Corrupt Bargain in Houston Light Rail Contracts (FR Original Find)

"If the STV contributions were previously reported in the Houston Review as you've stated, and on the anti-Metro PAC website prior to the election, why does GOPcapitalist post them as the results of a search from the Texas Ethics Commission below the headline; "Corrupt Bargain in Houston Light Rail Contracts (FR Original Find)"? "

There's no "if." It's obvious you're unfamiliar with this story, unfamiliar with the local history of the debate, the players, and even the sources you cite.

I don't know what constitutes an "FR original find," and don't really care. However, you've already displayed your ignorance of the subject matter.

Why you've decided to randomly take up a faulty defense of Houston METRO I've no idea, but defending METRO is a bigger job than can be achieved with a few hasty web searches. If you don't believe me, then do some more research and you'll find that the pro-METRO PAC was only a fraction of the pro-referendum spending. METRO itself had to spend millions of undisclosed public dollars on continuous advertising just to eak out a victory of less than 2%.

As someone who works and pays taxes in Houston, this violation of public trust is an issue that directly concerns me.

If you enjoy trolling so much, at least pick a subject you're familiar with.

161 posted on 04/27/2004 2:14:31 PM PDT by YCTHouston

To: Hermann the Cherusker

"It took government diktat to create sprawl. At no time before the widespread adoption of zoning, fire, and highway codes was this a method used for constructing the human habitat in our free enterprise system."

This is an argument I haven't heard much before. Most of the smart-growthers in the press and at the ULI argue that sprawl results from the opposite - lack of planning and free choice, the latter relating to the growth of automobile use in the early middle of the century.

I believe the social critic E. Michael Jones made a similar argument to yours in a recent book, though I've only read reviews. Basically, he seems to think that sprawl was the result of Protestant progressive plans to break up the ethnic and Catholic enclaves in the city.

That's a difficult argument to make in Houston, where zoning has never been implemented on a public level (excluding private contract deed restrictions, etc).
I'd be interested in seeing other research you might be able to point to in support of your assertion. Jones' tome is rather long and polemical, I'd like to see some hard research.

162 posted on 04/27/2004 2:26:48 PM PDT by YCTHouston

To: razorback-bert

The Metro Transit Police were escorting it to make sure no one stole it in transit.

Good thinking on their part. I've shoplifted two of them myself.

163 posted on 04/27/2004 2:31:48 PM PDT by Dog Gone

To: GOPcapitalist

I was posting information about STV's contribution on FR from that same Ethics Commission site last fall long before TTM ever took notice of it.

I'd like to see you back that claim up. Just becaude your alter ego, says so doesn't make it true.

164 posted on 04/27/2004 5:45:44 PM PDT by mac_truck (Aide toi et dieu l’aidera)

165 posted on 04/27/2004 9:39:06 PM PDT by YCTHouston

Its more than just zoning codes that go into sprawl. There are also the highway design manuals, fire codes, and similar items. It is actually illegal to build a traditional town because it violates the highway design manual and doesn't allow fire/rescue vehicles to barrel around corners at full speed.

And as you note, there are social factors weighing heavily in favor of breaking up old neighborhoods for political reasons. This is still happening in Philadelphia, and it has been proceeding with a vengence since Clinton's accession to office in 1993 with the housing policies dictated by Section 8 starting under his administration - namely flooding stable Republican/Catholic/Conservative Protestant neighborhoods with criminals and undesirables through this program.

I don't buy the liberal arguement that the cure for sprawl is more planning. The cure for sprawl is an end to planning and letting people and developers use their own land however they wish. Most Americans I think, for example, would not build a neighborhood and then exclude Churches from being built as part of it. Zoning codes do. So does giving other people vetos over the plans of developers and homeowners.

The biggest single problem though, is that instead of growth through the founding of more towns and villages within the countryside, we see growth by the elimination of the countryside. Who ever has heard of a real new town being developed recently (not just some amorphous suburb, but a real town)? I cannot figure out why this is, but there has to be something that has forced such a drastic change in the human environment.

166 posted on 04/27/2004 9:43:33 PM PDT by Hermann the Cherusker

To: mac_truck; YCTHouston; HoustonCurmudgeon; Humidston; anymouse; Flyer; PetroniDE; ...

I'd like to see you back that claim up. Just becaude your alter ego, says so doesn't make it true.

Greetings all -

As you may see in the above comment from mac_truck and his previous similar comments on this thread, this particular troll has made several strongly worded allegations against myself and my credibility regarding the subject matter of my original post here.

He has alleged without evidence that I falsely claimed credit for a report about a corrupt Metrorail contractor's political contributions from items publicized by Texans for True Mobility last November. He was immediately corrected on that matter by our fellow Texan YCTHouston, who correctly observed that I was one of the original finders of this data and widely publicized it on the FR Texas forum back during last year's metrorail referendum. In fact, as some of you know, I was one of the individuals who originally informed Texans for True Mobility of this data's existence, prompting them to publicize it at the time.

