Texas Department of Transportation Commission Meeting

Thursday, February 27, 2003

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

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

STAFF:
MIKE W. BEHRENS, Executive Director
RICHARD MONROE, General Counsel
CHERYL M. WILLIAMS, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director
DEE HERNANDEZ, Minute Order Clerk

P R O C E E D I N G S

MR. JOHNSON: Good morning. It is 9:08 a.m. and this meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission is called to order.

Welcome to our February meeting. It is 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 4:10 p.m. on February 19, 2003.

Before we begin it’s our customary habit to ask my colleagues up here if they have any observations or comments that they would like to make. Robert?

MR. NICHOLS: I'd just like to welcome everyone here. We realize a lot of you have come a long way, some of you a very long way, and we appreciate it. You've taken the time out of your day to express the needs and wishes of your community, and we listen to it very carefully. On your way back, be careful. The roads are good but the weather on them is not necessarily good. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Ric?

MR. WILLIAMSON: We're glad everyone is here and we're particularly pleased that state leaders who have done so much for this state are with us today, and in particular Senator Ratliff. It's always a pleasure to have the senator in these chambers.

MR. JOHNSON: My observation goes somewhat along with Robert's, and that is we often think of the Department of Transportation in terms of roads and bridges and construction zones and orange cones, and we sometimes fail to notice the breadth and depth of this department, but when there's a week of weather like we've experienced this week, it makes me thankful for the men and women of this department who work very hard on your behalf and our behalf to make the roads safe and passable in some pretty extraordinary conditions, and they go unnoticed most of the time.

But I think you'll agree with me that they deserve our thanks, especially in times like we've had this winter season.

Before we start with our delegations, we have some elected officials who have taken time out of their very busy schedules to visit with us this morning, and we know that they have a lot of meetings and duties across the street, and to give them an opportunity that they may get back to the meetings and the work at hand, we would ask that you would indulge us and them that they might start the meeting.

I know Senator Estes and Representative Farabee have asked to make comments for the record relative to some of the commission's considerations and business, and so if there are any others, I would ask that you also make yourself available so that we could begin with you.

I know, Senator Estes, if you would start and if there are others that would like to address the commission and the meeting at the outset and then get back to across the street, we would be delighted to accommodate you. Senator, welcome.

SENATOR ESTES: I'm Craig Estes, senator from Senate District 30 and resident of Wichita Falls. Thank you, Chairman Johnson and Commissioner Nichols and Commissioner Williamson. Nice to be here with you. I really do appreciate the commission and TxDOT and the staff for the support and vision for addressing the state's transportation needs. As a new senator, I'm learning lots about our transportation infrastructure and our dreams for the future, and it was also a pleasure to meet with you in Abilene a while ago and visit with you.

We really do benefit from citizen involvement in this process and there are community representatives here from Wichita Falls. I'm sure many of them you know, but I would like to ask everyone from Wichita Falls to stand and be recognized. Thank you.

VOICE: They did not make it through the ice.

SENATOR ESTES: Well, we've got a few. So we're glad to be here and I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the needs of Wichita Falls and speak as a resident of Wichita Falls. I really want to express thanks, first of all, for the recently completed US 287 overhead freeway project -- that has really helped in an area where we've had some tragic accidents over the decades, and it's a wonderful addition to our city -- and very soon to be completed extension of the Kell Freeway. And I know that these projects would have not been possible without your support and we really want to thank you for that. These projects are vital to the safety and the quality of life and even our economic vitality to all communities across the state.

What I want to do just very quickly today is ask your continued support, and number one on our list is to make sure that the interchange between Kell and Central Freeway is completed to finish off this project. As in many other places in the state, we've got little exit ramps that drop off to nothing with a barrier there. And this project was started -- I remember very well when this project was started. It was in 1967 and I was 14 years old; I'm 49 now, so it's time to finish it up. And I remember those homes that were moved out of the way to make room for the project. That's been a long time and we need to finish it up.

So please remember that this is going to provide a lot of help for us, it's going to improve NAFTA trade routes, it's going to improve lots of things for us. It's our number one priority on the planning organization and the Wichita Falls Commission on Highway Needs. It's also supported by the Cross Plains Rural Transportation Council, and I'm really told that the Rural Transportation Council -- which consists of nine counties and there's 51 incorporated municipalities in the region -- is a fairly unique group that gets together and assesses the needs and prioritizes the needs over a nine-county area. So I really enjoyed working with them.

It's ready for letting today. All of the right of way and utility adjustments and the construction plans, as you know, are 100 percent complete and it's being supported financially by TxDOT's local funding. So we'd appreciate the commission's consideration for funding the interchange in the upcoming United Transportation Program.

So thank you for the opportunity of visiting with you today and it is a pleasure to work with you. Come see me any time.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, wait. Not only are we blessed with Senator Ratliff but we're blessed with the great senator of Parker County as well as Wichita Falls.

SENATOR ESTES: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: My senator

SENATOR ESTES: Happy to do it. And my Senate District 30 is a very interesting district from the western part of the district to the vital transportation needs on the eastern part of the district, and I'd be happy to visit with you any time about needs in Parker, Wise, Denton, Collin, Grayson County.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It is a pretty diverse Senate district.

SENATOR ESTES: We've got lots of transportation needs, and just please know that I'm open to working with you in any way possible.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Good to see you.

SENATOR ESTES: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Would you enlighten me where Parker County is?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Fort Worth is a suburb of Weatherford. We allow Fort Worth to come right up to the edge of our ETJ and then stop.

MR. JOHNSON: Is Representative Farabee here? I didn't see you back there, Representative. Welcome.

MR. FARABEE: Thank you. I'm short and I'm easy to miss. Mr. Chairman, it's great to be here. Commissioners, thank you for your time this morning.

In the interest of time -- and I know you have a full schedule -- I'll be brief and say I echo what Senator Estes said. The only thing I would add is that in the next 2-1/2 weeks we'll open the extension to 82 -- or Kell Freeway as we call it locally -- and it's beautiful. The folks have done a marvelous job. We're very proud of it. And as we look back toward downtown we see the overhead and it's awesome. The safety issue, when you see the big trucks rumbling through town that no longer have to go through all the traffic lights -- as they have to, I know, in Amarillo and other communities -- but the safety issue is paramount. So it's a plus and we thank you for that.

But as Senator Estes pointed out, the interchange, if someone is coming in from Oklahoma, I know they see God's country before them, but if they don't get down below and go through those lights, then it's problematic to take 82 from what is 44 and then turns into 287. So what we would ask is that you favorably consider in the future -- and that's our number one priority -- that interchange that would allow those vehicles that are up out of the way and being safe have an opportunity to make the interchange and then take 82 to the west.

So anyway, thank you for being here, thank you for the projects that we've had. We are very blessed up there, and I'll be heading home today just to remember how blessed I am personally. But thank you for what you've done for us, but that is our priority next is that interchange that, as Senator Estes pointed out, has been on the drawing board for us for some time. We've committed 30 percent local match and even with an open mind -- it's that important to us -- we have an open mind on what we have to do to make that project happen.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, thank you for being here and drive safely.

MR. FARABEE: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Are there any other elected officials that would like to address the meeting at this time?

CITY OF MOUNT PLEASANT/TITUS COUNTY

(Mayor Jerry Boatner, Mike Fields, Terri Lee, Senator Bill Ratliff, Rep. Mark Homer)

MR. JOHNSON: Our first delegation this morning represents the City of Mount Pleasant and Titus County, and I understand that Mount Pleasant's mayor, Jerry Boatner, will get us started.

Mayor, we're delighted that you're here.

MAYOR BOATNER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and greetings to you, Mr. Chairman, and Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Williamson, and Executive Director Behrens. We're very pleased to be with you today. Good morning.

My name is Jerry Boatner and I'm the mayor of Mount Pleasant in the County of Titus. As a city or county, we cannot recall the last time that we have appeared here before you in Austin. I think it would probably go back to the '70s. I was talking last night with Commissioner Nichols when he was on this side and we would come down with our easels and our white poster board.

We thank all of you for the excellent service that you and the Atlanta District, led by Bob Ratcliff, have brought to the state and to our county over the years. Bob Ratcliff and Dennis Beckham are here from Atlanta and I'd like to recognize them at this time right over here.

Now I'd like to present our delegation. We have our County Judge Danny Crooks and our county commissioners; we have our city council and our city manager; and we have members of our chamber of commerce, its transportation committee, as well as others in our community that make up the balance of our delegation. Would our entire delegation please rise?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Senator, I think half the population of Mount Pleasant is here.

(General laughter.)

MAYOR BOATNER: We've done our best, Commissioner Williamson. As you may know, we lost 15 to 20 of our delegation. They made decisions about the untimely weather and some of them weren't able to project that they were going to make it, so we would have had a few more, and we appreciate the ones that did come. They're a hardy bunch.

State Senator Bill Ratliff of Mount Pleasant, formerly known as Lieutenant Governor, has been a chief supporter and is here today with his wife Sally. Senator Ratliff right here.

State Representative Mark Homer of Paris has recently adopted us into his district and we're proud to have him here. Representative Homer.

And State Representative Brian Hughes of Mineola has joined us today. His district begins just a couple of miles south of the proposed relief route, and he's most interested in the project. Representative Hughes.

We are here today to ask for your support of a US 271 relief route around the west side of Mount Pleasant and to tell you how we reached this point today. In 1995 the city and the county together asked that TxDOT assist in the planning and development to improve mobility on the west side of the city, namely a relocation of a part of FM 127. The study indicated that the preferred alternative for this 1.6-mile section of FM 127 was to connect with US 271 near US 67 and Interstate 30.

Already $2.3 million has been secured for the construction phase with Congressman Max Sandlin's assistance. It was approved for long range planning in 1996 and later received congressional high priority funding in TEA-21. Soon afterward it was upgraded to CONSTRUCT status. Because the proposed relocation of FM 127 did follow a viable corridor for a US 271 relief route around western Mount Pleasant, the Atlanta District requested and received approval for PLAN status on an entire western relief route for US 271 in 1998. Since that time many optional route locations, as shown here, have been studied.

The city, county and the chamber have worked closely with TxDOT engineers to choose a preferred route during the location study leading to a preliminary schematic. This US 271 relief route would benefit the Texas Trunk System whose primary goal is regional mobility. US 271 is on the Trunk System and is also the route of the north-south East Texas Gulf Highway from Oklahoma to the Gulf. A through highway would benefit greatly from this controlled access relief route.

The US 271 relief route is needed because Mount Pleasant, like many cities, has experienced real growth and traffic congestion along existing corridors. Since the current route of US 271 was upgraded through Mount Pleasant in the 1960s and county population has almost doubled, the traffic count has also doubled itself.

Pilgrim's Pride moves hundreds of large trucks daily through this corridor and more growth is on the way. Soon hundreds more trucks per day will move through Mount Pleasant going to and from Interstate 30 and from the local plant to the new distribution center a few miles south of our city on the Titus County line.

As the traffic volume has grown, the traffic has slowed. In the '60s there were no traffic signals along the current US 271 corridor; today there are seven signal lights. Let us show you the current corridor's bottleneck where Ferguson Road meets South Jefferson Avenue. This intersection has a traffic count of just over 30,000 vehicles daily just south of this center. This is 7,000 more each day than travels Interstate 30 in Mount Pleasant in a 24-hour period; the interstate count is 23,000.

Much of the through traffic at this intersection is large trucks and the controlled access relief route would remove much of the congestion, providing safety for the remaining sizable traffic count. Here we look at the intersection as it tries to stop and start and regulate the flow of traffic. We see that trucks of all sorts must use this intersection as they come through Mount Pleasant, and we see that backups in traffic, like this one, with the intersection in the distance can and do happen at all times of the day.

From 1996 to 1998 the current five-mile stretch of US 271 through Mount Pleasant had a total of 321 accidents. While there were no fatalities, 219 of these accidents did cause a total of 367 injuries.

Another choke point along US 271 is at FM 127 which leads to Pilgrim's Pride processing plant. Here we look up FM 127 where more than 4,000 persons work at the largest chicken processing plant in the United States. With a US 271 relief route, all of the trucks and many of the cars would be removed from this FM and the current US 271. Once the relief route is in place, FM 127 from the current US 271 to the new relief route would be accepted by the city and the county for jurisdiction and maintenance.

In summation, the vision for a US 271 relief route fully developed would include grade separations at intersections and railroads, as depicted here. This would be a controlled access route and be consistent with all TxDOT current policy. The benefits of this US 271 relief route would include excellent mobility, improved safety, and economic growth that will help fund future Texas needs.

The City of Mount Pleasant is prepared to contribute $1-1/2 million toward the entire project; already with the help of Congressman Max Sandlin, this project has received $2.3 million in federal funding; and Pilgrim's Pride will contribute $200,000 to improve mobility west and south of Mount Pleasant. Together, this is $4 million to join with any TxDOT funding. We are continuing to work closely with Congressman Sandlin to seek additional funding through the current cycle of the Transportation Reauthorization Bill.

Mount Pleasant and Titus County respectfully request that the Transportation Commission authorize $53 million in funding for the US 271 relief route in Titus County. We are appreciative to your attention to our request here today and are hopeful that the US 271 relief route can become a part of TxDOT's plan for Texas. This is a project that is fully supported by our city government, by our county government, and by our business community led by the Mount Pleasant-Titus County Chamber of Commerce.

Now, if I may, I would like to call on County Commissioner Mike Fields in whose precinct the relief route would fall. Mike.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Are you coming back to the podium?

MAYOR BOATNER: Yes. After these two speakers I'll be available for comments or questions.

MR. FIELDS: Thank you, Mayor Boatner.

Mr. Chairman and commissioners and Executive Director Behrens. The project outlined here today, US 271 Relief Route, would make a big difference in the future of our community. We also feel it would be good for Texas. There's an obvious problem with the growing traffic count, not only along US 271 but across the State of Texas, and we certainly understand the limitless challenges that you, as leaders of TxDOT, are facing.

But in studying this quadrant of our county -- which I do quite a bit -- I must say we have an unusual number of large trucks, thanks to a growing industry, Pilgrim's Pride. With this relief route we could remove all of their large trucks and put them safely in and out of our town on this new controlled access relief route. The US 271 relief route will greatly improve the Texas Trunk System and the north-south mobility that will serve the traveling public.

The diversion of our through traffic vehicles, both large trucks and standard vehicles, will allow the current US 271 to function as it should. TxDOT projections show that the current 30,000-vehicle traffic count at the Ferguson-Jefferson intersection will exceed 45,000 vehicles daily in less than 20 years unless we take action. To us, this is a very important project, and hopefully, with your help and our contributions, we together can solve a really significant and growing problem.

Thank you for allowing us to come before you today. We appreciate all that you are doing for Texas. Thank you.

MAYOR BOATNER: Thank you, Mike.

Our final speaker will be Terri Lee who is president of the Mount Pleasant-Titus County Chamber of Commerce.

MS. LEE: Thank you, Mayor Boatner.

Mr. Chairman and commissioners and Executive Director Behrens. The one way that Mount Pleasant and Titus County and the State of Texas have been able to sustain continual growth over the years is by planning ahead. We know that you and TxDOT face the same challenges that we do: making good choices with the resources that we have available.

Today our goal is to effectively plan ahead for our area's mobility and hopefully together we can begin. We have worked on this project with TxDOT's local and district offices and Congressman Sandlin's office beginning in 1995. We realize that the US 271 relief route is not a small project. Our hope is that our vision for this relief route and good planning will lead to steady progress on this need in the coming years.

The Mount Pleasant-Titus County Chamber of Commerce stands ready to work with our city and county governments and with the state to improve the mobility and safety needs in our region. We know that this is good for business and good for a growing Texas.

We appreciate the opportunity to visit with you today and we invite you to come to our corner of Texas and see the progress and growth that we are enjoying, much of which flows from the excellent work and planning of TxDOT, both in Austin and at the local level. We are grateful for all that you do. Thank you.

MAYOR BOATNER: Mr. Chairman, we would be happy to entertain any comments or questions, either now or after our elected officials speak, as you prefer.

MR. JOHNSON: Do you want to go now or do you want to let Robert?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'll go ahead and then let Robert. This is his part of the state.

Do you want to go first or do you want to go last?

MR. NICHOLS: It doesn't matter to me. You've got some elected officials that want to say something.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, excuse me.

MAYOR BOATNER: Either way is fine with us.

MR. JOHNSON: Why don't we let them speak.

MAYOR BOATNER: Okay, and then any questions that may arise would be fine. We'd like to first call on our State Senator Bill Ratliff of Mount Pleasant, please.

SENATOR RATLIFF: Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Chairman, members, Mike.

I hope that it doesn't go unnoticed how seldom you see me about highway projects in my district. There's a method to that madness because I guess I probably know as well or better than anybody how many demands there are on your resources and how difficult the decisions are. But I did want to come this morning, and I wanted to ask you to give special attention to this project.

This project means a great deal, not just to Mount Pleasant and Titus County, but to all of the 1st Senate District because of the mobility of the entire length of the 1st Senate District.

I did want to mention one possibility to you, that during the preliminary meetings on this project when your Atlanta employees and officials came over to discuss it with us, I tried on them, and they were reluctant to bring it to you because it would be a variation to some of your recent policies.

It would be very possible in this particular case to construct this facility simply using two which would become future frontage roads with a wide median in between set aside for the main lanes with the exception of the north and south extremities which have to cross railroads. And of course, the south extremity is the expensive part where you have to have an interchange with the current US 271.

Mr. Ratcliff was justifiably concerned about bringing that to you because I know of your feelings about frontage roads in general. It does seem to me that we could save $10-, maybe $20 million on this project by having an at-grade design for the bulk of this project, setting aside the center for future controlled access in the middle.

The city has told me that they would be glad to commit to taking those frontage roads as city facilities at such time in the future. And by the way, we feel like that could be 15-20 years into the future. It would be a way to stretch your dollars; it would stretch your dollars, I think, to a very considerable extent. And I think it would provide us with the kind of relief that we need. As a matter of fact, this facility, even in that configuration, would be about like the rest of US 271 in our area.

So I just throw that out to you as a possible way of making this allocation a little less painful for you and yet to get this project underway for the people in our area. And I do appreciate your attention. I know the difficulty of your decisions, and the reason that I have been so scarce in my attendance here is because I trust in your fairness to distribute those resources according to the needs of the people of the state.

Thank you very much.

MAYOR BOATNER: Thank you, Senator Ratliff.

And now, Representative Mark Homer of Paris.

MR. HOMER: Thank you, Mayor Boatner.

Commission members, thank you for allowing me to come before you today. It's always a pleasure to visit with you.

I just want to echo Senator Ratliff's statements that I know how difficult your task is and your limited resources and I know that the decisions you make are those that you feel are best for Texas. But with that said, you have heard some compelling reasons for the need for this route in the Mount Pleasant area, those dealing with safety and the efficiency of moving the traffic.

And without going into further detail any more than you've already heard, I just want to echo that my full support is behind this and I hope that you'll give it all the consideration that you possibly can. Thank you.

MAYOR BOATNER: Thank you, Representative Homer.

Any questions or comments we'd be happy to entertain if there are any.

MR. NICHOLS: I had two or three.

MR. JOHNSON: Why don't you go ahead.

MR. NICHOLS: Do you want me to go first?

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's your area, Robert. You tell me.

MR. NICHOLS: The first question. I couldn't help but notice in the audience it looked like you had pretty much a majority of the commissioners court as well as the city council. I was curious whether or not you had posted a meeting for today.

(General laughter.)

MAYOR BOATNER: Now you bring up the problem. I think we're covered.

MR. NICHOLS: I'm just kidding you on that.

I've traveled this route a lot -- I think I mentioned that last night -- and it is a very awkward intersection that has evolved with a fair amount of traffic going up a northern artery to an interstate, and it looks like you have laid out the best potential right of way or configuration for the location of that, and it appears that there may be some options of different ways to configure the roadway in there initially that might have some initial savings.

I know I've seen projects like this in the past that it seems like if you can just get it started, get the right of way and get a road through there, some of the other improvements, whether they be grade separations, later additional lanes, later whatever, if you can ever get that original fingerprint in there, then the rest seems to evolve over time. The hardest is making that first step. And I couldn't help but notice, it looks like five miles, 4.9 miles?

MAYOR BOATNER: Right at five miles, yes.

MR. NICHOLS: And with pulling the right of way and utilities out, it was almost $10 million a mile for a four-lane divided, and I know in the past, the math I've seen, that seems pretty high for a lane construction cost. But I'm sure -- of course we've got the district here -- there's probably some pretty good factors in there for the interchanges themselves.

MAYOR BOATNER: The south flyover amounts to about $15 million.

MR. NICHOLS: The anticipated traffic, they do an estimated traffic -- in other words, if you build it, all of that traffic is not going to move over, but your through traffic which is a lot of the heavy trucks will move over which will get them out of your city. But the anticipated traffic after construction was about 5,000 vehicles a day.

MAYOR BOATNER: To start with.

MR. NICHOLS: Something like that, and then it would start growing. And you might could, if we could just -- I would like to see some different options from the district as to if we just built it without the grade separations to get it going, what would that look like; consider what Senator Ratliff was talking about, if we did the two lanes further out and left the space in the middle.

I've seen the state do that; it seems like a very foresighted approach. Even take a look at getting enough right of way for a four-lane divided and what would it cost just to get the initial two lanes in. Just let's see what all those options are.

MAYOR BOATNER: A simplified bypass with a bigger plan for the future if needed.

MR. NICHOLS: Because $50 million is a huge bite.

MAYOR BOATNER: Oh, we're fully aware of that.

MR. NICHOLS: I would like to see what some of these other options might be, and I don't know if I'm directing that to Mike -- he's nodding his head back there; he's got it.

MAYOR BOATNER: Phases and steps at a time makes sense to us too. We realize the total figure is not small.

MR. NICHOLS: And I would like to commend the community for being willing to step up to the plate. That's a lot of money for Mount Pleasant.

MAYOR BOATNER: Well, it is for a town of our size. You look at larger towns that offer up less; we've stretched a lot there for us.

MR. NICHOLS: There's so many people who come and say we would like something but if they're not willing to step up to the plate, I call it a vested interest, it's a lot easier to ask for something. But when a community is willing to put up some of its hard assets also, that means that it has gone through the local process of being strongly supported by all areas of the community.

Anyway, I'd like to compliment you on a great presentation.

MAYOR BOATNER: Thank you.

MR. NICHOLS: Good to see you.

MAYOR BOATNER: May I comment on one thing you mentioned? In defense of our county, they are committed to TxDOT for some 100 percent of right of way over the next eight to twelve years, 100 percent to the tune of $1- to $3 million.

That's the reason their name is not up there as a contributing party because we work in partnership, and they're working on those projects, we said let us do all we can on this one. Together we're working with TxDOT every time projects come up.

MR. NICHOLS: And I said from the community.

MAYOR BOATNER: Yes. They weren't a line item and I wanted to explain why they were not.

MR. NICHOLS: Thank you. That's all I have.

MR. JOHNSON: Ric?

MR. WILLIAMSON: A couple of things. Mayor, I noticed that you used in your presentation the nomenclature that the department is adopting for its strategic plan and its budget; you used the word PLAN and you used the word CONSTRUCT, as opposed to Priority 653, Category 972. I'm just curious did you find it easier to comprehend how we'd lay our money out.

MAYOR BOATNER: Well, the words tell the right thing. I had been emerged into Priority 1 and 2 and those things, and when I went to Atlanta with our proposition, they said, we've got new terminology. And they say it does change every so often, doesn't it. But yes, PLAN and CONSTRUCT does make sense to us and it tells us a little more. I had to re-adapt and we did, but it made sense this time.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We're kind of curious because we're currently going through a process with primarily the Senate Finance Committee and the House Appropriations Committee on how we've tried to simplify our plan and line it up with our appropriations bill and then line it up with the DEs in the field so that when you see the word PLAN in Mount Pleasant, you know that it means the same thing to you that it means to us that we're representing to Senator Ratliff it means.

MAYOR BOATNER: It looks like a good positive long term nomenclature, I would say.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The second thing I wanted to ask you about is actually a request, and it will take me a moment to explain why I think you should do it, and I hope you agree with me.

