issue for the state -- and I know you do so I'm not really trying to sell that, but committing to it is different than taking an action plan to actually start reducing it and deal with the mobility where we actually force ourselves to do the things you just said. Change is hard. What is it we can do differently to improve these issues.

So I would ask that you review our suggestions and requests, things we think we can do initially to help work together in a different way, and we look forward to continuing to work with you as we have in the past, but with hopefully a focus on trying to come up with solutions in these areas.

Any questions, or if not, I'll turn it over to Jim Erwin.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Chairman, I didn't ask a question of Judge Harris, and I don't want to ask a question of Michael at this time, but I'm going to have a couple of questions for all of them when they get through, so if they could just all stay available.

MR. ERWIN: Good morning. I'm Jim Erwin, managing director of Erwin, Graves & Associates, former vice chairman of Bank of America in Texas, and former chairman of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce.

My part on the program today is to talk about the relationship between urban mobility and our Texas population and economic growth. We strongly believe that urban mobility is critical to Texas economic growth and prosperity and to our very quality of life in Texas. Texas cannot sustain a healthy economy, much less a growing economy, if we continue to allow urban mobility to decline the way we have.

I know that all of you are aware of the fact that Texas' population is growing mostly in the large urban areas -- it's been mentioned before -- but to be more specific, by 2025, about 23 years from now, 75 percent of the state's population is going to reside in areas with over one million in population, and as I imagine you know, Houston and DFW alone will grow from 50 percent of the state's population to 60 percent. In 2000 the Texas population was about 21 million, just under; if our growth rate continues at even half of that rate, the rate we've grown in the last ten years, we're going to be at close to 30 million by 2025; and if it continues at the same rate with the in-migration and all, we're going to be around 36 million plus. These are staggering figures but even more staggering is the projection, as Michael mentioned, that 90 percent of that growth is going to be in the large urban areas.

Without question, Texas' economy is directly linked to mobility. We're the tenth largest economy in the world, and the efficient movement of people and goods is critical to the economic growth of our state. We've provided some materials for you and the data that appears in the materials illustrates that Texas large urban areas account for 60 to 70 percent of the state's economy and it's more than 70 percent of the economic growth of the state, and it's pretty obvious if you just look at the rest of the state, the share of the economic indicators and growth indicators.

We've all read and heard about the challenges the legislature is going to face in trying to fund state services over the coming months, but we suggest to you that the challenges will be far greater in years ahead if Texas permits declining urban mobility to deteriorate further and to jeopardize the economic engine that drives the state. Investment in our large cities just makes good common sense to us, and I think to you as well.

Thank you, and I'll now turn the microphone over to Harris County Judge Robert Eckels.

JUDGE ECKELS: Thank you, commissioners; appreciate your having us here today. And you've heard it said several times the importance we believe of the urban areas. We view that as an area that can be the economic engines, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, can be the economic engines that provide the resources to take this state into the future, to pay for the education, the health care, the other needs of Texas, or the black hole that sucks this state down.

We need to realize the seriousness of the urban congestion in this region, the magnitude of the capacity needs in the urban regions and the new resources that are going to be required to address these needs. We are here together to emphasize our support for building those resources and to work in the interim on an agenda that we think can provide some immediate relief.

First on that is the recognition that urban mobility is critical and needs to be a priority in the state and with this commission. We will ask that you do several things, making it a TxDOT priority, and again, a statewide priority. First, we're looking for some kind of senior executive official within TxDOT that will focus specifically on urban mobility needs; define an acceptable level of mobility, and again, tie back into performance standards that we will be striving for within urban regional areas; include in the plan a strategy for expediting the priority capacity projects to help preserve and reach these mobility standards; have, again, within the performance standards a report card that says how we're doing in urban mobility; address the resources to go to areas where they are most needed based on those standards; adopt these performance measures and use them for accountability in the process; utilize state funding to take full advantage of all the available federal funds -- and we are, again, willing to get creative with you on how we can draw down the maximum amount of federal funds and local, private and federal investment in our system.

We would like to see a system that rewards rather than, as we perceive it today, penalizes areas that generate their own revenues to partner with you. We want to make sure that as we put more money in locally we are rewarded for that and encouraged by TxDOT to put more resources into the system. And we support implementing the recommendations coming out of your UTP working group on mobility to allocate capacity funding based on the performance-based equitable basis on projects that are in the districts and MPOs where they have established them as the highest priorities.

With that, we will be happy to answer questions. We appreciate your bearing with us today. I think most significant is the fact that we are here together and we will continue to be working together with the Metroplex as well as with, we believe, the other urban areas in Texas.

With that, Commissioner Williamson, I'm not going to leave yet.

MR. JOHNSON: Judge Harris, do you want to come forward?

Robert, do you have any questions.

JUDGE ECKELS: If I'm going to be facing Commissioner Williamson, I'm going to want Judge Harris up here with me.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, actually I just have one question for Judge Harris, or maybe two, and then I'm going to address the rest of them to you because I think the layout was conveniently designed to put you in the position of answering all these questions.

(General laughter.)

JUDGE ECKELS: We have great technical resources here too.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Judge, well, first of all, tell me what Houston-Dallas/Fort Worth means. Does it mean Houston District, TxDOT District; does it mean Dallas and Tarrant County TxDOT District; or does it mean the SMSAs in those areas?

JUDGE HARRIS: The districts.

MR. WILLIAMSON: TxDOT districts. And so when the data presented is presented by Houston-Dallas/Fort Worth -- I wonder why it's not Fort Worth/Dallas -- anyway, Dallas/Fort Worth --

JUDGE HARRIS: That's been a debate for a long time.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's actually referring to three TxDOT districts.

JUDGE HARRIS: They call it Collin/Tarrant/Dallas sometimes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And we're going to soon start calling it the Plano area.

And who did you say was going to join up in your coalition soon?

JUDGE HARRIS: We're going to ask San Antonio and Austin to join, and of course, if others are interested, that will be possible also -- El Paso.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I want to publicly and directly thank you for bringing something in a way that doesn't divide the state, but joins the state. I appreciate that very much. I think we all know after a pretty brutal campaign, the governor made it clear that he's interested in uniting the state and he's not interested in seeing divisions anywhere, be it highway dollars or anything else. So I really appreciate that.

I am a little bit perplexed because we'll have the question when this is all said and done -- and you'll remember, Judge Eckels, from your years in the House -- if we develop some of your guidelines, we're in effect committing resources to the urbanized areas of the state. Will you give us some guidance on from whom we remove those resources?

For example, we just let $330 million, I think, in contracts in the Brownsville-Pharr-McAllen area which is sort of the last step in the Border improvement initiative that 31 state senators voted for, and that's about six to eight years of projects. So will you give us some guidance on how much we'll take from those contracts and move to you?

JUDGE HARRIS: Our goal, as said in the first statement, is not to take money from anyone. We want to work to raise the level of funding and we're not exactly sure how to go about that, but the first step was joining together, because as in the Clean Air Working Group, we were able to go to the Legislature with a united front and not have five or six different areas coming in with different ideas so that they took, as you know, the position: we don't know what you want so we're not going to do anything. We're hoping to do the same thing here. We believe in connectivity.

Bob Bolen, former mayor of Fort Worth has said it very well, that you can have the best roads, facilities within your community, and if they don't connect to anything, they're not worth a whole lot, and we concur. But we are in an effort not to over-beat but to raise the tide.

JUDGE ECKELS: I would add that the Valley projects that you have supported recently, we supported them from Houston, we supported the Prop 2 issues; we believe that that Valley economy is important; more important, that is the gateway to the Port of Houston and a lot of the economic engine in our urban areas and going north to the Metroplex.

But the new capacity needs for the future are not in the rural areas. Like you've got the issues for maintenance and operations that Commissioner Nichols has talked about in the rural areas of the state, and I'm very much supportive of continuing and maintaining that. The new capacity dollars, however, are much more critical in moving in and around and through your urban areas, and that's where we want to work with you on how we get that new capacity into the urban regions.

I don't believe it is a case where we have to do something detrimental to other parts of the state, but I believe as we are looking at the priorities on the congestion and the mobility throughout the state and the economic needs of the state that naturally the new capacity needs will fall into the Houston/Metroplex area and to the San Antonio area.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, in that context then, Judge Eckels, give me some guidance on what the urban leadership, how they define rural. Is that outside the HCTRA toll system, is that outside the Fort Worth TxDOT district. In other words, take me as an example: I'm 36 miles from downtown Fort Worth, I'm in the Fort Worth TxDOT District, but one might say Weatherford is a rural county. When you say the needs are not going to be in rural Texas in the future --

JUDGE ECKELS: I think you have needs in rural Texas but I don't see --

MR. WILLIAMSON: But do you define Weatherford as rural Texas?

JUDGE ECKELS: In comparison to the other areas, yes, I would.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And what about then south, Hillsboro, would that make the definition?

JUDGE ECKELS: Outside the major urban areas. I would take it even to some of the smaller cities.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And Conroe?

JUDGE ECKELS: Conroe is still within the Houston MSA and the Houston District, but once you move out of Montgomery County --

MR. WILLIAMSON: And Buffalo?

JUDGE ECKELS: Buffalo would be outside of the Houston region. I don't see a lot of new capacity demands in Weatherford, Texas, that's critical need that affects congestion within Weatherford; you may have some connectivity issues.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But what about in between Weatherford and White Settlement?

JUDGE ECKELS: I don't know the area. I wouldn't imagine that the demands for new capacity between Weatherford and White Settlement would be nearly as critical as the demands between --

MR. WILLIAMSON: And had we been having this conversation ten years ago, would that have not logically been the answer when talking about the demands between Sugar Land and Houston?

