Showdown at the tollway corral  

July 23, 2007

Pat Driscoll, San Antonio Express News

At stake today is the gavel for the Metropolitan Planning Organization, a group that has shifted from cool shadows to blaring light in recent years thanks to proposed toll roads.

In one corner you have County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson and his pal Lyle Larson, veterans of political workings on the board and elsewhere.

In the other corner you have four City Council members, including three rookies still green enough to not know the taste of defeat. Sheila McNeil, just starting her second term on the council and seated just last month on the MPO board, may be their pick.

Today's meeting starts at 1:30 p.m., and will be at the VIA Metro Center, 1021 San Pedro Avenue.

There might be only one issue ... tolls.

Larson and Adkisson don't like toll plans. Council members didn't say last month at their first board meeting, but made it clear they want the chairmanship.

The 19-member board is made up of elected, appointed and staff officials of various entities and has traditionally swung the chairmanship back and forth from the city to the county. The city had it the last two years, the county had it the previous four years and the city the four before that.

The city says they deserve it for another two years. The county says the seat is best filled with someone who's already been serving on the board.

Toll critic Terri Hall of San Antonio Toll Party has been busy rallying support to twist arms, and predicts a very close vote. See her blog. Pro tollers likely have been doing the same.

An interesting question is whether the Texas Department of Transportation's two board members will cast votes for a new chairman. And they're not saying.

"It will be an interesting meeting," was all David Casteel, TxDOT's head engineer in San Antonio, would say.

The board oversees how more than $200 million in gas taxes are spent, and has approved more than 70 miles of toll roads. The chairman sets agendas and directs discussions at meetings.