We're doing a lot of different things at the department now, a lot because the legislature has asked us to and a lot of it because our cash flow does not allow us to meet the appetite of the entire state. So we're trying to develop new tools that allow us to deal with a huge urban problem in Dallas and Fort Worth, Houston, Beaumont, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, Brownsville, while at the same time we deal with our ex-urban problems Mount Pleasant, Weatherford, Victoria and so on, and at the same time not leave our rural routes behind. It's a difficult task. And there are some financing mechanisms that would be good tools for Dallas-Fort Worth that wouldn't do anything for you but would in the long term free up tax revenues to be invested in projects like this reliever route.

And if you could, find it in your mind to call the congressman who is very influential in transportation matters. We have asked our delegation in the current reauthorization bill to allow donor states, like Texas, to be able to quickly erect toll booths on existing roads where we believe that will control congestion in urban Texas and raise revenue to address urban Texas' problems. I don't think it would ever affect you unless you drove into Dallas and had to use one of those roads, but it would be a great tool for our urban congestion problems.

And right now we could do it. It just takes a long time to get permission and the funds that are taken at that toll have to be used just for that road. So it's not like we're asking for totally new ground, but what we're asking the delegation to do is give us and the communities the opportunity, like we did on Interstate 10 west of Houston, to look at an existing congested area and say: Look, we need to put toll booths on these two lanes and build two more to raise revenue to pay for these roads in Houston, and at the same time to influence traffic in a way that we're not as congested in west Houston as we might be.

And it helps tremendously if a mayor from Mount Pleasant calls an influential congressman and says: The commission has asked me to call you about this, and if it's something you're not uncomfortable with, we would appreciate it.

MAYOR BOATNER: So it's the authority you seek, really.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, all we seek is the authority to do it quickly.

MAYOR BOATNER: To apply it to existing and not just new.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Right, and not to go through a long tortuous process that takes forever and limits the revenues from that toll booth to just that road. We think a case can be made for tolling the interior lanes of Interstate 30 through Dallas and Fort Worth and using the revenue to expand 20 around Dallas and Fort Worth. We think we're best-suited to make that decision, not the federal law that says: Well, if you toll 30, you've got to spend it on 30. Well, maybe spending it on 30 doesn't make sense.

MAYOR BOATNER: To relieve it, though.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And I submit to you that it's in your interest that we do that.

MAYOR BOATNER: I can see that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Because if we can raise revenue that way, it frees up other revenue for ex-urban and rural Texas.

MAYOR BOATNER: Those propositions most likely fall in the highly urbanized areas.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes. It wouldn't make any sense to put a toll booth on 30 around Mount Pleasant; you wouldn't make any money; you couldn't pay for the toll booth.

MAYOR BOATNER: That's right.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But we would appreciate it if you would think about that.

MAYOR BOATNER: I'd be happy to discuss that with Congressman Sandlin because, as you say, he has real interest in this area and influence there.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And then finally, I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, that was one of the most well-organized, to-the-point presentations I've ever seen before this body. Didn't waste any time; got right to the point.

MAYOR BOATNER: Had lots of good help. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: It was extremely well organized and well presented, and the thought that you are looking ahead is something that so much of the state and so many communities and counties need to be doing -- and most of them are recognizing the shortage of funds that we have that is not unknown to everybody across the state.

I had a question. This project, is there the potential to do it in phases? As Robert pointed out, a $53 million bite is what I call the pig in the poke.

MAYOR BOATNER: Sure. That was one thing I was going to comment back on Commissioner Nichols' comment in phases and stages certainly make sense because we realize the sum is quite huge. Alternate propositions, as Senator Ratliff might mention, are ways to get there in steps and stages. Yes, that would be a way we'd like to work with your department and with Atlanta, if that makes sense to you all, as we go forward together.

MR. JOHNSON: I think what the senator has brought forward in terms of an idea -- and we can investigate that -- and similar ones where we can do things that will satisfy the short term needs and address the long term, get us started on the long term goal is the appropriate way to approach this. We deflect to Robert because he's an expert. I know he goes up there to get chicken wings all the time.

MAYOR BOATNER: He knows all the ins and outs up there.

MR. JOHNSON: He's very familiar on some of his chicken wing forays up there.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: Again, an excellent, excellent presentation; well organized and well delivered as any that I'm familiar with, and I want to congratulate you and the entire delegation.

MAYOR BOATNER: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: We're honored by your presence, and as you're aware, we don't make decisions immediately, but you planted a seed which hopefully will sprout with some results. It's so important that what you bring to us are the priorities from your areas, and we can't get to every spot in Texas and so it's nice to know what the priorities are transportation-wise in places like Mount Pleasant and Titus County.

MAYOR BOATNER: We're like Senator Ratliff: we don't come too often and we try to have some forethought with it.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, we're delighted that you've come today.

At this moment we'll take a brief recess so our friends from Titus County and Mount Pleasant can get back to commerce and industry.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

CITY OF PORT ARTHUR/JEFFERSON COUNTY

(Leslie McMahen, Mayor Oscar Ortiz, Senator David Bernsen, Walter Crook, David Moore)

MR. JOHNSON: The meeting is reconvened. Our second delegation this morning is representing the City of Port Arthur, and I understand that Leslie McMahen, who is the city's director of public works, will speak first. Welcome to Austin, and the floor is yours.

MR. McMAHEN: Good morning. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to be here.

MR. JOHNSON: You've brought a very distinguished delegation.

MR. McMAHEN: Right, and I'm going to try to get everybody to stand up, if they would, and just briefly name them off. We have: Mayor Oscar Ortiz; two of our councilmen, Tom Henderson and Bob Bowers; we have David Bernsen, former state senator and commission member; we have Walter Crook, Beaumont District Engineer; Steve Fitzgibbons, our city manager; and several other friends that I see; Verna Rutherford from our chamber of commerce.

MR. JOHNSON: Just a moment. Commissioner Williamson has a comment.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We're glad Port Arthur is here. My longtime friend, former House member colleague, and now Senator, Kyle Janek called me yesterday and said, I'm trying desperately to get over there and introduce the delegation from my senate district; I have some committee assignments that are equally important to Port Arthur; I have to make a choice. Would you, old friend Ric, when the time comes, get down off the podium, go down in the audience, and introduce my delegation for me?

I said, Kyle, I'm going to tell them how great a senator you are, but if I did that, then I'd have to do it for every delegation that came down here that was represented by somebody I served with. He said, Well, will you at least be nice to them? And I said, Absolutely.

And I just want you to know that he is a longtime friend of this commission member and a good guy and a good senator, and he's leaving you in capable hands here while he takes care of the finance business for your part of Texas -- which is equally important.

MR. McMAHEN: Right, and we certainly hope that he will be able to make it but understand he's on the floor right now, so we'll see.

Our presentation to you is concerning two projects that are very important to the City of Port Arthur and to Jefferson County and certainly south Jefferson County also, those two being the widening of FM 365 between US 69 and Spur 93, and a companion project being an overpass on 365 at Spur 93 and the Union Pacific Railroad. Of course, we have submitted a fairly detailed packet to you, as required, giving a lot of details and we certainly won't go into all of that this morning, and also I'm sure that our Beaumont District has given you even more details.

So we're going to try to hit the high spots and let a couple of other speakers go into some of the reasons why we think these projects are excellent.

Obviously we're here to request the Transportation Commission's support of these projects, again, which are very important to the City of Port Arthur as far as the transportation network in the city and south Jefferson County also. We're requesting approximately $4 million in additional funds for the widening project which would be added to the Beaumont District's discretionary funds that they've already committed to the project, and in addition, to the local sponsors' funds that the city and county have committed.

Also, we're asking approximately $11 million in funding for the overpass project for which neither the Beaumont District or the local sponsor has any funds committed at this time. In making this request, we certainly don't come to you empty-handed, as our fellow delegation from Mount Pleasant also came with something on the table.

The work on this widening project, in particular, started back in about 1991 where the city had a very rough schematic prepared for the widening project within the limits that we spoke to; however, that project pretty much died on the vine at that point in time, but we never gave up on it. Since 2000 the city and Jefferson County have spent $889,000 for the schematic and PS&E for the FM 365 widening project.

We were notified Tuesday that the schematic is at the Beaumont District awaiting Walter Crook the district engineer's signature, that his staff has finally approved that particular schematic. And with the finalization of that schematic, we can also have the plans, incorporate the minor detail changes, and those plans will be finished. In addition, the schematic for the widening project also includes the proposed overpass project.

The city alone has spent another $19,000 for additional right of way work and approximately $133,000 for plans to relocate city utilities for the proposed widening and the overpass projects. The city also took it on its own to spend $15,000 for a feasibility study to determine what intersection treatment was best for the 365-Spur 93 intersection. That particular study showed that the overpass at that intersection was the most benefit-to-cost ratio project of the several alternates that could have been done.

The city has also on its own committed to spend $550,000 to do the PS&E work for the overpass project and that work is probably about 30 percent complete at this time. In addition to that, the Beaumont District is committed to do the geotechnical work and structural design for the bridge section of the overpass, and I believe that's to the tune of about $300,000 with their money.

We've shown up here basically the widening section and also the proposed overpass project which we moved approximately 200 feet to the north to not only improve the curvature in the highway at that point but also to avoid many of the features at that particular intersection. By doing that, it did do away with some problems that we would have encountered had the overpass been put on the existing alignment of 365 west of Spur 93.

The widening of FM 365 could be done as a standalone project except for the following reasons: It would leave a bad highway-railroad intersection to deal with; in addition to the widening project, it would require a traffic signal at that location due to traffic situation and congestion in the area; and also, if the widening project was done by itself, it would include a significant amount of pavement that would have to be removed when the overpass was constructed in the future.

It's our feeling that the two projects would best be done at the same time, either as separate projects or combined into one project. The City of Port Arthur and the Beaumont District support the consolidation of the two projects, hoping that they can be done at the same time, and with the effort that the city has been putting into doing PS&E work, that these projects can be moved up considerably.

In summary, we're requesting approximately $15 million for the two projects, subject to the cost being determined by the final PS&E work for both the proposed widening of 365 and the proposed overpass at Spur 93.

With that, I'll introduce Mayor Oscar Ortiz of the City of Port Arthur, and he'll have some general comments.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Good morning, gentlemen. Chairman Johnson, Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Williamson, Mr. Behrens. I want to thank you so very much for allowing this delegation from the City of Port Arthur to come to you to talk to you about the widening of Highway 365 and the overpass at Spur 93.

I have three letters here that were sent to me: one from the Honorable Congressman Nick Lampson; one from the Honorable Carl R. Griffiths, Jr., County Judge; and also I have one here from the Honorable Kyle Janek, Senator, our state senator. I'll be reading these letters to you and hopefully they'll make an impression upon you as they made on me. These gentlemen have taken a lot of their time and effort to promote this project.

"Dear Mr. Behrens: I'm writing today to respectfully request your assistance with the request from the City of Port Arthur and Jefferson County. Currently there is a proposal before TxDOT for the widening of Highway 365 between Highway 69 and Rodair Gully, with particular focus on the section between Highway 69 and Spur 93. However, I'm requesting your cooperation to move forward with another facet of the project that would create an overpass on Highway 365 and Spur 93.

"As you're aware, the City of Port Arthur has undertaken a feasibility study to determine if an overpass on Highway 365 over Spur 93 and the Union Pacific Railroad was a viable alternative to other types of intersection improvements. At the conclusion of the study, the results yielded was a definitive determination that the overpass portion of the overall project would yield the best results and was clearly the best alternative.

"Though I am unable to attend the hearing before the Texas Transportation Commission, I wanted to convey my support for the project and respectfully request that the Texas Transportation Commission support the designated project, including the overpass on Highway 365 at Spur 93 and provide the additional funds needed to complete the project beyond the funds that are available at the TxDOT Beaumont District level and at the city level.

"Please feel free to contact me if I can provide you with any information or if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely, Congressman Nick Lampson."

I'll be giving you a copy of each one of these letters.

Our second letter is from the Honorable Carl R. Griffiths, Jr., County Judge.

"Honorable Commissioners: On February 27, 2003, a delegation from the City of Port Arthur will be appearing before you to request your support and funding for the proposed project of widening Farm to Market Highway 365 between Highway 69 and Spur 93.

"The City of Port Arthur and Jefferson County have hitherto partnered in the development of the schematic plans, specifications and estimates for the widening project on behalf of the state. This work was taken on with an intent to help advance this project to an earlier starting date that wouldn't have been possible if TxDOT was left to secure the same services.

Between the two entities, we have spent $889,000 for the schematic and PS&E for the widening project. The City of Port Arthur has further committed $550,000 for the schematic plan and specifications and estimates for the overpass project at Spur 93 with the understanding that the Beaumont District TxDOT office would provide geotechnical and design service for the overpass structure.

"I wish to lend my voice to the City of Port Arthur's efforts to seek your support for funding of these worthy projects that will greatly enhance the transportation network in south Jefferson County. In addition to increasing the ease and safety of travel across the county, the project would also maximize the state's recent investment in the widening of Spur 93 between State Highway 73 in Port Arthur and US 69 in Beaumont.

"Please feel free to call me should you require any additional information in regards to this matter."

The last letter will be from the Honorable Kyle Janek, our state senator. I would hope that if anybody sees Senator Janek come in to please tug my coat and I'll step aside and let the senator come in here and make his remarks.

"Dear Commissioners: Please allow this letter to express my strong support for the City of Port Arthur's request to widen Farm to Market Highway 365 between US 69 and Spur 93, as well as the proposed overpass on FM 365 at Spur 93.

"This project is critical to the transportation network in Jefferson County. Currently traffic congestion on FM 365 at Spur 93 during peak hours is very high. The proposed widening would improve safety in the area and improve traffic flow.

"I hope my schedule will permit me to join the delegation that will represent the city at your hearing on February 27, 2003. Thank you for your attention to this request. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call me."

Again, as Senator Janek said, we have a tremendous problem for traffic on 365, and I think one of the big reasons why is because we've had so much development come up on Highway 365. As you know, we now have a Super Wal-Mart that shows up there, a Lowes, Sutherland Lumber, an Applebee's Restaurant, other fast food restaurants, all feeding or adjacent to Highway 365. This has added to the tremendous congestion on 365 traveling east or west. If you were to go there at any time during the high peak hours, you'll find traffic backed up all the way from Spur 93 east to 6996; that's how bad it is.

It is so bad, gentlemen, that last year within a period of 90 days we had three fatalities -- three fatalities, three people lost their lives on Highway 365 in that area between 69 and Spur 93, and we attribute that to the tremendous traffic that's going on there now.

I'd like to also say that hopefully within the next week to two we're going to be making an announcement of a hospital, an $80 million hospital that would be built in that vicinity there behind Super Wal-Mart -- also a medical center. We will be designing a four-lane road to feed out onto 365. I don't have to tell you what kind of impact that's going to have on 365 when you have a major hospital like this which is being built by Iasis, a company out of Tennessee. This will be a tremendous impact on 365, and they don't expect to have this hospital completed until 2005. Hopefully we can get this highway widening started by 2005, but in the meantime, the traffic impact that that's going to have is going to be tremendous.

As I said, we had three fatalities there last year; we don't need any more. I believe the City of Port Arthur has made a good faith effort in the fact they've contributed a million-five, a million-six to these two projects. And I think Commissioner Nichols made the statement that they don't like to see cities come up here without having contributed. I believe that the City of Port Arthur has put its money where it's mouth is.

I believe, also, that the City of Port Arthur has been long in coming up here before you. I was talking to Mr. Walter Crook of the department -- I think it's been maybe 15-20 years since the City of Port Arthur has ever come before you for a request.

But I believe that this request is urgent; I believe it's desperately needed; I believe that it has come to a point where we need to do something with 365. If we're going to continue the kind of development we have in the city of Port Arthur, the development is going to impact this highway particularly.

My only fear -- and I've expressed this to my council members -- that when Spur 93 is opened and it becomes a four-lane road and you have traffic traveling on there at 55 miles an hour -- which is what they're supposed to be doing, but you know and I know they're going to be doing 65 -- and you have the people coming up west on 365 doing the same amount of speed, the only thing you have to stop them at that intersection is a stop sign. I'm afraid, gentlemen, that we're going to have some fatalities at that intersection and that scares me as an elected official to think that we are at the point -- and I understand your shortfalls; I understand that you don't have enough money, that you're being cut and this and that, but I hope we never put a person's life and try to compare it to the value of a dollar because that's not what we're here for as elected officials.

And so I thank you. I hope that you'll consider our request; I hope that you'll understand that we came up here fully capable of doing whatever it takes to get this project done. And again, I want to thank you for your time and allowing us to come here.

MR. WILLIAMSON: May I?

MR. JOHNSON: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a couple of questions to ask you, Mayor.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Sure.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But before I ask you, I want to be sure I didn't misunderstand you. You weren't inferring that this commission was less concerned than you about people's loss of life?

MAYOR ORTIZ: No, sir. I'm just trying to make you aware --

MR. WILLIAMSON: We take that very personally when someone intimates that the commission is not focused on that.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Yes, sir. I think what I wanted to say was that in a time when we know that there's a constraint on money and we know that people are looking at money very hard and they're saying we need to cut here, we need to cut there -- and that's true, we do; we need to save the taxpayers' money and we need to try to spend it as wisely as we can wherever we can -- and I believe that this is one of the wisest places that money can be spent.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I just wanted to be sure I understood your remarks.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Let me ask you -- I probably missed something in the presentation and I apologize -- the location of this hospital you speak of, is it in the city limits?

MAYOR ORTIZ: Yes, sir. Actually, it will be facing 6996, the feeder road, but the entrance to it will have two directions: we'll be coming in east and west which will be an extension of Jimmy Johnson Boulevard; and then we'll take that road and feed it into the medical parking lot or into the emergency room and we'll have another four-lane highway running north and south from the medical center or the hospital emergency room to 365.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I'm kind of curious. The company that's building that hospital, did they have to get permission from the city to construct that?

MAYOR ORTIZ: Oh, sure. We're going to enter into an agreement, hopefully very soon, as far as what are the perks that they expect from us to build that hospital there, and I think we're 90 percent there. We've had conversations with them since October.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So if I understood your request to the commission, we need to move quickly on your request because the city has approved the construction of a major traffic generator where highways really don't exist.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Well, if you're referring to Highway 365 --

MR. WILLIAMSON: Or suitable highways don't exist.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Highway 365, of course we all know, is not suitable to handle the kind of traffic that it's handling now. My concern and the council's concern is that when this hospital is built, the impact is going to be on that highway from the hospital and the emergency room and the EMS vehicles that will be coming in there, it's going to be tremendous, it really is.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, but my point is you see the dilemma you put us in.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You're going to go build a traffic generator before the plan to handle the traffic is even done.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Well, again --

MR. WILLIAMSON: Of course, you're not the only person that does that; we see that every day.

MAYOR ORTIZ: I realize that, but I think this is a great opportunity for the City of Port Arthur. You have to understand the City of Port Arthur 7-1/2 years ago was a city that was basically pretty well broke. It had less than $4-1/2 million in its general fund; had no growth in the petrochemical industry; had no growth in the retail market; had no growth in the retail sales market; had no growth at all. Here we're sitting, a very unique city -- I think one of the most unique cities in the State of Texas and maybe in the United States --

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's what Frank Collazo told me.

MAYOR ORTIZ:  -- in the fact that we have a Super Wal-Mart and a second Super Wal-Mart. How many cities do you know of in the State of Texas with less than 60,000 population that have two Super Wal-Marts? That's unheard of. I'm thankful for that, as the mayor of the city, that these types of industries have looked at us and said, Yes, we want to come into the City of Port Arthur. It puts a burden on us but I think we have to some degree met that burden by committing the funds that we have committed to this project. I'm just thankful that you gave us the opportunity to come here, I really am, and I hope that you gentlemen will look at us with kind favor.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, were you here when we were talking with the mayor of Mount Pleasant about the toll thing?

MAYOR ORTIZ: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We would appreciate it if you would give some thought to whether or not you could contact Mr. Lampson about the same thing. And by extension we hope the whole I-69 group is listening. Any help we can get. We're a donor state, we don't get back as much as we send, we don't complain about that up here, but it seems to us that a donor state is not out of line to ask Congress to allow us to erect toll booths on roads that already exist where we know it will help our situation. Any help you can give us ultimately will produce more cash flow for projects like this.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Commissioner Williamson, I mentioned to Executive Director Behrens before the meeting that I thought your idea of a toll booth was excellent. I lived in the vicinity of Chicago, Illinois, and that's all there is over there is toll booths. Everywhere you turn and go and come off of a freeway, whatever, there's a toll booth; they hit you maybe five or six times in a very short period of time. But I think that's a good way to raise money and I'm not opposed to it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And I don't believe the commission, and certainly the governor said, it's not our intention to toll everything that moves in Texas like occurs in other parts of the country, but the sad reality is our gasoline tax base doesn't generate enough for maintenance and the construction we need and we're just going to all have to kind of admit that and do what we need to do to help ourselves. It might affect you in your area because you are urbanized, but for the most part, we're trying to find tools here for interior Dallas, interior Houston, interior San Antonio, interior Brownsville, so any help you could give us, we'd appreciate it.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Believe me, Commissioner, we'll do whatever it takes to get projects going. I know that in the 25 years that I lived in Wisconsin, Texas always had a tremendous reputation for its highways, Texas has always been known for its highways, and I think that we have to just come up with different innovative ways to raise money to keep our highways up there.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Now, if we do this project, will you name it the Carl Parker Loop?

(General laughter.)

MAYOR ORTIZ: We already have a building in Port Arthur named after Carl Parker.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, you've already got one? Well, then we'll name it the David Bernsen Loop.

MAYOR ORTIZ: We have one already going through Port Arthur.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Another David? Well, I guess we're down to Frank. The Frank Collazo Shortcut.

(General laughter.)

MAYOR ORTIZ: Thank you, commission. I appreciate your time, and believe me, I understand the pressure you're under, and I congratulate for the tremendous job that you're doing here in Texas.

MR. JOHNSON: Did you have anything?

MR. NICHOLS: Yes, I had a couple of things.

MAYOR ORTIZ: I think we have one more presenter.

MR. NICHOLS: Oh, do we?

MAYOR ORTIZ: Yes. Former Senator Bernsen.

SENATOR BERNSEN: Thank you, Mayor. I'll be very, very brief because I think, as I recall, there was green, yellow and red lights from time to time when I used to sit up there.

MR. JOHNSON: It's always green for you.

SENATOR BERNSEN: First, Mr. Chairman, commissioners, Mike, it's good to be here. It's good to be back and see so many of what I consider family and friends and it's one of the reasons why when the mayor called and asked me to come up here, I said for sure because it's been a while since I've been up here. And also, I was mindful of the fact -- as the mayor briefly mentioned -- that, if my memory serves me correctly, Port Arthur has not been up here in a number of years. Somebody said 15-20 years, something like that.

But this project is very, very important, not just to the City of Port Arthur but to the transportation system of southeast Texas which connects east and west. Unfortunately, this map does not show the total picture. We are looking, as you go up the screen, back toward the State of Louisiana and heading back east, and as you come to the left side of that map, then we're headed toward Houston.

There are essentially two east and west roads currently: I-10 which runs, obviously from Houston, through Beaumont, then over to Orange and then to Louisiana, and as I recall, has the highest traffic count of any highway leading into the State of Texas, or did a few years ago, and I"m not sure if that's still the case today.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You know why that is, don't you?

SENATOR BERNSEN: Yes, I do.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's all those fuel trucks that aren't paying tax at the rack going over into Louisiana.

SENATOR BERNSEN: Well, there's a lot of buses coming up from the central area and going over to some boats over there in Louisiana as well, but that's for another issue another day.

But Highway 73 that connects with I-10 at Winnie, the big city of Winnie, the home of my wife -- actually, she's from Stowell, Texas, but that's another story too -- but 73 goes to Port Arthur and then bends around to Orange. 365 comes from the mid-part of Jefferson County so you have I-10 to the north and Beaumont on to Orange, and then you have Highway 73 from Port Arthur that connects into Orange to the south.

This artery is very, very important for a number of reasons, and we've started the process back a number of years ago that if you go back to the east, we have a flyover at 347, we four-laned it to 69, and the next progressive step would be to four-lane 365 from Highway 69 all the way down to Spur 93 and then continue it on out to I-10. It will take some time and effort and we understand that.