JUDGE ECKELS: Ten years ago the demands between Sugar Land and Houston were already there.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Twenty years ago?

JUDGE ECKELS: Twenty years ago there would have been some discussion in the long-term growth and planning, and as those needs develop, we want to address those needs.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But Sugar Land would have been thought of as rural under your approach in this proposal 20 years ago?

JUDGE ECKELS: Sugar Land would have been within the metropolitan district and there are areas within our region as well that we need to plan for the long-term growth of the region.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So the definition of the group of urban versus rural is literally --

JUDGE ECKELS: Well, I hate to put urban versus rural because I have a critical interest in the development of the rural parts of the state.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I mean the definition, Robert, not the battle, the definition, the defining line between urban and rural then is the TxDOT district.

JUDGE ECKELS: For our purposes of discussion, that would be sufficient, but I think that that needs to be a flexible definition. But for our purposes we're interested in the Houston region district, the Dallas and Fort Worth districts, and potentially the Bexar and maybe Austin.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I just want to understand and I want you to say publicly that you --

JUDGE ECKELS: Our concern is the congestion index in Harris County and the Houston region and the Houston district and the Metroplex in Dallas and the Metroplex in Tarrant County.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But not between Houston and Dallas along Interstate 45?

JUDGE ECKELS: No. We are supporting the connectivity but I don't know that the new capacity between Houston and Dallas is not going to be as critical as the capacity within Houston and within Dallas.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, that addresses my question. Just specifically for you, Judge Harris -- you know, we use these meetings as forums to float ideas sometimes -- how would you react as a local leader and how would you counsel Chairman Shapiro to react to a proposal to set toll booths at every entrance and exit into what I consider the Metroplex which is -- sorry, Robert -- Weatherford to Rockwall, Denison to Hillsboro, and use the revenues from the tolls on those existing roads as the security for the mobility fund and relate the tolls collected at those points to the levels spent within that regional area? I know you need to think about it, I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but I'm just curious what's your reaction to that?

JUDGE HARRIS: Well, I can react. I think we would probably be opposed to doing that. Another plan that we're currently working on is some form of use tax increase, motor fuel tax. I think we would consider supporting something like that on a statewide level. I think the areas like Harris County, hopefully Tarrant and Denton, certainly Collin and Dallas, have invested in toll facilities where it seemed appropriate and its citizens supported it, but I think as you would probably know, if we did something like that, I probably wouldn't be county judge much longer and Governor Perry probably wouldn't be governor much longer. I think it has to be something more universal that we all, as in the clean air aspect, it's a statewide challenge, and I would feel that it's really double taxation of the metropolitan areas.

Again, I'm a big toll road advocate.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But that would be a way of assuring you that all of the money would be spent within your area for those necessary congestion/mobility projects.

JUDGE ECKELS: Within our region the answer would be the same except that we would support toll roads as long as there is a free alternative. A free alternative is currently existing and I would hate to take a system that was in place today that was paid for by the gas tax users and the folks out there and make that where it was required that they take the tolled. If we're building a new corridor that is opening up an area that has not been previously served by a free road, I would not have a concern on putting a toll there because the free alternatives would still be available.

And within Interstate 10 -- and I compliment you; I believe the commissioners court approved our agreement on our funding arrangement. I think we're going to have to get more creative. But on projects like the Interstate 10 project where we can bring toll road revenue bonds with TxDOT and federal highway funds to build a project that's a blended project and part of it is tolled and part of it is free, we can generate a lot of support for that and leverage our dollars together to do more than either one of us can do on our own. But to make it a total tolled system, I cannot see much political support.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So let me see if I understand it. You two fellows believe that increasing the gas tax to pay for new capacity is not nearly as onerous as collecting tolls to pay for new capacity.

JUDGE ECKELS: I personally believe -- I can't speak for the group but I think that there's a place for both of those, and I have supported the gas tax increase, I believe, with you in the legislature years ago.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Some of the few that voted for it.

JUDGE ECKELS: But I will tell you that today I would be hesitant to do so because the money hasn't gone to highways. That's a frustration you share with us that that money has gone to general fund.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The gasoline tax.

JUDGE ECKELS: The gasoline tax.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But yet you still prefer the gasoline tax to tolls.

JUDGE ECKELS: I think there's a place for both gasoline tax, tolls, as well as --

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm just kind of curious why guys that are advocates for transportation investment -- and I say that in a complimentary manner, and I think I am -- so easily reject the notion of toll collection which aren't shared with the general fund, which aren't shared with public education, which are direct user fee, nothing could be more Republican than such.

JUDGE ECKELS: We don't reject tolls.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Just don't want to toll existing tax roads.

JUDGE ECKELS: I don't want to toll existing roads where there is no viable alternative to that toll.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So in that case you would prefer raising the gas tax and sharing it with the general fund, sharing it with public education.

JUDGE ECKELS: Those new capacity dollars, and in fact, we may want to look at some issues on how we share that gas tax, as well, within our communities, as well as vehicle registration and other fees. We may not want to share those funds with everybody else either, but that might not be an option.

JUDGE HARRIS: And that's another topic, Commissioner, we'll be glad to sit down and visit with you on what is kind of shaping up out there on the gas tax.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Just a few more questions, Chair, and I'll be through.

This fellow or lady that you want to set up in the executive level to coordinate urban mobility, how would they interact with Gary Trietsch? Would they be Gary Trietsch's boss, would they be Jay Nelson's boss?

JUDGE ECKELS: I would anticipate that they would be working directly with Mr. Behrens and the commission to ensure that the urban needs within the Houston district, within the Metroplex and Dallas, within the San Antonio-Austin area, and other urban areas would be --

MR. WILLIAMSON: So it wouldn't be Gary's boss.

JUDGE ECKELS: No. Gary would continue to work for Mike Behrens.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But not on urban mobility issues because we have this special person?

JUDGE ECKELS: I would expect that the hierarchy of the department would remain as it is and we'd leave it to your internal organization. I look at them more as an advocate for the urban mobility issues within the department to see that they are addressed.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Maybe a coordinator?

JUDGE ECKELS: Coordinating with Gary and the Dallas and the Fort Worth and Bexar County engineers.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. JOHNSON: Robert.

MR. NICHOLS: Since I've been on the commission, I know the Houston area and the Dallas-Fort Worth area have not only come together as regions but I've experienced in the last four, five, six years you all working more and more together, and this latest cooperative effort is the best I've ever seen. And I really, on behalf of the state, thank you for coming together and encouraging more of the metropolitan areas to come together for a statewide solution because we definitely need one.

Each of the three commissioners represents all areas of the state: urban, rural, metro. I know a lot of times when people say rural they point at me because I was appointed from a rural area, but I'm not there to represent just the rural area. In traveling all over the state, visiting both metro and rural areas, the pretty broad consensus that I know is out there in the rural areas is they don't have the capacity/congestion problems that you have, so their real needs are not there as desperately as yours are. There is a desire and a statewide need to maintain and improve connectivity. Without that, I don't know that the metro areas would be able to do -- I mean, that wouldn't be a real problem.

But the one thing the rural areas of this state did learn, and if there was ever any doubt in their minds, it was overwhelmingly convinced back in the '80s when Houston shut down, when Dallas shut down in that recession, it backed up to every small corner of the state.

They know out there in the rural areas that the economic engines of the state drive the entire state, and support and prevention of drastic congestion I think is a statewide priority -- I think we all know that. I think the governor knows it; this commission knows it.

We appreciate you putting all the information together to overwhelmingly make the case, and I think I have a good feeling you're going to be using it quite a bit over the next four or five months to carry your case -- it's quite interesting timing -- and I think it's great, I really do.

JUDGE ECKELS: We appreciate that, commissioner.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Although we might ask you to take it back and use the same terms that we're using in our planning process.

JUDGE ECKELS: And in fact, we would love to have a high-level person within the department to help us do that, particularly with reference to urban mobility.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You are too good.

(General laughter.)

JUDGE ECKELS: I appreciate your comments, Commissioner, because we are not trying to make this an urban versus the rest of the state because we think this is critical for the rest of the state.

MR. NICHOLS: I understand, I don't think you are.

JUDGE ECKELS: And in fact, I will be here advocating for many of the rural counties in my other hat as president of the Judges and Commissioners Association, some of their needs, and it's not so much the capacity, it's the maintenance. But the new capacity dollars, we see the critical need in these areas and we're going to need your help. Thank you very much.

MR. JOHNSON: I'm going to echo much of what Robert and Ric have said. I believe the Dallas Morning News -- I had to make sure I didn't say the Times Herald -- editorialized on the significance of the Metroplex and the Greater Houston area coming together because genuinely they share the same interests, the same challenges now. There is a healthy competition between the two because the only way you're going to improve is to have competitors that make you improve, and so from that aspect it's healthy.

We get requests, whether they be urban/rural issues or sidewalk/bicycle path issues, or landscaping/aesthetic/beautification issues -- there's a myriad of them. And the one that you bring I am convinced -- and I'm probably affected more than my colleagues are -- is the most pressing need that the state has, it's also the most expensive challenge that we have, and whether it's some of these other issues or this very pressing important large issue, the only way we're going to gain ground is to rise the tide and all the ships, the big ships and the smaller ships will be lifted. So we look forward to working with you in that regard because I'm convinced that without a rising tide we will continue to lose ground in all these areas, be they small, be they large.

So a very informative presentation, statistically, obviously, but I believe what you bring forth in terms of the recognition of a challenge that is not only significant to your areas that you come from, but as Robert said, the entire state. It's very meaningful. Thanks so much for being here.

We will take a brief recess so that our friends from the Metroplex and the Greater Houston area can leave.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

MR. JOHNSON: We shall reconvene.

Mr. Behrens, I will ask you to take over the rest of the agenda items.

