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January 17, 2008

Town Hall / LUFKIN

It's 7 p.m. here in Lufkin at the Civic Center for a town hall meeting of the community. Over 200 folks are present to address their questions to high-level TxDOT officials on a range of topics.

This list represents some common questions that have come up, but doesn’t include all that have been raised by questioners:

the Trans-Texas Corridor,
Interstate 69,
the prospect of tolls on new infrastructure,
public concerns on financing for transportation infrastructure,
the process of eminent domain,
the intent of Texas to retain ownership of all of its highways,
about partnerships with contractors best qualified to help Texas meet its existing and future transportation needs,
etc.

This the third town-hall meeting this week in East Texas. The first was Tuesday in Texarkana and last evening in Carthage. These are the first three of 11 town-hall meetings scheduled through January and into early February in communities from far South Texas up to northeast Texas in Texarkana. There are more particulars on the Keep Texas Moving website. If you found this blog, you know where to find the website for Keep Texas Moving.

I'll keep it short for now as I listen closely to the questions posed by citizens from the Lufkin area, and will share some of those questions and TxDOT's responses in the coming days. We also plan to share some images from the town-hall meetings.

What makes the town halls different is that these are the first for this particular Texas agency. Given the public attention and participation in these first few events, I'd say it's likely there will be more to come from TxDOT.

Our fellow Texans have told us they want to be able to talk to and engage TxDOT in person. We listened and we’re doing some things to meet that request. Town halls and websites and blogs and podcasts and media meetings are but some of the ways we aim to let Texans know about their transportation agency and the people who work.

For now, I’ll wrap up this post, but invite y’all to pay close attention to TxDOT efforts to build the transportation infrastructure we’ll need and our grandchildren will need in the next half-century. Please, stay tuned. You’re comments are welcome.