Proof that your government has failed you.
I have been with a number of people opposing the new mass of ugliness they call a toll road in Oak Hill, FYI 85% of residents voted AGAINST this monstrosity, and the government does not care AT ALL. (See fix290.org for more information).
So then they hold a hearing about another toll road on 290.
I did not make it but someone else did, and this is their report. (I am glad I didn’t go, I would be PISSED).
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The conduct of federal law as practiced by the Texas road lobby just
hit a new low yesterday at the US 290 E hearing on this proposed new
toll road held last night, 8/12/’08.
This proposed but unfunded road would serve many minority and low
income citizens commuting to the East of Austin.
The official environmental assessment found that this road would have
no significant impact on either the environment, or the low income
populations that abound in the areas this road would serve.
Of course, the conduct of the meeting as well as these studies have
been privatized so that that there is a built in conflict of interest.
It goes without saying that no private environmental studies
contractor chosen by either the CTRMA or TxDOT would be likely to get
another contract if that contractor had the poor judgement to find
that the road had any negative impact that would interfere with the
goals those trying to promote the road seek.
The way that the meeting itself was conducted underlines these
conclusions of inherent bias and conflict of interest. First of all
the public hearing was publicized to begin at 7 pm. But the meeting
was set up in such a way that those promoting the road took until 7:50
pm to explain why the road would have no environmental impact., etc.
The cost of the road and its shaky financing situation were not
explained.
Then the public attending were told that they could not ask questions
during the hearing itself, but that they could ask questions during
the ten minute break before the start of the hearing itself at 8 pm,
by which time time many of the minority and low income citizens in
attendence had started to drift away.
The citizens signing up to speak were told that they were not
permitted to face the other members of the audience, but that they had
to face a large screen with giant numbers on which were projected
numbers that that counted down the seconds in the brief time during
which they were permitted to speak. These citizens were not allowed to
ask questions of either TxDOT, the assembled CTRMA officials, or the
private contractors conducting the hearing during the formally
recorded portion of the hearing.
This procedure by its nature assured that while all the hour of
comments by officials to the pubic were carefully recorded,
communications in the other direcion were minimized and ansers to
questions by officials not recorded. Although comments during the
brief three minute time permitted each citizen were indeed recorded,
none of the responses to questions by the officials back to citizens
during the brief ten minute break from 7:50 pm to 8 pm before the
start of the public comments would or even could be recorded.
The ultimate indication that the public hearing was set up and
designed as an exercise in intimidation rather than the open
communication and information exchange process mandated under federal
law was the fact that the organizers went to the trouble and expense
of having FIVE giant screens on the walls in the auditorium on which
were projected in big red numbers the seconds the numbers remaining in
the brief three minutes that each citizen was permitted to speak. No
citizen signing up was was permitted to donate time to any other
citizen.
In this way, the point that made in various ways that while federal
laws mandate that a public hearing of some kind must be held, the way
that the hearing was structured showed that it was intended to
minimize the opportunity for meaningful two-way dialog with the
officials and private contractors in charge of organizing this toll
road hearing.
The lesson here is probably to channel citizen communications toward
writing, because here federal law requires that a paper trail exists
of the two-way dialog that this hearing was carefully structured to
minimize.