MR. BEHRENS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We'll go to agenda item 4, Aviation, and Dave Fulton will present his monthly list of airport improvement projects.

MR. FULTON: Thank you, Mike. For the record, my name is David Fulton; I'm the director of the TxDOT Aviation Division.

Item 4 is a minute order containing a request for grant-funding approval for eleven airport improvement projects. The total estimated cost of all requests, as shown in Exhibit A, is approximately $6.4 million: $2.8 federal, $2.4 state, and $1.1 local. A public hearing was held on December 2 of this year and no comments were received. We would recommend approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: Yes, sir, and I think I may have already had them answered, I just wanted to make sure it's on the record. Was it Jasper County on the access road? I was concerned that we were using Aviation funds to build access roads when a county or a city would normally, I would think, do that. The response I got was that, as I understood it, the access road was more internal to the airport.

MR. FULTON: Part of this project -- there are three phases to this project: a new taxiway, an ag pad which we hope will segregate the agricultural operations from the rest of the airport operations, and a road to get to this ag pad. It's a gravel road and I would say that $100,000 cost is a top-side estimate, but the reason we need a road for this ag pad, if it's approved, is to keep the trucks from driving down the taxiway and breaking it all to pieces which they would do.

MR. NICHOLS: So it's more internal related to the airport.

MR. FULTON: It would all be on airport property; we would never support a road that wasn't on airport property.

MR. NICHOLS: Then I so move.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Wait. I've got two questions. First, is this access road that Commissioner Nichols referred to subject to our access management rules? And then secondly, is that damn McKinney Airport anywhere in here?

MR. FULTON: Well, I have a comment on that. I mentioned to Mr. Nichols at the break I was given an article from the Dallas Morning News that says that the City of McKinney and the Town of Fairview have agreed to quit suing each other and will work together for the betterment of the airport. I hope that is accurate; it is very much needed. The McKinney Airport request will be presented at the February meeting.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Just be sure and tell me when that comes up because I want to be sure and be prepared for that.

MR. FULTON: Absolutely, yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I second the last month's chair's motion.

MR. JOHNSON: There's a motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. FULTON: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thanks, David.

MR. BEHRENS: Moving to agenda item number 5, Public Transportation, Margot Massey will address transportation needs in Johnson County.

MS. MASSEY: Good morning. I'm Margot Massey, the director of Public Transportation, and I beg your indulgence for a minute before I get to the Johnson County item. I wanted to acquaint you and the persons here present today to the phenomenal achievement of public transportation in this state that we have the two best bus drivers and we have the best maintenance team in the country that was recently recognized at the International Rodeo. Capital Metro's driver Arthur Murillo won in the 35-foot bus category; Houston Metro's Charlie Kennedy won in the 40-foot bus category; and DART's maintenance team of Melford Emanuelson, James Furino and Scott Nave won in that category. As far as I know, that's the first time any state has swept all three of the major awards, so I think it shows what an excellent transit community we have here in the state.

MR. JOHNSON: We agree and thank you for mentioning that.

MS. MASSEY: This minute order, item 5, relates to Johnson County. You will recall we brought you a piece of this in July in your meeting in Fort Worth, and what this does is really fill in the last pieces. The North Central Texas Council of Governments has in fact agreed and has made available for transfer to the department $374,000-plus of STP funds that are available to that metropolitan planning organization to support the transit operation in Johnson County. For ease of administration, those funds are being transferred to TxDOT to be awarded then under the Section 5311 federal program.

What we propose here today is to accept that and be able to go to contract with Johnson County for those funds provided by the metropolitan planning organization. Then there's also a slight tweak in the amount of toll credits as the award bumped up a little bit to match those, and we recommend your approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a question about public transit but not related to the minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Would you like to ask the question or would you like to pass this?

MR. BEHRENS: We have the rule coming up next.

MR. WILLIAMSON: No questions.

MR. NICHOLS: I so move.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: And Margot, stay there; we're going to move to agenda item 6, our Proposed Rules for Adoption. We have one rule proposed for adoption this month and that would be on Chapter 31, Public Transportation.

MS. MASSEY: This is a modest, innocent little rule. We're making a number of changes -- proposing a number of changes to Chapter 31, primarily because we found as we were putting the finishing touches on the Public Transportation Manual that the Administrative Code did not in many cases reflect current business practice, and the terminology changes, so we're modifying a number of definitions. You'll notice we don't talk about accidents anymore, we talk about incidents, things of that nature.

There are some more significant issues that we want to bring to your attention. In 31.26 relating to the distribution of Federal Urbanized Transit Funds, these funds do not flow through the department but we have the challenge of distributing those funds and so notifying the federal agency of what the allocations are to each of those 20-some-odd systems, and this is an allocation process that's been somewhat ad hoc over time.

We met with the affected entities back a few months ago and talked to them about their concerns because Lubbock graduated from this pool and some other new urbanized areas have joined this pool, all of which have transit systems and tried to adjust those funding allocations.

The agreement is to go with the same basis that the federal program uses in allocating the funds to the state of Texas, namely on population and population density. There will be a two-year transition period, as agreed on by the cities, because primarily of Laredo, that they're receiving a disproportionate amount of those funds now and this will allow them to scale back over a two-year period to get to their natural level of funding.

That is one of the more significant changes, and I said it was discussed with and has the concurrence of the affected transit agencies.

The Public Transportation Advisory Committee reviewed these rules and issued comments which were shared with you in the chairman's letter, John Bartosowicz's letter dated December 3, most of which, as you will recall, related to some proposed language in reference to the Section 5311 federal funding program which those changes have been pulled from this proposed text. In part, the comments from the committee -- they felt that this was moving a bit too quickly and that there needed to be a fuller discussion of it; there were questions about recognizing different populations, transit-dependent populations, and the performance factors. So those pieces and the gist of the PTAC committee's comments then are not specifically related to the proposed text before you today.

I will be happy to answer any questions on this.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir. Do we have a resolution from the City of Bastrop having to do with CARTS that was sent to the governor and the commission? Is this related to the changes that we're fixing to vote on, or is this related to the discussion we're having about changing rural transportation, or do you know?

MS. MASSEY: Actually, sir, I think that relates to another topic that's been brought before you --I think most recently in the September meeting -- where there was a request by transit officials to accelerate or bring current the federal funds for this program.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So it's got nothing to do with the action we're going to take here in a few minutes?

MS. MASSEY: That's correct.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The second thing I have is with regard to the rural transit funding discussions that we've been having, it's my understanding that the commissioners, through their staffs, have relayed to you that we will continue to work on some definitions or some reallocation of the formulas over the next few months because whatever we did today wouldn't affect the allocation that will be made in the next few months anyway. Correct?

MS. MASSEY: That's correct.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. But we will continue those discussions and reach resolutions quickly rather than drag it out.

MS. MASSEY: That's my understanding, yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Or at least put the commissioners in the position of saying, I don't want to do this or I do.

In that context, I know you're preparing a bunch of reports for the legislature, as required by law or required by regulation, or as have been requested by the commission. Would you please take care to see that those reports reflect the terminology that we're trying to implement on the rest of the documentation of the department, and would you take particular care to relate how public transit supports the overall mission, goals, and strategies of the department?

I really want public transit to be thought of as a portion of the transportation planning process in the state and not something out there that we have to deal with and we never think about how it relates to the rest of the transportation planning process.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: In order to do that, it's important for your words to say -- it's important for you to use the same words as the highway design engineers and the aviation managers and everyone else that puts words to paper relating to this department; I think it's real important to do that.

MS. MASSEY: I don't suppose you would consider allowing us to use the term "handle it" as opposed to "plan, design, build it"? "Handle it" is more all-encompassing.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I kind of like that, "handle it" -- yes, that's not bad.

MR. NICHOLS: Fix it?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm wide open to suggestions. "Fix it" -- that would be good. But you get my point.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: If we want it to be part of transportation planning, let's use the same words and terms, and let's support the same goals, and let's participate in the same strategic and tactical decisions -- makes it easier to sell.

Finally -- and this may be more for Coby, if he's still around -- he's not; he knew this question was coming.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll get it to him.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We would want to be sure that the legislature has the opportunity to return some general revenue to the Public Transit category of our LAR, so let's not fail to at least suggest that to the legislature and let them consider it. Let them consider whether or not they want to send additional general revenue into the Public Transit portion of our budget to let us address the needs of Bastrop and Blanco and Burnet and Caldwell and Fayette and Hood County.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MS. MASSEY: May I ask one question of you, sir? Relating to the Bastrop resolution, for my clarification, the way we had left it, the commission, on record had not made a decision on the acceleration or bringing those funds current. Your question about the formula rules presumes that we will make those current, and I just wanted to get clarification. Is that the commission's desire that we move to bring those funds current?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'll yield to Mr. Nichols and Mr. Johnson on answering that question.

MR. NICHOLS: I had two questions and a comment -- in that order.

MR. JOHNSON: All right.

MR. NICHOLS: First question is not directly about this rule. I realize Lubbock is switching from one category to the other because they're going to be in metropolitan, so the distribution, we won't be working with the formula that will fit in that other program. Is that correct?

MS. MASSEY: That's correct.

MR. NICHOLS: The dollars that they currently draw down, does that stay in the old program to be redistributed among the people that are not, or does it move on over to the metropolitan category?

MS. MASSEY: I have to make a couple of distinctions. The Feds have two separate programs under Section 5307 and they use different funding allocation formulas. The funding for areas over 200,000 population includes population and density but it also includes route miles, so Lubbock is now being ranked and will receive funding out of a different pot under somewhat different criteria. But all those that remain have now joined new urbanized areas moving into that; Lubbock's money doesn't go with Lubbock, these are completely separate pools in the federal vernacular. We've really received an increase.

