04.14.09
Local election news and the road fairy
EOW is back from some time off with family and friends over the past Easter weekend. To ease back in here are a couple of articles worth reading.
The HCN has an article on a LISD candidate forum, Leander ISD candidates square off. And a Cedar Park city council candidates too, CP council candidates speak up at forum. There will be another LISD candidates forum on April 27th.
There’s a public forum for the candidates in Hutto coming next week. It will be at Hutto Middle School on Tuesday April 21. Doors Open at 6:00, Forum Starts at 7:00pm. There will also be an opportunity to meent HISD candidates at 6:45pm. See the event poster [.pdf].
Ben Wear had an article that does a great job of pointing out the childish place of our tranportation financing debate at the state level has become, Lege is missing a road fairy.
In fact, the salient characteristic of the road fairy seems to be doubt about its existence. As in, “There’s no road fairy, so we have to build toll roads.” Or, for those on the other side of the debate, “Unless you believe there’s a road fairy somewhere out there, we need to increase the gas tax.” Or for the truly confident and ecumenical: “There’s no road fairy to save us. We need to build tollways and raise gas taxes.”
State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, was the latest to cite the highway sprite, this time during a debate last week over legislation to allow localities to raise the gas tax or fees to pay for transportation projects. Wentworth supports the idea. But some conservatives, you see, don’t like the bill because it would allow the public to vote to tax themselves. The Legislature for 18 years has resisted raising the state’s 20-cent-a-gallon gas tax.
Recall that last session, a majority of lawmakers rebelled over private toll road leases. And toll roads in general are not real popular across the state. But then again, neither is sitting in traffic going nowhere, spewing out pollution and stewing over missed appointments. So: Don’t toll me, don’t tax me, but by God build me some roads and rail lines.
That leaves us with the engineering elf.
If it wasn’t so sad it might be funny. Isn’t making the tough choices why these people want to be elected in the first place? That’s rhetorical. Oh well, it’s obvious that we must have roads, and that we must pay for them. It would sure seem that a skilled leader and politician would be able to explain that to their constituents, and not fear they wouldn’t get reelected. Maybe they’re right and the voting public has been conditioned to believe they can have everything and not pay for it for too long.