07.21.06

As Rural Texans Voice Concerns, Gov. Perry Says They Have “Bad Information”

Posted in Around The State, Road Issues at 9:27 am by wcnews

The national media is starting to pick up on this issue in the Texas governor’s race, Texas Farmers Furious Over Superhighway. Here are a few excerpts:

Leroy Walters has survived many a threat on the farm that has been in his family for 120 years — droughts, hailstorms, tornadoes, grasshopper attacks.

But now he sees a manmade danger on the horizon: a colossal, 600-mile superhighway that will plow clear across the state of Texas, perhaps cutting through Walters’ sorghum and corn fields, obliterating the family’s houses and robbing his grandchildren of their land.

“I don’t think they’re going to want to pay a toll to go across this land,” he said. “They want to enjoy it free, as Texans should enjoy it.”

[…]

Perry’s spokesman, Robert Black, dismissed suggestions that the toll road will hurt the governor’s re-election campaign. “The governor recognizes the concerns that rural Texans have. Remember, he’s from rural Texas,” Black said. “But he also believes that you have people out there who are spreading bad information.”

[…]

“We don’t know for sure whether this is a concept that we can endorse or not because we have not seen it,” complained Mayor Will Lowrance of Hillsboro, a town of 8,200 people 55 miles south of Dallas. “I happen to still believe in the open records law in Texas.”

These people are angry and his only response is that he’s form there and these people have bad information. Well I think this Mr. Walters information that this project is coming right through his land is good information. It’s obvious that Gov. Perry will continue to ignore these concerns when it comes to rural voters.

The Cameron Herald has an article up on the meeting on Tuesday night, Area residents critical of TTC plan. Several of Democratic candidates showed up - Jim Stauber, Fred Head, Mary Beth Harrell and Diane Henson - to listen to concerns like this:

“It’s a bad idea,” Cynthia Miller, one of those speakers, said in the public hearing. “It will bury and destroy acres and acres of farmland.

“I’d like for us to look to the future and consider other options.”

Just more bad information.

TDP has article on next week’s TTC meeting in Taylor, TxDOT addresses corridor concerns.

[UPDATE]: Brought up from the comments. Here’s the take from Keeping Terrell in the loop, on their TTC meeting on Wednesday.

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