Yeah, I thought I'd knock that blog out and pick up the peices later. Well, here we with the peices.
First of all, I used an old TxDOT map. You'll see that is now adjusted to show the Trans-Texas Corridor's current proposed distance from Alamo City.
Second: Just as the march will go on, public comments will keep being received, TxDOT officials say. And private-property-rights-ruffling TTC is same as it ever was, apparently.
Hall updated her press release on her website to make clear strange doings that DO NOT foretell the end of TTC... At least hers was not an intentional April Fools item... like that NPR report on the IRS sending out consumer goods rather than promised rebates to those taxpayers determined more likely to pay down their debt than go shopping.
I passed that one on twice already. Sheesh!
Here's Hall's amendment:
Senator Ogden's office is now saying the Senator said: "TTC-69 is dead in Walker County" and that we "misinterpreted" his comments. Commissioner Gaines was very clear with TURF that Ogden told him the TTC-69 is dead (the whole enchilada, not just Walker County), and that news was spreading in East Texas enough to panic our supporters who were encountering people who said they were no longer going to the rally because the TTC-69 project had been scrapped.
Then, in another incident, we have a witness who was in the room when the Mayor of Kendleton, Carolyn Jones, also said the TTC-69 project is dead and over, and then went on to say "so there's no need to attend that rally in Austin Saturday." She directly tried to suppress attendance at the rally and deliberately gave out false information to the public. Kendleton and Huntsville aren't even near one another, yet this news hit the same day and we heard about it in two different regions. Jones indicated she had attended a meeting Monday morning, March 31, where she was assured the TTC-69 project was dead. Yet TxDOT's official statement to a CNN reporter yesterday was this: "We just extended the public hearing process on the project. No, the project is not dead."
So who's responsible for holding that meeting Mayor Jones referred to, and why would anybody want to tell all these elected officials that TTC-69 is dead (the same week as our rally, conveniently not during the public hearings) when all the official documents and public information say otherwise? The conclusion is clear: this misinformation is being spread to suppress turnout at the rally and minimize the embarrassment of the politicians in the path of these corridors.
Then, in another incident, we have a witness who was in the room when the Mayor of Kendleton, Carolyn Jones, also said the TTC-69 project is dead and over, and then went on to say "so there's no need to attend that rally in Austin Saturday." She directly tried to suppress attendance at the rally and deliberately gave out false information to the public. Kendleton and Huntsville aren't even near one another, yet this news hit the same day and we heard about it in two different regions. Jones indicated she had attended a meeting Monday morning, March 31, where she was assured the TTC-69 project was dead. Yet TxDOT's official statement to a CNN reporter yesterday was this: "We just extended the public hearing process on the project. No, the project is not dead."
So who's responsible for holding that meeting Mayor Jones referred to, and why would anybody want to tell all these elected officials that TTC-69 is dead (the same week as our rally, conveniently not during the public hearings) when all the official documents and public information say otherwise? The conclusion is clear: this misinformation is being spread to suppress turnout at the rally and minimize the embarrassment of the politicians in the path of these corridors.
