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Sometimes the truth just has a way of coming to light. A public information officer with the Texas Department of Transportation this week wrote a column in the Herald-Press describing the financial woes facing TxDOT and how because of those problems the state’s transportation department doesn’t have the money to deal with many of the state’s transportation issues. Apparently, several of the state’s senators do not feel that is the case at all. David Dewhurst called out the state’s interim chairwoman of the Texas Transportation Commission, Hope Andrade, on this very issue, according to a story from the Associated Press....

TEXARKANA, Texas — The biggest construction project ever attempted in Texas comes under public debate beginning Tuesday in the first of a series of town hall meetings about a proposed 4,000-mile network of superhighway toll roads. The Trans-Texas Corridor, or TTC, as it's become known, was initiated six years ago by Gov. Rick Perry. It's rankled opponents who characterize it as the largest government grab of private property in the state's history and an unneeded and improper expansion of toll roads. Texas Department of Transportation officials, and Perry, have defended the project as necessary to address future traffic concerns in...

AUSTIN — A political activist dedicated to independent candidates and third-party tickets has launched a new Internet site dedicated to impeaching Gov. Rick Perry. Linda Curtis, founder of Independent Texans, launched the site to call on the Legislature to draft articles of impeachment against Perry in 2009. Curtis noted that Texas does not have the right of recall, so petitioning the Legislature to impeach the governor is the only answer when citizens are unhappy. When asked about the new Impeach Perry Web site, Perry spokesman Robert Black responded by saying: "Free speech is a wonderful thing." Curtis said the two...

Mike Krusee looked tired. The Republican state representative from Williamson County, interviewed at his Capitol office last week, for 10 days or so had been fighting what some people call the creeping crud, a debilitating mixture of cold, flu and allergy symptoms hitting many Central Texans this spring. But Krusee, for much longer than 10 days, has also been fighting the creeping realization among legislators that over the past two sessions, they might have granted Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Department of Transportation too much power to create toll roads. For the first time in his three sessions as...

AUSTIN — A protest against toll roads highlighted a rally on the Capitol steps Friday, but the Texas Independence Day holiday put folks in the mood to raise hell about other grievances as well. Many also complained about a national animal identification tag. Some grumbled about the state's loss of control of its borders. A few warned about the coming "North American Union." And some excoriated the United Nations for wanting "to take your gun," exhorting anyone within earshot to "get us out of the U.N." The "liberty or death" chant of a thousand or more protesters marching up Congress...

AUSTIN - A legislator from San Antonio has filed a bill to kill G-O-P Gov. Rick Perry's Trans-Texas Corridor toll road proposal.Perry spokesman Robert Black today said the governor will fight the anti-corridor measure.Democratic Representative David Liebowitz says his bill would take away the Texas Department of Transportation's authority to buy land and do contracts for the project.Liebowitz told W-O-A-I radio that the Trans-Texas Corridor would "destroy rural Texas as we know it."But Black says we face a serious issue in transportation infrastructure in Texas.Black says you have to "think outside the box and come up with solutions," which the...

AUSTIN – After months of complaining about Republican Gov. Rick Perry's transportation plan, independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn put forth her plan Monday for unclogging Texas roads. Mrs. Strayhorn said that she wouldn't rely on toll roads, as Mr. Perry's plan does, and that she would expand capacity on Interstate 35 using existing rights of way. In some congested areas that could mean double-decker highways, she said. "Texas once had and can again have a freeway system that is the envy of the nation," Mrs. Strayhorn said. "I am adamantly opposed to any toll roads in Texas." She also...

AUSTIN - The first of nine state constitutional amendments proposed on the Nov. 8 ballot would establish a fund through which taxpayers would help pay for relocating freight rail lines from congested urban areas. Like most of the ballot proposals, except for the ban on same-sex marriages, Proposition 1 has received little attention. But it is beginning to spark some debate and, depending on how it fares at the polls, could become an issue in the March Republican governor's primary. Proposition 1 supporters, including Gov. Rick Perry, think the new fund would be an important step toward easing traffic congestion...

