Perry's former staffer is back on payroll of toll road developer

DALLAS — Republican Gov. Rick Perry's former liaison to the Legislature is working once again for the Spanish company that won the rights to develop the state's $7 billion Trans-Texas Corridor toll road project. Lobbyist Dan Shelley worked for the firm as a consultant just before he went to the governor's office, a connection first revealed in 2004.

State officials denied any connection between that circumstance and the decision, three months later, to award Cintra-Zachry the huge highway contract. Now Shelley has left the governor's office, and he and his daughter have large contracts to lobby for the road builder, the Dallas Morning News reported Friday.

This week, Shelley had planned to take four state lawmakers on a four-day, all-expense-paid trip to Canada. But the trip was abruptly postponed by the state transportation department after the newspaper asked questions about it.

A call to Shelley seeking comment was returned by Rossanna Salazar, an Austin spokeswoman for Madrid-based Cintra, who said Shelley's contract with the company prohibits him from discussing his work with news reporters. Salazar confirmed that Shelley was helping to arrange the fact-finding trip to visit a Cintra toll road near Toronto.

"Dan Shelley was going to cover those costs" for the lawmakers' expenses, Salazar said. "He would have had to publicly report those costs to the Texas Ethics Commission."

Texas law does not restrict former gubernatorial staffers from lobbying, but Perry has instituted his own rule for former high-level staffers. They can lobby the Legislature and state agencies but are banned from lobbying the governor's office for a year, or until the end of the first legislative session after they've left, whichever is longer.

"Gov. Perry has the strongest ethics policy that any Texas governor has ever had," said Kathy Walt, Perry's spokeswoman.

The Canadian trip was to include a visit to Cintra's state-of-the-art Highway 407 Electronic Toll Road. Interviews with Ontario government officials also were scheduled.

The lawmakers were Rep. Mike Krusee, the Round Rock Republican who heads the House Transportation Committee, and three members of the Senate committee that writes the state budget: Democrats Royce West of Dallas and John Whitmire of Houston, along with Republican Kim Brimer of Fort Worth.

Several top employees of the Texas Department of Transportation also were to go on the trip, but the agency was to pay their way. Transportation department officials said they postponed the trip because a more pressing duty arose.

Though the payment of trip expenses for legislators by Cintra would have been legal, companies stand to gain by having lawmakers' undivided attention for several days, said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen of Texas, a watchdog group. Lawmakers should use their campaign funds for such expenses, Smith said.

"That's preferable from taking money from corporations that stand to make billions in the continuation of this Trans-Texas Corridor project," he said.

Shelley resigned his state job in September and struck a lobbying deal with Cintra worth between $50,000 and $100,000 to work from March through the end of this year. His daughter and lobbying partner, Jennifer Shelley-Rodriguez, will earn between $25,000 and $50,000 from the company over the same period, state records show.

The Trans-Texas Corridor is Perry's vision for a statewide network of toll roads, rail lines and utility lines to improve transportation for the next 50 years. Cintra-Zachry won the development rights in 2004 to the first corridor section, which will parallel Interstate 35.

The corridor has become an issue in the governor's race, as independent candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn has tried to capitalize on opposition from landowners and others to the project.

Planning for Trans Texas Corridor in North Texas continues

Kerry Craig

Aug. 17, 2006 -- Sulphur Springs City Manger Marc Maxwell, who serves as a member of a citizens advisory panel for Texas Department of Transportation, was in Austin Wednesday for still another meeting on the planned Trans Texas Corridor.

Tentative plans calling for the route to bypass both Dallas and Fort Worth have drawn enough opposition from those cities to have them included in a second environmental impact study.

The primary study is nearing completion, and the proposed alignment has been determined, and it shows the corridor coming far to the east of Dallas.

D-FW Metroplex communities and organizations are not happy with the plan.

"They have proposed the first tier should be10-miles wide until it reaches the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, and the study should encompass the Metroplex. It would then return to 10 miles when it got north of the Metroplex," Maxwell said. "That is what they have been pushing for, and in the final analysis, that's what the Trans Texas Corridor Citizens Advisory Committee decided to do."