This particular project, or the next project, I believe, is the widening of that section of the highway from 69 to Spur 93. It's approximately $6 million-$7 million, I believe, and the city is in the process of putting up close to $2 million -- which I think shows a good faith effort -- in terms of right of way and the engineering.

The mayor was talking about that particular area that's represented on the map is an area of high growth for a number of reasons, not just the hospital but the entire mid-part of the county is growing to the west. So this project is very beneficial in terms of safety, economic development, as well as the continuation of a vision for the entire southeast Texas to provide another corridor from east to west which then relieves the congestion on I-10 as those oil tankers are going over to Louisiana or people are going over to try their hand with Lady Luck over in Lake Charles.

But nevertheless, the traffic count is tremendous there and this is one way to begin to relieve the congestion on I-10. It is a very necessary project for all of us, not just for Port Arthur but Nederland, Port Neches, and Beaumont as well.

I will say this, Commissioner Williamson. You talked about Senator Janek. Senator Janek does have a staff member in the office, Daniel Delgadillo, and so he has been working with this delegation as well as the other House members as well, and I think this is something that all of us can support. And we need just a little bit of help in the scheme of things in terms of dollars and cents in the overall view of the State of Texas.

The $4 million that we need for this project, while it may seem small in the context of the entire State of Texas, it speaks very, very large and is very important to the people of Jefferson County, and specifically the people of Port Arthur.

MR. WILLIAMSON: If we do this, will we go ahead and build a casino on the Texas side?

SENATOR BERNSEN: We can talk about that. I'm not sure we need to be on the record while we do that, but I will be willing to sit down and talk about economic development and Pleasure Island or anything else.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We could call it the Kyle Janek Casino.

SENATOR BERNSEN: Well, we'll talk to the senator about that and talk to his staff member about it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm going to really get my tail chewed out after this meeting.

(General laughter.)

SENATOR BERNSEN: This is on television too, isn't it?

I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and to present the case which I think is a worthy case and a necessary one for the reasons we've stated. Whatever you can do -- and I certainly understand the dilemma and the strings that tug you in so many different directions, and having sat where you are, I know that it's a very, very difficult task.

So we come to say that we're willing to help to the best of our ability for $2 million to help with this project, but we need just a little bit of help from the state so that we can enjoy the prosperity of our part of the state and also help with the safety as well.

Thank you for having us. Am I the last one or is there somebody else? We'll answer any questions that you might have. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: A couple of comments and then a couple of questions.

Number one, Mr. Chairman, not only was Mr. Bernsen former chairman of this commission and state senator, he also went to Lamar.

SENATOR BERNSEN: That's right. Lamar Cardinals.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We have another Cardinal in the audience?

SENATOR BERNSEN: That's it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think we're the only two commissioners on the Transportation Commission who went to Lamar.

SENATOR BERNSEN: Absolutely.

MR. JOHNSON: Are you implying that he's educationally impaired?

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, John. You just got me off the hook.

MR. NICHOLS: Shouldn't have brought it up. Anyway, I spent five years down there.

SENATOR BERNSEN: I was on the five-year plan.

MR. JOHNSON: It's a great university.

MR. NICHOLS: Appreciate all the contributions that you have made to transportation in the past.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And to the state.

MR. NICHOLS: And to the state, yes.

SENATOR BERNSEN: Thank you.

MR. NICHOLS: What was the actual timing on that major hospital?

MAYOR ORTIZ: We hope that if they start construction this year, they're looking at a completion date of 2005.

MR. NICHOLS: So they've basically already started. Are they starting this year?

MAYOR ORTIZ: They just told me yesterday when I talked to them that they're hiring an architect.

MR. NICHOLS: The commitment is already made; they're going to build it.

MR. McMAHEN: The timetable that they've given us is probably opening in March of 2005. And if you'll look back on the map up in the upper right-hand corner, they're going to be right at the convergence of those two dotted lines which we represented as the streets.

MAYOR ORTIZ: They're going to use up about 30 acres in there for the hospital and medical center.

MR. NICHOLS: So the second question was, for the City of Port Arthur you're saying this is probably your most important highest priority is the widening?

MAYOR ORTIZ: Yes.

MR. NICHOLS: It's very obvious you need an overpass; you've got a train and an intersection there.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: That track is used a lot too.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Yes, sir, sure is.

MR. NICHOLS: And on an unrelated issue, but still on a project that affects you quite a bit, where are we on 87? Remember 87 -- which I know, Senator, you used to ask me about. The right of way and environmental and I think the county -- of course, y'all can't speak for the county, but that was a project that was very important to the City of Port Arthur also.

SENATOR BERNSEN: It started when I was about seven years old.

MR. NICHOLS: I know the hurricane knocked it out. What is the status on that? Because that's kind of your only other route out.

MR. CROOK: Good morning commissioners, Mr. Behrens. Walter Crook, District Engineer out of Beaumont.

At this particular stage the county is involved in preparing all environmental documents. They've hired a consultant that's in the process now of preparing that document. Based on a minute order that Mr. Franklin Young, who was the district engineer back at that time in 1992, had passed that the county would be responsible for all environmental documents, mitigation, wetland permits, then at such time would come back to the commission and ask for funding on that project.

Congressman Lampson has been involved for the last four years on that project to try to speed it up. We're still at the same phase we were a couple of years ago, still working with the Corps of Engineers in recent days.

MR. NICHOLS: That's about where we were when I got on the commission, that the county was going to do the environmental. It was a very important project for the City of Port Arthur and Jefferson County at one time because I remember going to a lot of meetings on it, but it seems I haven't heard much lately on it. But they were in the environmental process five-six years ago.

MR. CROOK: Now the Corps is working with the county on some research as far as the erosion protection along the beach. That's one of the other problems.

MR. NICHOLS: Are they going to let us move over 3- or 400 feet?

MR. CROOK: That's the issue of moving it over about 200 feet inland, but the resource agencies, Corps and all are wanting to look at what kind of protection are we going to provide for additional roadway, plus the refuge area that's adjoining that particular project.

MR. NICHOLS: I'm assuming that the City of Port Arthur is still very interested in that project also.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: That's all I had. Thanks.

MAYOR ORTIZ: Chairman Johnson, could I make just one remark and I'll be glad to sit down. I know that you don't realize the makeup of the City of Port Arthur, and I'll give you a little bit of it. It's 60 percent plus minority population in the City of Port Arthur: 44 percent African-Americans, 32 percent Anglos, possibly 8 or 9 or 10 percent Hispanic, and so forth down after that, Pakistanis and so forth. But even yet with that type of makeup and the tight tax base that we have in the City of Port Arthur, we still manage to work our budget to be able to come up with enough money to get involved and to come to you and say that we're committed to this project.

We're willing to invest our dollars, even though we have other needs and other necessities in the city, maybe more so than other cities with the makeup of our population. But we're still committed to this road because we know that in the City of Port Arthur right now we have over 11 percent unemployment. We know what this development at the north end of town will do, the jobs that it will create. We also know the jobs that this construction of this road will create. And so we're looking down the road realizing that all these things are going to add to the benefit of our people, hopefully, giving them the ability and the opportunity to have decent jobs, decent paychecks and all the things that people in America have a right to.

So we feel that this project will create so many different avenues for our people to be able to improve their lives, and that's really what I'm concerned about as the mayor of this city: to make it a better place for our people.

And again, I want to thank you so very much. I realize we've gone over our time, and again, I thank you so very much for your kindness.

MR. JOHNSON: Ric, did you have any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, one of the reasons I probed the mayor about the planning and the timing of the hospital is I don't see much difference between it and Toyota. And what I was trying to imply, Mayor, the quicker now that we're brought into the economic development efforts in the state, the quicker we can adjust -- and we will adjust. We were brought into Toyota early and we were able to adjust our planning to help attract them to San Antonio.

We would feel no different about Port Arthur or Jasper or Bon Wier -- yes, I am familiar with your city, I'm real familiar with it; I hold my breath for 2-1/2 minutes every time I drive over that bridge; I know about your city.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: My point was it's worse for us to find out about it at the end; it's better for us to find out that this is what you're doing and we need to help, because we're the government and we're here to help.

MR. McMAHEN: Commissioner Williamson, your comments are well taken. As the mayor stated, the city for the first time in a long time, is blessed to be having a lot of development come about, and I guess people want to be where they want to be, and the hospital chose that location, but obviously the hospital was not necessarily the seed that caused us to come up here.

Like I say, we've been working at this project for a long time. The congestion probably on 365 was beginning to get bad at the time we first looked at the schematic in 1991; it's gotten a lot worse since then just with the great economic conditions in the city and in the county -- we have to say that that's everywhere.

But a lot of businesses and commercial or otherwise are beginning to look at this section of Highway 365 as the place that they want to be. Obviously, that puts a burden on us and on you to accommodate those needs.

And your other comment that you made about the funding certainly is well-taken, that our commitment to the Beaumont District was not just to beg money from the state, but to look to any other place that we could to get funding, locally, federal, state, wherever, and obviously, as we've demonstrated, the city has put a lot of their own money into this to push this project forward, hopefully with your help and help from the federal government. We'll try every place and everything we can to get whatever funding is needed for these two projects.

MR. JOHNSON: Robert, did you have anything else?

MR. NICHOLS: Yes. It occurred to me to ask another question. Port Arthur has zoning, I assume?

MR. McMAHEN: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: For proper land management and stuff.

MR. McMAHEN: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: Have you all considered or even kicked around the idea of adopting some type of idea of access management in your community? We've got about 41-43 cities that have adopted access management principles in their communities -- which as you're developing and build some of these new things, it helps you manage access so that you still have flow and economic development but also picks up safety -- because I've heard safety -- and it might be something if you have not adopted it that you might want to start kind of looking at it. It will help you quite a bit on the movement of traffic and utilizing not only the land areas but also traffic systems that you do have.

MR. McMAHEN: Well, the access management was one of the last issues that we dealt with on the schematic right at the intersection of 365 and 69.

MR. NICHOLS: If you have not adopted it, I would encourage you to at least start studying it and considering it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hear, hear.

MR. McMAHEN: The only thing that we can say good, I guess, in particular about the hospital situation is that the streets that are going to be going into the hospital generally have followed master plan routes or routes that have been indicated for a considerable length of time. But again, people like to be where they want to be for whatever reason, and it's up to us and others, as necessary, to accommodate those desires.

Again, we certainly appreciate the opportunity to appear before you this morning and look forward to working with you and others in bringing these two projects about.

MR. JOHNSON: I had one observation and then one footnote. The observation is that obviously the addition of this medical center will be a great resource for the community and probably very much needed and will be very much appreciated. And as Ric pointed out, I think one of our functions is to assist areas to enable them to attract resources to the community that creates better quality of life and also economic vitality -- which apparently this one does.

As a footnote, I don't want anybody to misinterpret the tone of my comment about Lamar University. It is an outstanding university and does a great job for southeast Texas but it is also a resource for this entire state.

MR. NICHOLS: I'm still offended.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I'm not worried about you.

SENATOR BERNSEN: And I'm also offended.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I'm not, so it's okay.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: We have somebody who has asked to speak in opposition to this request, and if David Moore is here, we would invite him. And if there is anyone else who would like to speak in opposition, we would request that you would fill out a yellow card and turn it in at the registration desk, and then it will come up here and we would get you an opportunity to do that also.

David, if you will for the record state your name.

MR. MOORE: David Moore.

MR. JOHNSON: And the purpose of your comments.

MR. MOORE: Good morning. Committee, thank you very much for giving me some time.

I'm in here because I'm in favor of the widening project of Highway 365 from Spur 93 to Highway 69, but I'm adamantly opposed to the proposed grade separation at this intersection.

My name is David Moore and I'm involved because I own seven acres at the southwest corner of the Spur 93-365 intersection. I own and operate a convenience store which I built in the year 2000. I also represent a Sonic Drive-In, a Pizza Inn and a Subway sandwich store, all of which are located at this corner.

The southwest corner of 365 and Spur 93 employs 59 men and women. As such, the remainder of the land has a high probability of being developed commercially. Crawdad's, Sonic, Pizza Inn, and Subway are the first new major employers to locate in the Port Acres area. Port Acres is a small community that was annexed by Port Arthur some 50 years ago. These businesses and myself took a large risk when committing substantial funds to purchase land, construct business, and make improvements to the Port Acres area.

There is no doubt that the proposed overpass will have a detrimental impact on the businesses and lives in the Port Acres area. The location will lose over 60 percent of its traffic.

When I initially inquired about the intersection seven years ago, the widening project of Spur 93 was mentioned and is now being completed. The widening project of Highway 365 was mentioned, but a grade separation that would absolutely bypass my land was not even fathomed.

Now you know why I originally took interest in this issue: it's about the money. My company supports 41 families in the Port Acres area and another 45 employees are related to the businesses on the southwest corner of this intersection at hand. Once I became involved, I wanted to know more: Why this intersection; why now?

Waymon Halmark, Jefferson County commissioner of Precinct 2, the precinct where this proposed grade separation will be built, called me to let me know that the City of Port Arthur was proposing an overpass at this intersection. Commissioner Halmark informed me that the City of Port Arthur asked the Jefferson County commissioners to share in the engineering cost of this proposed overpass at Spur 93 and 365.

The county commissioners voted against any support on this project for two reasons: spending $11 million today for a highway-railroad crossing that is so low on the cost-benefit index was not a viable project; the second reason was that a grade separation that would be taking a four-lane into a two-lane was not a viable project. They felt if it was four-laned all the way from the intersection back to Interstate 10 and then come back with the grade separations, then they would be for that project.

The commissioners court of Jefferson County is very well versed on this project. They've already committed a half a million dollars to the engineering fees for the widening project. They're in favor of the widening project and so am I. But when the topic of the overpass comes up, they show no support. The commissioners court is committed to the growth of Port Arthur and so am I, but like the commissioners, I believe we should widen the road and not build an overpass.

Why would we build an overpass? This intersection traffic load has declined since 1995. It is my understanding that the City of Port Arthur would like to design this grade separation and hopefully construct it before we have a congestion problem or a serious accident. They feel that future traffic projections would justify the overpass and there will be a dollar savings in the project doing it now.

Now it comes down to money. I agree there should be an overpass over every single railroad crossing in America, including Highway 365 and Spur 93, and in time maybe it will happen. But because this cannot happen now and there cannot be an overpass everywhere, there is a ranking system done by TxDOT rating all the railroad crossings in Texas.

This cost-benefit index is a number given to each intersection in the state, and it ranges from zero to 1200. The ranking at this intersection is 36; matter of fact, there are 37 railroad crossings in the Beaumont District alone that rank higher.

This intersection has had two accidents in the last ten years. It's not about whether it's a good idea or not, it's about whether Texas needs to spend their money. I understand that an overpass will not use federal funding but discretionary funds of TxDOT.

The Beaumont TxDOT has put up $2 million of their own and they're asking for $4 million more for the widening project; they're asking for $11 million more for the overpass; so they're taking a $6 million project and turning it into a $17-. This is a large difference of money for an intersection that hasn't warranted a traffic light. In the natural progression of things, one would think that a traffic light would come before an overpass.

$16 million for a four-way stop intersection that traffic has declined in the last eight years and has had two traffic accidents in the last ten years sounds like a lot of money. There are at least 925 intersections in the State of Texas that has a higher cost-benefit index than this one. I would imagine that all 925 of those would like to have a grade separation before there is an accident or too much congestion.

I'm also on the board of the Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce. The Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce has not endorsed this overpass because it hasn't been presented to them. Let's widen the road, let's not build the grade separation. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions, Robert?

MR. NICHOLS: No.

MR. JOHNSON: Ric, did you have anything?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Pretty much been covered.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, David, for being here. We'll take your comments to heart. We appreciate the presenters' presentation, and Mr. Moore, your presence here.

We'll take a brief recess. We have a long agenda so this recess is going to be very brief so our friends from Jefferson County can get back to their homes and jobs.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

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

MR. JOHNSON: We will reconvene the meeting. The next group on the agenda is the Alliance for Interstate 69 Texas, and we're delighted that you're here. I know many of you have come great distances to be here. I believe that former Judge Helen Walker of Victoria County will lead the presentation.

JUDGE WALKER: Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Williamson and Executive Director Behrens. I am Helen Walker. I am board chair of the Alliance for I-69 Texas, and before we make our presentation, I want to introduce Representative Gene Seaman who wants to speak.

MR. SEAMAN: Good morning, commissioners and Mike. Thank you for all of the attention that you've given to the Coastal Bend area. I know that you've visited there; Bob you've been there so many times; and you've all paid so much attention to the entire Coastal Bend.

I want to report to you that JFK is coming along great; the Crosstown, Highway 35 at Rockport, everything is doing great. David Casteel is doing a super job for us. The JFK, we already have a good portion of the elevated part already in operation, so when Spring Break comes we're going to be able to use that, and the next three-foot tide, we won't be flooded out, so we're just really pleased with the great progress of everything.

And I also want to stress the genius of Trans Texas Corridor -- whoever wants to claim credit for that one. Governor Perry came down and presented that many months ago. I thought: Wow, what a futuristic, brilliant concept. And I really mean that. I'm behind it 100 percent, and I thought: Gee, why didn't I think of that?

Thank you for including I-69 in the priority corridors for Trans Texas. That is a very important step. I do have one concern I want to stress, that the environmental route studies get underway -- we're concerned about the kind of slippage of that; they keep sliding back -- so the environmental studies that we can speed up the process. And I just want to stress that one concern with the environmental studies and that we get this thing underway.

And thank you for the great job you guys are doing. Mike, you too.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's always good so see a friend of transportation, and you've been a friend of transportation, and we appreciate it. We don't single out members who aren't friends, we single out members who are, and we appreciate your tremendous support.

MR. SEAMAN: Yes, sir. It's one of the greatest tools in Texas. We have the military in Corpus Christi and the Coastal Bend that's very important, our hospital and our education, but transportation, if we're going to look at the next 20-30-40 years, if we don't do the right job in transportation, we're dead. And I back that just 1,000 percent.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I particularly appreciate your comments about the governor's corridor proposal. When he originally stepped forward in the state and said this is the way we're going to go, there was some understandable concern and trepidation. And there are still those who'd prefer to live in the past and build on the same footprint and continue to congest and continue to poison the air of areas that are already near non-attainment, and those are generally the individuals who have a narrow economic interest at stake and not the state's common interest.

And I think the governor was trying to say to the state almost two years ago now: The amount of cash flow available in this state and in this country for transportation projects is not what we wish it would be, and we can either stay in Robstown or stay in Weatherford and moan about that and build a few pieces of road at a time, or we can look in the mirror and say we have to do it ourselves, and it is in the best common interest of the state to do it this way ourselves and be about it.

And then when the next Toyota comes to Corpus Christi and the next General Motors comes to Laredo and the next Ford comes to Dallas, we'll all kind of look around and say: You know, we're glad we did that, we're glad we thought ahead. And we appreciate guys like you standing up and saying this is the way we have to do it.

MR. SEAMAN: And Ric, I can get passionate about that because I'm a businessman, like most of you, and when I look forward 10-20-30-40 years the population growth, or even the current crisis we have right now with moving military hardware through Corpus Christi, the port, and we see all of the things that are coming down the pike in the next 10-20 years, if we don't do these things, we're going to lose out.

And as I said, I can just be passionate about this and our economic development, our growth, taking care of our population, taking care of poverty, moving our people. When I look at our parking lot out here called I-35 and realize that we have to do other things, and if we can -- I don't want to use the word "manipulate" but encourage through tolls other routes in Texas, whatever we can do to advance these concepts, I think they're fantastic.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We appreciate your remarks very much.

JUDGE WALKER: Thank you, Representative Seaman.

Thank you for the opportunity to come before you today and to report on behalf of the Alliance for I-69 Texas. As you know, we're an organization of cities, counties, chambers of commerce, economic development organizations, and now private sector companies from the Rio Grande Valley to the Sabine River.

I'd like to take a moment to ask some of the community leaders who are with us today from along the route to stand. I'm going to read this list. Some have had to move to other things, but first and foremost: Mayor Louis Bronaugh of Lufkin, the Chairman Emeritus of I-69; Mayor Roy Blake of Nacogdoches; Commissioner Susan Stasny of Bee County; Bill Summers, Vice President of the Greater Rio Grande Valley Partnership; David Pena of IBC in Laredo; Anne Culver, board member and executive in the Greater Houston Partnership; Adele Irvin also from Greater Houston Partnership; City Manager C.J. Maclin of Lufkin; City Manager Denny Arnold of Victoria; and Gary Bushell, our consultant here in Austin. If you all have stood already. Thank you.

We have one missing member today, and as I drove from Victoria yesterday, I noted what a good job TxDOT had done of de-icing the bridges and so forth. You missed one spot on 14th street between the Capitol and the Doubletree, and Judge John Thompson, our secretary-treasurer for the alliance hit that spot and fractured his ankle last night. So we're sorry that he is not here but he is resting at the Doubletree.

MR. JOHNSON: He was driving or he was a pedestrian?

JUDGE WALKER: No. He was walking, he was a pedestrian.

MR. JOHNSON: Mike, would you make a note of that, that we missed a spot?

(General laughter.)

JUDGE WALKER: Pedestrian accident.

The proposed route for I-69 passes through 34 counties and impacts 14 Congressional districts, eight State Senate districts, and 48 State House districts. The alliance was organized in 1993, a decade ago, to develop an interstate corridor, and if you go down from the U.S.-Mexico Border, across Texas to the northeastern United States and Canada, we believe we're making progress, in major part because of the support we've received from this commission. We want to thank you for including the I-69 route as one of the four priority routes for the Trans Texas Corridor System last summer.

As you may recall, the Alliance for I-69 Texas was one of the first organizations in Texas to support the Trans Texas concept at a commission meeting in Lufkin a year ago tomorrow. A year ago today we handed Governor Perry a letter of endorsement for his farsighted and innovative concept.

We want to thank you for the support for the successful effort to have the Texas portion of I-69 included by the U.S. Department of Transportation as one of only seven projects in the nation for federal environmental streamlining. We look forward to working with TxDOT to quantify what these time savings will mean to the project.

Finally, we want to thank you for your commitment to fund the environmental route studies for I-69 in Texas. We understand that you hope to have those segments under contract later this year.

But of course, we're now in the new legislative year in both Washington, D.C. and here in Austin. For 2003 the alliance's legislative program is a simple one: Our legislative program in Washington and in Austin is your legislative program. On December 10, 2002, at our annual meeting, we endorsed your Issues Brief for the 78th Session of the Texas Legislature as our state legislative program. On February 4, 2003, the executive committee endorsed your policy goals for the 2003 Congressional Reauthorization of Federal Transportation Authority, and our consultants in Washington have been instructed to work to obtain those monies that you prioritized for the upcoming reauthorization period.

I'd now like to turn the podium over to Mayor Roy Blake of Nacogdoches to discuss how we see the Trans Texas Corridor concept making I-69 a reality. Before I do, I want to read and include in the record a proclamation from Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, representing our largest county.

"Whereas, the Alliance for I-69 Texas, representing public and private sector leaders from 34 counties in Texas, will make its annual presentation before the Texas Transportation Commission on Thursday, February 27, 2003, to demonstrate support for TxDOT's ongoing efforts to advance I-69;

"And whereas, the Alliance has endorsed TxDOT's state and federal legislative priorities and will work in concert with TxDOT to successfully advance legislation that will yield greater resources for transportation and project development flexibility;

"And whereas, Harris County supports the use of innovative financing approaches, such as toll financing, for the development of infrastructure;

"And whereas, 75 percent of all U.S. truck-borne trade with Mexico travels through Texas with nearly half crossing the border between Laredo and the Lower Rio Grande Valley, the termini of I-69;

"And whereas, the development of I-69 is critical to the ongoing economic competitiveness of the State of Texas;

"Now, therefore, I, Robert Eckels, County Judge of Harris County, Texas, hereby proclaim Thursday, February 27, 2003, as I-69 Texas Day in Harris County, Texas, and further take this opportunity to reiterate Harris County's commitment to ensuring the timely development of I-69.

"Presented by Judge Robert Eckels of Harris County."