Please note that Mr. Truck is an old adversarial acquantence on FR who for unstated reasons has taken an unusual liking to my posts and, of late, has been following me into obscure Texas politics threads despite the fact that he lives nowhere near our state. Needless to say, he has lobbed an intentionally insulting and inflamatory allegation of source stealing against me (which is particularly odd for him to do considering that I have caught him engaging in plagiarism many times here). When YCT kindly stepped to my defense, he lobbed a similar accusation against him by way of an implication that he is but an "alter ego" of mine, not a real poster. Those of you who I pinged frequent the Texas forum and undoubtedly some of you remember our discussions about the Metrorail referendum in which I brought the STV, Siemens, and other corrupt Metro contractor campaign money to public attention. Those who do, would you be so kind as to inform Mr. Truck of this matter?

Best Regards,
GOPcap

167 posted on 04/27/2004 9:44:56 PM PDT by GOPcapitalist

To: Hermann the Cherusker

150 - "As to trucks carrying goods I buy over highways, I pay for their use at the time I purchase the product."

Ah, so you admit, you use/need the highways, even though you don't drive.

How about, if we take and pile all the extra costs for not using the highways on you, so you pay your full share for them.

Go without pants and food for a while.

168 posted on 04/27/2004 10:00:29 PM PDT by XBob

To: GOPcapitalist

got an idea, why don't we just blockade the highways for all products that these highway haters use, and make them carry them themselves on the subway, especially in Houston. Think of them, coming from the northeast to carry their goods across Houston, instead of them traveling on 1-10, I-45, and SR-59. Then they could try to get them on the rail roads too.

And of course, we would have to cut off their supplies of oil and chemicals from Houston, as no roads, no workers to control the pipelines and the railroads for their stuff either.

169 posted on 04/27/2004 10:06:47 PM PDT by XBob

To: Hermann the Cherusker

I live in a single family home. But my nearest neighbor is just across the shared driveway.

Good for you then. It's your right to buy whatever kind of home you want. But it is also my right to do the same. If I want to live 50 feet even 50 miles away from the nearest neighbor, you have no right to stop me and no right to insist that I live in some dumpy NYC highrise.

If sprawl were a reflection of a desire for living space, it would be people moving into the countryside to live on farm-sized plots.

Your lack of familiarity of Houston is showing again. Despite our reputation as the "sprawl capitol" of America, you will find that what you just described is exactly what many people are doing. The largest of the new developments in our outer suburbs all resemble exactly what you describe, or at least the next closest thing: houses on large lots and acreages that used to be farmland and that are still surrounded by farmland. Those are the types of developments that are selling big right now because they are what people want. In my own case, I grew up on a plot of wooded acreage on what was then the outer suburbs. There was a farm on the other side of the nearest major road. I looked out the windows of my highschool and saw cows grazing. It was a desirable high-market area with the benefit of being close enough to the country for space yet also close enough to Houston for a commute.

On the contrary, it is a consciously dictated outcome of a number of building and engineering codes intended for a specific social purpose - soceital atomization, and thus the neutralization of the public square.

BZZZT! Wrong. That's the kind of nonsense that zoning commissions institute. Want to know a neat little fact about Houston? IT HAS NO ZONING COMMISSION. People build where they want to build and buy where they want to buy - anything and everything goes!

The chief stroke of genius in getting America to adopt the Communist urbanform has been the addition of prosperity to this commuist nightmare world. Instead of identical little cube dwellings, Americans were given identical large houses fitting to their wealthy status in the world.

Don't be silly. Suburbanite houses recycle home plans to SAVE ON COST and home buyers like that cause it means cheaper houses for them. There's no evil "conspiracy" behind it - it's simply the market at work. Instead of an urban wasteland, a suburban wasteland, where it is impossible to go anywhere without a car.

If I so desired could walk to the grocery store, the convenience store, and the nearest elementary school from the uber-suburban enclave where I grew up and do so in only 10-15 minutes time. Yeah, if I wanted to go further that required a car, but so what? 100 years ago it would've required a horse and I don't see you complaining about the communist conspiracy to force horses on the people. Some of us actually LIKE to drive and LIKE the convenience and mobility it provides (not to mention the freedom from the fat smelly tattooed vegan goths who frequent public transportation in all the major urban cesspools of the northeast).

Implements of freedom, like the personal home and personal automobile, are turned into necessities, which means they are not freedoms at all.

Uh, shelter IS by definition a necessity and has been since people lived in caves, huts, and teepees. Nobody "made" it into one. Just the same, means of transportation be they on foot or by wheel, are and always have been necessitities. You may prefer foot. I prefer the wheel, which allows me to move faster and go farther than you can.

