Category: Uncategorized

“Well I want to thank you all for coming to the City of Mission,” said Mayor Norberto Salinas in welcoming remarks before a hearing of the Texas Senate Committee on Transportation & Homeland Security.

“We welcome you. This is your home, and we are very proud and happy that you all decided, Mr. Chairman, to have your hearing here.

“This is a very important community now that we have been growing by leaps and bounds. The need for more money as far as our transportation is going to be needed in the future, connected to the bridge [see notes on Anzalduas Bridge under Read More below].

“We are very happy and very thankful to TexDot (Texas Department of Transportation) for being so much and for you all to have helped us so much in expanding our expressway 1016 and Terry Road.

“As you know we reconstructed the City of Mission to where it looks the way it looks now. We still have a little bit more to go. If we start construction of our bridge in December, we are going to have a connector that we would like to have, as a pass through toll road.

“A lot of people know how I feel about toll roads. I really don’t like them. I really want the state to pay for it. I think it’s only fair that people, that NAFTA created our problem here, and I feel that NAFTA and the state should pay for some of our transportation.

“Toll roads in this community, I think it’s out of the question, but I will abide by the decision that TexDot does. I would just like to not have them in Mission. But we are also very grateful for TexDot for doing so much for us, and the state, and the Governor, and of course you guys.

“So welcome to Mission, and anything you all might need, we’re here.”

New Anzalduas International Bridge

Anzalduas Project Summary – The Anzalduas International Crossing is a project being jointly developed by the Cities of McAllen, Hidalgo and Mission. It is strategically located approximately 5 kilometers west of the existing Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge. This project is totally justified by the unprecedented growth in international traffic and business in our segment of the US Mexico border. Traffic origin and destination studies conducted by independent experts conclusively state the need for this project. After meeting all requirements of the federal inspection and regulatory agencies, a United States Presidential Permit to construct the bridge and border station was issued in July, 1999. The permit allows construction to begin in April of 2003 and the port can be operational at the start of 2005. The Anzalduas Bridge Board has engaged Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation to design the international span, the access road, and the toll plaza and outbound facilities. The design phase of Phase I of the project which is the bridge structure is complete and Dannenbaum Engineering will soon be authorized to continue with the design of Phase II which will be the outbound inspection facilities, toll plaza, and administration building.

The General Services Administration will be responsible for designing and building the facilities to be utilized by the federal inspection agencies. GSA has engaged Marmon Mok to master plan the border station. After numerous meetings with all stakeholders in this project, the master plan is complete. In addition, GSA has indicated that they will likely utilize the design/build method in building their facilities. The congress has approved in the FY 04 budget, a total of $17,938,000. for the General Services Administratioin to build the inspection facilities.

Adjacent to this project is approximately a six thousand acre site under single ownership which has all the required infrastructure for development. The owners of this project have also committed to a minimum of ninety acres for the development of the border station and all the necessary right of way required to build this project.

This project is also being developed in Mexico. Promotora del Anzalduas, a private group, is developing this project and is responsible for acquiring all necessary permits. They have the total support of the City of Reynosa as well as the Governor of Tamaulipas and are very close to acquiring their presidential permit. Promotora del Anzalduas has completed all the required technical studies that the various Mexican federal agencies have requested. The Governor of Tamaulipas has officially requested the award of concession and that process is under review by the Secretariat of SCT. Promotora del Anzalduas as well as Reynosa Mayor Garcia Cabeza de Vaca are in support of this effort to award concession to the State of Tamaulipas. This award of concession will lead to the issuance of the final diplomatic note that will authorize construction. In fact, Mexico has officially committed in their latest diplomatic note that the construction will commence in the second semester of 2005 and that operations will begin at the end of 2006.

We have a project, a team, and financial capacity to provide both the US and Mexico with a unique opportunity. It is our intent to develop a state of the art facility that will serve to accommodate changing technologies, speed, and accessibility to markets.

Source:
http://www.medc.org/community_transportation.aspx

The following have been endorsed by Texas Equity PAC:

Mark Strama – House District 50 (Austin)

Campaign website: http://www.markstrama.org

Hubert Vo – House District 149 (Houston)
Campaign website: http://www.hubertvo.com

Eliot Shapleigh – Senate District 29 ( El Paso)
Campaign website: http://www.shapleigh.org

Candidates:

Valinda Bolton – House District 47 (Austin)
Campaign website: http://www.valindabolton.org

Harriet Miller – House District 102 (Dallas)
Campaign website: http://www.electharriet.com

Paula Hightower Pierson – House District 93 ( Arlington )
Campaign website: http://www.paula06.com

Ellen Cohen – House District 134 (Houston)
Campaign website: http://www.ellencohen.org

Allen Vaught – House District 107 (Dallas)
Campaign website: http://www.allenvaught.com

“Rounding up the requested number of agents in such a short period of time will be a challenge, officials say. They’ve started the push with job fairs and TV ads, especially in Northern and Midwest markets.”