Mayor Blake.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you so much.

MAYOR BLAKE: Thank you, Helen and Chairman Johnson, Commissioner Williamson and Commissioner Nichols and Executive Director Behrens. My name is Roy Blake, Jr. I'm the mayor of the City of Nacogdoches. My text here says my name is John Thompson, so that just shows how we've had to change overnight. And I would like to make one comment about Judge Thompson; he is doing well.

But last night I called my wife before this happened, and there's a Deep East Texas Council of Governments meeting in Crockett that I'm a board member and had plans to go to that or here and was trying to make a decision, so sometimes the Lord makes the decisions for us so he must have wanted me to stay here for some reason. So we wish the best for Judge Thompson, and I think he's going to be fine.

It's an honor to be associated with and a board member of this Alliance for I-69 Texas. I'm a recent board member; I was elected December 10 when Commissioner Williamson, you spoke at our luncheon and gave a very informative talk that day, and I certainly learned a lot and continue to learn a lot about the transportation system and needs and mechanism and funding for the State of Texas.

And so it's been a pleasure for me to be associated with people like Judge Walker and Mayor Bernal and the others on that alliance and I've really enjoyed it.

The Trans Texas Corridor plan can cause Texas to lead the nation in the building of a transportation system for the 21st century. The Alliance for I-69 Texas wants to be part of that system. We were delighted when our route was made part of the four priority corridors last summer.

From its inception, I-69 was envisioned to move traffic of commercial trade as set out by the commission last summer in its implementation plan. That is the first priority of Trans Texas. While we understand that the conceptual route for I-69, as shown on the Trans Texas Corridor maps, is subject to the environmental route studies -- which are yet to be done -- we want to stress the importance of linkage to our Texas ports.

I-69 has always been envisioned as a corridor to support national and international trade. The alliance will support a route system that provides efficient and direct access to our Texas ports.

The Alliance for I-69 Texas supports the Trans Texas Corridor concept of building on new right of way outside of existing metropolitan areas while continuing to make improvements on the existing federal and state highway system which link our metropolitan areas.

In East Texas -- which I am most familiar -- we need to continue to improve transportation linkage between our communities by bringing US 59 to interstate standards, but the true through traffic which is not stopping in East Texas for pickup or delivery needs to travel on an express route as envisioned by the Trans Texas plan. The result will be segments of I-69 that have both a regional and an express component. We support building both and believe that we can build both.

But to do so will require new, innovative financing authority for TxDOT. The alliance will support additional congressional authority for TxDOT to impose tolls on existing interstate and Federal Aid highways.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We thank you.

MAYOR BLAKE: And we had that in there before your comments this morning. And we will support in the 78th Texas Legislature the state law changes necessary to make this system a reality.

Currently 75 percent of all U.S. truck-borne trade with Mexico travels through Texas, placing a tremendous burden on Texas infrastructure. Almost half of the total U.S. truck-borne trade crosses the Texas-Mexico Border between Laredo and the Lower Rio Grande Valley. While I-35 is a major artery for trade crossing in Laredo, we have all seen the tremendous strain that I-35 is under.

We are working closely with the I-35 group as we approach the congressional action of reauthorization of federal transportation programs. We agree with Bell County Commissioner Tim Brown, who is president of the North American Superhighway Coalition which advocates on behalf of Interstate 35, that these two interstate corridors will serve different NAFTA markets. We need both of these interstate highways.

In the 77th Texas Legislative session, the alliance testified in support of the Mobility Fund, Toll Equity, and Bonding Authority for TxDOT. We hand-delivered letters of support to every member of the legislature on behalf of the eventual compromise that the governor signed into law. We believe I-69 and the other priority routes of Trans Texas can become a reality and it will take aggressive use of these tools and enactment of some additional tools such as those mentioned earlier.

Thank you for your time and for your support.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MAYOR BLAKE: We'd be happy to answer any questions or concerns that you may have.

MR. NICHOLS: I want to thank you for the work that you do independently. That's a huge route to keep a number of people in communities focused on one direction. Hat's off to you and appreciate the work that you do.

Also, I know you're very much aware of this, the six-year federal funding cycle either will or will not have construction funding for I-69 in it, and now is when they're writing that. If it's going to be there, it will be in there at the beginning; if it's not, we'll have to wait six more years to have construction dollars. So it's really critical, as we do talk to our delegation from Texas to the Congress, that they keep that in mind.

MAYOR BLAKE: Anything that we can do to help, we will. That was the message that we took to the Capitol here yesterday. Our philosophy is that what is good for the transportation system on a whole is good for our project as well.

JUDGE WALKER: And as we have stated, we do have consultants in Washington who are working with David Soileau and others to ascertain that we try to make sure that those requests from the commission go into the reauthorization period. And by the way, we like your new terminology; we like PLAN, we like CONSTRUCT even better.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: Ric, did you have some observations?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Just a couple. First of all, I want to say again to the leadership and to all the gathered members how very much the commission appreciates your visionary coming to grips with we can either do it ourselves or whatever help they send us is okay. And it shouldn't be lost on anyone in the state, and in particular those who are interested in transportation along Interstate 35, that the governor and the commission goes out of its way to help people who go out of their way to understand what we've got to do and work with us, and it means more than you'll know -- well, it probably means more than you probably are going to know.

I have two questions I'd like to ask you about policy that we're talking amongst ourselves about and trying to advance across the street, and one is the concept of shadow-tolling, the idea that segments of 69 could be built almost by communities in a partnership with us that allowed the communities to raise the money locally and be reimbursed as the segment is being used. We wonder if you're familiar with that concept and if you may be willing to entertain that as an additional tool that the legislature might give us.

JUDGE WALKER: You know, I think that the alliance is committed to look for every tool. We did discuss that yesterday with Coby Chase and Jefferson Grimes in terms of how that could work, so it is a new concept for us, we only talked about it yesterday.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And putting toll booths on existing interstates, it won't work for everybody, it's not applicable in all parts of the state, but it occurs to us that there might be segments of the 69 corridor that would like to get started that would help, as you said, regionally and locally that would eventually become part of the whole thing.

And we might at the commission level, or certainly at the administration and the district level, find that is a handy tool to smooth out the cash impact on us such that we could get started now and pay for it over time as you primarily use that piece of the corridor until it gets built.

JUDGE WALKER: I think certainly we are open to that. We can't speak for the entire board but it will be something we'll be taking back to the board, and we are serious in helping in the legislative session. Gary Bashell is here in Austin; he can reach any of us anytime that we're needed to come to Austin and testify or whatever.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The second matter that I wish you would at least give some thought to, current law restricts our use of the exclusive development agreement to four projects by the end of March of next year. We've toyed with the idea of asking the legislature to remove the number and instead impose a dollar cap.

We understand the importance of the dollar cap. We don't want to go to turnkey and EDA 100 percent any more than we want to remain design-bid-build 100 percent.

So one of the things we're thinking about asking for is take the cap off but constrain us on a dollar basis, and then smaller attractive EDA projects can be brought to the commission and acted upon, again, segments of the 69 corridor. You might have an EDA that Sam puts together with somebody else and wants to pay for it with shadow tolls and a banker in Nacogdoches that wants to back it.

And you come to us and say we've got the deal put together; it's to your specs. You oversee it and we can get it built and you pay for it over time. So we wish you'd give some thought to whether or not that's something you would feel comfortable about.

And I'd just say again -- and it's very rarely that I would say this from the podium -- that the governor deeply appreciates your progressive vision about this more than you'll ever know.

JUDGE WALKER: And thank you all for the opportunity to be here and to help. We want to see this road built.

MR. JOHNSON: As do we.

I want to emphasize our appreciation -- in fact, one cannot overemphasize our appreciation for the support and leadership you take on our behalf in terms of our state legislative agenda and our federal legislative agenda. As Robert pointed out, this is a critical year because in Austin we are faced with financial challenges, and of course, in Washington we're faced with the reauthorization which has a six-year impact on us.

And the work that you do as a group and also as individual members supporting the legislative plans of this department sometimes go unnoticed, but let me assure you that they are noticed by the commission and they are appreciated by the commission. You do yeoman's work and we can't thank you enough, so I wanted to extend that to you, and appreciate your being here.

Please drive safely. I know many of you have come great distances to be here, and traffic conditions, I believe, have improved today but they're still challenging in some areas of the state.

We're going to take a brief recess. I want everyone to know that when we reconvene for the business portion of the meeting we will start with the approval of the minutes which is standard. We will then go to agenda items 7(a) and 8 and then proceed back to the regular agenda as it is presented.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

MR. JOHNSON: The meeting is reconvened. Before we begin, let me remind you that if anyone would like to address the commission, please make sure that you fill out a card at the registration table which is in the lobby.

To comment on an agenda item, we would ask that you would fill out a yellow card and please identify the agenda item; and if it is not an agenda item, we would ask that you fill out a blue card and we will take your comments during the open comment period at the end of the meeting. Regardless of the color of the card, we would note that each speaker will be allowed three minutes.

And we would also ask you that should you have a cell phone or a pager that you place those in the silent mode because they become distractive to people making presentations.

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

We will then proceed to item 7(a), followed by item 8 on the agenda. Mike, if you will introduce them.

MR. BEHRENS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Item 7(a) is a minute order that tenders a proposal to Bexar County to initiate a series of road improvements for the Toyota facility that is coming to San Antonio. These roadways that we're talking about, commissioners, are Zarzamora Road which goes from Loop 410 south to the intersection of Applewhite Road, and then Applewhite Road from that intersection down to the intersection of Loop 1604, and also Watson Road which goes from State Highway 16 to the east to the proposed entrance of the Toyota plant.

What this minute order will do, it outlines the responsibilities of Bexar County on these particular roadways which would be doing the environmental work plans, specifications and estimates for reconstruction and widening of Zarzamora Road from Loop 410 to Applewhite Road, and then along Applewhite Road from Zarzamora to Loop 1604.

They would also acquire all the right of way for those aforementioned projects. They would pay for all the construction costs for the project on Zarzamora Road and Applewhite Road from Loop 410 down to Loop 1604, and that would be costs that are not covered by the portion that the department will participate in, and then also administer the construction contract for the project on Applewhite Road from Watson Road to Loop 1604.

The department in turn will provide the contract letting, the administration and construction inspection to widen Zarzamora Road from 410 to Applewhite, and then along Applewhite Road from Zarzamora to Watson Road. Also, we're asking you to provide $9.1 million of Strategic Priority funding toward the reconstruction and widening of Zarzamora Road from 410 to Applewhite, and then also Applewhite from Zarzamora Road to Watson Road.

Also included is to designate Watson Road as a state highway spur and that would be that roadway that goes from State Highway 16 over to the plant site, a distance of 1.3 miles. Then also with that designation we're asking you to allow us to develop that roadway to a four-lane divided highway where we would incur the cost of environmental studies, right of way, schematics, plans, et cetera on that particular project. The cost of that project is $8-1/2 million and we're also asking for that from Strategic Priority funding.

These are the first phase of projects that occur along these county roads. Next month we'll be coming back to you with another minute order that will ask for the approval of doing the work on highways on our state system, such as at Loop 410, on State Highway 16 and also on Loop 1604. The county projects, the first one, Watson Road, we're trying to go to construction in October of 2003, complete that section of Watson Road to the plant site by December of 2004.

And then the improvements on Zarzamora Road and Applewhite Road, we're looking to go to a letting with those two projects in January of 2004. This would enable these roads to be completed quickly which puts them in place so while they're bringing in construction materials and employees to construct the plant site, they will be there.

Staff recommends your approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: In my reading of the minute order, it does not contain mention of a loan from the State Infrastructure Bank, but we are committed to working with Bexar County on such a loan.

MR. BEHRENS: Yes. That will also be another minute order that will be coming to you for approval of that SIB loan.

MR. JOHNSON: We have four people who have asked to speak on this agenda item. Number one, Sam Dawson who is the chair of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition.

Welcome, Sam.

MR. DAWSON: Good morning, Chairman Johnson, members of the commission.

MR. JOHNSON: It is a good morning.

MR. DAWSON: Yes, it is. Members of the commission Nichols and Williamson, Mr. Behrens, it's good to see you. Again, my name is Sam Dawson, chairman of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition.

As you know, back in September we were here with a delegation of about 100 people and we came to you identifying specific needs, but at the same time our presentation was a little bit overshadowed by the fact that Toyota had just announced that they were focusing in on San Antonio. Obviously, for all of us that was an exciting day because we recognized not only the economic impact on our community but the state as a whole.

At that meeting we all were excited and committed to do what we could to make sure Toyota was coming and each of you made your commitment to do your part to make sure that it was going to be a reality. Well, Toyota is coming to San Antonio, and we are here to say in advance thank you because not only have you made the commitments but you have fulfilled those commitments. You have partnered with us, you have been with us, and now we have the opportunity to fund those commitments. Without you, we truly believe that Toyota would not be a reality.

So on behalf of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition and the business community of San Antonio, we in advance will say thank you, but also thank you for your partnership. We do have several speakers, but before they come up here, at the same time we want to extend to you an invitation to hold one of your hearings in San Antonio early 2004 so you can see the progress that we are making on the plant site and to see the progress that we are making on other transportation initiatives. So in advance, thank you for what you are doing.

Yes, sir?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Sam, thank you for your work also. It was a remarkable partnership, I think, between state, local and federal officials. I have a couple of questions. As you know, I use the podium to advance positions.

At one point the decision of Toyota to move might have been influenced by whether or not someone could figure out how to build a short railroad line, and because state law at this point doesn't authorize us to do that, it fell upon the community to figure out how to do that. And I know you're aware, had we had the ability, TxDOT would have stepped in and done that.

And I know that the various Toyota officials that the governor has come to know well in the last six months have repeatedly emphasized the importance of a high speed corridor and being able to move quickly to provide rail service where the narrow interests that exist today don't want to move too fast.

Is it your belief that additional industrial expansion can occur in Texas if Texas can walk away from the narrow interests of today and understand that it's got to be able to move fast on these matters and that this is the appropriate state agency to have the authority to do things such as build short pieces of railroad to make these things happen?

MR. DAWSON: Well, if I need to say yes to get our money, yes.

(General laughter.)

MR. DAWSON: Absolutely.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You don't need to do that

MR. DAWSON: Absolutely. I mean, we are in a position there with the plant site and other industry throughout the entire state where we've got to have the ability for not only moving quickly but eminent domain and having the funding mechanisms to make things happen without having our hands tied by entities that possibly would not want us to move forward.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We all recognize that there are legitimate narrow interests that are part of the state's makeup.

MR. DAWSON: Absolutely.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But the truth is sometimes we have to take a step back and think about the common interest and the importance of this state. I mean, in all of this what has really impressed me is that about 4,000 minimum, high-wage-paying jobs will bring 10,000 Texans from one level of wealth to another level of wealth which improves the property tax base of the school districts they live in, which improves their capacity to buy cars from Red, which improves their ability to go to basketball games and pay the ticket price.

I mean, the governor's point is taxes are generated in two ways: you can raise the rate or you can do the things you have to do to attract Toyota and GMC and Siemens and on and on and on. And we've got to look at the common interest and give ourselves the tools to do that. It's a pretty eye-opening experience, isn't it?

MR. DAWSON: Yes, sir. It's been a great experience.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Chairman.

MR. JOHNSON: Gabriel Perez who is the executive director of infrastructure services, Bexar County. Delighted that you're here.

MR. PEREZ: Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Williamson, Mr. Behrens.

My comments will be brief. I think Sam pretty much said it all. I think one of the issues, as we looked at last September and October in our negotiations and conversations with Toyota, we were at that time looking from a policy perspective of attracting Toyota and developing a package that would be good enough to attract them, but obviously in my position now I've got to put an implementer's hat on and go out and find a way to implement these roads according to the schedule which Mr. Behrens listed out -- which is a very aggressive schedule.

But I think having said that, all the work that we've done and all that we looked at, those days were far overshadowed by the announcement by Toyota here recently to come to San Antonio, Bexar County, State of Texas.

Essentially, my purpose today is to express thanks to the commission for their consideration in this matter, to express thanks to Mr. Behrens as the executive director. In the short conversations that we had and the very brief correspondence that we had during the process, he was very helpful and very to the point and helped a great deal in getting to where we're at today. More importantly, I want to express my thanks to John Kelly, the district engineer there in San Antonio, Bexar County, and their staff in terms of what we are doing now.

As we speak, we are having several meetings to get to the end result which will be to provide the roadway for Toyota, and in our negotiations we feel very confident in the dates we put in there. Because of the relationship that we have and because of the expertise that they have, we felt confident, as Toyota did, that we will deliver the projects on time in order to get the facility moving and maintain the ability for them to construct their facilities.

So thank you to Mr. Behrens and his staff, and thank you to John Kelly and his staff. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

Councilwoman Bonnie Connor, Mayor Pro Tem of San Antonio.

MS. CONNOR: Good morning. It's good to see all of you. Thank you for allowing us to be here, and thank you for the comments you made, Commissioner Williamson. As a former educator, this is so exciting to me, the potential for our community to rise up to another level and then all the trickle-down effects that will happen in our city and in our state. This is a far-reaching event for everyone, I think.

So we're here to say thank you from the city and from Mayor Garza, who couldn't be here today. This has been a collaboration of many, of course, from the state on down to citizens in our city. So we thank you very much. Please note this is our flag of friendship that I have on. If I had some I would have brought them to you, but we wear them proudly.

For those of you who can't see it, it's the Texas flag and the Japanese flag. We're all just kind of shivering with excitement still and anxious to move forward and move forward in a timely manner to complete the project. And thank you so much for your assistance.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you for your leadership.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

Judge Nelson Wolff, Bexar County Judge.

JUDGE WOLFF: Well, let me tell you, I've never seen such an incredible effort by state and local government as was put together on the Toyota effort. Governor Perry, Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst, and Craddick -- and Craddick, by the way, was there in 1968 and I got there in 1970; he just outlasted you and I a little bit, and became Speaker of the House. But it was an incredible effort and the role that this commission played was the key part of making that happen. The partnership that you've forged with us at Bexar County to do these roads with us putting up a chunk of the money and you helping on the roads was absolutely critical, and as everybody has stated, we're very excited about this happening.

I do want to speak to Mr. Williamson's earlier comments about toll roads. We are working on that also. There's a newspaper article that I'd like to share with Mr. Behrens on the effort that we've begun working on the toll road issues. We've identified five good projects we think can work; we've got the consultants ready to go; we're seeking public input through the metropolitan planning organization.

And we hope to be able to identify some projects by this coming summer where the court and working with the governor can hopefully be able to move forward on a project that we think we can identify and make it a viable toll road project.

So we're there with you, and anything that we can do in this legislative session to support any of the legislative initiatives that you will have, we certainly want to be counted as supportive of those. Thanks.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Ric?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Chairman, I have actually two sets of questions: I've got half for Sam and I reserved the other half for the judge.

You know, during this drive to tolls -- that's a pun, I guess -- I don't think any of us want to go out to our constituency and misrepresent that it's free. None of us look forward to paying tolls any more than we look forward to paying an increased gasoline tax. The state made a decision that from a policy perspective, a direct user fee is the best way to build the new roads we need to build in this state.

And as you move through the RMA process and fashion something that works for you in Bexar County, we will always be saying to the free press that sits here with us today, and to the citizens of San Antonio and Corpus Christi and El Paso, this was the governor's and the commission's best way to set a system in place where 100 percent of the money you collect stays in your county to pay for transportation projects that you deem most important without the state backing up in any way on the tax money it will continue to invest in your area.

So we don't want Roddy to write an article that says we're trying to hoodwink anybody. We just believe that the Texas way is to recognize the problem, figure out a way to solve it, and solve it, and when we do that, more Toyotas will follow. That was a statement.

The question I had for you, during your discussions with Toyota or with other industrial leaders, did it become abundantly clear to you that the industries of the future that will move to this state are probably not going to move to downtown San Antonio or Dallas or Houston?

MR. DAWSON: In San Antonio, in fact, it's way south of town in a rural area that had limited rail access, I might add, and that is a problem, I think, in more areas than just ours.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And the reason I asked the question -- and I appreciate your response -- the governor gave a lot of thought to the corridor and he talked to a lot of people, and what he came to realize was we can attract Siemens and Toyota and GMC. If the only thing we have to offer is another location in an overpopulated, congested area, that's not where the industrial growth of this state is going to occur.

It's going to occur on the edge of San Antonio. it's going to occur 30 miles east of Austin and 20 miles east of Waco and 30 miles east of Dallas, and it's not going to occur in downtown Houston; that's just not going to happen.

It doesn't matter how many lanes you build in a congested area, if it stays congested, Toyota is not going to build there and they're not going to build an air shed that's under the threat of being shut down because of non-attainment matters. It just pleases me so greatly when a community like San Antonio and Bexar County looks around and says: You know, that's right, our future is in high speed corridors that will hire the people that live in our county but not necessarily be right next to where everybody else is.

JUDGE WOLFF: I think it's one of the most progressive ideas that this state has moved forward on, and not only just the asphalt part of it but the adjacent rail line. We almost missed this opportunity simply because we did not have dual rail access. The commissioners court, thank goodness, had the right to create a rail district and the state stepped up and helped us, but had we had not that authority, it wouldn't have happened.

So when you say that there needs to be identifiable authority that may have to build a railroad along with the highway, it ought to be consolidated into one agency. We moved very fast and did everything within the authority that we had to have and we were lucky because we had someone there that chaired it that had owned 28 different short railroad lines and was retired and sold his company, but had we not had that person, we may not have had the credibility. We had to establish the credibility very quickly to assure them that we could do this project. Things did come together for us but it may not come together in other areas, and without dual rail access, they're not going to build a manufacturing plant.

I think Chairman Johnson sees that in Houston with the chemical plants and the higher rates that you pay, 30 to 60 percent higher when you don't have dual rail access, and so I hope the legislature may address that issue and give you some additional authority to look at both those elements.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We hope Toyota will be such an outstanding example of why this is necessary that it will be almost a no-brainer to move through with it. Thank you for all the work you did on this. You've been nice to us today but I think we recognize that a lot of it was your own bootstraps.

JUDGE WOLFF: Thanks.

MR. JOHNSON: Robert, did you have anything?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. JOHNSON: Robert has moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And I second.

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

(A chorus of ayes.)

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

MR. BEHRENS: We'll move to agenda item number 8. Carlos Lopez will present a minute order authorizing funding for the 2002 Program Call for the Safe Routes to School Program.

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

The minute order before you authorizes a Safe Routes to School Program of approximately $5.1 million. About $3.8 million of those dollars will be provided by Federal Transportation Enhancement funds and the remainder would be provided by local and state matches.

A Safe Routes to School Program Call was published in the August 2, 2002, issue of the Texas Register with a project submittal deadline of December 6, 2002. One hundred ninety-one applications were evaluated by TxDOT staff and the department's Bicycle Advisory Committee. Twenty-seven projects that were ranked highly by both the TxDOT review team and the Bicycle Advisory Committee have been forwarded for your consideration. We recommend approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: We have two who have asked to sign up on this agenda item. We'd like to welcome Representative Roberto Gutierrez who is the sponsor of the bill that provided this.

Representative, welcome. Thank you. The podium is yours.

MR. GUTIERREZ: Chairman Johnson, Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Williamson, and Director Behrens. I want to thank your staff -- you have an excellent staff -- and especially Carlos who worked with us very diligently, and at first telling us there was no funds. We kept insisting keep looking, keep looking because there's got to be some funds somewhere that we can use for this. And obviously we wanted to use first the Hazardous Elimination Act that we knew had resources there, and we just kept communicating with Carlos until one day he called and said, We found $3 million.

We were able then to set aside $3 million to fund the Safe Routes to School Program which was established by House Bill 2204. We were greatly supported by all the cyclists in the State of Texas, especially the Texas Bicycle Coalition led by Gayle Cummins who is here, as well as Robin Stallings who is here as well and represents the bicycle industry.

Without their help and the other cyclists throughout the state, obviously it would have been very difficult for us to have done this project and pass the legislation. But we all worked very diligently and we all worked in conjunction with TxDOT and this agency that we were able then to pass our bill.