MR. NICHOLS: I understand what you said but I don't know the answer. Does that mean the money stays in the other program or does it basically shift up with Lubbock?

MS. MASSEY: Well, it's based on the relative population and density of our urbanized areas of 50- to 200,000 compared to every other state's, and we've actually seen a net increase in the 2003 appropriations as proposed.

MR. NICHOLS: Well, we as a state have a larger --

MS. MASSEY: We have more small urbanized areas and we have more large urbanized areas too, so we're growing on both fronts.

MR. NICHOLS: Because of this action with Lubbock moving, does that mean the state is going to receive more transit dollars?

MS. MASSEY: I think it's a net increase, yes, because we have more --

MR. JOHNSON: In the calculation, Lubbock's population goes from one category to the other, and so it's figured --

MR. NICHOLS: I understand that.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, that's what determines the amount of funds relative to our state versus the other 49.

MR. NICHOLS: But the Feds have a certain amount of money that goes to like Urban, certain amount to Rural, certain amount to Metro.

MS. MASSEY: Right.

MR. NICHOLS: So Lubbock shifting to metro, the dollar allocation by the Feds, the dollars Lubbock was drawing down, does in stay in Urban or does it go to Metro?

MS. MASSEY: Yes, it stays.

MR. NICHOLS: It stays in Urban, so it's redistributed among the urbans that are left.

MS. MASSEY: That's correct, throughout the country.

MR. NICHOLS: But I'm only worried about --

MS. MASSEY: We actually get a net gain in that category because we've added more small urbanized areas: we've added The Woodlands; we've added Angleton, Lake Jackson. So we actually have a net increase in that -- we have growth in that sector even with Lubbock graduating.

MR. NICHOLS: So the state as a whole will pick up the extra money.

MS. MASSEY: Yes.

MR. NICHOLS: Question number two, as to your comment on the acceleration of the draw-down, the metropolitan transit groups kind of run their own thing and draw -- they get allocated and they do their draw-downs. Are they accelerating their draw-downs?

MS. MASSEY: As far as I know, everyone is current, yes; both in the metropolitan transit authorities as well as the 5307 funds we were just talking about, they run current on their federal funds.

MR. NICHOLS: As soon as they're allocated, they draw them down.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: So the only group that's not accelerating -- you used the word "accelerating" --

MS. MASSEY: Are current.

MR. NICHOLS: Current.

MS. MASSEY: The 5311, the rural systems.

MR. NICHOLS: But when it's allocated, we could draw those down now, which is what you're referring to as accelerating.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: When it's funded.

MR. NICHOLS: When it's funded.

MS. MASSEY: Right.

MR. NICHOLS: And the metropolitans do the accelerating when it's funded?

MS. MASSEY: Yes.

MR. NICHOLS: But we haven't been doing that on the rural?

MS. MASSEY: That's correct.

MR. NICHOLS: So now my comment portion -- which goes to the question you were asking Ric -- was I would think -- I cannot see any reason we would not accelerate it. I think staff has been hesitant to do that, I think, for conservative reasons; they probably had some good reasons and it was for a rainy day and that group is in a terrible shortfall, and we draw down on our State Highway funds whenever we have the opportunity to, and I would certainly think in this situation they're in, this would be a good occasion to direct staff to do that.

MS. MASSEY: I appreciate the clarification. Thank you, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And that's one of the reasons I deferred to the chair or Mr. Nichols is that I don't have a strong feeling either way except that my concern is that we don't do anything that sends the message to the actors in the play that we're not serious about changing the formula, because I think it's very important to change the formula, I think it's important to recognize the changes that have occurred in the state's demographics the last few years.

And I think Mr. Nichols is correct. We need to find a way to incent people to behave at the local level in their own self-interest and not in the interest of dependency on us and the state of Texas for their marginal subsidy. If we can do things that cause the taxicab business in Parker County, Texas, to spring back up, if we can do things that rewards Maggie Franklin for getting Lockheed to contribute to the Parker County transportation system, if we can put those kinds of incentives in place, we may well provide much more money to public transit overall than we do to this process.

And I know these things are hard; they've all talked to me. My first chairman that I ever served under was here this morning to visit with me a little bit about it -- but it's got to be done, as painful as it is.

And I wouldn't want the acceleration of these funds to give someone the idea that, well, it's okay, we'll fight this battle a year from now because I want the battle to be fought now. I want it to be over with one way or the other.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Margot, you got an answer to your question?

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir, thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: My sense is that we ought to parallel the distribution of Section 5307 with Section 5311 and make things consistent and uniform.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir, we'll do that. We'll be ready as soon as Congress and the President does their thing.

MS. MASSEY: Which we anticipate to be early January.

MS. MASSEY: Hope so, yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Is there a motion to the proposed adoption of these rules?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, Margot.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll go to agenda item 6(b), we have three rules for final adoption, the first being in Traffic Operations, amendments to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.

MR. LOPEZ: Good morning, commissioners. My name is Carlos Lopez and I'm director of the Traffic Operations Division.

The minute order before you provides for final adoption of Revised Section 25.1 regarding the Texas Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. State law requires the department to adopt a manual for the installation and maintenance of traffic control devices on public roadways in Texas. This manual is also required to be in substantial compliance with the manual published by the Federal Highway Administration.

Recently the FHWA produced a complete rewrite of the national manual for the first time since 1980. This rule action adopts a Texas Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices which the FHWA has approved.

TxDOT published notice of this proposed revision in the September 27 edition of the Texas Register and comments were received. A large majority of these comments were incorporated into the final version of the rules. We recommended approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes. The comments came from whom?

MR. LOPEZ: Mainly city traffic engineers and some consultants from around the state.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Any comments from the private sector that builds these things?

MR. LOPEZ: Not that I recall.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second question: the old language that's being done away with, will that have any impact on the current discussions that we're having with the company that's got the faulty light bulb? I can't remember their name.

MR. LOPEZ: No. The signal warrants in the new rewrite were not changed from the previous rewrite.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And is there anything in this new language that will affect the discussions we're having -- and I want to say this more succinctly -- with the company whom we allege have perhaps given us a faulty signal light?

MR. LOPEZ: This rule process will not affect that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Any other questions?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, Carlos.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 6(b)(2) and Dianna Noble will present the repeal of several environmental rules in her area.

MS. NOBLE: Good morning, commissioners, Mr. Behrens and Ms. Williams. I hope you have a happy holiday season.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MS. NOBLE: For the record, I'm Dianna Noble and I'm the director of the Environmental Affairs Division of TxDOT.

Agenda item 6(b)(2) is regarding the final adoption to repeal Sections 52.1 through 52.8 concerning environmental review and public involvement for turnpike projects and amendments to Section 2.40, 2.41 and 2.43 concerning the review and public involvement for transportation projects to provide for the review and public involvement for turnpike projects.

Senate Bill 342 of the 77th Legislature abolished the board of directors of the Turnpike Division and provided that rules of the board would be continued through the Texas Transportation Commission. With the abolition of the board, Sections 52.1 through 52.8 are no longer needed because the department has rules found under Sections 2.40, 2.41 and 2.43 that govern environmental review and public involvement for non-tolled state highway improvement projects. These rules were amended to apply to the turnpike projects.

The proposed repeal and proposed amendments were published for public comment and review on October 11, 2002; no comments were received.

I'll be happy to answer any questions regarding this item.

MR. JOHNSON: Are there any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: There ought to be one but I can't think of one.

MR. JOHNSON: Is there a motion?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, Dianna.

MS. NOBLE: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 6(b)(3) Final Rule Adoption for Chapter 53 and Chapter 9 in Contract Management.

MR. SAENZ: Good morning, commissioners, Mr. Behrens, Cheryl. Merry Christmas.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Merry Christmas.

MR. SAENZ: For the record, I'm Amadeo Saenz, assistant executive director for Engineering Operations.

Agenda item 6(b)(3), the minute order we have before you for consideration proposes the final adoption of the repeal of Sections 53.20 through 53.30, Contracting for Architectural and Engineering Services, and amendments to Sections 9.30, 9.31, 9.33, 9.34, 9.37 through 9.39, 9.41 and 9.43, Subchapter C, Contracting for Architectural, Engineering and Surveying Services.

The proposed rules were presented to the commission at the September commission meeting. The commission authorized staff to advertise for comment. The rules were advertised in the October 11 issue of the Texas Register, and no comments were received. Staff therefore recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Are there any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 7, Transportation Planning, Jim Randall will present the two candidates to become members of the board of directors for the Austin-San Antonio Commuter Rail District.

MR. RANDALL: Jim Randall, Transportation Planning and Programming Division.

Item 7(a), this minute order provides for the appointment of two members to the Austin-San Antonio Commuter Rail District. Senate Bill 657, 75th Legislature, established Article 6550C-1, Vernon Texas Civil Statutes, allowing for the establishment of an interim municipal commuter rail district. The purpose of the district is to provide a transportation authority with the capability to tax, grant bonds, and exercise the power of eminent domain. These powers are necessary in order to provide commuter rail service between the Austin and San Antonio areas.

Also, Article 6550C-1 provides that the commission shall appoint two public members to the board of the district for a two-year term. Tullos Wells and Mariano Camarillo are recommended to serve as members of the Austin-San Antonio Commuter Rail District with terms expiring December 31, 2004. These candidates are recommended for your approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. NICHOLS: I had one. Since we haven't actually approved these at this time, do we know if they're willing to serve on this?

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir. Mr. Kelly has talked to Mr. Wells and he's willing to serve, and my understanding is that Mr. Camarillo is willing to serve too.

MR. NICHOLS: Okay, that answers my question.