Maxwell said that Gov. Rick Perry weighed in on the study, and sent a letter to TxDoT saying he agreed with the Metroplex cities in that the study should be expanded in that first tier to include the Metroplex.

The decision to to expand the study was only one part of a 15-point white paper prepared by the citizens committee. The main point, Maxwell said, was that the transportation corridor should be built.

""We all felt, unanimously so, that the 'no build option' was not an option at all, and we gave the commission credit for having the foresight to pursue a project like this," he said.

The city manager said that although environmental impact studies will be broadened to include the Metroplex, the plan calls for the new transportation route linking the port of entry at Laredo with the Oklahoma state line to cross Interstate 30 between Greenville and Royse City.

That intersection would, according to Maxwell, bring an increase in traffic, especially trucks, through Sulphur Springs and Hopkins County and would have a positive effect on the local economy.

Rick's getting desperate

Governor Rick must really be running scared.

Now he's endorsing the plan to create an outer loop around Dallas-Fort Worth as part of the Trans-Texas Corridor.

The story says, "Metroplex leaders are thrilled" at the news, without saying who these "Metroplex leaders" might be. I'm not sure they exist.

This is a goofy idea endorsed by a desperate politician, and anybody thrilled by this is a boob.

An outer loop would take 20 or 30 years to build. It would cost an amount of money for which there is not yet a term ... Jillions? Kazillions?

And by then, who will be able to fill up the gas tank in their car?

If we still have gas ... and if we still have cars ...

Posted by pbourgeois on Friday, August 18, 2006

Perry's backing of outer loop praised

Posted on Fri, Aug. 18, 2006

By GORDON DICKSON, STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

Metroplex leaders say they're thrilled that Gov. Rick Perry has written a letter endorsing the plan to create an outer loop around Dallas-Fort Worth as part of the Trans-Texas Corridor.

Texas Department of Transportation officials said last week that they were asking the Federal Highway Administration to include the outer loop, which would allow the Trans-Texas -- a cross-state toll road -- to be incorporated into existing highway plans rather than simply bypassing the Metroplex.

Then, on Tuesday, Perry sent a letter to the transportation department supporting the Metroplex plan, to the delight of Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief.

"Our proposed alignment would direct traffic to the center of our region and include an outer loop going east and west around our Metroplex. It will utilize current resources, move traffic to the core and create more direct routes," Moncrief said in a statement. "We spoke in a united voice, and we were heard."

State Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the state Senate's transportation commission, sent a letter to Perry thanking him for his responsiveness.

Although thousands of people have flooded Trans-Texas hearings this summer to speak against toll roads, North Texas' elected leaders have said they'll support Trans-Texas as long as it comes through the Metroplex, rather than bypassing it.

Back in the Loop: Perry's support key to area's Trans-Texas goal

Governor Goodhair is pushing through a scheme that takes tens of thousands of acres of land away from multi-generation Texans so that a Spanish company can make billions of dollars from tolls and franchise fees to expedite the passage THROUGH Texas of goods to and from the corrupt Mexican government and the Frenchy Canadians in support of the United States job give away called NAFTA. Yes, I voted for that socialist, Ross Perot.

The communities and political entities (school districts, counties, etc.) would be split in half causing either a total reorganization or excessive expenses to overcome the newly created dead-end rural and secondary highways. School buses would have to travel up to an additional fifty miles and emergency response units would have to do the same or have multiple units on either side of the travesty.

In return the communities would get the noise and pollution created by the traffic and a decrease in land values that is not confiscated along the route by this project that was not presented to the citizens for approval.

There will be no new jobs created in the communities, indeed they will decrease, and many family farms and small towns will cease to exist.

I expect that all of the utilities using the TTC will have to make a little donation to Spain for the privilege of placing power lines, pipe lines and railroad tracks through it.

In addition all services, fuel, food and accommodations will have a franchise fee attached. I expect that the franchisees will be exempted from local taxes. This is probably covered in the 250 pages of unreleased contract information that Goodhair is trying to keep secret.

Unlike the current Interstates there will be no gourmet rows (Wendy's, McDonald's, etc.) or two star hotel/motels along the nonexistent frontage roads. A loss of jobs and tax revenue.

Anybody but Goodhair and his Spanish buddies...

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