Today Matthew Brown is looking at us from the heavens, smiling, I would think, if we could see him because this shows us that his death, when he lost his life in a bicycle-car accident back about three or four years ago, has not gone in vain, that the loss of his life will save others in the future by promoting with his mother the Safe Routes to School Program and bringing it to us and the need for it.

This program is a statewide program, as was indicated by Carlos in his presentation, but more important, the nation is looking at Texas to possibly enact legislation to establish Safe Routes to School that was done in Texas and promote it throughout the nation so that other states hopefully will follow the State of Texas' example.

Let me congratulate you again for not only giving us $3 million, but as Carlos said, a grand total of $5.1 million, of which almost a million dollars comes from local funds, almost $350,000 comes from state funds, and almost $4 million comes from federal funds.

So let me ask you that we need to keep working together so that we can keep funding this program and expand the resources available for us to assist -- Gayle told me that they reviewed over 200 applicants and Carlos alluded to about 150, but actually reviewed were over 200 applicants. Of the 200 applicants, totaling $45 million in all of the applications, of those, 27 projects were approved.

And let me congratulate your staff, Director Behrens, in locating these dollars not in only one region of the state but spreading it geographically throughout the state which is what we need to do so that we don't favor any one region of the state but work with all regions of the state so that we can help the state overall, and we established the Safe Routes to School that will save the lives of our children going to school and from school.

Now, the Toyota project is an excellent project. It will bring economic expansion to our state and open the eyes of a lot of other big industry that hopefully will decide if Toyota is going there, why are they going there, we need to look at Texas, and maybe we need to relocate over there.

And when you talk about space, that you're going south of San Antonio, let me tell you the Rio Grande Valley, we've got lots of space, lots of space, and we have rail as well, and not only that, we have a port in Brownsville and we have a port in Corpus as well, so that will be available for that.

While that will bring us a tremendous expansion in the economic status of the state, the Safe Routes to School will bring us a safe route to school that will save lives for our children in years to come.

With that, I thank you and I'll respond to any questions that you might have.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Did you have anything?

MR. NICHOLS: I have a comment. I wanted to thank you for the leadership that you've shown in this issue because when that bill passed, I know Carlos and them not only were carving out this program to be driven as a separate program but the basic principles in your Safe Routes to School, we went and applied it to some of the other programs we were evaluating, and in our Transportation Enhancement -- which could be everything from landscaping to a wide variety of things -- we had them go and do more of an informal evaluation of all those projects to see if they factored into Safe Routes to School and many of them did, and because of that extra thing that would not have occurred without your work, we ended up rating some of those higher than they originally would have been.

And there was about $30 million of those projects that were granted that would maybe not have been granted had it not had a pretty good weighting of Safe Routes to School in it. So I just wanted to thank you. I thought it was great.

MR. GUTIERREZ: And certainly this just proves that if we just work together, we can do so much more.

And I'd like to leave you with a thought. The City of McAllen came out with a sign that says: "Use your head, wear a helmet." You might look at it and incorporate it into your signage program.

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

MR. GUTIERREZ: Likewise. Thank you for your leadership when you were in the House.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, that's kind of you, and this is an enjoyable moment today because we've got a great contrast of it's important to lead industry into the state and it's important to take care of our kids, and this state is focused on the things that really matter.

MR. GUTIERREZ: And we need your leadership and your assistance in helping establish a good funding formula for our public schools. You worked very well when you were there with us.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You will figure that out, I'm sure.

MR. GUTIERREZ: We're trying. Thank you very much.

MR. JOHNSON: Robin Stallings, who chaired the TxDOT Bicycle Advisory Committee.

Robin, thank you for the work that you've done on this project.

MR. STALLINGS: Well, I can truly say it was a pleasure. TxDOT Commissioners Nichols, Johnson, Williamson, and Executive Director Behrens. I just wanted to say on behalf of the TxDOT Bicycle Advisory Committee that we so much collectively appreciate the opportunity to participate in this extraordinary collaboration. And I needed to mention some of the groups because it's really unbelievable how many different entities were involved in this on behalf of Texas schoolchildren. We Texans pulled together for our kids this time.

There were individual schools involved in these applications; there were school districts; there were cities and different departments within the cities that had to collaborate, and same with the counties; there were PTAs that were involved; neighborhood groups that had never spoken with their PTAs before, they worked together on these applications; there were local bicycle and pedestrian advocacy groups; the TxDOT districts, the engineers and the bicycle specialists within the TxDOT districts that were involved in the initial development of these applications.

And then once they got to the state level, the Traffic Operations Division that was led by Carlos Lopez, and just incredible, the developing of the rules under Carlos's leadership, Meg Moore and Debra Vermillion; once we were dealing with this mountain of applications, Mario Medina was extraordinary in helping our committee -- and I need to say his name twice, Mario Medina. Of course Paul Douglas is always incredible and a very great help to the bicycle community and a great reflection on TxDOT.

This would not have happened if it had not been for Representative Roberto Gutierrez. His leadership, his persistence, day in and day out at the Capitol with a lot of big pressing things, is truly going to make a big difference in the lives of Texas schoolchildren. His staff, led by Ruben Longoria, is incredible and continued to follow and monitor this day in and day out. They didn't just pass the legislation, they have not stopped.

Then of course, Governor Rick Perry, boy, he vetoed a lot of bills last session and he's been very careful about money, but this is the kind of thing that he passed, he saw the value of it. And we just heard the representative say $350,000 of state money, over $5 million for this project. I'd say that's a pretty good leverage, that's a pretty good use of Texas taxpayers' money.

And it wouldn't have happened at all without the Texas Bicycle Coalition, I think, bringing it to Roberto Gutierrez. And I've got to mention Gayle Cummins and Preston Tyree; Linda Armstrong, Lance's mother has been a big player in this; and of course, Barbara Brown, Matthew Brown's mother, should not be forgotten, she has been working tirelessly as well.

Thank you so much. Every one of us appreciated a chance to participate in this. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Robert, did you have anything?

MR. NICHOLS: No comments.

MR. JOHNSON: Ric?

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's a pleasurable moment.

MR. JOHNSON: Robin, I think the role that all those people and organizations played in this moment is very important, and it was great of you to mention all of them.

I particularly want to thank the Bicycle Advisory Committee, what they've done in reviewing that many applications -- and I know they were not cursory reviews, they were very thorough -- it's a mountain of work, and what it yields is being able to do what we're about to do today -- the methodology of reviewing all those and where they rated strong, and then there was another committee that rated them, and the strong on both of them are the ones that fell through and were able to receive the funds,

I think it's a good methodology and required a lot of work, but at the end of the day you look back and say this is really wonderful what has taken place. The winners are going to be everyone and especially the schoolchildren of this great state.

MR. STALLINGS: Well, I want to say not only the Bicycle Advisory Committee worked really hard on this, but the TxDOT committee. The combination of the two was exactly what was needed. As citizens we had a certain feel for what we thought made sense and the way we looked at the criteria to rate these things, but we weren't engineers.

Even though we had the help of Mario Medina advising us a little on that, we really needed that balance, and the makeup of that committee that were from all different areas of TxDOT was extremely well done, and I think we should hold onto that model. It was hard work, it took a long time, and the most difficult thing was trying to decide which project.

I think that the way that we would have to say this is that there were strong, stronger and strongest projects. We had to call some weak and we did not want to do that on any of them because they were just absolutely incredible. You could see the effort and the sweat that the communities had gone to.

And speaking of leverage, we've heard anecdotally that a lot of communities are already trying to find out how they can fund their projects that went through this process, went through this rating system, and everybody is trying to find money to fund some of those. So I believe that the impact of these applications will go beyond just the ones that were approved today and I think that we can all be very excited about this.

I do know also that at the federal level they have been looking at this very, very closely, and I am excited to be going to Washington next week with Gayle Cummins and we're going to be a resource for many of our congressional members. Three out of four of our Transportation Committee members have asked to hear about this; our senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison personally; and we're meeting with another 20 offices and they all wanted to hear about Safe Routes to School.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So we may get to do this again.

MR. STALLINGS: Well, with this I tender my resignation, and our board collectively because it was too hard -- I'm just teasing.

MR. JOHNSON: We wouldn't consider accepting your resignation so you can forget that.

MR. STALLINGS: Thank you so much.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

I believe we have consideration of a minute order before us.

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 very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Good job.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll go back to the regular order in our agenda, go back to item 4, Aviation. Dave Fulton will recommend some funding improvements for airports in the state.

MR. FULTON: Thank you, Mike.

Commissioners, for the record, my name is Dave Fulton, director of the TxDOT Aviation Division.

Item 4 is a minute order that contains a request for grant funding approval for 16 airport improvement projects and one loan request for hangar construction. The total estimated cost of all requests is shown on the attached Exhibit A as approximately $8.8 million, approximately $3.4- federal, $4.5- state, and $900,000 local.

A public hearing was held on February 7, 2003. Two individuals provided comments pertaining to the request by the City of McKinney; responses to those comments have been made. And with regard to McKinney, we conducted an environmental assessment for their request in accordance with Federal Aviation Administration guidelines, and it led to a finding of no significant impact.

I would recommend approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: We have eight people who have requested to speak on this agenda item. First will be Ken Wiegand, the airport manager from the City of McKinney.

MR. WIEGAND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. It's my pleasure to speak to you this morning.

First, I'd like to respectfully ask that you consider our request. We've worked long and hard to get where we are today. We've got an airport in McKinney that's facing the expansion north of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex; we've got rooftops that are popping up all over town; we need to generate more revenues for our community, and we believe that our airport is just that economic generator that we need to do that.

These funds will be used to fund a master plan update and a Part 150 noise study. The master plan update will provide us with guidance on airport development for the next 20 years -- or more realistically, of course, the next five years, and the 150 noise study, of course, will allow us to recognize what the impact of aviation has on our residents and on the environment and allow us to adjust to those if need be.

Our first priority is to build a safe, secure and environmentally sound airport, and we're ready and we're looking forward to your support to get that done. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

MR. JOHNSON: Second is Brian Loughmiller, city councilman from McKinney.

Brian, I hope I pronounced your name right.

MR. LOUGHMILLER: It's Loughmiller but everybody calls me Lowmiller, so that's fine.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, welcome, Brian.

MR. LOUGHMILLER: Thank you, Chairman Johnson and thank you commissioners for allowing me to speak today. I wanted to talk a little bit about McKinney's commitment to this process because McKinney is committed to this process.

I was elected to the city council in June of this past year and I was named the liaison to the airport board, and when Mr. Wiegand came on board with the airport, one of the things that we first discussed was the need to make sure that we have community involvement in this process, to make sure that the communication effort is done well, and that all parties that need to be represented are represented.

We have done that and McKinney has made that commitment to make sure that we benefit all the citizens of McKinney as well as the surrounding areas. Some examples of where we have evidence of that commitment that I feel has been made since coming into office.

Number one is just the commitment that the city has made to the master plan process and the Part 150 study through the approval by the city council of the city's funding portion of those studies; secondly, our airport board has prepared a preliminary draft for a technical advisory committee as well as a citizens committee. Those two committees and that draft will be presented by the airport board at a meeting and then I will subsequently bring that to the city council.

With that recommendation we are including representatives from all the surrounding communities -- I have a copy of the draft with me -- and for instance, our regional jurisdiction will include people from Plano, Allen, Fairview, Lowry Crossing, Princeton, Frisco, and Melissa. We will have three citizens from the City of McKinney on the technical advisory board and the recommendations for those individuals will include at least two people from the area of District 1 which is an affected area by the airport. They will then be the liaisons to the citizens committee which will include two citizens from each district of the City of McKinney and will also include representatives from surrounding neighborhoods.

We've also made a commitment in our efforts to resolve disputes with the town of Fairview to the south of us. I served on the mediation team that worked with the town of Fairview recently in trying to come to some agreements with regard to issues with Fairview. And what we were able to accomplish through that is to show that we do want to communicate with them, there is a plan and a process that has to be followed, our goal is to follow that process.

We are going to follow the requirements of the state and the FAA, we're going to go through the planning process that will take about 18 months, and we will see where that leads us, and both communities will have the opportunity to have input along the way. And that's the commitment that we made to Fairview at that mediation, and as a result, we've been able to agree to have an abatement of any litigation, any conflicts that have arisen over the past several years.

All of these commitments have been made by our city. My personal commitment as a representative of the City of McKinney, as well as the liaison to the airport board, that I've said from the time I came into office is one of inclusion, one of community involvement, one of making sure that communication is made publicly so that everybody has a chance to speak their piece, and I'll continue to do that as long as I'm in office through 2005.

Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Larry Robinson, city manager, City of McKinney.

MR. ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission for allowing us to come before you.

I would like to start off by reading a letter from our mayor who could not join us today, Mayor Don Dozier, a one-page letter.

"Unfortunately I am not able to accompany City Manager Robinson, Councilman Loughmiller, and Airport Manager Wiegand to your meeting today. On behalf of the citizens of McKinney, I send my sincere appreciation for each of your service.

"McKinney City Council recognizes that the McKinney Municipal Airport is a critical air transportation center for businesses throughout McKinney and the entire Collin County region, and as you know, we are about to engage in an important master plan update and Part 150 noise study that will guide us in the development of our airport and actions that we may take to continue our objective of being a community-friendly air transportation hub for the North Central Texas region.

"The master plan update is designed to forecast airport operations in five, ten, fifteen and twenty years to guide the city on an infrastructure that is needed to support that type of growth. The noise study will identify existing noise levels, project future noise levels. Then if indicated, it will provide us with alternatives to mitigate that aircraft noise. So as you can see, these projects are critical to the present and future development of the McKinney Airport.

"The 12 to 18-month planning process begins April 14 of this year and will involve many of our citizens. As Council Member Loughmiller mentioned, we want to be inclusive. We're about to invite representatives from all districts within the city, Collin County and many of our neighboring towns and communities in the county to assist as members of a technical and a citizens advisory committee. This will ensure that the community and its neighbors are involved in the important decisions that will ultimately be made regarding the future of McKinney Municipal Airport and its surrounding region.

"We look forward to proceeding with these projects in a timely manner and appreciate the commission's consideration of these requests."

I'll leave this letter with you.

Again, as already mentioned, this airport, a very safe, progressive airport, established 1979, is an economic catalyst not only for the City of McKinney but for the region in Collin County which is one of the fastest-growing counties in the State of Texas, as well as the City of McKinney growing at a 15 percent growth rate.

I thank you for your time and indulgence.

MR. JOHNSON: Might I ask you one question that occurred to me. Of the money under consideration for the grant, how much of that is for studies and what portion of it is for construction or expansion?

MR. ROBINSON: I believe Mr. Fulton has the breakdown.

MR. FULTON: I'm not sure I have the exact figures. The noise study, Linda, could you help me with it?

VOICE: The noise study was about $250,000.

MR. FULTON: And same for the master plan? So about $400,000 for study; the rest of the money is for engineering and construction to open up a new part of the airport to development.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

Next speaker is Gilda Garza, city council member, I assume from McKinney. Is that correct? And also a LULAC representative.

MS. GARZA: Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is Gilda Garza; I'm from the City of McKinney. I'm here to represent the League of United Latin American Citizens, Council 608 from McKinney, Texas. I also happen to be a city council member of District 1 in the City of McKinney; however, I am here representative of LULAC and also as a taxpayer of the City of McKinney.

In 1999 the League of United Latin American Citizens filed a complaint with the federal government in reference to Executive Order 12898 that mandates that low income and minority neighborhoods be protected from environmental hazards. The City of McKinney has not adhered to that executive order and it has jeopardized the residents in health and in safety in the surrounding neighborhoods. As custodian and distributor of these funds, the LULAC council asks that you please support the federal complaint by not extending additional funds to the McKinney Municipal Airport.

Instead of hindering and disrupting residents' quality of life, we look forward to the city enhancing this quality of life. For the past 20 years, at least 20 years, the airport has lost money; since the year 2001, the municipal airport has lost $3 million; thus far in this fiscal year it has lost a half million dollars. It has continued to waste taxpayers' money and it continues to be a burden to all taxpayers, and especially to the residents that live in the surrounding neighborhoods.

My personal opinion is that the funds should be better spent on highways than airways. There's far more automobiles than planes and the need to support the mobility on the ground is far more important than the air.

I didn't come here to debate what the gentlemen before me had to say; however, I'd like to contradict three things that they said. They probably have done the environmental assessment; however, an environmental impact study needs to be done. And there has been no community involvement, not from my district, and also there has not been a representative from my district, any neighbors, any residents, as required by the FAA.

So as a LULAC member and a private resident of the City of McKinney and a minority from this low income neighborhood, we'd just request that no further funding be provided to the City of McKinney for its municipal airport. Any questions?

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Was the neighborhood there when the airport was built?

MS. GARZA: Yes, sir, it was.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So it's the neighborhood and then the airport came and the airport is expanding.

MS. GARZA: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Cynthia Kaminsky.

MS. KAMINSKY: Before I start, I have some statements from the City of Princeton's mayor that I would like to distribute to you. She called them in and dictated them to me over the phone. She was unable to make it because of the weather.

MR. NICHOLS: City of Princeton?

MS. KAMINSKY: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is that a new city?

MS. KAMINSKY: No. It's old.

I would like to thank you for allowing me to speak before you today, and also would like to thank you for making sure that I received notice of the February 7 Aviation meeting. It was due to your input that I received that notice, and I thank you.

As you are well aware, the State of Texas and Collin County are experiencing serious problems in the areas of budgeting, air quality and job creation. These matters deserve a well thought out, well-rounded economic strategy that will provide global optimum for the community, county and state. Quick fixes and single-minded expansion are not what is needed and will only worsen the problems. The current McKinney Municipal Airport expansion and development plans are prime examples of single-minded development designed not with smart growth and well-planned economic development in mind, but instead only with airport expansion no matter what the cost -- and the cost is high.

The environmental assessments performed for the airport do not meet the requirements for FAA order 5050.4(a). One specific example of the many deficiencies is in the incomplete cumulative impact statement. It did not include the following: a large looped waterline; the construction of a six-lane major thoroughfare named Airport Drive and the related infrastructure; a full environmental analysis of the fuel farm location; the change to wetland drainage due to the McKinney Hangar Owners Association project due to be serviced by the taxiway up for funding today; the desired through-the-fence operations; customs impact on the area; industrialization of the area; and so on. These major and significant elements must be studied together but they have not.

The McKinney Municipal Airport continues to piecemeal expansion and development and to ignore federal laws and regulations. It is necessary that the State of Texas demand that all laws, rules and regulations be followed. We feel it is also necessary that the State of Texas demand conformance before any additional funding approvals are given for this state and federally funded facility.

The current plans that have been in development for a year, and according to the McKinney consultants, will form 60 to 80 percent of the new master plan and were created without public input. They will worsen the air quality in Collin County which is not currently in compliance with EPA air quality standards, a fact that threatens billions of federal transportation dollars to the State of Texas. On warm days a brown haze settles over the airport; this haze will worsen if the current and desired plans are put in place.

Also as a note, not all affected areas are being represented in the master planning process.

The City of McKinney is currently funding the creation of a new comprehensive plan. Funding an airport master plan at this time is premature. The airport needs to contribute to the comprehensive plan, along with all other interested parties. The airport master plan should only be funded after the comprehensive plan is completed. Early funding will invalidate the comprehensive plan effort and result in suboptimal economic development solutions.

We are not opposed to economic development. We support smart and strategic economic development, job creation, and innovative solutions to pollution. To do this we must have meaningful and significant material input. We do not have this through the City of McKinney. Although the city and airport may allow us input, it is in no way allowed to materially affect the plans that they are pushing.

Just as an aside, we are creating an alternative plan that will be ready, hopefully, in the May time frame that we would like to present to you because it does involve transportation initiatives and alternative ways to promote the economic development of the area. It does include the airport, but also alternative modes of transportation.

In summary, I ask: one, that all funding, construction, planning and project activity be stopped until after the City of McKinney's comprehensive plan is finished; two, that all airport funding, expansion and development activity be stopped until after a full environmental impact statement is performed by an independent third party -- this study should be funded by the City of McKinney with their bond money that has airport provisions; three, that citizens are allowed to have material, meaningful and significant input into all planning processes; and four, that all items for the McKinney Municipal Airport up for funding today are denied.

Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions of Ms. Kaminsky?

MR. WILLIAMSON: A couple of questions of Dave.

MR. NICHOLS: I'm going to wait till everybody is done.

MR. JOHNSON: Amanda Tucker, I believe. I might have butchered your last name and I apologize for that.

MS. TACKETT: Hi. My name is Amanda Tackett and I live in Collin County. I actually live in a town called Fairview, Texas, which was incorporated in 1954.

My home sits south of the McKinney Airport and I live under a constant curtain of noise. On the way down here in the car we had talked about what are the things that are important to you and what do you want to speak about, and last night I sat down and wrote down my comments, but I'd really like to just speak to you from my heart about what's really going on with this.

I'm a stay-at-home mom, I do volunteer work and I help my husband with his business, and that is my life. Basically I'm at home most of the time, so while other people are at work and at their jobs, I see the aircraft activity directly. I want to tell you first of all, it frightens my child. My daughter is seven years old and we've had to rearrange her bedroom and put these drapes over her bed and blackout shades because the lights from the planes coming over frighten her.

Mr. Williamson asked an important question which was were these neighborhoods there before. Yes, they were. Fairview was there before, my subdivision was built out before, and there are only additional homes there now because people sold off different sections of their acreage over time and so it's become more developed, but there were people living there before the airport was ever even conceived of. I think that that's important.

And there's never been a full comprehensive environmental impact analysis done of this airport. I know that there was an environmental assessment that was turned in last year, but I have to tell you in all honesty that was as comprehensive as if I had written it myself and said, Yeah, everything looks great guys, go ahead. And that's a disappointment as a citizen.

In October of 2001, my husband and I had gone up to the airport on a Sunday afternoon because we had had a tremendous amount of air traffic that day and we wanted to get the N numbers off of the planes that had just landed so we could turn them in, as directed, to the FAA so that they could look into it.

And when we got up there, coincidentally there was a fuel spill that day, and we sat there and we were watching them clean up this fuel spill, and they put kitty litter and absorbent on it -- which you would expect them to do -- and then from there one of the airport employees put it in the back of his personal pickup truck and drove it into Fairview and began scooping the kerosene waste kitty litter into the potholes of his mother's driveway.

So when Mr. Wiegand and the city council and the mayor tell you that they want to run an environmentally comprehensive facility, I have to differ with them. I mean, that story would be funny if it wasn't true, and yet they go in and they build a bigger fuel tank, bigger fuel farm, and they continue expanding.

What I don't understand about their request today is they're asking for money to do the studies and I think that I understand that, but the City of McKinney passed the largest bond in its history last year and there was ample funding in there for airport initiatives. There is the $500,000 that they need to complete their studies there without coming back to the State with their hands out. But they have already initiated construction.

I mean, ground has been broken; they are building out there; these projects are well underway. But it's easier, I guess, to come to you with their hands out and beg for forgiveness than it was to come to you to ask for permission.

It is the right thing for Collin County to try to develop economic opportunities for small businesses, for medium businesses, for corporations and to draw things, it is the right thing to do. It is the wrong thing when you subvert federal law, state law, general environmental safety principles, and you fail to consider people's quality of life and their standards of living.

You know, the airport, I've been getting up at board meetings and speaking, I've been calling into the airport, I've been complaining to the FAA, I've written Mr. Fulton. None of these people have ever come back and contacted me and said: Mrs. Tackett, what is your input; what exactly is your beef; what are you and your husband upset about; why is your child frightened to sleep in her bed? They've never done that; they've had ample opportunity.

So you know, what's being presented to you today is not a realistic portrayal of what's really going on at the McKinney Airport, and I hope that when you vote and you think about this, this is a tremendous amount of money for them.

For the last year at the airport board meetings, as they've been talking about changing these roads, and they need to adjust this, and they talked to Dave, I thought Dave was a government acronym, I didn't realize that Dave was Dave Fulton. And it became glowingly apparent last fall that: Oh yeah, don't worry about it, we're going to go ahead and start this, we need to do this to get clearance for these wings, and all this technical stuff, and don't worry about it because we talked to Dave.

So I've come down here twice on my own dime, leaving my -- turning everything over, my regular responsibilities to be here. This is very important to me and I just hope that I don't leave here today with the feeling that the decision was fixed before we ever got here.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you for your comments.