The personal freedom offered by a car is the ability to choose to use it or not.

No it isn't. A car is simply a mode of transportation that happens to be faster and more efficient than other modes, like the foot. Nobody's prohibiting you from using your feet and for all I care you can relocate your residence into a grocery store restroom stall so that you don't even have to use them anymore to get the food you require. But that doesn't give you a right to demand that I forgo my mobility advantage in a car and relegate my position to one not unlike your own, nor does it give you a right to accuse me of supporting a communist conspiracy since I choose not to.

The thing that many around here find so objectionable about your postings is not that you desire to live in an urban cubicle, walk to the grocery store, and ride some smelly train to work. What's so objectionable is the invective you direct at those of us who don't want to mimic your lifestyle. What's so objectionable is the hatred you exhibit against those of us who want and live in something different from your own system (and yes, whether you intend for it or not it comes accross to others as hatred). What's so objectionable is the fact that you do not seem content to simply live and let live, to let others make their own choices of where or how to live like you did and do so free from your harassment, your invective, your insistence that they are somehow doing something "wrong," and your implication that by not mimicing you that they are somehow mindless and unwitting tools of a nefarious scheme, conspiracy, or ideology.

If you want to live in an urban city, squeeze into tight spaces with smelly people on the subway, get harassed by disease-ridden bums on your streetcorners, roll around in the urine-drenched sidewalk in front of your cube of a dwelling, endure the 2AM catfights of the unhappily wedded couple on the other side of your bedroom wall, and shake your fist angrily from your window sill at every nefarious automobile that passes by, be my guest and do it. It's your choice and nobody's stopping you. But please leave those of us, who choose for reasons we find self evident not to partake in that sort of living situation alone to our own ways and our own choices just as we respect of you, ALONE.

170 posted on 04/27/2004 10:17:10 PM PDT by GOPcapitalist

To: GOPcapitalist; Hermann the Cherusker

157 - "Meanwhile, a common feature of virtually every 1984-esque "communist nightmare world of tommorrow" book is the densely populated city with people crowded into identical little cube dwellings stacked on top of one another in the middle of an urban wasteland."

Ah, this was not a story, it was a fact of the Communist East Berlin - Row after Row of identical grey concrete 20 story tall apartment buildings. It was amazing, like going into a concrete block storage yard, and a concrete block plant.

And Herman would have loved it - no cars. Empty streets, void of traffic except for a few trucks, and everyone going by mass transit.

Lovely place. Herman's ideal.

171 posted on 04/27/2004 10:19:07 PM PDT by XBob

To: XBob; Hermann the Cherusker

You're exactly right. This country would shut down without the highways. They are by no small measure an integral engine of economic prosperity and have been since they came to exist. The failure to recognize that is nothing more than an unwillingness to see the obvious.

Take our friend Hermann for example. He's posted countless tirades on the "lost property tax revenue" from constructing a highway on a narrow and geographically negligible strip of space that by its very existence as a highway increases the adjoining property value and accompanying revenues tenfold if not more. One might as well lament the lost revenue from a parking meter after it is removed to make way for a six story pay garage.

172 posted on 04/27/2004 10:25:44 PM PDT by GOPcapitalist

To: Hermann the Cherusker

Houston has no zoning, it just grows, like 'Topsey'.

173 posted on 04/27/2004 10:51:54 PM PDT by XBob

To: GOPcapitalist; Hermann the Cherusker

167 - It's all about money, real money, Billions and Billions of dollars in money, just for Metro, not to mention changes in property values and taxes.

Here are some snippets from several Houston Chronicle articles, on Metro. There are lots more to be seen if you just go to any of the links:

Hermann the Cherusker

Although $116 million is a small fraction of the $7.5 billion Metro proposes to spend in the next 22 years to expand the region's transit system, rail opponents used the figure to denounce the authority's budgeting. For example, a mailer this week from the anti-rail group Texans for True Mobility states, "U.S. Department of Transportation Notifies Metro -- Your Numbers Are Off By Tens of Millions."

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ec/metrorail/2176223

Tony Banash, who makes a two-hour commute between Long Beach and the San Fernando Valley on two trains and a bus, said Houston voters shouldn't support a bad plan. The Blue Line, taking an hour to cover its 22-mile route, resembles the system Metro is planning. The Green and Gold lines, on the other hand, mostly have an exclusive right of way and travel much faster.

"The street running has been an endless nightmare," Banash said as his Blue Line train crawled through dilapidated neighborhoods south of downtown L.A. "Don't build it in the street."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ec/metrorail/2164522

Metro budget battle all about the bucks

According to Metro's latest projections -- drawn up by staff over the weekend -- it will spend $681 million in federal money through 2009. The FTA, in projections released last week through the U.S. House Appropriations Committee and in a letter to Culberson, states Metro will receive $573 million -- a discrepancy of $108 million.