MR. JOHNSON: Is there a motion?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 7(b) will be deferred, so we'll move to 7(c) which will be to authorize TxDOT to expend up to $10 million in Category 12, Strategic Priority funds to help feasibility studies be performed for candidate turnpike projects and also regional mobility projects.

Amadeo?

MR. SAENZ: Good morning again, commissioners. For the record, I'm Amadeo Saenz, assistant executive director for Engineering Operations.

Agenda item 7(c), the minute order before you authorizes the department to spend up to $10 million in Category 12, Strategic Priority funds to perform feasibility studies on projects selected by the executive director for the purpose of evaluating the viability of developing these projects as turnpike projects.

Proposition 15, approved by the voters in November 2001, along with previously adopted legislation, provides the department and the commission with innovative methods for developing and financing needed highway projects, including the use of tolls, toll equity, and regional mobility authority, to serve as a means of utilizing limited available resources. Transportation funding limitations have affected the department's ability to develop needed highway projects in a timely manner. In order to expedite the development of these projects, it is possible to finance all or a portion of these projects' design and construction cost through the use of turnpike or local financing.

It is necessary for the department to perform studies to identify projects and to determine the feasibility of developing these projects as turnpikes and to assess whether those projects will be developed most efficiently by the department or by a regional mobility authority. Performing these feasibility studies will benefit the state and local governments and the traveling public by improving the efficiency of the state's transportation system, facilitating the construction of the needed highway projects, and increasing the local control over transportation planning.

Upon your approval, the department, acting by and through the Texas Turnpike Division, will be authorized to expend up to $10 million in Category 12, Strategic Priority funds to perform these feasibility studies on selected projects in order to evaluate the viability of developing these projects as turnpikes. Additionally, the executive director will provide a report containing a summary of the study results along with recommendations regarding specific projects to be developed by the regional mobility authority.

Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. NICHOLS: I had a question.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes.

MR. NICHOLS: Did you have a question?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm yielding to you, sir. I'll go after you.

MR. NICHOLS: Thanks. First of all, I'm very supportive of doing this; I think it's important groundwork. My question really lays more into the wording and is this strictly for RMAs, or is this for TTAs and RMAs, or could this also be extended to consideration for regional turnpike authorities like NTTA?

MR. SAENZ: As it's written, it's for TTAs or RMAs. We didn't include the regional turnpike authorities for the reason that RMAs could not be -- we started this as a mechanism to help the formation of regional mobility authorities, and since RMAs could not be formed within the regional turnpike authority areas, we did not include them, but we can come back in a month. The commission also has the authority to go out there and approve studies within those areas as separate items. But we could come back next month and amend this item to add the regional turnpike authorities.

MR. NICHOLS: Yes, because the way it's actually written -- we have the way it's posted and then we have the way it's written -- the way it's written, it actually says that the TTA will be doing all the feasibility studies.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: And these are projects selected by the executive director.

MR. SAENZ: Right. We will be working with potential regional mobility authorities to identify these projects, but TTA will take the lead, since we have the consultants on board, so that we can do the studies and then we'll provide the study results to the regional mobility authorities for them to move forward.

MR. NICHOLS: All right. Like I said, I'm supportive of this. I would like us to take a look at, at some point in the future -- I think it would be very good if we can also help the regionals on some of their feasibility occasionally. We're encouraging more tolled; we're looking at projects in the urbanized metropolitan areas that might be tolled, and there's some of these that they may not be looking at that we as a department would like to look at either for the TTA or possibly the regionals -- I mean, some of these things just kind of depends.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So what you're saying, Robert, is adopt this and then bring us back something to add to it a month or two from now to add those guys.

MR. NICHOLS: Right, because what this is saying is -- which is good; there's nothing in here that's bad -- it doesn't allow us the option of doing a feasibility for a regional.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And what we're doing here is sending a message to San Antonio, Austin, Victoria, Brownsville, El Paso, let's get rolling, but it's not necessarily sending the same message to Dallas and Houston which we want to send.

MR. NICHOLS: Right.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, in that vein, Chair, could I ask Amadeo about tolls generally.

MR. JOHNSON: Absolutely.

MR. WILLIAMSON: For three meetings now, I believe, the commission has expressed in the strongest possible terms to the staff, from State Highway 114 in my part of the world to the Grand Parkway in Mr. Johnson's part of the world to the Lufkin Highway in Mr. Nichols' part of the world, we need to be aggressive on identifying toll projects. Are we doing that?

MR. SAENZ: Yes. The Turnpike Division is currently working on several projects, that being one of them. We've also had some direction to look at the Grand Parkway in the Houston area; we've had one meeting on that project with the locals and the district to identify kind of what are the things that needed to be done to be able to proceed with doing the studies. We're also doing some feasibility study work -- which we can through the Turnpike Division -- in looking at the LBJ Freeway in the Dallas area.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I mean, I think the pace is quickening and at least I hear more and more elected officials at the state level beginning to say this may be okay to advocate but we need to give them some tools and analysis with which to defend themselves. I know we asked for an inventory of potential projects almost a year ago; it's come in slowly from the districts -- they're busy, I understand that.

But again, for example, 114 in my part of the world; I'm thinking about looks like maybe 121 may be dead in Fort Worth, maybe we need to step in and do that ourselves, albeit that might take negotiating with NTTA. You know, I wonder about 151 -- is it -- in San Antonio. I mean, we've got that already kind of started as a project, as a perfect toll road. Are we suggesting to Bexar County that they consider that as their first project? I know when the governor announced yesterday the $15 million for the rail district in San Antonio, he made it clear that he expected us to be involved in that, and for those assets to be handed over to the RMA if it's ever formed.

We just need to be pretty aggressive about pointing these things out. I don't know that anyone has talked to Judge Wolff but I think it would be a pretty good idea to call and say this is a good project, this will begin to deliver immediate results; not too late for us to stop and put toll booths up if you guys want to start generating your own revenue.

MR. SAENZ: We will do that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's all. I think it's got to be said every month, Mr. Johnson, that it's serious business, we need to be about this. And with that, I second Robert's motion.

MR. JOHNSON: All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 8 is our State Infrastructure Bank Program, and this will be one for Parker County, City of Weatherford.

MR. BASS: Good morning. For the record, I'm James Bass, director of TxDOT's Finance Division.

Item 8 seeks your final approval of a loan to the City of Weatherford in the amount of $193,525 to fund utility relocations in connection with the widening of Farm to Market 2552 from Park Street to Interstate 20.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's from where?

MR. BASS: From Park Street to Interstate 20 in Farm to Market 2552.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So that's over by the school?

MR. BASS: If you say so.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I mean, I kind of need to know because I want to vote on it if I don't have anything near it, but I'll have to abstain if it's anywhere close to my house.

MR. BASS: I'm not sure of the exact location, unfortunately, besides the description right there.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's got to be near the school. Go ahead; I can vote for that.

MR. BASS: Interest would accrue from the date funds are transferred from the SIB at a rate of 4.2 percent with payments being made over a period of ten years, and staff would recommend your approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. NICHOLS: Where's Weatherford?

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: It is 197 miles north-northwest of Jacksonville.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

James, one question on the SIB. Our balance in the SIB is less than the teens, maybe $13 million or so. We, I believe, have or will have outstanding more requests for funds in excess of the funds available to lend through the SIB. Are we doing anything to replenish the capital of the SIB?

MR. BASS: You're correct in your numbers right now. The uncommitted balance is about $13-1/2 million and we have six pending applications which total somewhere around $25 million. In the interim, that $25 million -- some of them have to clear environmental clearance and other hurdles before they get finally approved and actually have the cash disbursed. During that interim period, the other outstanding loans that the SIB has have revenue coming in, so we're tracking that to try and see when the loans become due, to see whether we are going to have the cash on hand to make them.

We do have another alternative since December of -- let me see if I can get my year right here -- of 2001, I believe, the U.S. Congress passed and Texas can now recapitalize, further capitalize our State Infrastructure Bank. If we do that, it is going to somewhat change the rules of the SIB and the way it has operated previously, so we're taking a strong look at that before we gather those additional federal funds and change the rules for the entire set of the SIB.

MR. JOHNSON: But we are investigating that.

MR. BASS: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: When do we expect to have a conclusion or at least a report?

MR. BASS: One of the large projects that's out there -- of the $25 million, there's six pending applications but one of those is for $16 million.

MR. JOHNSON: Is that Corpus Christi?

MR. BASS: Yes, sir, the Port of Corpus Christi. So the timing of that one is going to be very significant as to whether or not the outstanding loans -- the repayment on those outstanding loans -- will come in in time to fund that loan because, of course, the concept of the SIB is that it become a fully revolving loan fund. And I don't think we're quite to that 360 degrees, but we want to wait and figure out how much additional money we may need to capitalize in the SIB to complete that circle, so then we can just continue to receive payments and loan it out to another entity for an additional project. And then when it comes in, we can take that money and loan it for an additional. Right now we haven't had to deny or delay any applications, but we do have concerns that it may be coming in the future, and the big one will be the timing of the Port of Corpus Christi.

MR. JOHNSON: But what about the recapitalization of the SIB?

MR. BASS: We could do that and we're also looking at it. Unfortunately, the guidance from FHWA is somewhat vague and the conversations I've had with staff of FHWA had slightly different interpretations as to if we sign a new cooperative agreement and capitalize the SIB under these new rules, do the new rules apply to all of the funds in the SIB, including the earlier agreements that we've signed and loaned the money out under, or would it only apply to new ones from that date forward.

And I believe there are certain circumstances  -- I believe in the last couple of months we loaned some money to Lavaca County under the Equivalent Match Program that under the new agreement, if we had signed it, we might not have been able to do that. And so there are some circumstances where we enjoy the flexibility of the current program so we're not wanting to commit and end up tying our hands unknowingly.