MS. TACKETT: And I really appreciate you listening to me today. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Donald Miller.

MR. MILLER: I'd say good morning, but it's not.

MR. JOHNSON: Mr. Miller, we would ask that you and Mr. Keithley -- who is the other speaker -- would please be cognizant of the time.

MR. MILLER: I will, I promise. Mine is very short.

I just agree with what has been said so far in opposition to the airport. I think they definitely need a full environmental impact study, and I really question why we're expanding an airport in the middle of a residential area. That doesn't make good sense. We have bought up the acreage right around it so we can expand it; we have taken residential areas and zoned them heavy commercial according to the earlier plans.

I'm sure they won't change; they need to expand. Why? It's not the place for it. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Don Keathly.

MR. KEATHLY: I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you. My name is Don Keathly. I live in an unincorporated area about 1.9 miles -- if you drew a straight line from the end of the runway to my drive, I'm about 1.9 miles, but I'm also an owner of a business on Industrial Boulevard which is the street that drives right into the airport, so I see these planes.

I drive to my house, from my house, across the end of the runway, so I see a lot of things that are going on at that airport on a daily basis, and as what has been spoken to you earlier, there is a lot of construction going on at this time.

I've been in contact with the Corps of Engineers Regulatory Division. A couple of letters, one in '98 and one in 2002 were sent to the Corps of Engineers Regulatory Department, asking for them to review plans, and as of last week those two numbers have been filed and closed due to the fact that no additional information had been provided by McKinney Airport. And yet, 31 hangars are now being built, two 15,000-square-foot hangars are already built and in use.

What I heard earlier from some of the speakers from McKinney that they want to be friendly, they want to involve the city, they want to involve the rural community, folks, I can tell you it doesn't happen. We go to city council meetings and they listen and nothing happens.

I think in your packet you received some pictures that I took on Sunday. I raised the issue at the 7 February meeting about birds and it continues to be an issue of the large flocks of birds that appear at that airport. I arrived at home late on a Saturday night from a trip out of town; I had to go back to my office Sunday mid-morning; happened to have my camera with me because I'd been at a family function, and the pictures that you see --

And I think, Mr. Johnson, you have the color photographs; I do have the originals with me if you do not have them and would like to see them -- but there's a huge number of birds that are at the base of the airport, at the end of the runway, south end of the runway, and along the east side of the runway.

Now, Director David Fulton was kind enough -- and I appreciate his response letter that he did send to me, and I got it on Saturday night when I arrived home -- seems to feel that McKinney has addressed this issue of the birds, but I can assure you with the graphic photographs that I've provided, they have not addressed that issue.

He also brought up the point that the sanitary landfill is to be closed at the end of 2003. I've been in McKinney for three years and I've been told for three years that landfill is going to be closed, and to date, McKinney still does not even have permission for their new landfill. Thank you very much.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

Robert, did you have some questions of Dave?

MR. NICHOLS: What year was the airport built?

MR. FULTON: Would you help me with that, Ken?

MR. WIEGAND: 1979, sir.

MR. FULTON: 1979.

MR. NICHOLS: 1979. So I don't know if I'm asking you or the city manager from McKinney, but that's 23 years ago, something like that? And I'm assuming a great deal of the neighborhoods were built up -- I'm sure there were people living there when it was built, but haven't a lot of these neighborhoods developed since then?

(General talking from audience.)

MR. NICHOLS: Okay, so nobody has built any new homes and stuff in that area since 1979?

MS. TACKETT: The home that I live in is a new home, but it's because the existing home there burned to the ground.

MR. NICHOLS: So when the home burned to the ground, you rebuilt it?

MS. TACKETT: No, another person built it, but I called the airport manager --

MR. NICHOLS: How long ago did you move there? Was the airport already in existence when you moved there?

MS. TACKETT: Yes --

MR. NICHOLS: Thank you. I think I've got my question answered.

MS. TACKETT: But like where Gilda Garza represents on the east side of McKinney, there are a number of historical properties east of Highway 5, and I'm talking about homes that were built in the mid-1800s, around the Civil War era. There are some fabulous examples throughout the eastside of Victorian and Prairie style and arts and crafts architecture that are all throughout that area.

You know, every other suburb of Dallas, Garland, Richardson, where those areas have become, let's say, rundown, there have been major steps underway to revitalize that. That's not what's going on in McKinney.

MR. NICHOLS: I think I got my question answered. Thank you.

I think open government is very good. I think it's great that you have an opportunity in the state where citizens can actually come and voice their concerns and their opinions. When some of you were here several months ago, you were concerned at that time that we were going to be taking an action related to the McKinney Airport.

We assured you at that time that that wasn't the meeting that we were going to take the action, and you were concerned that you wanted to make sure that you were notified when we really were, and we did notify you. I think you were adequately notified that today this would be on the agenda.

We've had an opportunity to listen to some of your points of view, I've gotten a number of letters, some email, some faxed -- I'm not quite sure how I got them all but I got quite a few of them -- and you also heard the city's side and our Aviation division side.

I know that so often -- oh, gosh, like railroads. Railroads came through the state hundreds of years ago, 120 years ago or so, and they became a new mode of transportation for connectivity of goods and services and things like that, and then towns built up around them. And then as the towns got even larger, then the towns began to complain because the railroad was in the middle of town and they need to move the railroad outside of town.

I know that in the situation of some of these airports, everybody in town doesn't fly an airplane so why do you need an airport? I can assure you that your key businesses in your area, many of those are dependent on the use of an airport, and without an airport, even if it's a private or general aviation airport, even without noncommercial flights, many of the businesses do use those airports and people's jobs are dependent on it.

And I reach a little bit different conclusion. I've heard the word "subvert." I don't think we've tried to do anything that was subversive. I've heard that some of you, or at least one of you was hoping that today's meeting wasn't already fixed, hope it wasn't fixed and predetermined. I can assure you this commission doesn't pre-fix votes on anything.

We take this information, we study it, we ask questions, we study it ahead of time, we listen and we talk to people, we try to have an open opportunity air views out.

And we recognize the fact that quite often, even when we're building road projects, rarely do we have a road project that we can build that somebody doesn't have a problem with it, whether it be an environmental thing or whether their house is going to have to be moved or something, somebody always has a problem.

And we try to adapt and adjust and come up with decisions related to the transportation acts we take that are in the best interest of the state and the people overall. I started with a question but I ended up with a comment. That's all the comment I have.

MR. JOHNSON: Ric, did you have anything?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes. I wanted to establish some things for the record and to the audience. I'm doing this because in the testimony part each of you were passionate about your positions, but you know words mean things, and when you come in here on the record and say certain things, the commission has got to say: You may say that but. So my first question to you, Dave, is has the Texas Department of Transportation any knowledge that the City of McKinney or the county in which the City of McKinney is located has violated any law?

MR. FULTON: None whatsoever.

MR. WILLIAMSON: In giving us the material you've given us, have you given us the complete record that is required of us as a state agency?

MR. FULTON: Absolutely. And I would add that compliance is determined by the FAA and the City of McKinney is in complete and full compliance with all federal guidelines.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The person who represented herself to speak for LULAC and not the City of McKinney alleged that laws had been broken. Are we aware of any laws that have been broken?

MR. FULTON: I'm aware of no laws that have been broken.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Are we aware of any public hearings that haven't been had that are our responsibility?

MR. FULTON: No, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do we have any responsibility -- legal responsibility I speak of here -- to conduct any of the environmental investigations that some of the witnesses have alleged haven't been done?

MR. FULTON: If you'll permit me, I'll clarify that. We did choose to do an environmental assessment which was completed. The Environmental Division directors signed a finding of no significant impact. They mentioned a couple of times "environmental impacts statements." The Federal Aviation Administration determines whether an environmental impact statement is warranted. In this case they felt and concurred in the finding of no significant impact, so they did not deem an EIS necessary.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And thank you. And obviously if something occurs after whatever action we take that is any way different from how we understand the facts, you will bring that to Mr. Behrens' attention immediately?

MR. FULTON: Absolutely.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The reason I ask this question, Dave, as you know, and Mr. Behrens, as you know, and I hope the audience knows, we are frequently the focal point for community disagreements that the law clearly establishes ought to be resolved at the community level.

And Commissioner Nichols was correct in speaking for the commission when he said we choose to listen to anyone and we choose to take anyone's viewpoint into consideration. But particularly to the lady who is a city council person, it is a very grave matter to come before this commission and allege that we have in any way participated in violating the law. That is a big deal to us.

Now, it seems to me that the problem is not everybody who claims to be affected by this lives in the City of McKinney, and it seems to me that a whole lot of this disagreement is between one part of the city and another, and believe you me, we see those disagreements all the time. But it is not within our scope to intervene in your disagreements, and in fact, if we did that, the entire transportation network of this state would come to a halt.

And I just don't want you to leave thinking that this was the proper venue for anything any of you have said. I listen carefully for any instance where this commission ought to listen and take action, and what I heard was a lot of probably legitimate concerns that have to be addressed at your community level, not in this forum. If we've done anything wrong, if we've done something we're not supposed to, hey, this is the biggest engineering firm in Texas, they don't like to violate the rules. I just don't think we would.

And just for the record, we know of nothing that's been done illegal and we've done everything the law asks us to do. That's our position. And if we've done anything, I expect to hear about it immediately.

MR. FULTON: Could I volunteer one final comment? Some comment was made about some construction going on at the airport. Our division never contracts for any grants without the prior approval of this commission. No money, state or federal, has been spent on any of the undergoing construction.

MR. JOHNSON: This grant in particular is 90 percent federal, 10 percent local. Is that correct?

MR. FULTON: That's correct.

MR. JOHNSON: So there is no state.

MR. FULTON: That's correct, yes, sir, 90 percent federal.

MR. JOHNSON: I think my observations are similar to what Ric and Robert have so eloquently stated. It's rare that we would overcome or overrule a decision that is made locally unless we believed that there were serious flaws in the process, and you stated unequivocally that the City of McKinney has complied with all the items necessary in the process, and that the Federal Aviation Administration has approved the application.

MR. FULTON: Absolutely.

MR. JOHNSON: And I think as Ric stated, these things really need to be addressed locally and decided there, and to look at this commission as sort of the chance of last resort, you might look here but I think it's rare that we would overrule unless the process were flawed or the decision, the result was extremely egregious or wrong.

So having made those comments, I would entertain a motion to approve this minute order.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

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

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: Item number 5 is Public Transportation, and we have four minute orders that Margot will present to you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Did you ask Mr. Behrens to put you in this order?

MS. MASSEY: No. I land where I land.

I am Margot Massey, director of the Public Transportation Division.

Item 5(a) is to allocate our Federal Rural Transit funds for fiscal year '03. This was a matter that was discussed several times last fall and is in response to your instructions at the December meeting to bring these funds current. As you see, we now have a federal appropriations bill but we don't yet have a final state allocation, so these are estimates. We think they're pretty close, but we recommend your approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions, observations?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have some but I will yield to Robert first.

MR. NICHOLS: We did say and encourage that when these funds are available we would try to draw them down as opposed to waiting six, nine months or whatever. That's the purpose that we're here today. And I think if we held back, I think it probably would be harmful to the industry.

On the other hand, though, I know for the last several years -- you've heard me speak on it -- I'm not satisfied that we have the best distribution formula, I think there's a better way to do it. I've encouraged us to do that for the last several years, and I'm disappointed that we're going to end up spending another entire year of distribution on a formula that I'm not satisfied with.

I understand that you're out talking to people, having public hearings, things of that nature. I'm very interested in seeing how that comes out. I think it would be more harmful if we wait through that process to distribute than it would be to go ahead and distribute based on that. So other than that, I had no comment.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Margot, is it the case that during all this increased focus by the commission on public transit that we've discovered that perhaps as many as seven state agencies administer some sort of public transit assistance through their different authorizations and funding mechanisms?

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir, at least that many.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is it the case that many of these people that are fixing to be impacted by our decision could serve some of those same persons, those same Texans that are being served by, in some cases, seven different schemes?

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Has anyone ever suggested that someone look at the common interest of the state, as opposed to the narrow interest of the agency or the narrow interest of the person served, to see if there was perhaps a more efficient way to do this that would result in helping us determine a formula that was based on market demand and use? Has anyone ever suggested that?

MS. MASSEY: We've had various coordination initiatives among agencies involving most of the players that I suspect you're talking about in terms of other state agencies as well as TxDOT, and there has not been a formal charge. There are a lot of issues to sort out, and frankly, those conversations/discussions have not led anywhere.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And would it be the case that it hasn't led anywhere because in the end there's no one agency that has been given the authority to say: Okay, I've heard what you said but your duplicating, so consolidate? There's no one out there that can do that?

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir, that's correct.

MR. WILLIAMSON: How would federal funds be influenced -- let me just give you a for instance and you tell me how it would work. How would aid to rural transit operations be enhanced if the state took a larger portion of general revenue and consolidated three or four programs under one competitively bid transit contract? Would it be the case that a $25 million general revenue investment in that would generate more federal funds than we receive now for the rural transit process?

MS. MASSEY: If I understand you correctly, we could, with an investment match from general revenue funds, yes, we could leverage a tremendous amount of federal funds; whereas, now they're being leveraged piecemeal with different resources at the state and local level.

There's no question you achieve economies of scale and efficiencies in service delivery, eliminate duplications of service, eliminate duplicate overhead expenses because now they're run as separate services. So there is no question in my mind that there would be tremendous savings.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Like Commissioner Nichols, I share -- of course, I've only been here two years, he's been here six, so he's six years frustrated; I'm only two, but I think public transit is going to be more and more important to the mobility and congestion and air quality solutions of the future, and I hope not another year goes by that we don't address not only the formula from a different distribution perspective, but perhaps just the notion of why do we have seven programs in Parker County instead of one.

MS. MASSEY: Our target, for you and Commissioner Nichols, we hope to have those rules to you at the April meeting. We have gathered a lot of input; we have held five regional meetings around the state; we have a message board on our internet page to solicit comments so that everyone can see the comments that others are posting.

We've gotten a lot of interesting suggestions, some of which -- well, I would say all of them have merit in their own way, but we are definitely rethinking some of them, the parts of the proposal that you had seen several months ago. So I think it's been a very valuable process and we're not finished yet.

MR. JOHNSON: The comments you're receiving, are they from a cross-section of users/providers/municipal authorities/whatever, or are they predominantly from one segment?

MS. MASSEY: It's predominantly from the rural transit operators but I think they have close community ties and in many senses respect those community viewpoints. They've talked about performance issues and how those could best be captured; they've talked about demographic indicators. So we've had a really valuable exchange through those meetings and I think through the message board.

MR. JOHNSON: That's excellent. Any other questions about this minute order?

MR. NICHOLS: Motion?

MR. JOHNSON: I'll entertain 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.

MS. MASSEY: The next item is requesting your award of the FY '03 Section 5310 funds which are the Elderly and Disabled Program funds. Again, we do not have a final state allocation, so the minute order reflects estimates, but we believe that they will be pretty close to the mark. We recommend your approval.

MR. JOHNSON: And the funds that actually are awarded in each case is by contract after we have the real final.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir. We must have the federal funds in hand or James Bass is not going to be my friend.

MR. JOHNSON: We would not want that.

MS. MASSEY: He's most insistent on that, yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions about this minute order?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

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

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MS. MASSEY: The next item is to award some deobligated federal discretionary capital funds to reobligate those, and to award what had been established as a $5 million flexible fund transfer for vehicle capital replacement. There is a formula that we use establishing the need to replace equipment on a fleet basis, and I could say that all of the equipment to be replaced has far exceeded what the federal criteria is.

No transit system in Texas has the luxury of replacing vehicles when they reach 100,000 miles or five years; we go far beyond that. So it's a matter of looking at those that are most critical, the worst condition. And we recommend your approval on this.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. JOHNSON: Question, Ric?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes. And we're continuing to encourage emission efficient purchases?

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir, absolutely, across the board.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And you're aware of our concern that we be judicious in the use of toll credits over the next few months in light of what the legislature may or may not ask us to do? Probably need to send word out to everyone toll credits might be valuable to us someplace else and we need to be cautious about depending on them for future actions.

MS. MASSEY: Right, so noted.

MR. JOHNSON: I believe Robert has moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

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

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MS. MASSEY: Which brings us to the matter of toll credits for DART.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's why I made the comment then.

MS. MASSEY: We have received a request from Dallas Area Rapid Transit, and they intended to have a representative here, and unfortunately the weather intervened. They have various capital projects; their federal funding for these projects does not come through the department, but they have requested the toll credits to give them some financial flexibility in their overall capital budgeting. And I think you've seen the list of projects and generally what those are about.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: No.

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: Margot, if you would, continue on item 6, Rules for Final Adoption.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Here's the new distribution, Robert.

MR. NICHOLS: Not really.

MS. MASSEY: No, sir, not that distribution.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I thought it was new formulas; I thought man, that was fast, Margot.

(General laughter.)

MS. MASSEY: We try to be prompt but we're not quite that prompt.

You will recall that we brought you proposed rules in December that were something of a grab bag. We were putting the final touches on our division manual and found a number of areas in the code that needed updating or new language, and we held a public hearing and no comments were received at the hearing, no comments were received on any of this.

We have made a couple of changes at the staff level, one changing the reference to the State Data Center to the U.S. Census Bureau in terms of fixing the data source more precisely. We also had some incorrect references which we've corrected to the TIP and the STIP. We recommend your approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: I still had some questions, and basically some of them are the questions that I e-mailed on Saturday. I think on page 8 of 37, lines 9 to 15, in there it says: "In years 2003 to 2004, if less than previous, will be supplemented up to 50 percent of the reduction." I never did really understand that, so I said how will this be supplemented and why, and the answer I got was that the other cities' dollars will be reduced so that Laredo and Victoria can be reduced over a two-year period rather than immediately. I still don't understand that. Is everybody getting reduced?

MS. MASSEY: Everyone will not get the full allocation that they would under the rules.

MR. NICHOLS: These are the rules we haven't adopted yet.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir, and now I'm confused.

MR. NICHOLS: These are the rules you'd bring to us in April?

MS. MASSEY: I understand your confusion, because hearing it read back to me, I think: Boy, this is strange.

What the operators agreed to was moving to the allocation that is posted in the federal regulation that the federal government uses to allocate funds to the governor of Texas for these urbanized areas but to do so over a two-year period rather than flipping a switch in 2003.

MR. NICHOLS: Does the federal government establish the formula of how we distribute it to the urban areas?

MS. MASSEY: No, sir. They have a means by which they allocate funds for urbanized areas of 50- to 200,000 population to the governor of each state -- that's the governor's apportionment.

MR. NICHOLS: On a state by state so each state will know what it gets.

MS. MASSEY: Right.

MR. NICHOLS: But not inside the state.

MS. MASSEY: What they do, though, is at the time they do that, they show their math and they show how much Abilene's share of that is according to their federal calculation. We've never adhered to those sub-numbers; instead there has been a much more flexible negotiated rate or method of allocation.

And what the operators want to see now is they want to go strictly with the federal formula, but they have agreed to a two-year transition period because a couple of these cities -- Laredo in particular takes a big hit, they will see a substantial decline. They have traditionally received more than what the federal formula, if followed, would give to the City of Laredo, and recognizing that, the other operators said we'll give you two years to make that, we won't do it in one year.

MR. NICHOLS: Okay. So we are not federally required inside the State of Texas to use that distribution formula.

MS. MASSEY: That's correct.

MR. NICHOLS: And in fact, we're out having public hearings on trying to come up with distribution formulas that take in factors of efficiency and needs, local contributions and things like that, or is that just on the rural?

MS. MASSEY: That's just on the rural.

MR. NICHOLS: Why aren't we doing that on the urban too?

MS. MASSEY: The short answer is because they all agreed on a methodology.

MR. NICHOLS: But we haven't agreed.

MS. MASSEY: Well, the fact that it's the method by which the federal government distributes funds to the State of Texas, that seems reasonable.

MR. NICHOLS: But the federal government relies on us to come up with a distribution inside of our state that we think is the proper way to do it. Isn't that our job?

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: That's our job, as I understand it.

MS. MASSEY: Yes.

MR. NICHOLS: And what I thought we had been asking to do was to try to come up -- I know we have because I've referred to going back and reading the transcripts -- to try to come up with a formula that incorporates needs, make sure we're distributing those funds based on needs, economically disadvantaged status, efficiency of the provider, local contributions, performance and things of that, as opposed to just straight population or just straight whoever got the most last time gets the most this time.

MS. MASSEY: That was my mistake then. I thought you were referring exclusively to the rural side.

MR. NICHOLS: Do what?

MS. MASSEY: I thought you were referring exclusively to the rural side, and that was my mistake.

MR. NICHOLS: Well, I thought that's what we're looking at.

MS. MASSEY: This is for small cities in these rules.

MR. NICHOLS: Talking about Laredo.

MS. MASSEY: Small city.

MR. NICHOLS: This ties us into a methodology over a two-year period over several years of how do we shift that back, and we haven't established a formula yet. That's what you're going to be coming to us in April with.

MS. MASSEY: I frankly hadn't anticipated that there would be another formula other than what the federal government uses to give the money to the State of Texas, that we would follow the same methodology. I had not understood that that was your wish. We can certainly do that.

MR. NICHOLS: Mr. Chairman, I'm still not totally satisfied I've got all this. I think I need to get a big chalkboard to understand it. I really am hesitant to vote on something I'm just not real comfortable with -- not that I disagree with it, I don't really understand this and I want to make sure I do.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Would you write on a chalkboard that's here in Austin so that the rest of us can come in and look at it when you're through and see if we can figure it out.

MR. NICHOLS: I need to get it on a chalkboard because I have not got it yet, and I have tried and tried and tried and tried, yet we continue to distribute based on formulas that I don't think I agree with. And we're requesting that you change them, you're out having hearings, and you're getting some good interesting ideas, yet I'm sitting here looking at something in a rule that we're going to be --

And I've read this several times and I asked questions several days ago, but this ties us over a several-year period on how we're going to be distributing some of these funds.

MS. MASSEY: It would actually tie us from now till the rules are changed.

MR. NICHOLS: This says here 2003 and 2004, fiscal year.

MS. MASSEY: That's the transition period. After that it will be a pure population/population density allocation.

MR. JOHNSON: Margot, should this item be deferred, is there any direct or immediate impact to deferring this agenda item?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Some mad people.

MS. MASSEY: Most of the changes that are in this rule are driven by to facilitate issuing our manual, so from that standpoint, I'd say no. But if I understand what Commissioner Nichols is saying, this was a complete misunderstanding on my part, and we can address an allocation formula when we bring the other allocation formulas to you in the April rules, as revisiting this particular issue.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, from what I'm hearing, there's concern about adopting these rules -- and I believe this is a final adoption -- at this current time which means that we must live with the existing rules until those rules are changed. We meet four weeks from today; is there an immediate impact to deferring this item to the March meeting or perhaps the April meeting when the new formulas that you're working on that include the considerations of what Robert has said need to be under consideration?

MS. MASSEY: I think it's certainly possible to defer a month; I wouldn't propose deferring this until April because we've got to get some of the changes in place in order to go in and amend them. Those sections are actively under review right now.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Uh-oh, are we in the doghouse now.

MS. MASSEY: I am.

MR. WILLIAMSON: No. We are.

MR. MONROE: No, no. I just think it's my duty to tell the commission that if you --

MR. JOHNSON: Well, for the record, who are you?

(General laughter.)

MR. MONROE: I hoped you'd know me by now.

MR. JOHNSON: I'm talking about the record; I certainly know you.

MR. MONROE: Oh, okay. For the record, my name is Richard Monroe; I'm general counsel for the department.

I would like to point out that if we don't go with this formula -- and I'm totally neutral on what the commission wants to do, but I feel that it's my duty to tell the commission that we would have to start over again with publishing for comment if we go a different route. So it wouldn't be a matter of being able to do something new in March or April, we would have to go back, republish so that the public would know what the commission was considering.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Margot, I'm curious. Can you give me a name of a transit provider affected by this that I would recognize?

MS. MASSEY: Abilene City Link.