Rail opponents said the release of Metro's figures Monday did not sway them. Stevens said Metro is asking voters to authorize a $4.6 billion expansion plan, including 22 more miles of light rail, "that effectively handles 1 percent of the traffic in the region and will begin that with no money in the bank and a negative cash flow by 2005."

If the FTA numbers prove correct and Metro continues to see a drop in sales tax revenue, the authority will be $75 million in the hole in two years, Stevens contends.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ec/metrorail/2141453

174 posted on 04/27/2004 10:56:55 PM PDT by XBob

To: GOPcapitalist; Hermann the Cherusker

172 - One of the things Herman doesn't seem to realize, is the difference in Houston's freeways, from those in the North East. We have frontage roads, which allow continuous access and development, all along the freeways, while up there in yankeeland, they have truely limited access highways, which have no frontage roads, and so are useful only for transit, rather than development.

We Houstonians take them for granted, but until you live up in the North East, with a house backed up to the toll way, and that as your back yard, with no access to it for miles, and traffic zooming along 100 feet from your bedroom, do you realize just how good we have it in Houston.

175 posted on 04/27/2004 11:09:03 PM PDT by XBob

To: GOPcapitalist

"ndure the 2AM catfights of the unhappily wedded couple on the other side of your bedroom wall"

How ironic that you should post such a comment at a time when I am being kept awake by upstairs neighbors and their regular nocturnals. Not fighting though, just the opposite...

A longer commute to work is beginning to seem more reasonable.

176 posted on 04/27/2004 11:11:44 PM PDT by YCTHouston

To: GOPcapitalist

"Mr. Truck"'s accusation is especially amusing considering the amount of flame I've thrown at you over the last couple of years. He must think you're schizophrenic!

177 posted on 04/27/2004 11:15:05 PM PDT by YCTHouston

To: Hermann the Cherusker

I agree with your concluding comment that there was a divergence at some point - I would by nature prefer the life of a small town or village to ever-expanding citie-states. For others, though, the anonymoty and diversity of cities provide a false but attractive sense of freedom.

I still believe, though, that the appeal of cheaper housing through economies of scale had more to do with the growth of massive box subdivisions than a central plan. And further growth is driven by the need for available land just beyond the city's edge - a constantly moving horizon. It is also difficult to ignore industrial change in the transition from rural village to central city. Jobs are the primary factor in deciding where to live for most people.

My only faint hope is that the long-promised flexibility of communications technology, along with the loss of manufacturing, will allow for a gradual revival of village living.

Given your profession, I presume you are far more familiar with the various ordinances and codes which regulate development than I am. I'd like to encourage you to develop your line of thought here into an article for publication. Maybe not for the ULI newsletter, but it would be a worthwhile exercise in any event. I'm having some difficulty seeing a common, nefarious agenda linking highways and emergency codes in a common effort to atomize human life, but I'd be interested in reading anything you can suggest on the subject.

It's been some time since I've read Marx, but my recollection is that his primary complaint against the cities of his day was the lack of services provided to the working class. Yet he still praised them for curing "rural idiocy."

Anyway, I think my upstairs neighbors have finally reached cessation, perhaps I can get some sleep now.

178 posted on 04/27/2004 11:41:08 PM PDT by YCTHouston

Disclosure does not equal "ethical," and doesn't even necessarily equal "legal."

Right. So when contractor STV makes a publically disclosed contribution to the pro-Metro PAC you complain it's unethical, and when non-disclosed contributions are made to the anti-Metro PAC, (some by companies and individuals that stand to profit by the bond refernedum's defeat) you say and do nothing?

Where's the outrage from the civic minded citizens about the millions of dollars raised from unknown sources to run the slick television ad campaign against the Metro Bond? Or doesn't your sense of moral outrage extend beyond those positions you disagree with?

Please pay more attention to your own arguments if nothing else. (lol).

Six companies may have placed bids, but anyone who has fallowed this story from start to finish knew that STV would be the winner.

As has been explained to you before, STV, as the major contrator overseeing the original project, was in a strong position to win the new project bid. The fact that some sh**kicker predicted it would happen (and claimed it was an original find) is...meaningless.

179 posted on 04/28/2004 3:56:23 AM PDT by mac_truck (Aide toi et dieu l’aidera)

To: GOPcapitalist; All

Here is the Texans for True Mobility press release from October 6 2003. The METRO Money Train

TTM reprinted an earlier Houston Review article, which even includes the URL to the Texas Ethics Comission website (where only the most "politically astutue observers" would know to look).

180 posted on 04/28/2004 4:21:18 AM PDT by mac_truck (Aide toi et dieu l’aidera)

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