AUSTIN — Rural landowners carrying protest signs and shouting angry slogans gathered at the Capitol to speak their minds. Their goal: Stopping Gov. Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor. Farmers and ranchers say the huge highway project will gobble thousands of acres of their property only to make money for private toll road companies. “The government is out of control. They’re trying to take our property rights away from us,” said Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, one of the legislators who spoke at the May 3 rally. Republican Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn —one of Perry’s potential GOP primary opponents in 2006 — joined...

The massive Trans-Texas Corridor highway project is supposed to be a solution for crowded highways, but some Texans say it comes at a high cost to them. Hundreds of protestors gathered at the capitol in Austin Tuesday to push for a bill that would delay action on the corridor for two years. Protestors came from all across the state carrying signs and voicing their opposition to the Trans-Texas Corridor. David Stall of Fayetville said, “This is a volatile issue. It's been pushed on the public without input, without discussion, without open debate." Margaret Green of Buckholts said, "The way they're...

The latest, proposed route of the I-69 "NAFTA Highway" is slightly different from previous expectations, with a major segment skipping Fort Bend County. The NAFTA Highway is a proposal to link Mexico, the U.S. and Canada through a major highway starting at Laredo and Matamoros and running through Port Huron, Mich. The highway proposal also includes a separate route connecting the main corridor to the Houston Ship Channel, and that will likely run through Fort Bend County. For years, local officials have speculated the main corridor of the highway would run through Fort Bend County in place of U.S. 59....

Strayhorn generous in criticism for Perry's call to special session Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who goaded Gov. Rick Perry to call a special session to address the state's ailing public school finance system, on Thursday chastised him for calling the session without a "real plan." "I am disappointed that the governor called this fourth special session that just concluded without a long term plan to fix our education system," Strayhorn said at the weekly Rotary Club of Houston luncheon. "It was a waste of taxpayers' money and a waste of lawmakers' valuable time for...

Tech pumps up tuition by 36 percent Regents pass new admissions policy By SEBASTIAN KITCHEN AVALANCHE-JOURNAL Texas Tech regents passed a dramatic $20 per credit hour increase Friday, despite objections from the student body president, and approved a policy that will include race and ethnicity as admission factors. The overall increase for the coming school year will add more than $500 to students' bills since the fall 2003 semester. "This is going to hurt our students," said Jeremy Brown, president of the Student Government Association. Tech tuition per credit hour Fall 2002 and spring 2003 $88 Fall 2003 $92 Spring...

Tech plans change in admissions Race-based policy set for approval by regents By SEBASTIAN KITCHEN AVALANCHE-JOURNAL The Texas Tech Board of Regents is expected to approve race and ethnicity as factors in admissions at its Friday meeting. Other universities, including the University of Texas, returned to race-based admissions after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June stated that race and ethnicity can be included as factors in the ad missions pro cess. The change has met opposition on campuses throughout the country, including Tech and Texas, where the Center for Equal Opportunity and other organizations are attempting to overturn the...

Perry's math on school spending draws fire AUSTIN (AP) — Gov. Rick Perry, as he has proposed financial incentives for public school achievement, has cited a figure of $10,400 a year per student as Texas' rate of spending on education. He attributes the statistic to the National Education Association, the nation's largest teacher group. Perry argues that Texas already puts a lot of money into education, despite what critics say. But a spokesman for the NEA's affiliate in the state, the Texas State Teachers Association, said the $10,400 figure does not appear in any NEA report and is actually a...

Knight's outburst draws reprimand Raider fans throw support behind coach BY PATRICK GONZALES A-J SPORTS EDITOR Texas Tech head basketball coach Bob Knight was on the sidelines Tuesday night — a day after a highly publicized verbal spat with the university's chancellor threatened to put another dent in his coaching career. After a day of deliberation among school officials, Tech athletic director Gerald Myers said in a press release distributed Tuesday afternoon that appropriate personnel action had been taken in regard to Knight. No suspension was involved, Myers said, but the action did include a reprimand. Knight was greeted with...