MR. WILLIAMSON: City Link. And is it possible -- going back to the conversation/dialogue that we had 28 minutes ago -- that City Link could provide some of the services to workforce development or DHS or the other state agencies we spoke of?

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir. In fact, they do today under contracts.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Interesting. To your knowledge, do they service all the seven state agencies in the Taylor County area?

MS. MASSEY: I don't believe -- I'm not completely certain but I don't believe they have all of the contracts.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I understand it could be disruptive, Chairman, but I'm a little confused myself. Of course, some would say I stay confused.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, my sense of the consensus on the commission is that we don't feel comfortable in passing this minute order or the rule changes in their current form, and so we need to defer this, keeping in mind that we need to follow counsel's advice and also need to be as expeditious as possible in getting these back in front of us. Thank you, Margot.

MS. MASSEY: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll go to item 7(b). Jim Randall will present (b), (c), (d), and (e) under Transportation Planning.

MR. RANDALL: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Jim Randall, director of the Transportation Planning and Programming Division.

Item 7(b), we bring you the second quarter program for disadvantaged counties to adjust matching fund requirements. In your books is Exhibit A that lists the projects and staff's recommended adjustments for each of them. The adjustments are based on the equations approved in earlier proposals. There are two projects: one in El Paso County and one in Trinity County. The total reduction for participation for these projects is $643,150. Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: No questions. So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

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

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. RANDALL: Item 7(c), this minute order modifies the provisions of Minute Order 108287, dated August 31, 2000. Minute Order 108287 tendered a proposal to Fort Bend County for the development of a new toll road facility along the route of State Highway 122 from Beltway 8 to the proposed location of State Highway 99, a distance of approximately 17 miles. The original minute order required the county to complete the route studies, public meetings, public hearings, environmental documents, design schematics and environmental mitigation prior to June 30, 2003. Though the county has pursued these activities, it has become evident that they will not be able to complete those tasks for the segment of the parkway from State Highway 6 to State Highway 99 before the prescribed date.

If approved, this minute order will extend the June 30, 2003, deadline for Fort Bend County to complete the project development activities for the State Highway 6/State Highway 99 segment until December 31, 2004. The remaining requirements prescribed in Minute Order 108287 would remain in effect. Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But we're still on track to be a toll road.

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir.

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.

MR. RANDALL: Item 7(d). As previously presented in item 7(c), this minute order also modifies provisions of Minute Order 108287, dated August 31, 2000.

As mentioned earlier, this minute order tendered a proposal to Fort Bend County for the development of a new toll road facility along the route of State Highway 122 from Beltway 8 to State Highway 99. The Fort Bend County Parkway has been proposed as a county toll project under Transportation Code Chapter 284 to be operated and maintained as a county road.

Minute Order 108287 provided that upon completion of the preliminary development by the county and prior to construction and right of way acquisition, the commission would consider approval of the project under Transportation Code Section 362.051, and upon such approval, remove State Highway 122 from the state highway system.

Transportation Code Section 362.051 generally provides that a governmental or private entity must obtain the commission's approval before beginning construction of a toll road, toll bridge or turnpike that is to be part of the state highway system. The county has been actively pursuing the development of the Fort Bend Parkway from Beltway 8 to State Highway 6 and has completed the preliminary development of that section, as required in Minute Order 108287.

In accordance with Transportation Code Section 362.051, integrating the county toll facility into the state highway system is considered feasible and the department has demonstrated the ability to construct any connecting roads necessary for the project to produce sufficient revenue to pay the debt incurred for its construction. Under the original terms of Minute Order 108287, the department will construct the eligible portions of State Highway 6 and Beltway 8 interchanges with the Fort Bend Parkway.

Upon approval of this minute order, the commission would authorize Fort Bend County to construct the Fort Bend Parkway from Beltway 8 to State Highway 6 as a county toll road and remove State Highway 122 from the state highway system from Beltway 8 to State Highway 6, a distance of approximately six miles. Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: A couple of questions.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions, Ric.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What's going to happen in your opinion, Jim, from 6 to 99? Will it also become a county toll road at some point?

MR. RANDALL: At this point in time, the county is about 20 percent in the development of the various projects and things like that; at this time we don't have any reason not to believe that it would continue as a toll road project.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And will there be some expectation of the state's funds to continue to work on 122 while the county is converting that part of 122 that's going to be a toll road?

MR. RANDALL: Currently on State Highway 122, it's only designated, there's nothing out there on the ground right now.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I guess I need to ask the question a different way. This will be a county toll road unique to Fort Bend County. Right?

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Are they working in conjunction with HCTRA?

MR. RANDALL: On parts of the parkway that extends into Harris County, they are, yes, sir. If you'll look on Beltway 8, the parkway extends into Harris County and HCTRA is working on that part of it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So the first six miles will become a real piece of concrete or asphalt and the county will operate it as a county toll road.

MR. RANDALL: Correct.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And the part that goes from 6 to 99 is still just a dream. My question is are we going to get to convert the dream to reality with state funds or will the county come to us at some point in the future, based on what you know, and say, Now, we want to extend our county toll road?

MR. RANDALL: I anticipate the county will want to extend the toll road from 6 to 99, and they may come back to ask for additional help on connections to the toll road.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Did you have anything, Robert?

MR. NICHOLS: No questions. I think it's a great project.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Looks super to me. Looks like a great example of what we've been trying to encourage everybody to do.

MR. NICHOLS: It is exactly what we've been encouraging. So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

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

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. RANDALL: Item 7(e). In accordance with Section 201.602 of the Texas Transportation Code, the Texas Transportation Commission conducted a public hearing on December 19, 2002, to receive testimony concerning the highway project selection process and the relative importance of the various criteria on which the commission bases its project selection decisions.

In order to be more clearly distinguished between preservation and enhancement of the state transportation system, the presentation introduced the creation of two new authorization documents to make up the Unified Transportation Program, the Statewide Mobility Program and the Statewide Preservation Program. The SPP encompasses funding strategies to maintain the existing transportation system, while the SMP focuses on those to enhance the system.

One participant provided oral comments at the hearing. Written comments were accepted through February 3, 2003, and two were received. Exhibit A contains a summary of the comments and responses to the oral and written comments received as a result of the public hearing.

The minute order before you today establishes that the proposed project selection process is consistent with the agency's objectives: to provide reliable mobility, improve safety, responsible system preservation, streamlined project delivery, and economic vitality. This minute order authorizes the project selection process, as shown in Exhibit B, for developing the 2004 SMP and SPP under the Unified Transportation Program. Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions, comments?

MR. NICHOLS: My comment is your department has done yeoman's work in this area fixing this thing, or improving it and working with it, and compliments to you and your staff.

MR. RANDALL: Appreciate that. I need to acknowledge Max Proctor and his group; they're the backbone of this.

MR. JOHNSON: Did you have something?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Did we use the same nomenclature as we're trying to adopt in all of our other documents? Are we trying to get to words that normal people use?

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir, the PLAN, CONSTRUCT, DEVELOP, yes, sir. Also, if you'll look in the attachments, you'll notice that the SPP is under the MAINTAIN IT strategy and the SMP is under the BUILD IT strategy.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So what we're telling our partners in the transportation world is we're moving towards the day where the commission looks at maintenance and construction, or dare I say reconstruction, as separate strategies.

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And that's okay, there's not anything wrong with that. We want to say clearly to the state what it takes to maintain what we've built and what it takes to construct or reconstruct what we need.

MR. RANDALL: Build it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Nichols. You have done a great job getting ready for this.

MR. JOHNSON: Jim, on the comments that you received and responded to, were those comments made in writing or were they made at hearings that you conducted?

MR. RANDALL: One gentleman made an oral comment and that was concerning going to a 13th category for military deployment routes, and then they followed up with written comments. And then CAMPO submitted written comments concerning the use of CMAQ funds.

MR. JOHNSON: Were the comments responded to in writing to the people who made the comments in whatever form?

MR. RANDALL: They should have been. I'll double-check on that.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, let's make sure that they are.

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: And since you mentioned the military routes, we had a military officer appear before us requesting the same thing, and clearly military routes are very important to this state, not only in terms of strategic defense but in terms of the economic vitality that the bases bring to the areas in which they are, and it is an area that we will continue to work with them and the locals in developing the routes that they need and to improve those. I believe that the sense is to make a separate category for those is sort of contradictory to what we're doing to make fewer categories and emphasize, as Ric says, a common nomenclature between all of our documents.

But I cannot overemphasize how important those particular routes are to not only the state, and since they are to the state, they're very important to this department.

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir. We intend through the administration to go out to the district engineers and ask them to work with the bases in their area to help address their transportation needs, and also in the strategic priority Category 12, we've also mentioned that the commission may take that into consideration of SP projects.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But Chairman -- I appreciate the dialogue you're having with Jim -- I'm incented to say the commission and I suspect some in the administration are taking a fair amount of harsh criticism for a lot of the changes that are going on at this time, but the product is really shaping up to be a clear, concise document that, I say again, the normal person can understand.

And we need to resist all efforts -- as important as it sounds to have a military category and an urban category for North Texas and all these other things, this is one state; we're one people; we need documents that are clear and concise and speak to the entire state and not to some narrow interest within the state. So please let's resist that at all times.

MR. RANDALL: As always, we'll follow the lead of the commission.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I recognize and I think we all recognize that we're in a transition or transitory phase and this is a major transition between the product that preceded where we're trying to get to now. It takes a lot of thought and a lot of work to go through all the considerations and machinations that occur when you're doing a major transition like that, and not only is the UTP affected but all the documents that we are doing and we're trying to use a common language, common nomenclature, as Ric so correctly states, is understandable and meaningful to all Texans, to the normal person who is looking at him and trying to digest the information they provide.

So I congratulate you. I know this is not an easy task and it's not business as usual, so you and your team have done an excellent job.

MR. RANDALL: I appreciate it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Gold star.

MR. RANDALL: Sir?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Gold star.

MR. RANDALL: Okay.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I would say maroon thumb or orange thumb, but I just say star.

MR. RANDALL: Didn't recognize the thumb.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You and me, we understand these things. Now Robert, he would say red star.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: I'll entertain a motion for approval.

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: We go to agenda item 7(f). Phil Russell will present for consideration a proposal on a priority corridor along the route parallel to I-35, I-37 and proposed I-69.

MR. WILLIAMSON: This is interesting.

MR. RUSSELL: Good afternoon, commissioners, Mr. Behrens and Cheryl.

Recently the department received an unsolicited proposal, an unsolicited conceptual proposal from the Fluor Group on one of the priority corridors of the Trans Texas Corridor. The proposal describes a facility that roughly parallels sections of I-35, I-69 and I-37. The proposal runs really from border to border, from the Denison area in North Texas all the way down to the Rio Grande Valley and envisions including road, rail and utilities.

There are several issues that we need to resolve before we can really take full advantage of this proposal and the proposals that will be following shortly. A couple of things that I'd like to point out.

First off, as you know, we lack legislative authority or clarity in some aspects on being able to fully take advantage of the Trans Texas Corridor. Last week House Bill 1198 was filed which would give us that clarity and which would give us that statutory authority to fully develop the Trans Texas Corridor.

Another area of interest to the department, Federal Highway Administration has recently promulgated the final Design-Build rules. These rules, of course, address innovative delivery systems, specifically Design-Build.

By approving this minute order, you would be directing the staff to further evaluate the department's participation in this corridor proposal. At the ending of the legislative session, the staff would closely review House Bill 1198 or any other similar-type legislation that's passed to ensure that this proposal fully complies with all of the statutory requirements of that legislation.

We would also begin immediately discussions with Federal Highway Administration to ascertain exactly how the Trans Texas Corridor concept will be fitting in with the new Federal Highway Administration Design-Build rules. These rules, again, create more or less the architecture for how these sorts of delivery systems will be utilized.

The staff would also be evaluating and trying to develop some recommendation and a strategy to develop this corridor in this proposal. Specifically we'd be looking at developing a funding profile which would describe TxDOT's financial requirements to support this proposal -- and I'm thinking specifically probably of starting up the environmental process for this proposal.

I'd be happy to address any questions you might have.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions or observations?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a few and I would suspect you would also. I'm happy to go first, I'm happy to wait.

MR. JOHNSON: He's deferring to you if you have anything.

MR. NICHOLS: We have not seen the proposal -- which is the way we set up the rules -- but I think you referred to the term "conceptual"?

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: As I understand it, we want to try to move forward in this area so that we can -- probably a little bit premature to go out and get a detailed proposal like we did on 130 to the extent that it locks in time frames and dollars, but we need to go forward I guess directing the staff to conceptualize the time frame that we need to give people to evaluate a proposal or to prepare a proposal. We also need to double-check, I think, with the federal government, on -- didn't they come up with some rules related to environmental?

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: We want to make sure we don't violate some of those new rules.

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir. That's in those Design-Build guidelines that FHWA has come up with.

MR. NICHOLS: I think it's very important that we direct staff in some manner to go forward. Not that I had that many questions, it was more of a comment, I guess.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Phil, is it the case -- I want to be sure I understand the layout and then what the commission is saying to not only -- did you say it was Fluor?

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Not only Fluor but whoever else might offer a competitive proposal or a proposal on one of our other priority corridors. The federal government has recently issued rules for Design-Build projects and those rules may be different and may be similar than the other record of decision rules we follow, and what you're asking for is direction from the commission to engage the federal government to clarify some of those rules to, for example, see if we can do it in segments as opposed to end to end.

MR. RUSSELL: Exactly.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And if we can do it in segments, that would -- and I don't want to put words in your mouth but I want to understand -- if our investigation indicated that we can begin parts of the ROD process while we're negotiating competitive proposals and the final proposal, you might have that knowledge as soon as a month from now and you might be back before us within a month saying: These are what we think are the rules and this is what we want you to now authorize us to do.

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir, potentially, depending on those discussions with the Federal Highway Administration.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Now just play a for instance with me. House Bill 1198 is the basic corridor bill, and we have reason to believe the senator is going to file similar legislation in the next few days. Let's say the world clicked really good and four weeks from now the House and the Senate pass that bill with a two-thirds vote on a record vote and the governor signed it into law.

In other words, it became law -- that would in itself take a lot of the restrictions  -- not restrictions -- that would give us a greater feeling of comfort to move forward more quickly with a request for a detailed proposal and competitive proposals.

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir. I think not only would it give us much greater clarity, it would probably give the industry much greater clarity and confidence on the process.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And again, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but probably one of the singular most important aspects is the ability to actively incorporate rail as a component of a corridor.

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Including high speed rail, freight rail, commuter rail, or whatever it is. And without giving us details because I know you can't and I don't want you to, you say that this proposal is basically what we asked the world, it is the concept that we asked the world to give us a year ago.

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: There are elements of everything, pipelines, water, tolls, trucks, rail, all those elements could be a part of the finished product.

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir. It's a conceptual proposal but I think speaking from the staff's standpoint, we are very excited and very happy with the thoroughness of the proposal.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Denison to the Rio Grande Valley.

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I think I'm like Mr. Nichols: whatever we need to do to encourage this, let's move -- or as we like to say in some places, let's get on down the road.

MR. RUSSELL: Or the turnpike, as the case may be.

MR. JOHNSON: Any other questions or comments? Is there a motion?

MR. NICHOLS: I'm trying to make sure I understand. The way this is written: "contingent upon the enactment of House Bill 1198 or similar" -- we're trying to send a direction, as I understand it, that we want to move forward, for the staff to evaluate and come up with time frames and a manner in which to go out with this proposal.

The way this is worded it says contingent on that or similar legislation, so I want to make sure that when I ask the question, if we approve this the way it's written, then we're sending a clear signal to I guess everyone here and to the staff that we want to move in this direction, but when this legislation is actually passed, we'll have to go back and review what the ultimate is. I mean, we will have some more actions on this. Is that correct?

MR. BEHRENS: Yes, sir, that's our intent.

MR. NICHOLS: Well, that being the case, I so move.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I second.

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

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Go, go, go. Toyota is waiting -- more than likely it's Honda, Honda is waiting.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 9 is our contracts and Thomas will go over the recommended projects for award.

MR. BOHUSLAV: Good morning, commissioners. My name is Thomas Bohuslav; I'm the director of Construction.

I have 9(a)(1) which is for the consideration of award or rejection of highway maintenance contracts let on February 4 and 5, 2003, whose engineers' estimated costs are $300,000 or more. We have 25 projects and four bidders per project. Staff recommends award of all projects.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: Do you have somebody that wants to talk on it?

MR. JOHNSON: I do on 9(a)(2). Thomas, are you aware of which?

MR. BOHUSLAV: It will be on the next agenda item.

MR. JOHNSON: Mr. Nichols has moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have seconded.

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

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I just wish you'd direct him to pronounce his name right.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, there's been some discussion and perhaps some difference in opinion on the appropriate way to pronounce his name.

MR. WILLIAMSON: There's still some confusion?

MR. JOHNSON: This is a local decision as we requested others.

MR. BOHUSLAV: I would say keep it easy for you; I'm easy to work with here.

Item 9(a)(2) is for the consideration of award or rejection of highway construction and building contracts let on February 4 and 5, 2003. We had 79 projects; an average of 5.3 bidders per project.

We have three projects we recommend for rejection. The first one is in Jefferson County; it's the second-to-the-last project on your list. It was about $190,000 project; we had five bidders. There were some problems with an addendum for this project, there was some confusion created among the bidders, and the listing was left off that addendum, and therefore, because of the technicality we recommend we reject all bids and go back and rebid it again.

The second project we recommend for rejection is Project Number 3006 in Ector County. It's an underseal on overlay. It's 30 percent over and we'd like to go back and see if we can get better prices for that. We did have three bidders on it but we'd like to see if we can get better prices.

The third project recommended for rejection is Project Number 3236 in Wichita. It's actually called a seal with a Nova Chip process, and requires contractors to provide specialized equipment. They have to lease that equipment and there's really only one vendor in this area that provides that equipment. We only had one bidder and it ended up being 22 percent over, so the district would like to go back and look at their design for that process and see if they can get a better process or get it done at a better price.

And staff recommends award of all projects with the exceptions noted.

MR. JOHNSON: We have someone signed up to address this agenda item, James Kalicek --

James, I hope I've not done too much injustice to your last name -- general manager of K-Bar Services.

MR. KALICEK: Of course, I'm not a speaker so bear with me.

I think it's pretty clear on the mistakes we made on the bidding process, if I could get you to look at those, and it's a huge difference in the price that we wrote on the front of the contract to what the end result was. And there's two different contracts and it's basically the same mistake on the alternate.

MR. JOHNSON: Thomas, if you could address this issue and shine a little light on it, it would help me.

MR. BOHUSLAV: The project in question, I believe, James, is Hidalgo County. On this project they have sent us a letter dated February 19 saying that they didn't intend to bid the alternate on the project and they did bid it at $10. On this project the quantity is about 3600 yards, and that difference, I don't know what they intended to bid. They did have another project that they did bid the alternate as well, they bid it $15 on that one, $15 per yard, and that bid they're the apparent low but they're not claiming an error on that project.

Our rules and our specifications require that the error has to be mathematical in nature, one, and it has to be significant. The differences in their bids and the other contractor bids is more than that alternate bid price or what we would expect them to have for the alternate bid price, and we don't think they met the criteria of a mathematical error.

Our rules prescribe how you bid alternate bid items, and our rules as well as the specifications are very clear in regard to you either bid all the regular or all the alternate, or you can bid all of both, and that if you don't follow those procedures then either we reject your bid or we take the lowest of the alternate or the regular bid items. But we didn't feel like the criteria was met here for the mathematical mistake. That's defined in the specifications and it is defined, as well, in our rules.

MR. JOHNSON: Let me ask a question for clarity. Without going through each of these individual items, what is the amount of money incurred due to the mistakes that were made?

MR. KALICEK: It was over half of the original bid item that we filled out, bid price to the result. And also, too, there was two contracts but in all the confusion -- and I was out of town and I normally help put it together -- it was on Victoria and it was the exact same mistake, and because of all the confusion we didn't put it in the overnight mail with the other one, and we didn't realize that till several days after whenever they didn't respond. It was the exact same, and I feel that it does go underneath the guidelines.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, what options does K-Bar have in this?

MR. BOHUSLAV: They have a bidder's check on this and they can walk away and give us a bidder's check and then there's no other harm done to them. That is their option with our recommendation.

In regard to you asked the question about the amount of error. They submitted to us, again by letter, that they did not intend to bid the alternate. If that were the case, they bid $20 on 3600 cubic yards of flex base, they bid $100 on 122 tons of lime, and they bid $9 per square yard for 32,000 square yards of lime treatment for base. Those are the alternates if they had not intended, so if you total those up -- and I don't know what they are, it doesn't add up to the difference in what their bids are and what the other contractors' bids are, it's significantly less than that. They said they bid half. Well, due to that error, it's not half, it's something else there.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, if I understand what you're trying to say to me, Thomas -- and I'm not sure the gentleman understands it -- we adopted rules to allow for only mathematical errors and not memory errors. It's not within our purview, it's not within your purview to do it any other way if the error was for some reason other than mathematics.

MR. BOHUSLAV: Mathematical errors are those where you transpose numbers, your calculations you had the numbers there, when you punched it in the calculator it was wrong, and you can show that. We've never been presented with anything in that regard and our rules are specific to that type of an error.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Does this gentleman or his company do other business with us?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes.

MR. KALICEK: Yes, sir. I think we have 22 or 23 contracts with TxDOT now.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So you have some familiarity with the department and its rules and its processes.

MR. KALICEK: Well, I've never gone before the commission. We have had other mistakes but I really didn't know the rules of even the five-day letter or other basic rules; just something I just never really came across. But I just feel that it's real clear that there was a mistake made.

MR. NICHOLS: Let me just ask a couple of basics. What was the total bid? We're dealing with two different contracts here?

MR. KALICEK: Yes.

MR. NICHOLS: Let's start with the Hidalgo County one. What was the total bid?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Their total bid on Hidalgo County, the tabbed amount -- that's where we extend the unit prices -- is $544,611.

MR. NICHOLS: And what was the next bidder?

MR. BOHUSLAV: The next bidder -- let me make sure I have that figure here.

MR. JOHNSON: Did somebody ask the amount of the bid check?

MR. BOHUSLAV: $16,000.

MR. NICHOLS: So the second bidder was a million and twenty-eight?

MR. BOHUSLAV: The next bidder was a million twenty-nine.

MR. NICHOLS: And the third bidder was?

MR. BOHUSLAV: The third bidder was $1.2-.

MR. NICHOLS: So you got two bids, the second and third, that are just a little over a million, and you're almost at a half million.

MR. BOHUSLAV: I do want to go back, commissioners. They did meet the five-day requirement; we have been talking with them the whole time; we did respond to their letter. We don't respond immediately, we have to do evaluation and analysis, and they should have received our letter.

MR. NICHOLS: So you sent us a letter within a certain period of time and let us know there was a mistake here?

They did do that in five days?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Yes, they did it in five days and we have responded to that letter.

MR. NICHOLS: So what is your recommendation?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Our recommendation is to award the project based on the fact that it did not meet the mathematical error criteria. The differences that he's talking about, $500,000 to a million, are not in the error that he addresses here. He has stated in his letter his error -- that he provided a base price for an alternate item. That number doesn't add up to another $500,000, it's somewhat less than that.

MR. KALICEK: Well, it was $920- what was on the front of the proposal, so I don't know what the exact figures were.

MR. JOHNSON: I assume, Mr. Kalicek, that your request is that we throw your bids out.

MR. KALICEK: Yes. We've done business for almost, I think, 18 years and I've never had a request. We've made other mistakes and we just took it.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, please understand this is my personal opinion. We in no way want to harshly fine or take someone's money and do irreparable harm to their business, but the other side of that is that we have a process that is very sacred and we need to treat it as such, and when you start making exceptions to a process, you set exceptions and then you have to follow those as they would become more and more common.

MR. KALICEK: But one of the other definitions it says here: "the alleged bid error occurred despite contractor's exercise of care." Now, I don't believe it's just because of mathematical error, there are several reasons here that can be thrown out.

MR. NICHOLS: And this is on two different bids?

MR. KALICEK: Yes. It's the same exact mistake. There was another mistake on Hidalgo also. We had a new guy doing it, I was working out of town at that time, and I should have been there to oversee it but I was trying to do it on the phone and it just didn't work.

