Hays County Election Aftermath: An Early Christmas for the Special Interests

Painfully enough, that old saying also holds true for elections . . . 'you get what you vote for'

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By Charles O'Dell, Ph.D.

The most exciting and encouraging element of the 2008 election in Hays County was the high number of voters, including first-time voters, who came out to vote. The most disappointing and discouraging election result was the road bond outcome. Voters fell into an official disinformation campaign trap, and voted for more spending and more taxes to finance a few special interest roads promoted as safety and mobility improvements.

After the stinging rebuke in last year’s $172,000,000 road bond, our road warriors carefully crafted a campaign with the mantra of making our roads safer and less congested. In practical terms this means building huge expensive new roads from scratch that are faster, historically and statistically more deadly, and that simply relocate any existing congestion to where these big new roads converge into two lanes or dead end.

Sprinkle in a few real long-neglected safety and mobility projects from around the county costing about $50 million and you have tricked voters into financing the expensive developer roads they turned down just last year. To get a pound of bacon voters have to purchase the whole pork-barrel.

If history is our guide, it will be a free-for-all scramble for the pork.

In an orchestrated effort of coordination between the public purse and the special interest road bond Political Action Committee, Hays Families for Safe Mobility, voters were treated to a massive and persistent flow of print rhetoric and baseless cries for increased road safety and mobility. Commissioners’ Court spent well over $125,000 in consultant fees and to print and mail to 80,000 voters an official brochure full of disinformation and omissions. Don’t confuse voters with the facts.

The players and the process

Should there be any doubt that our elected officials and the special interests from outside Hays County organized and coordinated their simultaneous assaults on our voters, they need only consider the players, the process, and follow the money. Commissioners Jeff Barton and Will Conley provided leadership and support for the PAC. You can view their photos front and center on the PAC web site.

In just over a month the special interest road PAC raised more than $20,000, over seventy percent of which came from outside of Hays County. Here’s a sampling of contributors:

Walton Texas, LP, Phoenix, Az., $5,000
Tex-Best Travel Ctr, Inc., McAllen, Tx., $5,000

John Weisman, Uvalde, Tx., $3,000
Ignite Consulting, Austin, Tx., $3,500

Opinion Analysts, Austin, Tx., $7,000

Hancock/Hanks Investments, Ltd., Austin, Tx., $2,500

Heldenfels Enterprises, Inc., San Marcos, Tx., $500

A reasonable person would ask, “Why would these folks have any interest in a $207 million Hays County road bond?”

The same folks who created the massive road bonds for taxpayers in Williamson County have been working directly with our Hays County commissioners’ court special interest majority, Barton, Conley and Debbie Ingalsbe. Mike Weaver of Prime Strategies, and his road services gang are providing the same blueprint for Hays County that they did for Williamson County, including taxpayer financed developer roads, and the road congestion that comes with their so-called safety and mobility improvements.

Conley, Barton and Ingalsbe have already approved millions of tax dollars for their special interests, including Prime Strategies, Dannenbaum Engineering, Loomis Partners, Klotz Associates and others. Former Hays County Judge Jim Powers works for Klotz Associates. Former Pct 3 Commissioner Bill Burnett worked for Dannenbaum and now works for Loomis. Barton and former Hays County Judge Eddy Etheredge both work for Doucet and Associates of Austin. Conley is beholding to local developer Randall Morris, Dannenbaum, Loomis and other special interests. Talk about your revolving door between special interests and elected officials.

In the summer of 2006, Commissioner Conley sponsored diversion of $5 million from our 2001 county road bond to jumpstart last year’s road bond to finance state roads, the defeated predecessor of this year’s $207 million bond approved by voters to work on I-35 and new state roads. It just keeps getting worse for our property taxes.

Earlier this year Barton, Conley and Ingalsbe quietly sponsored a $19.5 million special tax road bond that doesn’t require voter approval. Are you keeping score?

What's next? Taxpayers face a ballooning debt and tax increases

What’s next from this tax and spend Commissioners’ Court majority that is making these hard times even harder for local taxpayers? With over $300,000,000 in long-term debt now facing Hays County taxpayers how will the court build its planned jail or the new $30 million government center? No problem. More debt and higher taxes for property owners.

Special interests are taking care of the special interest court members. Who is taking care of the taxpayer interests?

The following is attributed to Abraham Lincoln, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

How about fooling 65% of the voters?

As co-founder of Hays Community Action Network (HaysCAN) in 2003, Mr. O’Dell strives to carry out the mission of ensuring open, accessible and accountable government. He is a long time and close observer of the workings of the Hays County Commissioners Court. He earned a degree in Agricultural Education and a Masters in Ag Economics at Texas Tech, and, later, a Ph.D. at The University of Maryland while employed as a Research Economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, D.C. Texas born and raised on a family farm, O’Dell is a Hays County Master Naturalist and a board member of the Ethical Society of Austin.