By Terri Hall - T.U.R.F. - Tuesday, 16 October 2007
The San Antonio Mobility Coalition, SAMCo, run by Joe Krier, along with the San Antonio Free Trade Alliance will be hosting a secret meeting October 19 at the Valero campus prior to even the PUBLIC getting access to toll rates and the toll rate escalation for 281 on October 22. The highway lobby that feeds at the public trough was slated to get advance access the PUBLIC hasn't been privy to. This is especially distressing considering SAMCO and the Free Trade Alliance are taxpayer funded. Citizens have to take time off work and head downtown to a place where parking is scarce (MPO mtgs at Via) just to hear this information on their own dime, yet our public agencies bring this vital toll tax information right to the business community's doorstep while they're all on the clock (some of whom are on the taxpayer's dime, too!).
It's an outrage that those who will profit off these toll plans get special treatment at the taxpayers' expense! However, through a turn of events, we asked that the tolling authority brief citizens FIRST on the toll rates at our Tuesday meeting and they AGREED! The taxpayers demanded transparency, sunshine, accountability, and that the public get TOP PRIORITY, and now the PUBLIC gets to scoop the HIGHWAY LOBBY!
Government ought to be operating without even the APPEARANCE of impropriety, this SAMCo meeting smacks of corporate cronyism and backroom deal-making which has become the norm with Perry and his highway dept.
Not only will the hogs at the trough be treated to the potential pricetag road contractors can reap for tolling our public highways, the stated purpose of the meeting is to strategize on how to influence the upcoming MPO vote that must approve the toll rates to move forward.
The purpose of the briefing is to provide:
1) An advance preview of the US 281 and Loop 1604 financial plans prior to these critical MPO meetings;
2) A forum to discuss cooperative action and joint strategy to support the financial plans and SMP amendments at the October 22 and December 3 MPO meetings.
3) Coordination of supportive resolutions, letters, emails, testimony, editorials, etc. prior to the final MPO votes.
Read the entire invitation here.
This meeting is significant because we caught them with their hands in the till using taxpayer money to lobby against the taxpayer and caught BIG BUSINESS getting special privileges NOT afforded the public until an MPO mtg Monday, Oct 22. Why does BIG BUSINESS need to know the toll rates and 281 profit levels before the general public?
SEE LIST OF CORPORATIONS GIVEN A SEAT AT THE TABLE BELOW
Mad yet? Read the list of the corporations involved in SECRET meetings with the U.S., Canadian, and Mexican governments to push for a North American Union in what amounts to forming a trade cartel. Time to dust off the anti-trust unit at the Justice Department!
Full World Net Daily article here.
As WND previously reported, the North American Competitiveness Council, or NACC, dominated the SPP closed-door meetings with the SPP trilateral working groups, the trilateral cabinet members in attendance and President Bush, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, and Harper at the third annual SPP summit in Montebello, Quebec, on Aug. 20-21.
WND has also reported the NACC is a shadowy council of 30 top North American multinational corporations self-appointed by the Chambers of Commerce in each of the three countries to constitute the sole outside advisory to the SPP.
The 30 companies composing the NACC are listed on a memo posted on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce website.
In the United States, the companies on the NACC are:
* Campbell Soup Company
* Chevron Corporation
* Ford Motor Corporation
* FedEx Corporation
* General Electric Company
* General Motors Corporation
* Kansas City Southern
* Lockheed Martin Corporation
* Merck & Co., Inc.
* Mittal Steel USA
* New York Life Insurance Company
* Procter & Gamble
* UPS
* Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
* Whirlpool Corporation
No union leaders, public interest groups, environmental advocates or news media have ever attended the closed-door of the NACC with the SPP.
According to a document on the Commerce Department's SPP website, the organization of the NACC was agreed upon by the three leaders on March 31, 2006.
"We are pleased to announce the creation of a North American Competitiveness Council," the White House announced the same day.
"The Council will comprise members of the private sector from each country," the White House said, "and will provide us recommendations on North American competitiveness, including, among others, areas such as automotive and transportation, steel, manufacturing, and services. The Council will meet annually with security and prosperity Ministers and will engage with senior government officials on an ongoing basis."
Read these to open your eyes to other secret meetings for special interests:
Secret meeting on TTC 69, corporations invited, public/press is not.
More secret meetings with corporations invited, public/press shut out.
here, here, and here.
