Senate Committee Hears Testimony and Raises Concern

Chairman Carona asked to hear from citizens and you answered the call.

When the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee opened their public hearing on March 1st the room was full, 86 were registered to speak and 525 written comments had been officially received. At a table outside the auditorium citizens were still lined up to complete more witness forms. The auditorium was full and two additional hearing rooms were opened for the overflow where they could watch and hear the hearing on closed circuit television. Before the day was over a third overflow room would be required.

The hearing continued non-stop all day for eight hours without a single break. To their credit the senators remained in their seats and attentive to each speaker hour after hour.

Most speakers were limited to three minutes. Later in the day that time allotment was shortened to two minutes. At 4 o'clock the Chairman announced that they had more than another 100 witnesses registered to speak and that it would be impossible to hear them all. Thereafter witnesses were called twenty at a time to quickly put their name and position on the record.

It's not too late to stand and be counted.

Shortly before 5 o'clock the hearing was closed. Before doing so however, Chairman Carona announced that the committee would extend the deadline and continue to accept written testimony for an additional seven days.

The official witness form includes instructions for submitting testimony by mail, fax and e-mail anytime before 5pm, Thursday, March 8, 2007.

WITNESS FORM

Please print and fax or mail the form together with your comments about the Trans Texas Corridor, Public-Private Partnerships, or Toll Roads today. You can also send additional testimony, even if you appeared at the hearing in person.

Send your comments today.

It may be the most important thing that you can do to help stop the TTC this year.

A recording of the complete hearing is available via the Internet [video]

Watch for our Hearing Summary newsletter coming soon.

Any discussion about the Trans Texas Corridor must include serious discussion about Public Private Partnerships. Fortunately there is now a lot of debate and discussion in Austin and other state capitols about the new application of this tool.  Public Private Partnerships are designed to allow a government entity working with a private partner to provide a service to its citizens that it cannot necessarily afford to provide itself.  For example, many communities privatize their trash collection, or the operation of their hospitals, saving the community large overhead costs. These are common uses of the Public Private Partnership tool. CorridorWatch.org and others have expressed concern that improper use of the Public Private Partnerships will result in higher costs of goods and services when the private sector profit is combined with existing taxes and tolls.