The quote is from Claire Cummings’ report in the Dallas Morning News. She visited the border patrol training campus at Artesia, NM where they are building a 400-student dorm.

“We have no doubt that we can train all of the trainees that will be sent our way,” said acting Chief Patrol Agent Charles Whitmire.

Several hundred more instructors will be needed to serve the influx, he said, adding that he hopes an increase in permanent staff and rehires will keep more people in the field.

The Court rules that the voters of Laredo were divided from each other in order to empower a Republican encumbent.

“…changes to District 23 served the dual goals of increasing Republican seats and protecting the incumbent Republi-can against an increasingly powerful Latino population that threat-ened to oust him, with the additional political nuance that he wouldbe reelected in a district that had a Latino majority as to voting age population, though not a Latino majority as to citizen voting age population or an effective Latino voting majority. The District 23 changes required adjustments elsewhere, so the State created new District 25 to avoid retrogression…”
Justice Kennedy Leads the Majority

“After the 2002 election, it became apparent that District 23 as then drawn had an increasingly powerful Latino population that threatened to oust the incumbent Republi-can, Henry Bonilla. Before the 2003 redistricting, the Latino share of the citizen voting-age population was 57.5%, and Bonilla’s support among Latinos had dropped with each successive election since 1996. Session, 298 F. Supp. 2d, at 488–489. In 2002, Bonilla captured only 8% of the Latino vote, ibid., and 51.5% of the overall vote. Faced with this loss of voter support, the legislature acted to protect Bonilla’s incumbency by changing the lines—and hence the population mix—of the district. To begin with, the new plan divided Webb County and the city ofLaredo, on the Mexican border, that formed the county’s population base. Webb County, which is 94% Latino, had previously rested entirely within District 23; under the new plan, nearly 100,000 people were shifted into neighboring District 28. Id., at 489. The rest of the county, approximately 93,000 people, remained in District 23. To replace the numbers District 23 lost, the State added voters in counties comprising a largely Anglo, Republican area in central Texas. Id., at 488. In the newly drawn district, the Latino share of the citizen voting-agepopulation dropped to 46%, though the Latino share of the total voting-age population remained just over 50%.”

“Against this background, the Latinos’ diminishing electoral support for Bonilla indicates their belief he was “unresponsive to the particularized needs of the members of the minority group.” Ibid. (same). In essence the State took away the Latinos’ opportunity because Latinos were about to exercise it. This bears the mark of intentional discrimination that could give rise to an equal protection violation. Even if we accept the District Court’s findingthat the State’s action was taken primarily for political, not racial, reasons, Session, supra, at 508, the redrawing of the district lines was damaging to the Latinos in District 23. The State not only made fruitless the Latinos’ mobilization efforts but also acted against those Latinos who were becoming most politically active, dividing them with a district line through the middle of Laredo.”

Dissent by the New Chief Justice

“What is blushingly ironic is that the district preferred by the majority—former District 23—suffers from the same “flaw” the majority ascribes to District 25, except to a greater degree. While the majority decries District 25 because the Latino communities there are separated by“enormous geographical distance,” ante, at 29, and are “hundreds of miles apart,” ante, at 35, Latino communities joined to form the voting majority in old District 23 are nearly twice as far apart. Old District 23 runs “from El Paso, over 500 miles, into San Antonio and down into Laredo. It covers a much longer distance than . . . the 300miles from Travis to McAllen [in District 25].” App. 292 (testimony of T. Giberson); see id., at 314 (report of T. Gib-erson) (“[D]istrict 23 in any recent Congressional plan ex-tends from the outskirts of El Paso down to Laredo, dipping into San Antonio and spanning 540 miles”). So much for the significance of “enormous geographical distance.” Or perhaps the majority is willing to “assume” that Latinos aroundSan Antonio have common interests with those on the Rio Grande rather than those around Austin, even though San Antonio and Austin are a good bit closer to each other (less than 80 miles apart) than either is to the Rio Grande.*

–From today’s Supreme Court decision in LULAC vs. Perry. Get the decision in pdf from The Court