Leppert Lied About Army COE Reports
Sanders Kaufman
Dallas has made several speeches in front of several civic groups, telling
them that the Army Corps of Engineers supports the Republican's Trinity
Parkway toll way.
In one meeting, with the League of Women Voters, he said, "The Army Corps of
Engineers and TxDOT and NTTA have studied this. They say it is safe. They
say it is environmentally sensitive and they say it is economically viable.
... They are the experts ... and every single one of them say it's viable
and it works."
However, this week the Army Corps of Engineers decided to stop letting him
speak for them, and released their report directly to the public.
As it turns out, the Corps of Engineers met with him nearly every week for
about 3 months - warning him that his particular plan is dangerous and would
exceed cost projections. They went on to say that they WILL NOT approve his
current plan.".
More specifically, they point out that if the toll way is built as planned,
it will push overflow water during heavy rain into the streets of downtown
Dallas.
The same situation is occurring on the Republicans' proposal for the
Margaret Hunt Hill toll-bridge. In that case, the soil upon which the
bridge would be built is too lose to support the bridge and would cause it
to collapse during heavy rains while cars are on it.
Now that COE's Report has been released to the public, Mayor Leppert has
backpedaled on his former "every single one of them say it's viable"
position, to simply stating that noone said it can't be fixed. What the
cost overruns for such fixes might be - he doesn't say. During that
statement, he had a Republican who serves in the Corps of Engineers to
support him - but, much to Leppert's embarrassment, he reiterated that they
cannot approve the project as Leppert has proposed it.
One of the potential cost-overruns for the project is the 5-bridge idea.
Since the 5 ramps for the one bridge would contribute to the flooding
danger, Mr.Leppert and the Republicans have proposed that we just go ahead
and build 5 bridges with one ramp each. Such a massive spending program
would vastly enrich the Republican construction firms that support him - but
would bankrupt the City of Dallas in the process. The total for that cost
over-run would be about $190,000,000.00 or more.
Enter the Federal Government. While Mayor Leppert was lying to the people
of Dallas about this toll way, the Federal Highway administration did some
work of its own - identifying 8 different paths that a new highway could
take - paths that are much more safe, but which would do nothing to increase
the property values of the Republicans who bought up Trinity River property,
thinking that they could "flip" the property for a huge profit after the
toll way was built.
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