MR. NICHOLS: I have some comments also along that same line, along the line you were talking about. I've been getting concerned for some time as our balance in the bank draws lower -- particularly now that we have more applications than we have funds -- that we're going to reach the point where it's time to put more money in it -- which is fine if it's what we need to do. But to do that, we pull it out of our transportation, basically the road fund.

Of course, these go for road projects, but when we do that, in effect we're going to be not building a project or some projects when we pull it out of the road fund.

One of the purposes of the State Infrastructure Bank was to help and aid some of these other entities in building transportation projects and speed them up that wouldn't otherwise occur, and they pay them back with interest and all that. Well, that's a good offsetting of things, but we had expressed concerns way back there -- and I know I've waved this flag several times -- and I'm going to wave it again that we have some entities -- some of these counties are maybe small or poor or broke or some of the projects are small or marginal, and to go out and sell a big bond issue is very expensive and time consuming, and we can do a quick loan if it meets and matches and all that.

It works good, but some of these entities are triple-A rated entities. They can borrow tens of millions of dollars and they can easily do a big note or a big bond.

And I get real concerned when they come to us on a transportation project to borrow $5-, $10-, $15 million when they're triple-A rated. They can sell and float a bond just like that, and I can't help but think and express the concern that they're borrowing it from us or from the SIB because it's cheaper.

And we, in effect, then begin competing with the private bond market -- the banking market -- which is not what we want to do. We don't want them to borrow it from us because we're cheaper, although in some situations I've supported zero interest because it was an important project and it was the only way it would work.

And so if we can encourage some of these triple-A rated entities to borrow, who can easily borrow in the private market, bonds or banks or whatever, instead of us because we may be cheaper, then we can, in effect, have a larger pool of cash to build and work with more projects, i.e., more leverage. And I know there are some projects in those applications that just by signing on the line can borrow the money on the outside at very comparable interest rates. And I do not understand why --

MR. BASS: And you're right. In those higher-rated applicants we are not providing any discount from market rate interest rates. But you're very accurate in that even charging the same interest rate it's still cheaper to come to the State Infrastructure Bank, where there's fewer filing fees and an underwriter.

MR. NICHOLS: We're cheaper than the private market.

MR. JOHNSON: The closing costs are significantly less.

MR. NICHOLS: We are cheaper than the private market, i.e., so they come to us, and we're going to not build some highway projects because we do it this way.

MR. BASS: And one of the theories of the SIB is to provide lower cost which, therefore, in theory, provides additional money to be available for transportation projects. In other words, if they have $10 million available and they go to the capital markets, they might only be able to generate -- I'm just using round numbers -- $9-1/2 million of infrastructure. But if you come to the SIB and get a $10 million loan, you can generate $10 million of infrastructure.

And the goal is to try to help and assist more infrastructure being put in place sooner, but with limited resources. Given your direction, that is something we'll certainly look at.

One other thing, we've had the conversations before in that you're correct that putting federal money in capitalizing the SIB takes money from our traditional highway program. But putting the money through the traditional highway program, $10 million generates $10 million of infrastructure.

In the SIB it generates $10 million of infrastructure and when it gets paid back, it generates another $10 million; when that gets paid back it generates another $10 million. So putting the money into the SIB, that money is able to be recycled and spent over and over again.

MR. NICHOLS: I'm not talking about not utilizing money in the SIB. I'm talking about we're now to the point where we're going to have to pull money out of the highway program to refund the SIB so that somebody can save a little bit of money than borrowing from a bank.

MR. BASS: Which is the way that we originally funded the SIB, and one of the main differences -- if we pull down the federal money and deposit it into the SIB, we earn and retain the interest off of that. If we do it through the Federal Highway Program, it stays in Washington, D.C. And of the money that we've had in the SIB, it's earned over $40 million in interest. By pulling that traditional highway money into the SIB, the State of Texas has an additional $40 million for projects that we would not have otherwise had.

MR. NICHOLS: I'm supportive of the SIB, just not supportive of doing it cheaper than banks when they can borrow from the bank. Anyway, you do a great job on the program.

MR. BASS: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, James.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 9, a donation to the department that would go to Victoria County for a project.

MS. SOLDANO: Good morning. For the record, my name is Jennifer Soldano and I'm the director of the Contract Services Office.

The reason this is a regular minute order today instead of a routine is because this is our first donation for construction under our amended rules. The Home Depot, Inc., is planning to locate a store adjacent to the Victoria Shopping Center. Currently the department is constructing main lanes and frontage roads on Loop 463. The Home Depot, Inc., will donate $10,000 to the department to cover the cost of construction of a deceleration lane and for drainage structure adjustment. Department engineers have studied the addition to the current construction and have determined that it is in the best interest of the traveling public.

We would recommend that you pass this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes. Now, Jennifer, did we give Lowe's the opportunity to make a competing donation? Did we treat them fairly?

MS. SOLDANO: I'm sure had Lowe's come to us, we would have treated them equally. They, however, are not located at this particular site.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, that can't be. Lowe's always builds next door to Home Depot. That's not possible.

MS. SOLDANO: They're probably going to do it next year.

(General laughter.)

MR. BEHRENS: They already have a Lowe's in Victoria.

MR. WILLIAMSON: They already have a Lowe's in Victoria?

MR. JOHNSON: I'll entertain a motion.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved, and suggest we also write them a letter of thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Absolutely. Maybe we ought to have a wall here in the Greer Building for guys that donate to us, a hall of fame wall. Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, Jennifer.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 10 will be our contracts for the month of December in both Maintenance and Highway Construction. Thomas will present this item.

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: Good morning, commissioners. My name is Thomas Bohuslav; I'm director of the Construction Division.

Item 10(a)(1) is for consideration of award or rejection of highway maintenance contracts let on December 5 and 6, 2002, whose engineers' estimated cost are $300,000 or more. We had 15 projects. We recommend award of all projects in the exhibit.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: Item 10(a)(2) is for consideration of award or rejection of highway construction and building contracts let on December 5 and 6, 2002. We had 79 projects; an average of 5.33 bidders per project.

We have two projects we recommend for rejection. The first one is Project No. 3018 in Montague County. There were five bidders. They were 30.6 percent over on the project. This is for replacing sidewalks and lighting on State Highway 59 on Smith Street in Bowie.

MR. JOHNSON: How much over were they?

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: 30.6 percent. There were some details that were lacking in the plans that caused the prices from the contractors to be higher. In addition, the district has concerns that because the details weren't there that there's a possibility of claims on the project, so we'd like to reject and go back and provide those details and plans and re-bid it.

The second project recommended for rejection is Project No. 3223 in Terry County. There was one bidder, 62 percent over, and we just didn't have competition on the project. We'd like to go back and re-bid it and get more competition, and we think we can get better prices.

Staff recommends award of all projects with the exceptions noted.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Are prices still trimming down, Thomas? Are they starting to flatten out?

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: They're flattened out here on the bottom. We're about nine points below where we were last year at this time.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But that trend is no longer straight down?

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: It's flattened down.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So that would be an indicator that either contractors are going out of business or the economy is starting to settle out a little bit and improve.

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: I don't know, but they flattened out.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Or we had some contractors leave the state or go out of business.

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: We get a contractor come in the state every now and then. We get one go out of business every now and then, and competition-wise it's about the same.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay.

MR. NICHOLS: So move.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: We have agenda items 10(b) and 10(c), 10(b) being a contract claim and 10(c) being award of a contract. Amadeo will present those.

MR. JOHNSON: Amadeo, where is this Cherokee County?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I never heard of it.

MR. NICHOLS: It is the hub of East Texas.

MR. SAENZ: It's in the Tyler District, close to Jacksonville.

MR. NICHOLS: As far away as you can get from everything without getting closer to something else.

(General laughter.)

MR. SAENZ: Good morning, commissioners. For the record, I'm Amadeo Saenz, assistant executive director for Engineering Operations, also chair of the Contract Claim Committee.

The minute order you have before you approves a claim settlement for a contract by Smith & Company for Project NH97(13) in Cherokee County in the Tyler District. On November 6, the TxDOT Contract Claim 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 recommends your approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. SAENZ: Item 10(c), the minute order before you approves the department to enter into a contract for providing surveying services in Dallas, Denton, Collin, Ellis, Kaufman, Navarro and Rockwall Counties with Halff & Associates, Inc., which employs a former department executive director.

Government Code 669.003 requires that in order to enter into a contract with a company that employs an agency's former executive director during the first four years after the person has served in that position, the commission must approve the contract in an open meeting.

Mr. Charles W. Heald, the department's former executive director, is now employed by Halff & Associates. Halff was chosen to be the provider in accordance with competitive selection procedures set forth in the Professional Service Procurement Act in the Government and Administrative Code. Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is Wes going to actually go out there and do this surveying work?

MR. SAENZ: I'm not sure.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is he going to go out there and run the transit?

MR. SAENZ: I think he's going to be a chain man.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Chain man? Hold the rod.

MR. SAENZ: Hold the rod.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Can we get a picture of that?

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 11 will be presented by Richard Monroe pertaining to a contested case between Reagan National Advertising and TxDOT.

MR. MONROE: Good morning, commissioners. My name is Richard Monroe; I am the general counsel for the department.

What I have here is an order by which you will endorse the findings of fact of the hearing officer in this case. We are under big Tab 11.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm looking to see if there are going to be other opportunities to talk to you, because if not, I'm going to talk to you about something else while you're here.

MR. MONROE: All right. What happened in this case in the findings of fact which came out at the hearing was a sign got blown down. One of our districts had taken the position that the sign had been removed. The hearing officer found that was not the case, that the sign had blown down, that it was salvageable. It was replaced by the owner with the consent of the property owner. It had fewer supporting poles than the sign had had previously but the sign was the same size.

