Posted on 11/25/2002 3:11:57 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
The following memo was accidentally posted on the Houston Chronicle website last Thursday morning for a couple of hours. It is an internal memo between the editorial page writers instructing a massive year long propaganda campaign to push a light rail referendum through next november. The memo was removed upon discovery but not before many people read it. The Houston Chronicle also printed a correction stating it had been accidentally posted, but not what it was about. This document is genuine and was copied from the Chronicle website in the hour or two it was online by somebody and has been circulated by email ever since. Rest assured, it IS genuine. I've verified it independently with three different people who read it on the site while it was up there during the same time. Here is the memo's full text as it appeared on Thursday night:
A Houston odyssey: DeLay, Lanier and light rail
Posted to HoustonChronicle.com Nov. 20,2002
Next November, voters in the city and across the Metropolitan Transit Authority service area will cast a truly important vote: They will decide whether Metro should be permitted to expand our rail rail system beyond the 7-mile South Main line.
There isn't a more critical issue on the horizon. I propose a series of editorials, editorial cartoons and Sounding Board columns leading up to the rail referendum, with this specific objective: Continuing our long standing efforts to make rail a permanent part of the transit mix here.
The timing, language and approach of the paper's editorials would, of course, be the decision of the Editorial Board. But I suggest that they could be built upon and informed by a news-feature package with an equally specific focus: Telling the story of rail here by examining the long term relationship of the two key players in the local transit wars -- Rep. Tom DeLay and former Mayor Bob Lanier. For better or worse, (mostly worse, I would argue) no two have had a more significant impact on transit decisions here. Our readers deserve to know how they've operated to fund and promote an anti-rail agenda for the past two decades. This would be vital information for voters as they come to their decision on rail. It would also be highly entertaining read.
We in Houston have our own version of the "Chinatown" story of the early 20th century Los Angeles, when the currency of power was water: Who controlled it; who received it; where it came from; and where it went at what price. Since World War II, Houston's currency has bee concrete-- millions of cubic yards poured for freeways.
DeLay and Lanier have been the two central characters in our local drama. This urban-suburban, Republican-Democrat odd couple is bound by the belief highways and poured concrete are the path to a profitable future for this area, and its converse--the belief that mass transit must be stopped in its tracks.
The broad elements of the news/features package could include:
? The story of how the Lanier-DeLay relationship began (in the early 1980's when Lanier was chairman of the state Hiway Commission and DeLay was a young congressman)
?Lanier the land man: Through his privately held Landar Corp., Lanier has long shown his prescience in purchasing land where roads would ultimately go. Where are his holdings? Specifically , where are his holdings along the Grand Parkway? How has he benefitted by the building of roads.
?DeLay's steady rise to power in Congress. How it come about and, more importantly, how it was funded (by the highway lobby).
?Lanier's rise to political power. His rift with former Mayor Kathy Whitmire that turned into a determination to run her off (he did and she was never heard from again); his controversial shifting of transit funds into the city budget in the much discussed "Metro transfer."
?Bob Lanier, public kingmaker. For almost a decade, the path to public office in Houston has wound through Lanier's den. Mayoral and City Council hopefuls, congressional candidates, would-be Texas Texas legislators and county commissioners--all come to kiss the great man's ring and bid for his approval. What is protocol? Who makes introductions? What is the quid-pro-quo? And, the $64 question: How has Lanier managed to promote himself as the patron saint of inner city Houston while working with DeLay to promote a relentlessly suburban/freeway/anti-rail funding agenda at all levels of government?
?Ground zero for November: The campaign led by DeLay and Lenier to defeat rail expansion. Who is doing the funding? What is the history of the San Antonio-based think tank doing the the research to discredit rail?
Any number of sidebar topics also come to mind:
?The Fort Bend mayors who are bucking DeLay and Lanier to bring commuter rail to the thousands of Fort Bend residents who work in the Medical Center.
?Laniers involvement in the lawsuit brought by former Houston Councilman Robb Todd to hold up the South Main light rail project.
?Elyse Lanier: From jewelry salesperson to Houston political insider.
?The Greater Houston Partnership and the clean-air saga. When the Environmental Protection Agency put clean-air deadlines on the Houston region in the early 1990's, the Partnership resisted mightily. The thinking was: We have the political connections in Washington--from George Bush and Bill Archer to DeLay and Lloyd Bentson-- to stall and stonewall until this all goes away. What went wrong? What was the Chronicle's role in supporting this approach?
?A primer on highway building, Houston style: Why the Southwest Freeway turned south and west rather than continuing due west (developer Frank Sharp had a hand in this).
?Why Texas highways have frontage roads (a key to economic development) in the first place. Sam Rayburn added them to the language in President Eisenhower's landmark legislation creating the Interstate Highway System in the 1950's. At whose bidding?
This is a story in urgent need of telling, and an editorial position of equal urgency. Voters deserve to know the history of how Houston came to be a city of freeways well before they decide about rail's future next November. They need to know who has wielded the power to pour concrete, who still wields it and to what lengths the concrete pourers will go in order to stop rail.
I heard some of what he was saying before I got to read the whole Chronicle memo.
Dan went head to head against Ken Lay on the stadium back in the 1990s and rallied a 49% to 51% vote on an issue that some politicos thought would be a clear victory.
700AM KSEV (the outcasts who were fired from KPRC 950AM Clear Channel) were the guys that got a woman who was unjustly evicted from her home (and lost her home at below market value to the evictor) back into her standing (with furniture to replace that which she lost).
When the blowhards at KPRC came on the air, they said that they didn't want to talk about bill numbers, get people out rallying, or talk politics all day. Unspoken was that the manager at the time wanted no mention of God (he's now gone, Dan talked about this on his own program's 1 year anniversary).
Another radio forum to turn to is 1430AM KCOH on weekday mornings. It is a black station (that has been since the 1950s) and it strives to meet the communty. The morning host gets hassled on air at times for being largely conservative (President Bush is often referred to by callers as "your boy"). Good stuff and I think that I've heard Joyce call in for those who know her from KSEV (and oler KPRC).
At least Lynn Ashbey was man enough to admit that the downtown developers were looting this town and saw it to be worse than the looting of Jesse Jones, Hoffeinz, et al of decades past.
Lynn also voted alternately in opposite party primaries (to receive both parties campaign literature). He seemed a little more virtuous in that he might actually vote for the better candidate (in his mind) in a primary rather than just sabotage an electon by giving support to a weak candidate.
Lynn Ashbey also worked (for what it's worth) with the creator of Mad Magazine/Comic Harvey Kurtzman. I have a couple of books of "caption this" photos from the 1960s that I need to get him to sign.
BTW Andy is my County Commissioner.
Yes it is the "Star".
The commentator is radio "personality" Jon Matthews who is not viewed as a conservative by the conservative readers of his column in the "Star".
That is just as I suspected. That thing's a moderate squishy fishrap in disguise as a "conservative" leaning paper. I live in Harris County so fortunately we don't have it (though I'd trade you any day if Fort Bend wanted to take the Houston Chronicle for us!).
But I have seen and read it in the past when Bev Carter was stirring up sentiments against real conservatives for not being like herself. Some of the stuff they print is VERY borderline libelous. It's almost like having our very own local Molly Ivins inside the GOP's liberal wing.
This is Chinatown.
I dislike any reporting that is done with an agenda and a slant toward a particular point of view. I worked in a television newsroom for over 20 years and know it is done on a daily basis in the guise of "investigative" reporting.
Houston also had another valid proposal where the freight railroads were willing to work with the MTA. It never got off the ground, I suspect that Kathy Whitmire was still fixated on the "monorail".
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