State Rep. Joe Pickett backs off on transit bill
May 21, 2009
State Rep. Joe Pickett on Wednesday said he would withdraw an amend ment to a transit bill that would have allowed the El Paso City Council to replace the regional mobility authority.
Written by Brandi Grissom, The El Paso Times
AUSTIN -- State Rep. Joe Pickett on Wednesday said he would withdraw an amend ment to a transit bill that would have allowed the El Paso City Council to replace the regional mobility authority.
"It's just not worth trying to fight sometimes the forces of evil," Pickett said. "So I'm taking the judo approach and going with the flow."
Pickett, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, reignited a political fight over the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority last week with a measure he quietly added to a large transportation bill. His amendment would have allowed the city to eliminate the authority and replace it with members of the City Council.
El Paso officials, who had not been told about his amendment, said they were surprised and disappointed.
The mobility authority has been a point of dissension among El Paso politicians since discussion about its creation started in 2005.
Pickett and other opponents view the mobility authority as an extension of the Texas Department of Transportation with the goal of forcing cities to build toll roads.
Proponents, including state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, and El Paso Mayor John Cook, say the authority gives the city more options to pay for road projects and to complete them more quickly.
Cook, Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority Chairman Harold Hahn and Michael Miles, chairman of the Borderland Mobility Coalition, all sent letters this week to state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, asking him to remove Pickett's amendment from the bill.
They said it could jeopardize transportation projects and inject too much politics into decisions on road funding.
Carona said Pickett had not told him whether he wanted to remove the amendment. He said he would leave that decision to El Paso legislators.
"I simply want to do what's best for El Paso," Carona said. "And I want to stay out of the internal arguments that seem to exist among various members of their own delegation."
Pickett said he was not trying to destroy the mobility authority, which he has opposed. He simply wanted to give the city another option.
He said Hahn went "berzerkoid" and others did not understand or lied about what he was trying to accomplish. But he agreed to take the measure out of the bill rather than continue the fight.
"They all took it wrong," he said.
House and Senate lawmakers must still complete negotiations on the large transportation bills, which would restructure the Texas Department of Transportation.
Brandi Grissom may be reached at bgrissom@elpasotimes.com; 512-479-6606.
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