Technically, under our rules -- which, of course, are designed to ensure the safety of the sign -- unless you reduce it in size, you are not supposed to reduce the number of poles. This one, I believe, wound up with five rather than seven. However, we have been assured that the sign is structurally sound and is not going to fall over on anybody. Therefore, the hearing officer at SOAH -- I believe as much a matter of fairness as anything else -- said, I know that technically this sign may be in violation but my holding is going to be that the person should be allowed to keep that sign where it is. I am inclined to agree with the hearing officer.

Our alternative to not approving the order allowing the sign to stand would be to appeal the decision of SOAH to State District Court where I'm afraid we might get shellacked by a district court judge. Not only that, but we might stand in danger of having this particular rule declared arbitrary and capricious and thrown out which I would just as soon avoid. If we are going to take a case like this to a district court, I would prefer a better set of facts.

So therefore, I would urge the commission to approve the order which is now in front of you.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. JOHNSON: Would you like to second? We have a very strongly worded recommendation from our office of general counsel.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I was going to say shellacked deserves a second.

MR. NICHOLS: Is that a legal term?

MR. MONROE: Yes, it is.

MR. NICHOLS: Shellacked, it really is?

MR. MONROE: Yes. Feel free to use it any time.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: There is a motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. WILLIAMSON: May I speak with him now?

MR. JOHNSON: Please.

MR. WILLIAMSON: In looking over our agenda, it doesn't appear that we are going to discuss certain events having to do with State Highway 121 and the Maharishi Development Fund and there appears to be no reason for us to have that on the agenda, that that matter is resolved. Is that why it's not in the book?

MR. MONROE: I'm not sure I understand your question, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We've bought the right of way and all that's over with?

MR. MONROE: Yes. The transaction has been concluded.

MR. WILLIAMSON: First I want to compliment the Chair for taking the personal initiative to force resolution to that problem, and I compliment the Chair first to sort of cushion my request of counsel and to not confuse it to you. I think you did an admirable job of working through a difficult circumstance, Chairman.

However, I have been bothered for quite some time, Richard, about this notion that on the one hand we're reluctant to help buy right of way for needed projects because of the sometimes opportunistic impulse to drive the value of right of way up in the hometown, and on the other hand, not point publicly to a bad situation and call it what it is.

In other words, I think there are times when have to go help buy right of way and maybe even buy all the right of way. I think we demonstrated that somewhat on State Highway 130 that there are times when it's in the state's interest to do that. And there are times, as Mr. Nichols points out, when it's better to say to Travis County, you know, you're going to have to pay for half of this right of way also.

I wish the commission would consider directing Mr. Behrens in the presence of Mr. Monroe -- or asking Mr. Behrens, not directing him, to develop a policy for us to make clear to the world that we are not particularly bound to the 50 percent rule on the right of way but that in the future where we're required or requested to participate in the purchase of right of way -- be it in Denton County or I remember an event in Travis County -- that we will only participate in our percentage to the level of the value of the property prior to any actions by cities or counties to improve the value of that property after we decided to build the highway.

In other words, it appears to me that we got into the 121 mess a little bit because we thought it was worth a certain amount of money when we decided to expand the road. And sometime thereafter, locally-elected officials in that area decided to define the development capacity of that land in a way that made it appear to be worth more money, which then put pressure on us to contribute more for the right of way.

I think that we ought to signal to the state that we're willing to be partners but that we will never again pay more than the appraised value of that property before a unit of local government decided to make it seem to be worth more. That's what I ask, that's what I request. I think that we ought to develop some kind of policy and make that clear.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, my response is this transaction went through first an eminent domain proceeding, and so it's a different set of facts from what you are presenting policy to recognize. So counselor, do you have any observation?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Did I misunderstand the facts? If I misunderstand the facts, I don't want to rail a whole lot about it, but I was under the impression that one of the reasons that the eminent domain process resulted in a value higher than what we thought was accurate was because of actions that the city took to redefine the character of the land. Is that not the case?

MR. JOHNSON: I don't think that's the case, although I could be corrected. The action of allowing the plat, which the city (The Colony) did, happened after the decision of the appraisal by the administrative court set in the eminent domain proceeding although I could be mistaken on the timing of that.

MR. MONROE: The timing of the events, as I understand them, was we did an appraisal based on -- and I'm just going to use terms that I understand -- raw land. An appraisal was then done by someone hired by the property owner after a plat had been filed and he made his appraisal accordingly as if it was --

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm sorry to interrupt you, Richard, I apologize, but this is what I understood to have been the case. We came in and said as a matter of public policy we're going to expand this highway, and we made an appraisal of the land as it was. Then the property owner hired someone to appraise that same land but in the meantime the city approved the platted subdivision.

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Was that approved or filed? There's a difference.

MR. NICHOLS: The city approved it.

MR. MONROE: It was approved, filed, all those i's were dotted and t's were crossed.

MR. NICHOLS: The city voted on it.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I know that. My question here is to the timing of the city approval of the filed plat versus the findings of the administrative court on the eminent domain issue and the argument of value versus value.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, what happened was then we got into the eminent domain fight. Right?

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: In other words, the sequence of events was we came in and said we think this land is worth whatever -- let's just say a dollar -- and the landowner then goes -- knowing where he's headed -- goes and hires his person, and in the meantime The Colony does this subdivision. This person says, well, now this is a piece of property that's going to be developed, the land is worth X. We disagree. We go to court. We do the eminent domain, just like you said.

My point is we ought not ever again let anyone from The Colony -- and I'm not afraid to say their name -- the city of The Colony or Denton County, or Austin or Travis County, or whoever would do this, think that we will pay one penny more than the basis of the raw land when we decided to build the highway. That's my point. And if that takes policy or a minute order or nothing more than a tongue lashing from the dais -- but I just think that it put you in an almost untenable position as chairman of this commission. You're sitting there wanting to advance a project that's needed in the state, trying to get a matter reconciled, and I think people at the local level took advantage of that. I don't mind saying it, and I for one won't forget it the next time a project in that area comes through, I guarantee you.

MR. NICHOLS: I don't think any of us will forget it. We have a similar action that occurred on the 130 route. After it was surveyed -- I don't know if it was surveyed -- but after a record of decision and everybody knew exactly where the route was, one of the cities approved a subdivision right in the middle of it, knowing that instead of paying by the acre, now we'll pay by the lot on the survey, and that's basically what happened up there.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So my request is just simply to develop something that sends a message to every MPO, every county judge, every city manager and every mayor that we aren't going to do this again ever.

MR. NICHOLS: Well, the incentive there is to put the extra cost onto the entity that took the action to increase the value.

MR. JOHNSON: The political subdivision.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But in this case -- and maybe I misunderstood the settlement -- the extra cost actually got borne by all the transportation budgets in the North Texas area which emanate not with local property tax, not with local sales tax, but emanate from state and federal grants or distributions which is, in effect, the entire state/federal partnership of building a highway system. So really taxpayers in Denton County felt no pain for the actions of their locally-elected leaders -- if I understand it correctly.

MR. NICHOLS: I think you got it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And while I understand your strong feelings about the 50-50 cost share, Robert, I think there are times when the state does have to go pay a lot of the right of way to get a state project advanced. But I think the flip side is we ought to make it real clear to these guys that go out and do this -- because I suspect I know what happened and it just turns my stomach to think about it.

And we just need to say to people we ain't playing that game anymore. Don't race out there and find the landowner and talk him into letting you plat your land for a share of the difference between the previous value and the next one because the Highway Department isn't going to pay for it.

MR. BEHRENS: Well, we'll look into that and we'll put something together.

MR. JOHNSON: I share the spirit of what you're saying, absolutely. What I am a little weak-kneed about is the relationship between that and the right of eminent domain that we have in terms of the valuations that come through the eminent domain process. We are captive to another decision maker in that arena. Now, we can elect, as we did in this, to not pursue eminent domain as one of our courses of action. Once that award was made, it was out of our value bounds, if you will, and the instructions back to the district were either reduce the size or work within the current footprint of right of way we had, which the district did, which led back to where we finally arrived.

So absolutely the spirit of what you're saying is something that we ought to very firmly, either through policy if that's the appropriate mechanism or by statement, be a part of this commission's doctrine and edict to other people who enter these negotiations.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Perhaps Mike and Richard can prepare something for us.

MR. MONROE: I would just like to say two things. One, I don't want to mislead the commission. I said the transaction had been consummated. Let me back off of that a little bit. I do not know for sure if deeds have been executed and checks have been cut, but a settlement agreement was entered into.

And then the other thing, lawyers always get nervous when you say "always" or "never." My recommendation to Mr. Behrens will be if we do come up with such a policy that it have some weasel words in there where we can --

MR. WILLIAMSON: Shellack somebody?

MR. MONROE: Something along those lines.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: Ric, thank you for bringing that up.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And I meant it sincerely, I appreciated what you did. It's in my neck of the woods. It will influence my quality of life, but I felt like you were put in an almost untenable position and I didn't feel comfortable about it.

MR. MONROE: Thank you, gentlemen.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 12 are our Routine Minute Orders. They're listed as they appeared on our posted agenda. I would have you note item 12 d.2 which is a parcel of property in Harris County at Beltway 8 and Clay Road, we're going to defer that one this month to look at that situation a little bit closer. Any of these that you would want presented individually, we can do so; otherwise, I recommend approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do any of these benefit in any way the Union Pacific or B.N.S.F. Railroad?

MR. BEHRENS: No, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MR. NICHOLS: We're deferring the Houston property and the 146 right of way?

MR. JOHNSON: 146 has already been deferred.

MR. BEHRENS: We deferred that earlier.