MR. NICHOLS: Now, the owner of the business, are you the owner of the business?

MR. KALICEK: No.

MR. NICHOLS: The owner of the business, did she come down here?

MR. KALICEK: No. She said she couldn't do it, couldn't come up here.

MR. NICHOLS: Well, Mr. Executive Director down there?

MR. BOHUSLAV: I would like to add just one more thing, that there are two jobs here: one of them they're apparent low, they're not claiming an error and they bid the alternate; the other one they're apparent low but are claiming an error. Both of them have alternate bids.

MR. JOHNSON: His request is to throw out one of the bids.

MR. BOHUSLAV: And he's asking us to throw out one of the bids because there was confusion on how he should bid alternates. Well, he bid an alternate on another job and there may be some inconsistencies in regard to how we're treating the two contracts, and I want to make that point.

MR. KALICEK: Well, we did plan to and we thought we did send both letters in, but whenever she put them in the envelope to overnight -- because we didn't know till the fourth day -- it didn't get put in there.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I think it's difficult to ask us to correct something that you were responsible for and doing that correction sets a precedent for changing our bidding procedure that, as I say, is very sacred and we need to protect at all costs.

MR. KALICEK: Well, you say that, but I know of commissions before -- I don't know who it was -- there were contracts thrown out before just because the contractor come up and said that he didn't want to no longer do that type of work. They threw it out and gave him his money back. That's not even a good reason. I don't understand.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I am certainly not familiar with the incident that you say.

MR. WILLIAMSON: If that's happened, show us where it's happened and we'll investigate it.

MR. KALICEK: Infrastructure Services, Frio County; it was about three years ago. That's just the one that I know of.

MR. JOHNSON: Construction services in this department?

MR. KALICEK: No.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That was Infrastructure Services he said. Freer County?

MR. KALICEK: Sir?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Did you say Freer County?

MR. KALICEK: Frio County.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Frio County. Well, we'll sure look into that.

MR. NICHOLS: So you've got a $16,000 check, so financially, rather than taking the -- you think you would lose a lot of money if you accepted it.

MR. KALICEK: And there was another mistake on it too. I have a copy of our estimate, our quote that we got from another company on the bridge.

MR. NICHOLS: So you'll limit your liability by forfeiting the check is what it amounts to. We've got other people who in good faith worked on it and did the right things and now all their bids are exposed to the whole world, and so it kind of penalizes them too, and we've got to go back through the process as I understand.

MR. KALICEK: I don't really feel it's going to hurt anybody.

MR. JOHNSON: Well --

MR. BOHUSLAV: It will have to go out for bid again.

MR. JOHNSON: It moves the timing of the project back. It's difficult for us to put ourselves in your shoes and you to put yourself in the shoes of the other people that bid this. It's just that I think we need to protect the system. Please understand that a lot of empathy for where you're coming from because I've suffered from mistakes also and suffered financially and I'm sure everybody up here has. But I'm repeating myself that the process we need to hold above all, and when you start making exceptions, then the exceptions become the norm and the process is violated.

MR. KALICEK: But it falls underneath your rules.

MR. JOHNSON: That's not our interpretation. I'm sorry.

Thomas, you recommend approval?

MR. KALICEK: But had I been another bigger contractor, what would have happened?

MR. JOHNSON: Same thing. We're very consistent and uniform in that regard.

MR. BOHUSLAV: We do recommend award of all projects with the exceptions that I addressed previously.

MR. JOHNSON: I'll entertain a motion or I'll make it myself.

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: Item 9(b), Amadeo will present the contract claims, and also item (c).

MR. SAENZ: Good afternoon, commissioners, Mr. Behrens, Cheryl. For the record, I'm Amadeo Saenz, assistant executive director, Engineering Operations, also chairman of the Contract Claim Committee.

Item 9(b), the minute order before you approves a claim settlement for a contract by Jay-Reese Contractors, Inc. for Project C 535-8-60 in Colorado County in the Yoakum District. On January 15, 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. 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: Thank you. For item 9(b)(2) the minute order before you approves a claim settlement for a contract by C.A. Green Construction Co., four projects for mowing in Jefferson, Hardin and Orange Counties in the Beaumont District. On February 6 our Contract Claim Committee met, considered this claim, and made a recommendation for settlement to the contractor. The contractor has also accepted. The committee considers this to be a fair and reasonable settlement of the claim and also recommends your approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Amadeo, you're tough.

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.

Amadeo, one question about the previous Colorado County, is that the rest area on I-10?

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir, it is.

MR. JOHNSON: It's a very attractive and functional facility.

MR. SAENZ: It turned out to be a very good project.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Don't say that after he just got through cutting the heck out of his contract price. It's adequate for the price paid.

(General laughter.)

MR. SAENZ: And if there's any questions, I think the district engineer from Yoakum was here. But it is a very nice project.

Item 9(c)(1), the minute order accepts the withdrawal of a bid on a routine maintenance contract and awards the contract to the second lowest bidder. Section 221.0041 of the Texas Transportation Code allows the Texas Transportation Commission, under certain conditions, to award a maintenance contract of less than $100,000 to the second lowest bidder when the lowest bidder does not execute the contract. In this case we had a routine maintenance project, Number RMC 6091-92-001 for picnic area maintenance. The low bidder was Herrera and Sons and their low bid was $67,870 -- Herrera and Sons Janitorial Services. They were not able to provide the required bonds and subsequently indicated they could not perform the work.

Under the rules that we have in place, the second low bidder is Denise I. Benningfield Services. They've indicated in writing that they're willing to do the contract and are willing to perform it at the original bid price, so under the rules, we're requesting your approval to do this.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: One question. Since we just had a situation where a gentleman has requested that we throw his bid out, can you state how this differs from the previous situation?

MR. SAENZ: These are for routine maintenance contracts that are under $100,000, so we have a maximum of $100,000, and this was passed when we went through the rule process and we have rules that allow us to do this.

MR. JOHNSON: And there's also a bond involved.

MR. SAENZ: For this contract there was a bond.

MR. JOHNSON: That the contractor was unable to provide.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.

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

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 10, Richard will present a contested case between TxDOT and Hill Country Harvest.

MR. MONROE: My name is Richard Monroe and I am the general counsel for the department.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, we met you.

(General laughter.)

MR. MONROE: At least I hope I still am.

This is a matter of, once again, billboards and I hope the order reads well enough so that you can tell what was going on and what we're recommending.

It was the decision of the administrative judge at the State Office of Administrative Hearings that the billboard owner be allowed to keep his permit, and therefore his billboard. Your order, if you adopt it, reaches the same conclusion and reaches the same result; however, it changes certain conclusions of law to better reflect the true meaning of our rules and also our agency's policies in these areas.

I would recommend approving the order and if you have any questions, I'll be happy to try and address them.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: I have no questions. So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: My question, in the rules is there such a thing as a temporary removal of one of these billboards?

MR. MONROE: No, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: There is not?

MR. MONROE: You either remove or you don't.

MR. JOHNSON: But there's no consideration given for a temporary?

MR. MONROE: I'm not sure I understand.

MR. JOHNSON: If somebody wants to take one down to build around it, build over it, do something where it would hamper another construction project or the laying of a fiber optic line or something along those lines, is there a mechanism that you can go through?

MR. MONROE: No, sir, there is not.

MR. JOHNSON: It's just cut and dried.

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: I was just curious about that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, there ought to be. With all the stuff being buried underground now, you go in there and need to lay a pipeline, you need to move the sign and lay the pipeline, put the sign back. You mean we can't let somebody move their sign and put it back?

MR. MONROE: Actually, it's a finding -- what happened in this case was the hearing officer determined as a matter of fact that there was a temporary taking down of the sign so that some work could be done on, I believe, a fence of some sort. The hearing officer determined as a conclusion of law that in fact that was a removal of the sign. If you adopt this order, what you will be saying is that under our rules, a temporary dismantling of the sign so as to accomplish something like this is not in fact removal of the sign.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So we'll be doing good government if we do this.

MR. MONROE: I hope so.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I know John feels strongly that there should be a provision for temporary removal. I thank you for your leadership in this regard.

MR. JOHNSON: If there is such a creature, I think it needs to be spelled out as to what the process is so somebody doesn't just say, well, I temporarily removed it and 15 months later something else appears.

MR. WILLIAMSON: He was temporarily getting a new contract.

MR. JOHNSON: Temporarily waiting on somebody to lease the billboard.

MR. MONROE: I think I'm getting the gist of the chairman's wishes.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I would say this is -- we don't necessarily agree on all the dotted i's and crossed t's in this realm, but I think it's the consensus that it is appropriate to have a mechanism where there is a temporary removal but there be a process that needs to be followed and not one that just is arbitrarily done and then say: Oh, my gosh, here I am.

MR. MONROE: All right, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: I thought when I read all the background information I had, I do recall someone making reference to -- whether it was a definition in the policy or rules or something, there was something about, that I definitely read in there, they were referring to what a temporary removal was. I'm just telling you -- I can probably go back and highlight it.

MR. MONROE: All right.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So what we've got is three commissioners: one that doesn't want any billboards, one that likes some billboards some of the time, and one flat out private property advocate that thinks that we ought not to lay our hands on somebody else's property.

MR. MONROE: Apparently so.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Can you fashion something to satisfy all three of us?

MR. MONROE: Probably not.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, try.

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir, we'll look into it.

MR. NICHOLS: You need a motion?

MR. JOHNSON: Yes.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

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

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. MONROE: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: Commissioners, you have before you item 11, the Routine Minute Orders. Item 11(e)(1) is being deferred. The rest are as listed on our posted agenda. If you'd like to talk about any of those individually, we can do so; otherwise, I would recommend approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: I got all my questions answered.

MR. WILLIAMSON: None from me.

MR. NICHOLS: Just need a motion.

MR. JOHNSON: 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. NICHOLS: I move we adjourn.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Not yet. Gaynelle came a long ways, although here in a few years she'll be able to take the train.

MR. JOHNSON: Did we complete all the routine minute orders with that?

MR. BEHRENS: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: All right, very good.

We have now reached the open comment section of the meeting, and we salute your patience. The first speaker signed up is Gaynelle Riffe from lovely Stratford, Texas. It's a long way, and you are, as usual, most welcome. Glad that you're here.

MS. RIFFE: Thank you. I bring you greetings from the Texas Panhandle and I brought you a gift on Monday in the form of ice, I guess. We're used to that.

Thank you for letting me come to see you today and we appreciate the concern that you've had for transportation in the Panhandle.

I am interested, knowing the tremendous constraints you have on financing, my question today is regarding the Trunk System and how that process is moving along, in particular Phase II of the Trunk System. In the Panhandle we have two routes that are on the Phase II Trunk System and we kind of want to know when we're going to have an opportunity to be considered for building or planning and building. So can you tell me that, can you tell me where we are on Phase II? I've asked everybody else and nobody seems to know.

MR. NICHOLS: I could give it a shot. We've got our executive director there, though. I can pass on what I recall from my last meeting with some of the Transportation Planning group. We've got the planners here, we've got the executive director. Who do you want to take a shot at it?

MR. BEHRENS: I will. Right now we're in the phase of constructing and developing Phase I that we picked several years ago now, and we're probably -- we wish we'd been a little bit further along even with Phase I, and of course, our intent is to move as much of that forward before we would actually go into Phase II and open it up. One thing we're looking at, we discussed today our UTP and as we have a number of projects in there, a lot more than we can fund, we're actually even cutting back some of the programming amounts so that we're not actually adding new projects to the wish list, so to speak, and that's one of the things that we're having to consider before we go into Phase II of the Trunk System.

Another thing on Phase I, we were talking about there's just highways that connected Point A to Point B; we did not talk about any relief routes or anything like that. When we get ready to go out with a Phase II, there would be some relief routes we'd add to that. I know that's not what your concern is for your particular section of the station.

MS. RIFFE: It may be by the time we get to it.

MR. BEHRENS: The other thing is since the concept of the Trans Texas Corridor has come along, there are some routes, even some in Phase I that we're looking at because there may be some parallel routes already in Phase I that could eventually become proposals for the Trans Texas Corridor. We're sort of looking at some of those before we're moving forward on those in Phase I.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It would be safe to say, would it not, Mike, that the primary hindrance is that we have asked the department to re-estimate the cost of projects that are in Phase I and what we discovered is there's way more in there than we have the money to pay for?

MS. RIFFE: Right. So if we're in the Phase II of the Trunk System, it's like we're not there, so we need to negotiate something else.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Unless it's like toll roading part of the corridor.

MS. RIFFE: To have toll roads you're going to have to have a lot of people and we're going to have a problem with that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What highway?

MS. RIFFE: US 54 and it's 90 miles across the northern Panhandle. Actually we're a commercial corridor.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And a toll road is not going to work?

MS. RIFFE: It's not going to work.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, if you're a commercial corridor, what kind of commerce uses it?

MS. RIFFE: We are probably the heaviest-traveled truck two-lane highway in the United States.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Wait a minute. I want to ask this question one more time: And a toll road won't work?

MS. RIFFE: I don't think so, but it might. I don't know trucking that well. I think they'll find another way.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What would the other way be?

MS. RIFFE: Interstate.

MR. WILLIAMSON: How close is that?

MS. RIFFE: Well, the people in Iowa tell us -- and these are the snowbirds -- they say in order to take 54 it cuts off 150 miles rather than going the interstate system.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And you don't think people would pay $5 to save 150 miles?

MS. RIFFE: Well, they might.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It sounds to me like you need to go back and get a corridor proposal and an RMA set up and come back here.

MS. RIFFE: Well, that may be a thought. This is 90 miles, this is 90 miles in Texas.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Don't you think?

MR. NICHOLS: Let me take a shot at trying to answer your original question a little bit different but I think I'm going to end up the same. When we originally set up Phase I on the Trunk System, the idea was that we laid out those projects and they were to be completed in a ten-year period. The idea was that we wanted not to wait to year nine or ten to designate what would be in Phase II because then you don't have enough planning time, so you back up in time four or five years earlier to try to determine Phase II.

At the time we started back here, we were estimating literally, I think it was like this year or last, that we would be into this mode. Well, we didn't get off to a roaring start, so the first two or three years really kind of slipped because we had to begin the planning process and environmental, so this whole thing slipped about three years. And so instead of us being here, we're probably down in this range.

So it would be -- this is just my opinion -- at least two years at the earliest before you would even get into a hearing on Phase II, and then that also could get adjusted further out if that schedule doesn't hurry up and get back on track -- which I've been assured it will, but we'll see -- but then also there's a fair amount of legislation related to the corridor and some of those new things may be evaluated more as a corridor which could impact Phase II also. So it's not going to happen in the next two years.

MS. RIFFE: Okay. So we just don't worry about it for the next two years.

MR. NICHOLS: At least, yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But you know, looking at the map -- now that I know what highway she's talking about -- it's a cut-across.

MR. NICHOLS: It goes El Paso, up through there.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You need to go back to the district engineer and say let's make a proposal to toll this.

MS. RIFFE: We can do that. And we are also on the Trans Texas Corridor, Ports to Plains, and that will be the last corridor that is built.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Maybe not.

MS. RIFFE: So we'd kind of like to do a few things before that happens. But we were concerned about Phase II because it was supposed to have happened last year and it didn't, and you know, maybe spring, maybe summer, and so I just wanted to know kind of when.

MR. NICHOLS: Before you sit down, I also wanted to say you have made an incredible effort to understand transportation and represent your area. We started seeing you pop up at hearings, what, three or four years ago?

MS. RIFFE: Yes. I didn't realize how political this was.

MR. NICHOLS: It's not political, nothing political about it.

MR. JOHNSON: Robert is using the terminology of "pop up" in a very flattering way.

MS. RIFFE: I understand.

MR. NICHOLS: Yes. You really, I think, came to your first meeting about four years ago, and then have made an extended effort to go to regional transportation things representing Stratford, and I've seen you in Houston, I've seen you in El Paso.

MS. RIFFE: Well, the Panhandle sometimes kind of gets left out, but we are the gateway to the rest of the world up there, to the rest of the United States.

MR. NICHOLS: Anyway, I just want you to know that we recognize that and appreciate it.

MS. RIFFE: Our corridors need to kind of know some planning and they said, What's Texas doing? And I can say: We're not going anywhere in Texas for a while. So that's what I needed to know. Thank you very much.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, Gaynelle, thank you. It's always a pleasure to have you here because you're so positive. We're trying to figure out ways to get things done and some of these instances the current is coming a little faster at us than we can penetrate it.

MS. RIFFE: Well, we thought we knew what all the rules were and then all the rules changed, and so now we've got to go back and say tell us what the rules are again so we know where to fit.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I would like to explore that with you because I detect a certain amount of discomfort on your part. Have the rules changed so much or have we just decided to sit down and figure out what things really cost?

MS. RIFFE: Well, maybe we just didn't know what the rules were. And we want to take our turn, we understand turns, we just want to know if we still get a turn. So we may get one in a couple of years to ask again.

MR. NICHOLS: We actually did, as I recall, add that section north of Stratford so we did get those on the system.

MS. RIFFE: Right. And we appreciate it very much. That was just a great relief.

MR. NICHOLS: There was one turn right there.

MS. RIFFE: Right, that's true. We got a turn.

MR. NICHOLS: And I think a lot of it had to do with your efforts to communicate the importance of that.

MS. RIFFE: We have four-lane in Oklahoma on that particular route right now, and so we just need to keep up.

MR. JOHNSON: All of Oklahoma or just a portion?

MS. RIFFE: All but ten miles across Oklahoma.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is that road a tax road or a toll road in Oklahoma?

MS. RIFFE: It is a tax road, and it was a federally funded road. And New Mexico, they've got their part from El Paso to Tularosa, and so we just keep doing it in pieces, but we want to know kind of when we can do our piece. So that's what I was asking. These other states have asked me where Texas is and I said, Gee, I don't know, I've got to ask. So that's where we are, and I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, rest assured that we are trying to figure out ways to get things done and not reasons not to do them.

MS. RIFFE: Right, and I know that, so I just kind of need to know what the process is now, where we fit.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I still think we need to look at the Stratford Turnpike.

MS. RIFFE: Well, that's great. I'll go back and ask my engineer what they think about toll roads and see if they think that will work.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, it's because of your interest and participation that you received a Good Hand Award, and it was richly deserved.

MS. RIFFE: And I appreciate that.

MR. JOHNSON: Steve Seese from Wichita Falls, if he is still here. We appreciate and salute your patience.

MR. SEESE: Thank you, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: You wanted to speak on the Kell Freeway, and you are the MPO director.

MR. SEESE: First off, Chairman Johnson, Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Williamson, thank you for having us here. This morning you heard a presentation by Senator Estes and also Representative Farabee regarding Kell Freeway and its importance. My name is Steve Seese; I'm the MPO director for Wichita Falls.

As Senator Estes turned around to look at citizens in the audience that had come down here -- we had quite a large citizen contingency just to show their support for this project, plus the mayor of the city who also serves as the MPO policy board chairman to appear here -- bad weather had socked them all in, and again, they asked me to offer their apologies for not being here with you. And I said, Well, I'll stick it out and I'll present what needs to be said hopefully to you folks.

What you have here is an update status on where Kell Freeway is today. This part right here, you see the overhead freeway that is completed; I-44 is coming in here from the north; this is the overhead right here. This area in green right here was completed in 1988; this area in blue is supposed to be open tomorrow; this area right in white was completed at basically the same time as the area in green was. So basically what's happened is everything from here to here has been completed, and what our request is before you today is this interchange connecting Kell Freeway with what essentially is four US highways, an interstate and a major state highway which is State Highway 79 involved in this interchange right here.

To the southwest here on this end you have the connection for the Phase I project corridor that's under construction at this time. So what we're asking for is this -- we've actually presented two projects to you: this interchange right there, but also we'd like for you to keep in mind this section right here which is the far western leg.

In the 2002 UTP these things showed up as Priority 2 in the record. The plans and all the engineering has been completed on both those sections.

Commissioner Nichols, I believe at that time you had asked if you had a choice of the two projects, which one has the priority. We sent a resolution to this body saying most definitely the interchange. We're talking about a $17 million project here. With this far western leg, we're talking about a $20 million project.

Let's talk local funding. By a letter of commitment to TxDOT, the Wichita Falls MPO, working with the Wichita Falls District, has pledged $5 million in Urban Mobility funds to the completion of the interchange itself, so it will take the cost down effectively to around $12 million. For the western leg of Kell, we've also in that same letter indicated a commitment of an additional $4 million to complete that western leg with Urban Mobility funds also.

What this says is it recognizes the Kell Freeway is the highest project in the region. Senator Estes and I believe Representative Farabee mentioned this Cross Plains Rural Transportation Group that's a nine-county transportation agency that's formed between these counties and they also were in support of this as the number one project in this region.

And so when you're developing your 2004 UTP and you're considering your draft -- hopefully maybe next month, I'm assuming -- we would ask that you consider these two projects and especially the interchange project and bring that to a CONSTRUCT, or before the new terminology came into place, a Priority 1 for that project. And that's why I'm here.

And folks, we are truly blessed to have you sitting on this commission. The city and entire region has been blessed by your decisions in the past to extend this section of main lanes, the overhead, the Phase I priority corridor, everything is looking so good for not only North Central Texas but the entire State of Texas because of what that route promises to accomplish.

And I want to extend my heartfelt thanks for all your efforts and all your actions, and wish you continued success in your decision making also.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Any questions or observations?

(No response.)

MR. JOHNSON: Next speaker: Curtis Corley from Leander.

MR. CORLEY: Good evening, gentlemen. I believe that you have some documents that we've presented to you.

Along about the first of January, the City of Leander passed a resolution to ask the TxDOT or whoever for jurisdiction of Highway 2243. We're here today -- this is the first time for most of us to appear before a state agency -- we're here to oppose the City of Leander's proposal to assume jurisdiction over Ranch Road 2243. It's a natural reaction for a state to release a highway to another entity if it offers to maintain it; that's just that much less for you to worry about.

Let's check out the benefits of this proposed move. TxDOT would benefit a little bit. The state spends a little bit over $447 million a year to maintain 187,000 lane miles of roadway, and that's according to the Texas Almanac, so 3-1/2 miles more or less of a two-lane rural roadway wouldn't impact these numbers very much. The taxpayers of the State of Texas probably wouldn't notice any difference.

The taxpayers of Leander would not benefit at all. Our tax rate increased by 17 percent this year. With the added cost of maintenance of 2243, our taxes would just go higher. This would be an unnecessary burden on the taxpayers. The city cannot now maintain existing streets and drainage ways. They do not have the funds, manpower, nor the equipment.

In the present economic climate it would seem the best move for most of us to hunker down for a while. The state budget is several billion dollars short, and the City of Leander is facing the same situation, whether they realize it or not. Local taxpayers can't take on any more right now.

The State of Texas has provided one of the best highway systems in the country for as long as I can remember, and we appreciate that. The City of Leander has a long way to go to achieve a similar record.

I want to thank you for allowing us to come here today and voice our concerns on this issue. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Corley.

Blanche Corley, do you wish to speak?

MS. CORLEY: I think he said enough.

MR. JOHNSON: Are you related to Curtis Corley?

MS. CORLEY: Yes, sir. Fifty-seven years is all.

MR. JOHNSON: Just 57 years. Well, congratulations.

Any other open comment speakers? We appreciate your coming here. No action is being taken on the Leander situation today.

MS. CORLEY: If you do have this on your agenda later, will we get notified of this?

MR. JOHNSON: I'm confident that we will make every attempt to contact or let it be known through the public sources that it is being considered as an agenda item, and we'll make a special effort to contact the interested people who have come before the commission and addressed an opinion on this particular item.

MS. CORLEY: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Is there any other business that needs to come before the commission? If there is none, we'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So moved.

MR. JOHNSON: I will second. Please note for the record it is 2:29 p.m. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. We stand adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 2:29 p.m., the meeting was concluded.)

MEETING OF: Texas Transportation Commission
LOCATION: Austin, Texas
DATE: February 27, 2003

I do hereby certify that the foregoing pages, numbers 1 through 224 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.

___________03/03/03
(Transcriber) (Date)

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