Free Republic

Local toll authority likely to carry more of the burden for designing, building second wave of Austin-area toll roads The Texas Department of Transportation after February will cease awarding contracts for new or expanded roads, a belt-tightening that probably will indefinitely delay a number of Central Texas highway projects. Work on some local projects, such as widening FM 1460 between Round Rock and Georgetown, RM 2338 in Williamson County, and Texas 195, which runs from Interstate 35 in Williamson County to Killeen, will be shelved for now. In addition, the edict will force Central Texas' local toll authority to carry...

<p>Sacramento -- Advisers to Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger are drafting a budget that would give cities and counties back much of the local property tax revenue the state seized a decade ago, The Chronicle has learned.</p> <p>The plan's aim is to offset a loss of local money should the new Republican governor reduce vehicle license fees, as he has promised to do.</p>

Gov. Gray Davis chooses his words carefully. When he came to the Daily News a few weeks ago to sell his new budget plan, he offhandedly declared, "I propose that we reinstate the vehicle..." before catching and correcting himself. If he'd continued as he started, the next words out of his mouth would have been "license fee," as his budget includes a provision to triple the annual tax Californians pay on each car they lease or own. But under a handy, tortured legal opinion produced by lawyers for Davis and state Controller Steve Westly, no one in Sacramento actually has...

<p>Tripling the annual fee Californians pay to register their cars hardly seems the best way to court voters.</p> <p>It's also guaranteed to irk Gov. Gray Davis. The governor this week said he'd veto such a plan because it threatens to derail his own strategy for closing the state's budget gap.</p>