MR. JOHNSON: Is there a motion to the effect?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

Since the commission has determined it is not necessary that we meet in executive session today, we will now enter into the open comment period of the meeting. Are there any speakers signed up for open comment?

MR. BEHRENS: Yes, there are, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Karen Thompson, president of the Mason Heritage Foundation. Did I get that correct?

MS. THOMPSON: That's correct. Thank you very much, commissioners, chairman. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here before the directors for the best highway department, the best state roads in the world.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hear, hear.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, what would you like?

(General laughter.)

MS. THOMPSON: We are so pleased to have our road system.

I did give you a packet of information and it's going to be very difficult in three minutes to convince you how a 131-year-old home is so important to so many people.

About two years ago the City of Leander, Williamson County, proposed widening FM 2243 West as part of federal highway funding. We didn't worry about our historic 1871 Pickle-Mason house -- it's a recorded Texas landmark; see historical marker -- because it met every requirement for historical preservation, both from the state and federal government. The Texas Historical Commission Antiquities Code and the National Register, federal environmental laws should provide plenty of protection.

Also, it is the oldest house in Leander, built eleven years before the town was even founded in 1882.

Besides, the logical route for 2243 to Highway 183 is behind our house. When you stand on the slight rise behind the house, the open space just naturally lends itself as the best path for a wider road. H.E.B. Grocery Stores wants to build a store east of the house and a road behind the house would suit their plans. In fact, H.E.B. officials did not oppose the road behind the house either -- see copy of the letter.

May of 2002, I called all these officials, everybody I could get. We had about a three-hour meeting at the site. We had two Leander city officials including the planning person, one engineer from Jones & Carter -- that's the City of Leander engineering firm, two officials from Texas Historical Commission, the architect on the project and the historian, one TxDOT state official -- and that was Daniel Harris -- and one TxDOT official from the district and right this second I can't think of his name.

THC and TxDOT explained the rules and said our house met every criteria to save it from impact from road construction. And it is the site -- this land where H.E.B. and all this is -- was my mother-in-law's family's. In fact, she's the one that sold it to them, and the road used to end at this house before Leander was even founded. And in fact, the road that goes on now that has to go over a creek and everything was sold for a nominal fee from our family.

A high-level --

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's the guy you forgot -- the high-level guy -- you forgot his name?

MS. THOMPSON: No. He was high level but he was a district person and I hadn't met him before, so I don't remember his name.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay.

MS. THOMPSON: In order to circumvent the preservation rules, the City of Leander is presenting TxDOT with a petition to take this stretch of road out of the plans for the whole project and do it themselves. And I didn't bring a big map but what we're talking about is a very small portion of this whole big plan, so our proposal is not like it's stopping anything.

A high-level state official told me -- and I won't tell you who that is -- that we should probably hire a lawyer because it doesn't look like THC and TxDOT can do anything about the situation. We have been told if this house can't be saved, THC and TxDOT might as well throw out all those fancy preservation and environmental laws because they don't mean a thing. It does meet every criteria you can think of.

We beg you to stand up for preservation of this wonderful 1871 farmhouse, unique in so many ways yet representing all those Texas pioneer builders that made Texas what it is and not allow the City of Leander to circumvent the intent of these laws and safeguards.

And you do have a picture of the home. There are no buildings in the way, this is all just land. Where they'd have to start the alignment to go a little to the north rather than where they have it, there is a company that I think is going out of business and it would affect their driveway. But they're going to be affected either way, and I don't think they'd have to start way back that far anyway.

And you can see that back in 2001 we wrote to the City of Leander and their reply which was two days ago one year. We suggested the alignments and they sent us this letter that they would consider it and we've yet to hear anything.

H.E.B. officials came to our house and we met with them. We want the H.E.B. to be built; that's not the problem, and it's not going to make them any difference whether it goes behind the house or in front. It's going to come out almost the same way and it's just a logical route. And this home is just too important; it's a farmstead. We're going to be having schoolchildren there and all sorts of activities, and the road coming right up to the front of the house just affects the whole site. It's not just the house itself but the little site where it is. It has a cistern inside the house, has a hand-dug well.

MR. JOHNSON: You're saying that there is a road alignment that you believe could be done that goes behind the house that would be acceptable?

MS. THOMPSON: Yes. Instead of widening the current one that curves and goes down by the creek -- there's a lot of floodplain land that's involved in this, so it's kind of wasted anyway -- but we want it to just go behind the house instead of in front of the house. It almost is a no-brainer when people see it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, if it's a no-brainer and the City of Leander doesn't agree, there's got to be a reason why they don't agree. Do you have any idea why that is?

MS. THOMPSON: No.

MR. WILLIAMSON: None? Don't even have a suspicion?

MS. THOMPSON: Well, in a public meeting --

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is somebody going to make a little money one way or the other?

MS. THOMPSON: See, I don't know that. I don't see how they could. They did say at a public meeting when asked about preserving the historic home -- they said, Well, we really don't want to do that because they're a pain in the butt.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is somebody going to lose a little money one way or the other?

MS. THOMPSON: I don't know. It might be more money because they will have to move utility poles so there will be more cost.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think the way to solve this problem is to figure out who's making money and who's not making the money.

MS. THOMPSON: I don't know.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, figure that out and maybe we can help you.

MS. THOMPSON: Let me tell you, there's all this project and they don't want to --

MR. WILLIAMSON: You're not listening to me.

MS. THOMPSON: I know. We're the first part of it and that's why I think they might not, is because we're the first one --

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, we're trying to help you and you're not listening.

MS. THOMPSON: We're phase one, and we've been told that if they agree with us, they would have to agree with other people on down the other phases.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Like I said, we're trying to help you but you're not listening. Go find out who's making and who's losing and then come back to us. Is this any kin to Jake Pickle?

MS. THOMPSON: No. Way back to Tennessee.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You know, it would be interesting if you could prove that up.

MS. THOMPSON; Well, I've talked to him and I don't know that we can exactly do that; he doesn't have a lot of genealogy. But they're supposed to present this next month. They would have presented it before but they presented to take over the road and it went all the way to Travis County and they didn't have jurisdiction.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I love this; this is great.

MS. THOMPSON: It's not funny, it's horrible.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I like that a state with a $75 billion a year budget, the tenth largest economy in the world, the single largest state agency, that we can sit here and one citizen with one complaint about something very important to her can come up here and be listened to, I love it.

MS. THOMPSON: I think that is wonderful, and I mean, that is why this is so important that this house be saved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Go find out who wins and who loses and come back to us as quick as you can.

MS. THOMPSON: I just want everybody to go by the rules and I don't think it's fair that they can circumvent this by coming to you with a petition. And we were told by officials you can't just take a little part out of this -- that's what they want to do -- they want to take that part out and do it themselves.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We haven't told them yes yet, have we?

MS. THOMPSON: Well, I know but we are just one little bitty cog in this and usually towns and officials seem to get their way.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Go find out who wins and who loses, that's what we need to know.

MS. THOMPSON: I probably can't be here next month but hopefully my son-in-law can, and he's signed up too and I know my time is up. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, thank you for being here, and we will investigate this, and you can rest assured that historical preservation is a high priority item to all three of us.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Really important.

MR. JOHNSON: So appreciate your being here. Is this your son-in-law, Jonathan Howell? Jonathan, thank you for being here, and do you have anything to add to what has so eloquently been stated so far?

MR. HOWELL: I do know that Mr. Pickle, the builder of the home, was the master carpenter of the state capitol.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's important.

MR. HOWELL: It's the 2243 Baghdad Project that they're calling this, and I have seen the blueprints on this and the size of this project. Believe it or not, from one side to the other would be the equivalent of an I-35. We're talking 150 feet from one side to the other.

It doesn't seem believable but we have had a TxDOT man come out to our site and looked at it and laughed, spoke with the city manager, and said there's absolutely no way this would get approved. I believe that's part of the reason why they want to take this one little section out of, I guess the big project, and say we're just going to take care of this. Why they won't move behind the house -- you presented a good question.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, it's got to be money because it always is. It's just a matter of figuring out who makes it and who loses.

MR. HOWELL: Right. I'm sort of heading the restoration of the house right now. I grew up in Dallas, I didn't grow up in a small town. I did live in Waxahachie at one time so that's a pretty big town.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's one of those cities that Judge Eckels didn't think was part of urban Texas earlier in the day.

MR. HOWELL: But the more I get involved with this home, the more history I see in it. And with the widening of the road, believe it or not, they had tape marked around trees directly in front of the home that was ten feet in front of our porch saying that they would try to save these trees. It's incredible that the widening of this road would directly go up to our front porch. So for an historical site, none of it makes sense. And unfortunately they don't seem to want to speak with us about this, so we wanted to beat them to the punch.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Are there any other speakers or any other business?

MR. BEHRENS: No further business.

MR. JOHNSON: Before I entertain a motion to adjourn, I want to echo the statements of Robert and Ric. This is a very special time of the year and I hope that, on behalf of all of us, that everyone has the best and safest holiday season ever. And having said that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

(No response.)

MR. JOHNSON: There being none, I'll make it myself.

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: If you don't get a second, do we have to stay?

MR. JOHNSON: I guess we do.

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Please note for the record at 12:22 p.m. this meeting was adjourned. Thank you and happy holidays.

(Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the meeting was concluded.)

C E R T I F I C A T E

MEETING OF: Texas Transportation Commission
LOCATION: Austin, Texas
DATE: December 19, 2002

I do hereby certify that the foregoing pages, numbers 1 through 139 inclusive, are the true, accurate, and complete transcript prepared from the verbal recording made by electronic recording by Ben Bynum before the Texas Transportation Commission of Texas.

                      12/23/02
(Transcriber) (Date)

On the Record Reporting, Inc.
3307 Northland, Suite 315
Austin, Texas 78731